Early Installment Character-Design Difference in Western Animation.
That's right, folks. Waylon Smithers was black in his debut episode.
- In the pilot for Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Ickis wore glasses. He was even included in a Nickelodeon trivia question about which characters wore glasses. He doesn't have them in the series proper (although in at least one episode a close up on his face implies he wears contacts.)
- Adventure Time: Lumpy Space Princess's parents Lumpy Space Dad and Lumpy Space Mom initially wore no regal regalia, were more detailed and the former used to wear a necktie. Eventually, they were redesigned to wear crowns, have a more simplified design and ditch Lump Space Dad's tie.
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius:
- In the original pilot film, Jimmy wore blue shorts and brown loafers instead of jeans and white sneakers.
- Cindy wore a pink button-up shirt and black jeans with her hair in pigtails in the film, but switched to a single ponytail with a green tank top and brown kakhis in the series.
- Carl wore suspenders in the film but loses them in the show.
- In the series proper, Libby originally wore a green dress and had straight hair covering one of her eyes. Starting with episode 21 she switched to cornrows and starting with episode 25 she began wearing jeans and a pink shirt.
- Sheen pretty much kept his original movie design in the series, the turquoise Ultra Lord t-shirt, with matching sneakers. The only basic difference was his sleeve cuffs and the neck of his shirt were a darker shade of teal in the film, but they but became the same color as the rest of his shirt in the series.
- The 1998 pilot to Jimmy Neutron, Runaway Rocketboy, featured different designs from the finalized product. Jimmy wore a red-and-white striped shirt and shorts, Carl's basic design was the same but was modeled differently, and everyone had four fingers on each hand instead of five.
- The 1995 The Adventures of Johnny Quasar short features even older designs for the characters. For example, Johnny's design has a completely different shaped head, his skin is darker, and he has dark brown hair in a different hairstyle. There's concept art of early versions of the main cast that feature prototypical designs, but they didn't appear in the short. For example, Johnny's parents had different designs such as his mom being a blonde with a pixie cut, but they still had a housewife and Standard '50s Father look to them.
- The Amazing World of Gumball has this across the board.
- In Season 1, Penny was oval-shaped like her father. In season 2, she became peanut-shaped like her mother and sister.
- The Wattersons had a slightly blockier appearance with thin outlines during Season 1. Anais and Richard also had a few scenes where their heads are shown from the front. In Season 2, all of them got rounder designs and thicker outlines. In Season 3, their eyes became permanently circular (compared to Seasons 1 and 2, where they sometimes had oval-shaped eyes).
- Tina Rex had the most drastic change. In Season 1, she was depicted in a fairly cartoony style. From Season 2 onwards, her design looks far more realistic.
- In Season 1, Miss Simian's skin was completely gray. From Season 2 onwards, some areas (such as her nose) became more pinkish and the gray parts became paler. She also wore a different dress.
- In Season 3, Jamie's eyes became covered completely by her hair.
- In Season 1, Rob the cyclops was animated in CGI. In Season 2 (and Season 3, before he became Dr. Wrecker), he is animated in 2D, albeit with no outlines.
- In Season 1, Mr. Small's tie-dyed shirt acted much like Unmoving Plaid, retaining the same position on the screen even when he moved. In Season 2, the tie-dye pattern moves with him.
- In the original six minute test pilot for American Dad!, Steve's appearance was wildly different. In the pilot, he wore a red t-shirt with a lightning bolt on it, blue shorts, round glasses and was much skinnier. In the show, he wears an open red shirt over an orange shirt, blue jeans, square glasses and is noticeably less skinny.
- American Dragon: Jake Long had a huge Art Shift between season 1 and season 2. Several characters received drastic redesigns however others received minor changes, alongside the new art style:
- Rose lost her headband, gained a belt, and changed pants slightly.
- Spud's t-shirt changed designs from being striped to having an alien on it. His hair also shows more out of his hat in season 2.
- Trixie began wearing a hoodie over her shirt, she lost the pink in her design, and changed shoes.
- Jake's dragon form changed from a muscular, western style dragon with wings to a more slender, Asian style dragon. In human form he gained Pointy Ears.
- Haley lost her hair decorations and her Girlish Pigtails became longer. Her dragon form went from purple to pink.
- In the original pilot episode of The Angry Beavers, "Snowbound", Norb looked more like a yellow version of his brother Daggett in contrast to his more diverse appearance of having spikier hair.
- Arthur:
- In the first season, Muffy had buckteeth, which were gone by season 2. "Little Miss Meanie" actually acknowledges this and suggests that she just grew out of them.
- Without his glasses, Arthur originally had normal eyes in season 1. Afterwards he has Black Bead Eyes.
- Francine's pet cat Nemo is depicted as being skinny and having small eyes with rounded pupils during his debut episode, but later appearances of him instead depict him as being fat and having large eyes with slit-shaped pupils.
- In the first few seasons, DW's friend Emily wore a pink dress and had very short hair. She was eventually redesigned to wear a blue dress and have medium length hair.
- Most of the character designs in the As Told by Ginger pilot are completely different from in the series. Most glaringly, Miranda and Darren were white before being given Race Lifts to match their voice actors.
- The Batman:
- The Joker started out wearing a straitjacket with tie-dyed purple and mauve sleeves instead of his trademark purple suit. He also lacked the black rings around his eyes, his teeth were less detailed and his lips were a brighter shade of red.
