If Sonic and Tails are both hit at the same time while carrying at least one ring, an overabundance of rings will pop out regardless of how many they actually possess.The timer resets to 9:00 before hitting 9:59, allowing the player to test stages for extended periods.
The sprite of him getting up would later be polished and reused for when Sonic leaves his "lying on ground" idle animation.
At this point in development, Tails is quasi-independent: Player 2 is able to control Tails, except he will also follow Sonic.