- For the animated character, see Sally Stageplay/TCS.
Sally Stageplay is a boss in Inkwell Isle Three. Her fight takes place in the level Dramatic Fanatic, which takes place in a theatre that she was working in. She was seen in the E3 2017 trailer for a couple of frames.
Cuphead and his friends have to go through four scenes in Sally Stageplay's act during their fight against her.
Boss Theme
Description
Appearance
Sally Stageplay is one of the sole human characters in the game, alongside Captain Brineybeard and Dr. Kahl, and she, along with the other characters, has a very basic design.
Sally is a young woman, styled like 20s and 30s and possessing a lanky figure. She has fair skin, rosy cheeks, close-set pie eyes, a medium-length nose, red lip-stick, and curly/puffy pale-blond hair (clearly a towhead) pulled into three segments (two pigtails and one ponytail) held in place with turquoise hair-bands.
Her primary outfit consists of a turquoise gown-like dress with a sea-foam-green diagonal stripe, short, puffy sleeves, white bloomers, and a knee-length, frilled skirt. She also wears plain turquoise boots, a mint-green pearl necklace, coral-diamond earrings, and cartoony white gloves. She also wields a Scarlet parasol.
In her start-up sequence of her first phase, she wears a simple, white wedding dress with elbow-length, puffy sleeves, a frilled waist-line, a floor-length skirt, and transparent veil, and a bouquet of coral flowers.
In her third phase, she appears as a large cardboard cutout of herself, bearing goddess outfit. She has curly red hair in puffy pigtails and magenta eye-shadow. She wears a deep scarlet dress with gold shoulder pads, no shoes, a sash-like belt, gold and ruby earrings, a gold helmet with a large crescent on her head, and two pairs black wings, one with bird wings and the other with bat wings,
In her final phase, she wears a white dress with blue trims, a golden halo, and blue angel wings, and (like in Phase 3) is barefoot.
Personality
Sally loves fame and getting attention on her part. This is seen when she calls herself a starlet and tellsCuphead and Mugman to get off the stage if they lose to her. When it comes to acting, she seems to take her job very seriously to the point of treating her battle with the brothers as a part of the play she's in.
In the good ending, Sally can be seen kissing the man who played as her newly married husband at the performance, showing that she does have feelings for him.
Sally's Husband, judging by his behavior in the background, appears to be more of a pacifist in contrast to other Inkwell Isle residents. He also appears to be a coward to a small extent.
Battle
Intro
The audience is cheering for the start of the play. Sally is seen wearing a bride's dress holding a red bouquet before ripping it off to reveal she's wearing a turquoise dress and boots and armed with an orange-red parasol. Meanwhile, the curtain rises up to reveal a wedding scene, with who appears to be Sally's Husband panicking, along with a frightened priest in the background.
Phase 1
"Break a leg...nah, break two!"
—Sally Stageplay, Phase 1 Death Screen
In her first phase, Sally has four attacks:
- She will occasionally jump up in the air:
- She then corkscrew down the player(s). In Simple mode, Sally drops slower. In Expert mode, she drops faster.
- She may also remain in the air spinning and throw fans at the player. If the fans miss the players, they will be set on the ground as a trap for players accidentally running into them. In Simple mode, they last shorter. In Expert mode, they last longer.
- Her parasol swallowing her body, and after a second or two, she falls from above and lands on the players in an attempt to crush the player(s). Where she lands can be slightly off where the players are. In Simple mode, she falls slower. In Expert mode, she falls faster.
- She occasionally stops to blow the kiss as the kiss travels at the direction she is facing. The kiss can be avoided as it will fly off screen or parried. If it hits the player, it will disappear.
After taking enough damage, the priest is scared and hide under the stand. Sally uses her parasol to teleport into the offstage and rides on the back of a cardboard car from the left as her newlywed husband gains a boost of confidence, driving her away. Hitpoints = 385/392/476
Phase 2
"Stay away from center stage or succumb to the power of a starlet's rage!"