- The design for Hawkman's cameo
◊ at the end of "The Joining, Part 2" had a larger "beak" for the helmet than the one used in his other appearances.
- Betty Boop: Betty Boop was originally a dog; however, later her species was changed to a human. She also originally had red hair according to her only colored classic cartoon (Cinderella) but all later appearances give her black hair.
- Bluey:
- The pilot version of the episode "The Weekend" has several:
- Mackenzie's tail has a white tip, and the colors of both of his legs and feet match.
- The markings on Bluey's face are darker, and her nose is brown.
- Each character is drawn with sharp angles, which is uncommon for characters in the finalized show.
- Bingo's snout is longer and the markings on her back are nearly completely different.
- Bandit has no black markings on the left side of his face, and there is no yellow on his belly.
- A downplayed case with Indy; while her design has mostly stayed the same, in earlier episodes her ears/hair were much longer and resembled braids. Her ears were eventually made much shorter since her first design made her difficult to animate.
- The pilot version of the episode "The Weekend" has several:
- Bob's Burgers:
- Tammy had brown hair in her debut episode, but was depicted with blond hair in all of her subsequent appearances. It was finally established in Season 8 that Tammy has natural brown hair that she dyes blond.
- Landlord Mr. Fischoeder wore a black eyepatch in his first appearance, which later became white in subsequent episodes.
- In season 2 of The Boondocks Sarah's design was edited. She received wavier, longer hair compared to her season 1 design.
- Caillou: Caillou wears a grey shirt in the early episodes, but once he turns four he begins wearing a yellow version.
- Camp Lazlo: Commander Hoo-Ha's early design was much less detailed and more angular. He was also smaller. It wasn't until "Tomato Paste" that he got his new character design.
- In the first few episodes of Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Captain Planet was missing his boots- a little odd since he had them in the theme song. He gets them in the eight episode.
- ChalkZone:
- In the first two Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts, Rudy Tabootie wore a long-sleeve shirt in addition to having a rounder head, a smaller nose, more prominent cheeks and a clearer distinction between his head and his neck.
- Snap was depicted with darker colors in the Oh Yeah shorts.
- Classic Disney Shorts:
- Donald Duck's iconic sailor suit changed considerably over the years. In his first appearance in Wise Little Hen, the hat had a stiff brim, rather than the floppy hat he now has. Also, the hat was white until the early forties, and the bow on his collar changed from black to red. And for a brief period in the 1950s, the buttons on his shirt disappeared, also in his few several cartoons he had a slimmer body, long neck, and long bill.
- For his first appearance in Mickey's Revue, Goofy (then known as Dippy Dawg) wore only a vest, glasses and no pants; only the hat is recognizable. This look (sans glasses) was revived for the Mickey Mouse (2013) shorts.
- Mickey Mouse's and Minnie Mouse's original designs had them with larger eyes and didn't wear gloves or shoes. The gloves were added later to make sure that you still see their hands even if they held them across their stomachs. Shortly after, they had shoes and gloves, and their eyes became simple black dots. In 1939 (starting with The Pointer), their eyes became more "human" eyes to give them more expression. Originally they had white skin however later they were changed to a more natural peach tone.
- Minnie also had a hat with a flower in it, but it was changed to a large bow by 1939. Traditionally she wore a skirt with no shirt however nowadays it's more common for her to wear a dress, though the skirt sometimes still appears.
- Pete was more obviously a cat in his earliest appearances - The Gallopin' Gaucho and Steamboat Willie — possessing a long tail and a white-furred muzzle. In his later appearances, his tail is absent and his muzzle is (more-or-less) clean-shaven.
- In his first two appearances, Spike the Bee (a bee that Donald occasionally had to contend with) had a black-coloured head, with only the mouth and nose area being peach-coloured. In 1948 (his first appearance in five years), he was redesigned with a face closely resembling that of Mickey (albeit with a red nose), and he lost two of his legs.
- The titular hero of Danny Phantom lacked his iconic Chest Insignia for all of the first season.
- DC Animated Universe:
- Batman: The Animated Series:
- Harley Quinn originally wore a Tomboyish Ponytail when not wearing her supervillain costume. Later seasons changed her hairstyle to Girlish Pigtails in order to emphasis her Woman Child traits and resemble her harlequin hat.
- The Scarecrow's design in his debut in B: TAS was different from what'd he's wear in other episodes during the B: TAS era, lacking the straw "hair" of the later design and sporting Blank White Eyes.
- When Zeta debuted for Batman Beyond, he had a horseshoe-shaped head. The Zeta Project and subsequent appearances on Beyond sees a more human-shaped head.
- Justice League:
- In Season 1, Superman and Wonder Woman sported cheekbones, which made them look older than they were supposed to be. Realizing this, especially as Superman's design was criticized by fans for excessive lines, their designs were tweaked to remove the cheekbones.
- Huntress initially sported a design that seemed vaguely inspired by her look from Batman: Hush, but was otherwise completely new (complete with Opaque Lenses, a stylized "H" emblem on her crotch, and a differently-colored cape and mask). Starting with "Double Date," when she finally got a speaking part, Huntress received a complete redesign that was far more faithful to her Hush costume.
- Superman: The Animated Series:
- Brainiac 5 and Bouncing Boy's cameos in "New Kids in Town" differ greatly from how they appear in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Far From Home". Brainiac 5's original look gave him a mullet, eyes that are completely white, a differently designed belt that has a buckle resembling the Legion of Super-Heroes insignia and lacking his ancestor the original Brainiac's iconic diodes on his forehead, albeit having an insignia resembling them on his chest. Bouncing Boy, meanwhile, had a light blue and white costume more akin to the Silver Age aesthetic of the Legionnaires' costumes and included gloves, plus his body was more noticeably spherical.
