2nd, both movies take the invincibility power up in the first level instead of taking damage. Given the length of animation, the damage may be faster.

This power up is tricky to avoid. You can't jump over it (it's too high up), and you can't jump under it (your lowest jump will still make you touch it). You can't jump on the A block above it either. The only way to avoid it (as far as I know) is to run down into the pit to it's right, and then jump up from it. When avoiding damage, this wastes more time than the animation from the drink. On the other hand, when I tried this, I avoided touching the spikes in the pit, so it might be a bit faster to avoid the drink if you take damage from the spikes.

It was far faster to Grab the potion, since there were no other good ways to avoid it. I took damage because I did not want to have to slow down in my run. I try to take it only when nessescary though, meaning I tried to find every single way to avoid damage as much as possible.

om, nom, nom... blech, bitter!

I am improving this movie and am at 2-2. Just posting because.