—Sally Stageplay, Phase 2 Death Screen
The second scene is set in front of what seems to be Sally's house. This probably takes place long after the wedding, since Sally and her husband have started a family. After the curtain rises, Sally appears from the opposite side of the stage where the player(s) are standing with a shocked expression before pointing angrily in the player's direction, swearing revenge for the player(s) crashing her wedding.
In this phase, Sally still attacks with her corkscrew and fan throwing, but she loses the parasol teleporting and blow kiss attack. She can now use a new move which involves spinning her parasol to release two wind-up mouse toys on each side that will travel along the ground, up the wall and across the ceiling. Once they reach the top and are over the player(s), they will drop down onto them. In Simple mode, Sally will only release one wind-up mouse toys on each side, and she will still do the parasol teleporting attack in this phase.
In the background, Sally's children can damage the players by throwing a milk bottle down on them through the house's nine windows. They start crying when defeated. In Expert mode, Sally's children appear more often. Hitpoints = 20/20/20
Sally's husband can be seen in the background, hiding in the bushes near the house. He seems to be distressed because Sally's battle is too much for him.
After taking enough hits, Sally appears dressed as an angel and is carried away to the top of the stage, as if she died. Sally's husband will start crying in the background. Hitpoints = 385/406/493
Phase 3
"Good riddance -- go away! It is time for my soliloquy."
—Sally Stageplay, Phase 3 Death Screen
The next scene is set in what is possibly Heaven, where players must now face Sally's goddess form, which is made out of cardboard and controlled by the people above.
She now has three brand new attacks that differ to her previous. A cardboard cutout will appear at the upper left corner showing which attack is about to be executed:
- METEOR: A cardboard meteor is dropped down from above which players can destroy to reveal a pink star. Hitpoints = 26/35/35
- BIG WAVE: A cardboard tidal wave carried by a troupe member that usually follows after the meteor attack. To avoid this big wave, players need to parry the pink star that was left over from the meteor attack to jump over it. Parrying the star doesn't count towards the parry total. The wave can also be dashed through if the player is using the Smoke Bomb charm. If the meteor is not destroyed or the star is not used, after the wave passes over those props, they are pulled back up to create less clutter on the stage.
- LIGHTNING: Cardboard lightning bolts that strike down on where the player(s) is standing before bounces back up, each attack can create two to four bolts of lightning. In Simple mode, this attack is not used. In Expert mode, the lightning strikes are faster and there are generally more of them in one attack.
In Expert mode, the attacks are executed at a faster rate.
Once players deal enough hits, the goddess form is defeated and twitches, and is brought up off screen. In Simple mode, the battle will simply end here with the goddess form twitching before the ovation happens. Hitpoints = 330/406/493
Phase 4
"Please exit stage left during my standing ovation!"
—Sally Stageplay, Phase 4 Death Screen
In this final, yet slightly messed-up scene, Sally returns in her angel outfit to receive a standing ovation from the crowd as she is being carried from left to right and back. In the background are the priest, Sally's children and her husband, who are also receiving praise from the audience.
She does not have any attacks, but rather her parasol slowly falls down from above spinning on its tip and chasing the players relentlessly.
The parasol is not the only danger that should be avoided, as the crowd can also throw roses onto the stage. These roses are thrown up in the foreground then they fall down on the stage where they went up. Player(s) can accidentally run or dash into them, especially when the hitbox of the roses linger on the ground for a short while. Some of them can be parried. In Expert mode, the roses are thrown at a faster rate.
After taking few more hits, Sally is down for good as her dress is ripped and she has a black eye while barely audibly yelling "Ow!" in pain. Meanwhile, her family and the priest in the background look shocked and disappointed, as one child covers her face with her hands. Hitpoints = 196/238
Secret Phases
In the first phase, each time Cuphead and/or Mugman lands on the prop cherubs they will be weighed down. When the cherub clicks, the spiky chandelier will shake, creates a "ding" sound, and be slightly slanted afterward. When both cherub are lowered, phase 1 suddenly ends after Sally's husband runs under the shaking chandelier, as he looks up with his eyes popping out of his head it crushes him. Sally then teleports into the offstage walking in from the right and beginning to mourn her partner's death as the curtain falls. Jumping on the cherubs can be done with two methods: When Sally blows a pink heart at the players, it can be parried for extra height to jump on cherubs; Using the Whetstone charm can trivialize the process as you only need to be close to Sally, with her teleports and kicks aiming towards the player(s), it will be quicker than waiting for parries and standing in the right direction for the pink heart.