- The Flash's debut in "Speed Demon" isn't too distinct from the design he has in the Justice League cartoon, but he does have the outline of the circle portion of his chest insignia colored black instead of yellow, the yellow ornaments on his temples are shaped more like wings than lightning bolts and his chin is less narrow.
- Batman: The Animated Series:
- Defenders of the Earth: In the first seventeen episodes (with the exception of "Root of Evil", in which the designs for most of the regular characters are markedly different from those used in the rest of the series) Jedda has brown hair. From "The Panther Peril" onwards, her hair is black.
- The Deputy Dawg Show: Deputy Dawg was first a pale but noticeable gray with jowls and a very thick southern accent. As the episodes evolved, he was colored white without the jowls and a more matter-of-fact but rather simple-minded speech.
- The second season of The Dreamstone made some changes to character designs following a switch with animation studios:
- The Dream Maker in particular, originally wearing a more humble patchwork robe, now wears a far more dignified attire. His hair now pointed upward instead of downward and his nose gained a more pronounced hook.
- Rufus and Amberley had more differentiating proportions (Rufus gained a bulkier upper body while Amberley became lankier) and had their clothing streamlined. The swords on both Rufus and the Urpneys' belts (that they never used) are now gone too.
- Urpgor had a larger, more hunched over abdomen in Season One, making him look more like The Igor. He also had a near perpetual squint and lacked purple bags under his eyes (in the pilot episode he had neither, instead possessing a purple sclera). Amusingly some freeze frames of his Super-Deformed Freak Outs have him deform into his later design, implying the animators eventually preferred drawing him that way.
- To a lesser degree Zordrak's robe changed from purple to blue, and Frizz lost his glasses with the exception of the blue lens tint, making it seem like he had blue eyes.
- Spildit had a longer snout and no irises in her earliest appearances. Oddly enough, Season Four animators kept zigzagging between her first and second designs.
- Most characters of The Fairly OddParents! look the same throughout the series and only Art Evolution explains their minor differences, but there are exceptions, mostly from the Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts.
- In the original Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts, Timmy's parents always have their faces hidden offscreen, to the point where their original model sheets depict them as headless. Their outfits are also considerably different: Mr. Turner wears a teal three-piece suit and brown shoes, while Mrs. Turner wears a red dress and high heels, gold bracelets, and a pearl necklace.
- In her first appearance, Tootie wore a blue dress with pink leggings instead of a schoolgirl uniform, she had an oval-shaped head and a round nose, her glasses were pink instead of purple, her pigtails were stylized differently and she didn't have braces.
- In her first appearance, the Tooth Fairy has red hair instead of blue.
- Cupid makes a cameo in "The Zappys", and he looks big with blonde hair and no shirt.
- The Crimson Chin's debut in the short "Super Humor" has him notably lacking the black spot underneath the C insignia on his chin.
- Anti-Cosmo didn't have fangs in the Anti-Fairies' debut episode "That Old Black Magic".
- Dr. Rip Studwell was depicted with Eyes Always Shut in his debut episode "Hard Copy". Starting with "The Gland Plan", his eyes were clearly visible like everyone else's.
- In the first few seasons of Family Guy, a lot of the characters had noticeable "thin-line" eyebrows, which disappeared completely by the third season, sans Stewie.
- Chris originally wore earrings, which came from one of his earlier designs as a punk rocker, which also vanished after two seasons.
- Fanboy and Chum Chum:
- The original pilot short on Random! Cartoons depicted the green parts of Fanboy's costume as gray and showed Chum Chum with string ties on his chest similar to those on Robin's tunic instead of an insignia depicting a silhouette of his face.
- Lenny is depicted in the pilot as a blond Caucasian, when the actual series made him an African-American.
- Berry the Ice Monster was depicted in the pilot as a hulking brute with no clothes, while the series' episode "Berry Sick" had him wearing a shirt in addition to making him way smaller and wimpier.
- Fireman Sam: Between the stop-motion era (1987-1994, 2003-2007) and the CGI era (2008-present):
- Sam's hair and nose were considerably more exaggeratedly big before the show Shifted to CGI.
- In the stop-motion era, Elvis was notably the thinnest and lankiest of the firefighters, since he was the youngest. In the CGI era, he's beefed up to match the more muscular builds of Sam and Penny, and to coincide with his maturation into a more experience (if more airheaded) fireman.
- Dilys Price was originally a thin redhead. The CGI era changed her to a more full-figured brunette, and gave her glasses.
- Mandy Flood first appeared with Odango Hair. In the CGI era, she had her hair cut much shorter.
- Gravity Falls: Stan's chin is smaller and his ears are more pronounced in early episodes. His fez's symbol started out as a crescent moon before shifting to something resembling a fish.
- Hey Arnold!:
- All the characters had different color palletes in the original 1994 pilot than they did in the actual series. Helga was also just plain ugly instead of Ugly Cute. Her sister Olga had an Early-Bird Cameo in "Spelling Bee". Let's just say there's a drastic difference◊.
- In flashback scenes from "Parents Day", Arnold's mother Stella had a "football head" and wore a purple tank top. In "The Journal" and Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie, her head was more circular and wore a green tank.
