Back before Sony gots its grubby little mitts on Crash Bandicoot, Universal Interactive Studio toyed with the idea of opening and closing the game with hand-drawn animation. This hand-drawn animation, to be precise.
Uploaded by original game producer David Siller (via NeoGAF), this pair of scenes from Universal Animation would have served as the opening and closing to the original Crash Bandicoot game. The footage has surfaced previously, with speculation painting it as a test for an animated series or a commercial for the game. Given the final nature of the second half, Siller’s explanation makes so much more sense.
So why weren’t these scenes used in the final game? Back in the mid to late ‘90s Sony Computer Entertainment America was heavily pushing 3D polygon graphics, to the point where many outstanding 2D titles from Japan never made it to the States. Once Sony licensed Crash from Universal the hand-drawn stuff was dropped.
And thus the never-ending saga of Crash Bandicoot was born. Ayup.