Poor Captain Waffle, he sacrificed his happiness (also his family) for ours. After blindly flailing around for a half hour with my XRGB-2 and a monitor, I realized that my Spinal Breakers isn't showing backgrounds in the first stage, just a white backdrop. Animation looks fine though, and everything sounds right otherwise. Odd.
Any chance it's just a corrupted ROM?
Damn Hildroids. I think the digital gremlins are responsible for this somehow.