- All the characters had different color palletes in the original 1994 pilot than they did in the actual series. Helga was also just plain ugly instead of Ugly Cute. Her sister Olga had an Early-Bird Cameo in "Spelling Bee". Let's just say there's a drastic
- The Infinity Train pilot:
- Tulip was drawn with larger glasses and had a more angular chin.
- The Train itself had smaller cars with windows in them. It in general looked more "mundane" compared to its alien appearance in the final show, such as the tools used to control the Corgi Car being water pressure valves or lamps instead of the glowing control orbs.
- Inspector Gadget: Gadget had a mustache in the original pilot. It was removed because he looked too much like Inspector Clouseau. The pilot was later redubbed with a Hand Wave that Gadget had grown a moustache as a disguise.
- Jake and the Never Land Pirates: The portrait of Beatrice Le Beak seen in "Captain Hook's Parrot" depicts her as being a redhead with Caucasian skin, long, claw-like hands and wearing a red captain's attire. For her first "official" appearance in "Jake and Sneaky Le Beak", she has black hair, light brown skin, normal-looking hands and a blue outfit.
- Jem:
- Clash originally had red hair with blue highlights. After a few appearances she was given completely purple hair, and a later episode shows her natural hair is purple. The Jem and the Holograms (IDW) comic book reboot uses her first hair color.
- Zipper was blond at first before becoming black haired. He was also given blue eyes.
- Lin-Z originally had straight hair in a different style instead of curly hair.
- The "Starbright" pilot episodes feature different designs from the actual series. Jem's pink belt became white. Jerrica had a different haircut, wore pink and blue striped dress with a red belt, a hat and pink shoes, became white and blue striped with a white belt, without hat and blue shoes. Pizzazz received an bracelet, she lost a legband, and switched her sock to ther other leg. Roxy's top became purple instead of black, her tights became multicolored instead of pink and green, she lost her necklace, received a bracelet, her belt changed shape, and received new shoes.
- Hank Anchorman from Johnny Test looked completely different in season 2 and beyond from when he was introduced in the season 1 episode "Johnny's Pink Plague". His appearance in the later seasons is actually an edited version of a robot anchorman that appears on TV for one scene in "Sonic Johnny".
- KaBlam!: In the Life With Loopy pilot "Goldfish Heaven", Larry wore a long-sleeved orange shirt with a red jersey over it and olive green pants. For the rest of the series, he wears tan striped pants and alternated between wearing a long-sleeved red shirt with blue and yellow stripes and a white t-shirt with a red flannel shirt. Loopy's hair beads were also constructed as part of her head in "Goldfish Heaven" rather than separate like in all other episodes. Her eyes were also a brighter shade of blue in the pilot. All the characters also had Four-Fingered Hands in the pilot; they have five in the rest of the show.
- Kim Possible:
- In season 1, Monique was one of the few characters to have Black Bead Eyes. Starting with season 2 she was redesigned to have eyes like everyone else.
- In "Tick-Tick-Tick" and "Royal Pain", Steve Barkin's hair was blond instead of brown.
- King of the Hill: When Dale's father Bug first appeared in the episode "Order of the Straight Arrow," he looked pretty much exactly like his son. However, when he finally made a full appearance in the Season 6 episode "My Own Private Rodeo," he was redesigned as a Camp Gay with a mustache.
- Lilo & Stitch: In prequel comics released around the original film's release, Experiment 625 (today known as Reuben) had teal fur, a dark teal nose, a fat body, wore a collar, and had small beady eyes. When he was made into one of the franchise's major characters beginning The Series' Pilot Movie Stitch! The Movie, he was redesigned to better differentiate him from Stitch; his fur was recolored golden yellow, his nose became dark red, his buckteeth became more prominent, and he was slimmed a bit but was still chubby. He and the other experiments from the comics lost the collars, while his eyes were enlarged to maintain consistency with most of the other experiments that would appear through the franchise. These changes were maintained for his later appearance in a comic based on the show, but oddly the artist kept the teal fur and nose from the decanonized prequel comics.
- Several Looney Tunes characters have prototypical incarnations, while others changed designs as the decades went by.
- The very first appearance of the rabbit that would become Bugs Bunny was in 1938's "Porky's Hare Hunt" directed by Ben Hardaway. He originally was solid white and intended as a one-off character. But when Chuck Jones reused the design for a magician's rabbit in Prest-o Change-o, Hardaway decided to revisit the character idea, giving his more familiar grey-and-white fur in 1939's Hare-Um Scare-Um, though still sporting unfamiliar details such as an apricot-colored mouth and fluff ball tail (and black tips on his ears in Elmer's Candid Camera, also by Jones). When Tex Avery decided to take a crack at him in 1940's A Wild Hare, he gave him a redesign to eliminate the last of the "cutesy" aspects, and switched from apricot to white and thus, Bugs as we know him was born. While in his earlier appearances he looked more like a rabbit standing on twos, by 1943 he was streamlined.
- Notably, in Elmer's Pet Rabbit (his second cartoon after A Wild Hare), Bugs had yellow gloves instead of white ones, which were done away with afterwards. Looney Tunes Cartoons, which is heavily influenced by the late 1930s-early 1940s cartoons, brings them back.
- In the earliest Robert McKimson-directed Bugs Bunny cartoons (1946-early 1950), Bugs was depicted as quite chubby with small eyes and a huge mouth. By about 1950, he switched to a design more in-line with the other directors.
