In the 1990s, the Donkey Kong Country series was one of Nintendo's flagship franchises. The first game in 1994 came along with hype never before seen in a game with a massive marketing strategy that made sure everybody know just revolutionary the pre-rendered 3d graphics were. This all pulled off big time resulting in a sequel that is considered one of the best games on the Super Nintendo and a string of success for developer Rare that would be bonkers nowadays. But there's got to be a black mark on all this success and that would be the Donkey Kong Country cartoon series that ran from 1997 to 2000.
Now to be fair to this cartoon, this is far from the worst video game cartoon ever. Shows like The Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog, The Legend of Zelda and Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm I would wager are worse, but this one is definitely one of the weirdest. Not only are the visuals some of that 1990s CGI that makes you tilt your head in disbelief, but the plots and characters are so wildly different than those from the games that you can do nothing but laugh. This includes heroes and villains alike acting completely out character, plots having to deal with magic, far out science and outer space. Typical trademarks of a Saturday morning cartoon, but things that look so bizarre when we're talking about a bunch of apes who just want to eat bananas all day. Here are 25 things only super fans remember about the weird Donkey Kong Country TV show.
25 How Do Y♏ou Say This? 🦄
There are a few names in gaming that have caused debate among fans about how they're supposed to be pronounced. Most notable of these is Ryu from Street Fighter (it's pronounced Ree ♏Ou) but King K. Rool is another one of these. Since the games never had any voice ac🍌ting, it's hard to say how you pronounce King K. Rool. But this television show gives us an answer.
Throughout the series, everybody on the show pronounces the reptilian king's name as King K꧟arool. I'm assuming this w൲as done to emphasize the wordplay of making it sound like "cruel". Fans however just stick with separating the K and the Rool in pronouncing his name.
24 ไ Emmy Debate ജ
The Donkey Kong Country cartoon may have sort of ironic cult f🦄ollowing due to how laughable and bizarre i🦩t is, but believe it or not it actually stirred up a minor debate for the Emmy Awards of 1999.
This show won no awards in the end.
writer Charles Solomon explained that because Donkey Kong Country was made using motion capture the Academy was stumped abou🐟t what to do with it. The show's producers submitted it under the animation category, but the academy insisted that it should be considered for special effects.
23 ๊ Donkey Kong's Necktie Defies Physics
With how much of a work in progress this computer generated a🥂nimation style was at the time, it is forgivable if some of the episodes look awful in motion. But for this bizarre oddity, all we have to look at is a still image to see that this show skimped out on essential elements like physics.
To understand what I'm talking about, just look at Donkey Kong's necktie. How ൲is that staying on his body? Neckties are supposed to you know, go around his neck. Not stay on his body thanks to super glue. This was never fixed throughout the series and remains an oddity.
22 🍎 Bad Diddy Kong
If you were looking for adjectives to describe Diddy Kong, the words energ𓃲etic, fun and short woul🦂d come to mind. What wouldn't dare come out of your mouth though was the word evil but in this show, we do get to see what happens when Diddy Kong loses all his chill and goes to the dark side.
It felt good to see Cranky get humbled.
In the episode "It's A Wonderful Life", Donkey sees the world if he didn't exist. What we see is a total role reversal where King K. Rool is ruthlessly hunted down by an evil Diddy Kong who makes Cranky Kong ꧟bow at his feet and Funky Kong serve as his aide. It's pretty hilarious to see Diddy act like K. Rool and is definitely weird.
21 ✃ Candy Kong Is Changed Massively 🔥
Candy Kong being a main character in a Donkey Kong Country cartoon can be a bit of a problem. After all, she doesn't exactly have much of a character in the series aside from giving the Kongs flirty eyes everyꦦ-time you go to save your game in the first instalment. For better or worse, her personality undergoes a radical shift in this cartoon.
Unlike in the games,🐷 in this series she works at the barrel factory as a quality assurance operator and has a short temper. She doesn't take Donkey Kong's bumbling lightly and constantly cuts off dates with him over practically anything. She always does come back for the big dumb hero though.
20 ཧ The ꦫAnimation Improved
A common complaint about this show is that the anไimation varies from bad all the way to nightmare inducing in some spots. Certainly this is true in the first season when characters' bodies move in bizarre ways and at times appear to be floating. But I will say though that inౠ the second and third seasons, the animation did actually get better.
The show isn't a complete dumpster fire.
Mostly due to new animation techniques being used by the production staff, seasons 2 and 3 look noticeably better than the first season. Characters move more naturally, lip syncing 🍰is improved and c🐽haracter designs are tweaked.
19 ♌ 🃏 The Final Episode Was Bananas
After three seasons on the air, Donkey Kong Country as a television series came to an end. Now, what kind of episode do people hate the most of in television? Why a clip show of course and that's exactly how this show ended. But o🍌h boy what a weird way to incorpor⛦ate these clips.
Donkey Kong finds a letter addressed to him that he has to leave the island for some reason, so all of his friends decide to throw a party for him to say goodbye. Not only his friends show up though as Ki🍸ng K. Rool and his posse show up to... make speeches in DK's honour. The episode ends with Donkey discovering the letter was meant for somebody e🥂lse and all his friends are upset at him. What a way to go.
18 King K. Rool Was A ℱWuss
Despite his chubby physique, King K. Rool has served as one of the toughest b𓆉osses in platform game history. He's not a cakewalk and can give all of the Kongs an awesome challenge in the games, but in this TV show, the K in K Rool might as well stand for knocked out because this reptile gets his clock cleaned so many times.
In this show, King K. Rool has to rely exclusively on underhanded schemes and trickery to get the job done. Now sure, he did that in the games as well, but he a꧑lso gave a good phys💙ical match to the monkeys. Here, DK defeats him all the time with a single punch. Some king he is.
17 A Child Left Behind ꧋
Lots of characters have been introduced throughout the many Donkey Kong games since the franchise was revived back in the early 1990s. One of the more hated ones by the fan-base was Kiddy Kong, cousin of Dixie Kong portagonist of DKC3. He's mainly hated because he played like a weaker and more childish Donkey Kong, but haters of this kid can rejoice when they hear that he is completely absent from the DKC cartoon.
Footie pajamas are not the best for precision platforming.
In fact, the creators of the show almost seem to poke fun at Kiddy Kong in the second episode of the show. In it, Donkey♚ Ko♈ng is reverted back to a child and is generally an annoying brat who ruins everything.
16 ಌ꧒ Donkey Kong = King Kong Fan
Way back in 1982, Universal Studios decided to sue Nintendo for infringing on their trademark of King Kong with their game Donkey Kong. Universal would lose the court case in 1984 but the creators decided to have some🐲 fun with this in the DKC cartoon.
Interesting to ponder who would win a fight between Donkey and King Kong.
Throughout multiple episodes of the series, Donkey makes references to King Kong, telling his friends that he's a big fan of the giant monkey monster. Just the thought that Donkey probably has a scrapbook collecting memorabilia of the fictionಌal character that inspired his own creation is a nice touch on the part of the show writers.