In the second phase, the set now changes to St. Timothy's Nunnery instead of Sally's home as she swears revenge for her husband. It implies Sally has become a nun there. Instead of her husband worrying Sally behind the bushes, it is the priest that looks over the battle. Also, instead of her children throwing baby bottles straight down, a Nun in the nunnery throws a ruler aiming at the player(s), which sometimes can be parried. She covers her face and cries when defeated. In Expert Mode, the nun will appear more often and the ruler is faster. Hitpoints = 15/20
As Sally is defeated, the priest takes off his hat mourning her "death".
In the third phase, her husband comes back in a god form with Sally's goddess form, being pushed out from the left side of the screen. Sally's attacks are still the same. Her husband attacks as well by summoning a cherub, which is the male baby from the normal phase 2. The cherub pushes a spinning cardboard fire on wheels out and travels through the ground. In Expert Mode, the fire travels faster and their spawn rate is increased. The husband has his own health pool but it is combined with Sally's phase 3 so the fight lasts as long as the normal path with phase 1 being skipped. They are defeated simultaneously. Total Hitpoints = 756/893
The final phase of the fight is mostly unchanged, however the Nun will join the priest in the background of the fight instead of Sally's husband and children. Still, they are shocked and disappointed when Sally is defeated respectively.
Sound Effects
| Description | Audio | |
| Overworld | ||
| Sally teleporting. | Sally Stageplay crying. | |
| Sally attacking with her kicks and kisses. | Sally Stageplay crying.| align="center" |File:SFX level sally cry 01.ogg File:SFX level sally cry 02.ogg
[!File: SFX level sally cry 03.ogg]] | |
| Sally reacting in shock at the beginning of the second phase. | ||
| Sally laughing as she sends out the wind-up toys. | ||
| Sally whining as she turns into an angel. | ||
| Sally cackling as a meteor is sent out. | ||
| Sally defeated. |
Gallery
Unused Contents
There is an unused sprite sheet for a prop bird, it is a prop that supposed to spin round and round above Sally's head when she knocked defeated in the third phase.
There is an unused attack called "SHURIKEN BOMB" that was scrapped. This attack was going to be used in phase 1 and potentially 2, Sally would throw the shuriken bomb instead of the fan, it will split into two small ones that arcs both sides. In Expert mode, the small shuriken bomb will each split into two more tiny ones.
In the final phase when Sally is receiving her standing ovation, some fans would have thrown explosive projectiles at the stage instead of just roses, referencing when people hated the stage show in cartoons, they would throw tomatoes and/or other random objects on stage where it would make a mess.
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Walkthrough
| Regular Mode | Expert Mode |
|---|---|
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Trivia
- Sally Stageplay is one of the characters that are voiced by the opposite gender, along with King Dice.
- The crowd is shown clapping whenever a phase is completed, one person in the crowd is even shaking a cane around.
- Sally, along with her husband, Captain Brineybeard and Dr. Kahl are the only four human bosses in this game.
- Sally Stageplay is the only "normal" boss to not have transformations. Her third phase is only a cardboard version of her normal self (which is done in cutout animation) and the attacks are made by the other actors.
- Of all the bosses in the game, her third phase is the only boss battle that has no thick cartoon outlines.
- This is one of the few times Studio MDHR includes its name on something in the game besides the death screens.
- Her phase 1 death line is a reference to the idiom "Break a leg" which means to do well, especially in the context of a stage play. She takes it literally after saying "nah," and saying to break both legs.