- In several early shorts an unnamed black (or dark grey) cat with a white muzzle appeared. He is closest to Sylvester in the short The Cagey Canary, where a prototypical Granny and an unnamed canary (proto-Tweety) also appeared.
- Elmer Fudd had a weird evolution into the character we know. In 1936 Ted Avery introduced "Egghead" a strangely dressed little bald headed guy who became one of the earliest recurring characters in the Merrie Melodies series (which had long been all one-shots). In one early appearance, he's shown to have the name Elmer Fudd, but he hardly resembles the later character of Elmer. He first goes hunting in the short Daffy Duck vs Egghead, where he's pitted against Avery's then new character in the Duck's first color appearance. That hunter version, sometimes called John Sourpuss, appeared in Ben Hardaway's Hare-Um Scare-Um with purple bags under his eyes and medium length black hair opposite Hardaway's newly redesigned rabbit. In his next appearance, the Elmer as we know him was officially formed when Chuck Jones gave him his trademark speech impediment in Elmer's Candid Camera, which saw him tangle with the rabbit for the first time. In that he still wore the exact same outfit that Egghead usually did, and in A Wild Hare (the first appearance of Bugs as we know him), Elmer also had a reddish nose that was never seen again in a classic WB short (though much like Bugs's yellow gloves, Looney Tunes Cartoons would recycle that particular design). Funnily enough, though, Egghead would return as a separate character in Daffy Duck's Quackbusters in 1988. (Though, like the red nose, Looney Tunes Cartoons would give Elmer Egghead's suit again, once again merging the characters.
- In I Haven't Got A Hat, Porky Pig was presented as a juvenile pig in a green sweater. He looked more pig-like than he eventually came to become. By about 1937, Porky lost a considerable amount of bulk (he was outright obese in his earliest shorts) and his eyes became longer and thinner as well. Porky regained his obesity in Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production, but reverted to Bob Clampettâs design of him in Looney Tunes Cartoons.
- Tweety started out as a featherless hatchling however due to objections about him being "naked" he was given feathers. He also gained eyelashes for the redesign, possibly to help distinguish him better as a child character or to make him even cuter.
- Buddy, in his pilot short "Buddy's Day Out", had a very Disneyesque design, thanks to many of the studio's staff being recruited from Disney. Afterwards, he was resdesigned to resemble, in the words of Bob Clampett, "Bosko in whiteface".
- The very first appearance of the rabbit that would become Bugs Bunny was in 1938's "Porky's Hare Hunt" directed by Ben Hardaway. He originally was solid white and intended as a one-off character. But when Chuck Jones reused the design for a magician's rabbit in Prest-o Change-o, Hardaway decided to revisit the character idea, giving his more familiar grey-and-white fur in 1939's Hare-Um Scare-Um, though still sporting unfamiliar details such as an apricot-colored mouth and fluff ball tail (and black tips on his ears in Elmer's Candid Camera, also by Jones). When Tex Avery decided to take a crack at him in 1940's A Wild Hare, he gave him a redesign to eliminate the last of the "cutesy" aspects, and switched from apricot to white and thus, Bugs as we know him was born. While in his earlier appearances he looked more like a rabbit standing on twos, by 1943 he was streamlined.
- The Loud House:
- The first episode, "Left in the Dark", had some small differences in character designs. Mostly, it's about how the characters' clothes are colored (Lola's dress is in a brighter shade of pink, Leni's dress is in a duller shade of teal, Luan's skirt, socks and scrunchie are a brighter, almost neon yellow and Lisa's sweater is a darker shade of green), but then there are Lana's hat (whose hole on the back is oval-shaped rather than rectangular) and Lucy's hairline (which leaves a bit of skin above her nose uncovered). This promotional picture◊ shows the designs used in that episode.
- Also, in "Left in the Dark" and in a bunch of other early episodes, the Great Mazinger-esque robot in Lincoln's room has its eyes colored in yellow.
- In the original promotional poster for the show◊ (and other similar artworks that feature the characters in the same poses but in different positions), Lola is the only one of the sisters with three eyelashes per eye, with everyone else having only two. In the final show, Lily, Lananote and Leni have three eyelashes too. Other small design differences can be found in the poster.Such as
- In Season 1, Lynn Sr. and Rita were The Faceless, with only a few teasers here and there (such as the shadow of Lynn Sr.'s face at the end of "It's a Loud, Loud, Loud, Loud House"). The Season 2 premiere revealed their faces towards the end, and they were constantly shown ever since then (except for three episodes that came before in production order but were aired later).
- When Sid Chang first appeared in the first few episodes of Season 4, she had no eyelashes. In the proper spin-off series The Casagrandes, she has two eyelashes per eye.
- The first episode, "Left in the Dark", had some small differences in character designs. Mostly, it's about how the characters' clothes are colored (Lola's dress is in a brighter shade of pink, Leni's dress is in a duller shade of teal, Luan's skirt, socks and scrunchie are a brighter, almost neon yellow and Lisa's sweater is a darker shade of green), but then there are Lana's hat (whose hole on the back is oval-shaped rather than rectangular) and Lucy's hairline (which leaves a bit of skin above her nose uncovered). This promotional picture
- In Madeline, Lord Cucuface looks completely different in his debut in Madeline's Rescue than he does in the subsequent series. In the special, he's thinner, with a narrow face, a long thin nose, gray hair, and a gray mustache and goatee. In the series, he's portlier, with a blocky face and big rounded nose, and his hair, mustache and goatee are just wisps. The design change corresponds with his friendlier characterization in the series.
