This is an early concept poster by Ian Gibson, displaying the three main characters' early designs from the 2nd promo tape and test footage.
ReBoot went through a lot of changes in development because of the improvement of technology at the time and other reasons which lead to a lot of structuring around the limitation with simplicity as you can see in this pitch pilot and promo video.Exampls
- In this early promo test animation from 1990
, the show was more of a wacky comedy than a (soon to be) dramatic comedy. The characters spoke in technojargon more casually. Bob's name was Chip in early development and he had a more robotic design. Mainframe was a generic motherboard instead of a cyber city inside of a computer. Megabyte had a Chicago accent and was a less intimidating villain before Tony Jay was cast and he was legless. Viruses were only referred to as "Bad Data". Megabyte had a partner named Hacker who looked like Frankenstein's Monster, he eventually evolved into Hack and Slash. - In this pitch pilot from 1992, the show was going to have a more stylized look (as you can see in this concept poster), and was going to have more slapstick humor. The sprites looked more human in appearance with human skin colors, which was changed to not confuse audiences into thinking the show took place in the future. Bob was not a guardian but instead a Game Champion (all though some of his dialog may possibly imply that he was a person from the real world who got sucked into the computer world). Dot was originally going to be a "ditsy waitress," but that idea was soon scrapped. Dot's Diner was originally called The Chip n' Sip Diner. Binomes were referred to as 1's and 0's and were more seen as construction workers. Most notably, the sprites possibly were helping the User beat the game, instead of going against the User; also, the Games were not seen as fatal to their world if the User wins— in fact, it seems like they were a pastime for the characters (or possibly seen as fatal if the user loses), as opposed to a giant purple cube that randomly lands in random areas of Mainframe.
- This Third Video Promo of the series has Bob with a much more less detailed version of his final appearance in the show and a Hexadecimal also having a more simplistic version of her final appearance and her pet Scussy having a more monster-ist appearance, Enzo has a slightly younger and bulkier look. The promo even maintains the same logo design from the previous promo.
- At one point early in production, All the characters were going to be binomes but this idea was scrapped when they had the graphical power to make semi-organic human forms.
- The Binomes were going to be named Bits.
- The episode "Talent Night" was drastically different mainly for budget reasons, it took place in Dot's Diner on Enzo's birthday on a rainy day.
- There was a making-of episode that never aired, but it can be found online and on the 2011 DVD set.
- The Art of Reboot features Concept Art for a scrapped episode that would feature a Wizard of Oz parody, with Hexadecimal as the Wicked Witch.
- The original plans for season 4 was to make 3 TV Movies broken up into 12 parts capped off by a 13th musical epilogue but due to budgetary reasons, the season was reduced to 2 TV Movies broken up into 8 parts leaving the show on a cliffhanger, With some bonus scenes cut entirely.
- There was going to be a pre-school spinoff series based around the Binomes, but the idea was ultimately scrapped.
