I found an improvement to the current TAS. If you jump (without holding left or right) while Alex is coming out of his fireball form on the first level, you can maintain some of the fireball's speed for a bit. (The current TAS just holds right, which immediately resets Alex back to his regular speed.) If I had to estimate, I think it should save a couple seconds. : )
EDIT: I just tested and this is also possible with the slopes in round 4 - though the savings there will be small, because it only bumps your speed up to 2-2-2-2-2-2 pixels as opposed to the usual 1-2-1-2-1-2 pixels.
I also made a bk2 that shows this trick.
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/24135308009104307
I will not make the TAS this game, mostly because I can't TAS, and it looks a bit too hard for a first run. So I leave it up to the people who are still interested in SMS runs... hehehe V^^^V