- Some characters from My Life as a Teenage Robot have noticeable differences in appearance in the original pilot short from Oh Yeah! Cartoons:
- XJ9/Jenny's hands were the same color as her hair and "clothes", she had lips, and her skirt had rivets on the bottom.
- Dr. Wakeman had a different hairstyle and a slightly less cartoonish design in addition to her clothes being completely white.
- Brad Carbunkle had less stylized hair and his clothing consisted of red hi-top sneakers, brown pants with patches on the knees, a red shirt and an olive and white varsity jacket as opposed to the black shoes, grey pants, white shirt and black sweater vest he wore in the actual show.
- Brad's younger brother, Tuck wore a baseball cap and a white T-shirt with red accents, when in the actual series he wears a red long-sleeved shirt with a black stripe and collar in addition to going bare-headed.
- My Little Pony:
- In My Little Pony: Rescue from Midnight Castle, Megan is depicted with cowboy boots, an orange shirt, a brown vest, and jeans. In Escape From Catrina she receives a Girliness Upgrade in terms of colors (they're now pastel) but keeps the general design.note Come My Little Pony: The Movie (1986) and her design is given a total overhaul. She now wears her "country jamboree" outfit, which consists of somewhat frilly overalls with a heart in the middle.note
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- In her debut near the end of the two-part pilot, Princess Luna looks radically different from her later appearances. She was much smaller and had a normal mane rather than her magical flowing mane. Fans originally thought that this was her form when she transformed into Nightmare Moon and her post-pilot design was essentially a Plot-Relevant Age-Up, but flashbacks in later episodes show that Luna looked the same 1000 years ago as she does now. However, comics set during her and Celestia's foalhood depict her using her design from the pilot episode.
- Either due to this or being Off-Model, Celestia is depicted with a pink mane in Twilight's storybook during the pilot episode. This was originally taken to mean that her mane was pink when she was younger, but flashbacks to the period during and before her battle with Nightmare Moon use her present-day design. Later still, however, comics set during her and Luna's foalhood would depict her with a primarily, but not entirely, pink mane.
- The book Ponyville Mysteries: Riddle of the Rusty Horseshoe describes Lofty as a chubby pegasus and Holiday as a slender Earth pony. "The Last Crusade" introduces them in the cartoon with their weights swapped.
- The Patrick Star Show:
- In some earlier episodes like "Stair Wars", Squidina is drawn much taller than usual. This is because the original plan was for her character to be 11 years old instead of 8, but the storyboards were drawn before the design was changed.
- Cave Patrick's appearance changed twice over the series. In his first two appearances, he simply looks like present-day Patrick with a loincloth. "A Space Affair to Remember" gave him a different design with a rounder mouth. Starting from "The Prehistoric Patrick Star Show", he is completely redesigned with a slight beard, a sloping forehead, thick eyebrows, and leopard-print clothing. This design would stick for later episodes.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
- Professor Utonium in the prototypical pilot episode, for some reason, actually looked more like Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory.
- Likewise, the Mayor of Townsville's appearance in the What a Cartoon! shorts looked nothing at all like his finalized design, having a much more generic appearance as a clean-shaven middle-aged man in a simple suit.
- When the Rowdyruff Boys were introduced they had combed hair, with Butch having an Idiot Hair and Brick having short hair. When they were revived, they were given spiky Anime Hair and Brick's hair grew to similar length to his original counterpart Blossom. Butch's design in Powerpuff Girls Z is based on his original design more than his revised design.
- The Professor smoked a pipe in early episodes. Eventually it was phased out.
- The titular characters were drawn with larger bodies and smaller heads until the movie and the seasons of the show thereafter.
- In the post-movie episodes, Ms. Keane's design was slightly tweaked to go along with the change in art style.
- Penny Proud of The Proud Family had a lighter skin tone in the earlier episodes, similar to that of Trudy. Her skin was later darkened to a medium tone somewhere between Oscar's darker skin and Trudy's lighter skin.
- In the first three seasons of the Dutch cartoon Purno de Purno, recurring characters Sjakie and Kiet were more humanoid in appearance. Starting from Season 4, both of the now-main characters basically became walking versions of their heads.
- Ready Jet Go!: In Zerk's wristphone picture in "Whole Lotta Shakin'", he bears an uncanny resemblance to his cousin, Jet. In "Back to Bortron 7", he makes his first physical appearance and has a new, permanent design that is different from his cousin's. He has slicked-back orange hair, freckles, and a lime-green spacesuit.
- Rocko's Modern Life: In Season 1, Rocko's eyes are circular. In every other season, his eyes are oblong.
- Rolling with the Ronks!: The four-minute pilot episode "Welcome to the Ronks" depicts Mila with lighter skin, no necklace, visible eyelashes, blue eyes instead of green, an orange dress instead of a yellow one and blonde hair worn in pigtails rather than black hair worn in a ponytail.
- Rugrats:
- Tommy wore a red shirt in both the unaired pilot and the actual first episode of the show. After that his signature color became blue, and his main outfit became a blue shirt (though he occasionally wore overalls in early episodes).
- However, Tommy did wear his signature blue shirt in the beginning of the pilot.
- Angelica wore a visible diaper under her dress for the first season, before losing it from the second season onwards.