- Every time the curtain falls, there is "ASBESTOS SAFETY CURTAIN" written on it. This is a reference to the fire-retardant properties of the mineral asbestos, and how it was was formerly used to make safety curtains before its ban due to dust from it was known to cause lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis.
- The car that Sally and her "husband" drive off with at the end of phase 1 appears to be a convertible variant of a 1933 Bugatti Royale, a rare luxury car.
- With Patch 1.2 when the player defeats Sally's first phase after lowering both cherubs and before the husband get crushed (which makes Sally invulnerable), Sally will shown to be defeated in phase two instead and completely skip that phase. Both her cutout god form and that of her husband's will be lowered after that, sometimes before the curtain is even pulled back up.
- This might be caused by lowering both cherubs will immediately skip to the second phase, since phase 2 has a bit more health than phase 1 and the damage carries between phases. By damaging her close to the normal phase 1 to 2 threshold then defeating her after both cherubs are lowered in that time frame, the game acknowledged she is defeated at phase 2 thus skipping her second phase entirely before extra health is granted when secret phase 2 starts.
- This glitch combines with phase 3 having two hitboxes making Area-of-Effect damage EX more effective, and thus, she is defeated even faster than with weapon swap glitch, double damage Kablooey and off-screen hitbox being active in legacy version, where you can double your damage output by swapping weapons, Kablooey exploding twice when it hits the ground, and deal damage to her cardboard cutout goddess off screen with long ranged weapons like Charge.
- Sally is one of two bosses to have a spoken word during the fight outside of Inkwell Hell. In one of her "maniacal" laughs, she can be heard saying "Darling." The other is Werner Werman yelling "Charge!" when Werman does his charge attack. Hilda Berg also had scrapped vocals saying 'Coleman'.
- Sally is the only boss who has their full name printed in the debug menu.
- In the show, Sally has a white coat and blue trousers, a different design compared to what she had in the game.
- It could be that the audience was rooting for Cuphead and/or Mugman during the battle, as they clap and cheer whenever the brothers make it to a new phase. However, if you stand near the theater which is the entrance to her boss fight, the audience can be heard clapping for Sally Stageplay while she thanks them. This most likely means that they don’t care who wins, as they are just entertained.
Inspirations and Similarities
Sally Stageplay's animation is an amalgamation of some of the team's favorite cartoon and fighting game characters topped with ComiColor flair. There is obvious influence from Popeye's Olive Oyl with her lanky limbs and floppy feet, but even more influential was Samurai Showdown III's Shizumaru Hisane with his parasol weapon attacks.[1]
- Sally Stageplay is similar to the Queen from the 1933 Betty Boop cartoon Snow-White.
- Sally may have been inspired by Sally Swing, a blonde character from Betty Boop. In Cuphead, the victory tune is also reminiscent of a tune at 6:22 of that cartoon.
- She has a similar color scheme to Sally Brown from Peanuts, who also (albeit coincidentally) has her given name.
- Her fight was inspired by stage performances found in Fleischer cartoons such as Betty Boop's She Wronged Him Right, No! No! A Thousand Times No! and Prize Show.
- Her boss intro is similar to Urien’s from Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact.
- Sally Stageplay’s diagonal kicks in the first two phases are similar to Dhalsim’s diagonal kicks from the Street Fighter series.
- Her usage of a fan and parasol in combat is similar to Mai Shiranui from the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters series.
- One of Sally's children in the second phase bears a striking resemblance to Little Lambkins from the 1940 cartoon of the same name (This could be due to his hair color.).
- The animation for her third phase is somewhat similar to certain cutout animation films such as The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), Heaven and Earth Magic (1957), and Twice Upon a Time (1983), as well as the cartoon portions of the British series Monty Python's Flying Circus.
- The third phase of her fight is set much like the boss fights in turn-based RPGs like Final Fantasy, with her cardboard cutout staying immobile and panels with the names of the attacks that she is using showing up above the cutout.
- Her cardboard cutout form has a similar appearance to that of Kefka in Final Fantasy VI.
References
- ↑ The Art of Cuphead, Sally Stageplay, page 170