The Renaming of Miles Monotail

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The Renaming of Miles Monotail is an internal pitch for a proposed character name for Miles "Tails" Prower created by Sega of America executive Al Nilsen during the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Content

“	This is the story of Miles Monotail. Miles was your average four-year-old fox. He loved to play with his friends, but his friends weren’t really his friends. Whenever they saw Miles they laughed and made fun of him. Why? Well, Miles wasn’t like all of the other foxes. Miles Monotail had two tails. And as kids tend to do when someone is different, they make fun of him. It didn’t help that Miles sometimes tripped over his second tail and went rolling down the hill. Coordination was not one of Miles’s virtues. Because of the rough time that his friends gave him, Miles became very depressed. One day he was walking along with his head hanging down when a blur and a whoosh crossed his path. There’s only one person who could be moving that fast, and that is Sonic The Hedgehog. Miles thought Sonic was the greatest person in the world. Miles wished that he could be as cool and coordinated as Sonic was. And most of all, he wanted to meet Sonic. This was his big chance. Miles took a deep, deep breath and at the top of his lungs yelled out, “Sonic!” The blur that was Sonic turned around and stopped in front of Miles. “You called?” said Sonic. “Oh, Sonic, you’re my hero,” exclaimed Miles as he ran around and around Sonic. Well, you can guess what happened next—Miles tripped over his second tail and fell down. Tears came to his eyes. “Hey, cheer up, little fellow. What’s the matter?” said Sonic. “Sonic, I want to be just like you, but I’m a freak. I’ve got two tails.” Sonic leaned over to Miles and said kindly, “You’re no freak. You’re more special than anyone because you have something that everyone else doesn’t have. And you can do things that they can’t. If anything, your friends should be jealous of you.” “But I can’t do anything special,” cried Miles. “Oh yes you can,” Sonic said. “I’ll show you. You’re about to enter Sonic’s special training camp.” Well, Miles couldn’t be happier. His hero took him under his wing and started teaching Miles how to use his two tails to their best advantage. He showed Miles how to curl his tails up under his body so that he was like a very aerodynamic ball and could do Sonic’s famous Supersonic Spin. Sonic then taught Miles how to use his two tails as a helicopter rotor so that Miles could fly around. Even Sonic couldn’t do that. Needless to say, Miles was ecstatic. He was special, and when his friends saw what Miles could do that they couldn’t do, they became very jealous, but also every single one of them wanted to be Miles’s best friend. But Miles had a new best friend. Someone who believed in him. Someone who was his hero. And that friend was Sonic. Sonic was happy that he could help his buddy gain new confidence and new abilities. “See, Miles, you are special because you have two tails. And because of that, I’m going to give you a very special nickname. From now on I’m going to call you Tails because you should always be reminded that you are special because you have two tails.” So from that day forward Miles Monotail became known as Tails.	„
— Al Nilsen

History

Shortly following the creation of Yamaguchi's fox character, Naka had begun calling him Mile, which was later altered to Miles. From this, Brenda Ross suggested the name Miles Prower as an obvious pun on the term miles per hour, and the name stuck. However, Sega of America executive Al Nilsen suggested an alternate name, writing The Renaming of Miles Monotail to give the character a short background to use in his pitch to the Sonic 2 team. Despite delivering the story through an impassioned speech which reportedly had one developer in tears, the name was ultimately passed over and Miles Prower was kept.

Legacy

Nilsen retained the pitch after departing Sega of America, and later provided it (in seemingly whole) to author Blake J. Harris for the 2014 book Console Wars.