- All Grown Up!:
- In the "All Growed Up" Special, the ten-years-older versions of the Rugrats had clothes that had similar color schemes to the clothes they wore as infants. When All Grown Up was spun off into its own series, the characters had outfits that were very different to the ones in the special and by the second season, Unlimited Wardrobe came into play. Tommy, Phil, Lil and Kimi also received new hairstyles in the middle of the second season.
- Susie had an afro in "All Growed Up" but in the series she has braids to more resemble the hairstyle she had as a toddler (though promotional material still heavily uses the afro design). She was also given red lipstick in the season two redesigns.
- In "All Growed Up", Drew and Charlotte looked identical to how they did ten years ago. In "All Grown Up", Drew now had a mustache and a receding hairline while Charlotte's had gotten (very bad) cosmetic surgery which changed her face entirely.
- In "All Growed Up" and the first season of "All Grown Up", Didi had a gray stripe in her hair, which was gone in season two.
- Grandpa Boris had Black Bead Eyes in all of his appearances up to the Passover special. Afterwards, he had normal cartoon eyes like everyone else.
- Tommy wore a red shirt in both the unaired pilot and the actual first episode of the show. After that his signature color became blue, and his main outfit became a blue shirt (though he occasionally wore overalls in early episodes).
- In season 1 of School for Vampires, Sunshine wears white tights. Her legs are bare in the other seasons.
- Velma Dinkley from Scooby-Doo didn't have freckles in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!.
- The pilot episode of Sheep in the Big City has two character designs that are noticeably different from the designs used in the rest of the series.
- Lady Richington had a burlier appearance, lacked a necklace and bracelets, and wore a differently-shaped wig.
- General Specific had hair on his temples and the brim of his hat was colored black instead of green.
- The Simpsons:
- In the shorts appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show Bart wore either a blue, green or orange shirt, but as of the switch to their own show he wears orange. Despite the change happening so early, a lot of merchandise in The '90s had Bart wearing a blue shirt.
- Mr. Smithers was depicted as black with blue hair in his first appearance. Word of God is that that was a coloring issue, though they did briefly consider keeping it that way. They decided against it due to them acknowledging the unintentionally racist undertones of making Smithers, a subservient assistant to Mr Burns, one of the show's few black characters.
- Accompanying Smithers in the early episodes is white Officer Lou and white Judge Snyder. Lou is firmly black by season 2 but Snyder makes appearances as both white and black for the first ten seasons, before finally settling on black.
- Similarly to Mr. Smithers, Ms. Hoover was originally black with blue hair. Her skin color was then made yellow while keeping the blue hair. Finally, her hair was changed from blue to brown.
- Nelson's parents both had different designs at first. His father was designed as a soccer coach whose character model has been used frequently in crowd shots, only to be later redesigned to resemble a much older Nelson. Oddly, recent episodes have used the older design. Mrs. Muntz originally resembled an older Nelson in drag and was later changed to the design she has today.
- Chief Wiggum, Moe, and Milhouse all had black hair in the first season, though some later flashback episodes show Moe as having black hair when he was younger. Moe's bow-tie and apron were also originally pastel pink. (While they were changed to navy blue in the show, they remain pink in the comics.)
- Barney was originally blonde and wore a green shirt.
- Professor Frink wore a green lab coat for his first few appearances before switching to a white one later on.
- In Lindsey Naegle's early appearances in season 8's "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" and season 9's "Girly Edition", she's shown as a brunette with dark brown hair.
- In the pilot episode of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) several characters had different designs to how they would appear for the rest of the series:
- Sally has pink fur and black hair, as in the Archie comics at the time. In later episodes, she has brown fur and red hair.
- NICOLE is a wheeled-out desktop computer instead of a tricorder-type device.
- The SWATBots are shown with gray coloring instead of their usual stealthy black coloring.
- Rotor is purple instead of gray.
- South Park: Bill, Fosse, Terrance and Damien all had thick eyebrows during the first four seasons. Afterwards (which by this point, all of them have become LivingProps), they were drawn with normal eyebrows, though the thick eyebrows do occasionally resurface.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Help Wanted" and some earlier episodes, SpongeBob's front and back had a more trapezoidal shape before taking on the more rectangular shape he would keep for the rest of the series.
- Sandy's underwater suit was changed to have a hole for her tail season 2 onwards. She also didn't have an acorn on her suit originally, instead it was three lines that looked similar to an electrical socket.
- Patrick's eyebrows were extremely thin, narrow and rather crooked the first season, but his eyebrows soon became thick, straight and blocky from Season 2 onwards. He was also a bit fatter than what he would be later on.
- Also from "Help Wanted", Mr. Krabs' eyelids were pink instead of red and Squidward's skin was also a bluish-white color instead of cyan.
- Speaking of Squidward, in the very next episode, "Reef Blower", Squidward is shown to be purple when out of water, while recently he's stayed cyan.
- In his debut episode, Plankton was practically microscopic, requiring the use of a magnifying glass to see. The writers originally intended for his lack of visibility to be a defining character trait, but as he became more of a recurring character, his size began to vary Depending on the Artist. He eventually settled on being at least a few inches tall, large enough to see without a magnifying glass.
- Until the first movie, Karen didn't have a mobile form, with her always appearing on a TV screen in the Chum Bucket. Afterwards, her mobile version was prioritized, with the screen form being phased out after "Plankton's Pet". It also took a while for Karen's mobile form to consistently have arms.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Rising Malevolence", Commander Wolffe is shown without clone armor, but dressed in a standard Republic Naval Officer's uniform, and has both eyes attached. Later appearances have him with only one eye, and he wears a custom set of clone armor designating himself as part of the Wolf Pack.
- Commander Ponds similarly appeared in a Naval Officer uniform in his first episode, "Innocents of Ryloth", and then appeared in his customized white and red armor in the following episode. Ponds actually got hit with this a second time retroactively, with supplementary materials identifying him as the commander who informed Mace Windu of the commando units in Attack of the Clones. In the film, none of the clones had yet customized their armor, so Ponds wore the yellow markings standard for his rank.
- Concept art for Steven Universe shows the characters went through several redesigns, especially Pearl. The original pilot features a vastly different, less stylized art style and the characters have different designs than in the final product:
- Pearl had the heaviest redesign. Her skin was blueish, her hair was shorter and longer on the top, her clothes were different, she wore earrings, and she had an overall more androgynous design. Pearl also had a less mature and neurotic personality, acting like a Big Sister Bully towards Steven instead of an overprotective parent. According to her transformation in one episode, it seems at one point in her life she did use her pilot design.
- Garnet's hair was originally straight and she had bangs. In the final series she has a square afro.
- Amethyst wore nail polish, had a hair accessory, and wore a fanny pack.
- Steven's skin was more pink and his proportions were more realistic.
- Lars was a dark skinned brunette instead of a lighter skinned redhead.
- Stripperella plays this to bizarre extremes per episode where nothing is consistent.
- Aquaman villain Black Manta made his Superfriends debut in the All-New Super Friends Hour era, where he was renamed as "The Manta" and wore a tan costume that featured an M-shaped belt buckle. When he joined the Legion of Doom in Challenge of the Superfriends, his name was changed back to Black Manta and his costume was redesigned to reflect the name change (namely, making the main uniform a dark blue, using a regular belt buckle, and the helmet being colored gray and given a more oval shape as well as smaller, pale yellow lenses).
- SuperMansion:
- In the first episode, Cooch had a very different and much larger hairstyle from what she has from the second episode onward.
- When Dr. Devizo first appeared, his teeth were visibly separate and were noticeably smaller than those of almost every other character with visible teeth, to the point that his gumline was visible. By the second season, while his gumline was still visible, he now had a Tooth Strip like most of the other characters.
- In earlier episodes of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, Toad's hat was red with white spots. After a while, it was changed to a videogame-accurate white hat with red spots.
- For the first-six episodes of Super Mario World, Yoshi's eyes were separate and was missing his fourth spike, the next seven episodes gave him a redesign to look more closer to his official game artwork. The exact reason why he was redesigned half-way through the show remains unknown.
- Inconsistently, the animated by Canvas. Inc intro has a design based on the former design, but has his fourth spike, which the first design for the first-six episodes did not have. It was never changed when Yoshi recieved his redesign in the seventh episode.
- Inconsistently, the animated by Canvas. Inc intro
- In the earliest Tom and Jerry short, Tom was a quadrupedal cat named "Jasper". Jasper had a full white mask on his face, instead of his muzzle being white like Tom's.
- Tom was also colored a more realistic shade of gray in the earlier shorts; in later shorts, his fur became more bluish.
- The Total Drama series has Beth, who wore Braces of Orthodontic Overkill during her Island run as a competitor before she had them taken off from Action onwards.
- Transformers:
- In the first episode of The Transformers, Shockwave was shown with both hands. Later he got his signature laser gun replacing his left hand.
- Most of the new characters introduced in The Transformers: The Movie had earlier character models that would typically only appear in error (and were the basis for their toys too). Cleverly, Kup's first model was used in one episode during a flashback to when he was younger.
- Broadside's appearances in both the animated parts for the commercial promoting the 1986 Triple Changers toys and his appearances in the episodes "Thief in the Night" and "Carnage in C-Minor" portrayed him with a design based on a prototype of his toy rather than his finalized design. His appearances in the episodes "Grimlock's New Brain" and "The Burden Hardest to Bear" would finally depict him with his finalized designs.
- The first episode of Transformers: Animated have some design differences: Sentinel Prime is shown with a white face rather than grey, a longer head with a smaller chin and smokestacks on his shoulders, while Blackarachnia had the spider abdomen on her back splitted in two coattails, lacked two of the spider eyes on her chest and also had an extra pair of spider legs on her shoulders (the last bit is accurate to her toy though).
- The first few toys of Ultra Magnus from Transformers: Prime had him turn into a flatbed truck, as the writers had no idea that he was eventually going to appear in the show. However, when Ultra Magnus did finally appear in the show, he is instead merely portrayed as being a Palette Swap of Optimus Prime, likely due to budget constraints.
- A notable example in Underdog is Simon Bar Sinister's henchman Cad Lackey, whose complexion was pale in "Go Snow", "The Big Shrinkâ and "Weathering the Storm". From "The Phoney Booths" onward, in addition to a few other tweaks, including a fuller hairdo, Cad gained a healthier complexion.
- Perhaps the most extreme example would be Woody Woodpecker, who in his earliest shorts had a red belly (instead of white) and green tail feathers (instead of blue). He also had buck teeth, fat legs and no gloves.
- For a period in the mid-1940s, Woody's eyes were blue instead of green.
- Throughout the 1940s, Woody's head crest faced backwards. Starting in 1951 when the Walter Lantz studio came back from a two-year hiatus, it faced forwards.
