''Donkey Kong Country'' is a

computer animated Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animations. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes (still images) and dynamic images (moving images), while computer animation refer ...

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwo ...

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...

that is based on the video game ''

Donkey Kong Country ''Donkey Kong Country'' is a 1994 platform game developed by Rare (company), Rare and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It is a Reboot (fiction), reboot of Nintendo's ''Donkey Kong'' franchise and foll ...

'' from

Nintendo is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...

and Rare. The series was co-produced by

Nelvana Nelvana Enterprises, Inc. (; previously known as Nelvana Limited, sometimes known as Nelvana Animation and simply Nelvana or Nelvana Communications) is a Canadian animation studio and entertainment company owned by Corus Entertainment. Founded ...

, Medialab Studio L.A. (Season 1) and Hong Guang Animation (Season 2), in association with WIC Entertainment, with the participation of

Teletoon Teletoon (stylized as TELETOON) is a Canadian English-language specialty channel owned by Teletoon Canada, Inc., a subsidiary of Corus Entertainment. Its name is a portmanteau of "television" and "cartoon". The channel primarily broadcasts an ...

—for Season 1, it was produced in co-production with

France 2 France 2 () is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4 and France 5. France Télévisions also participates in Arte and Euronews. Since 3:20 CET on 7 A ...

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

, in association with Valar 4. The show was first introduced in France on September 4, 1996, on

, on a hybrid live action and motion capture animated block titled '' La Planète de Donkey Kong'' (''The Planet of Donkey Kong''). Later, the show premiered as a full series on August 15, 1997, until the final episode's ending on July 7, 2000. ''Donkey Kong Country'' was one of the earliest television shows to be primarily animated with

motion capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mo-cap or mocap, for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robo ...

technology. Several elements of the series, such as the Crystal Coconut, appeared in later ''Donkey Kong'' video games like ''

Donkey Kong 64 ''Donkey Kong 64'' is a 1999 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It is the first 3D game in the '' Donkey Kong'' series. As the gorilla Donkey Kong, the player explores themed levels to collect it ...

'', which was released three years after the show began airing on television. The second season was produced by

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

ese CGI

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...

CGCG—which updated the character models, silkier

lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing dayl ...

, and used key framing—having been announced as early as May 1999.

Plot

Taking place on Kongo Bongo Island, the show focuses on Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong as they protect a magical artifact known as the Crystal Coconut from the villainous

King K. Rool is a fictional anthropomorphic crocodile and the main antagonist in Nintendo's ''Donkey Kong'' video game franchise, as well as the archnemesis of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. K. Rool is the villainous leader of a group of crocodilian raiders kn ...

and his Kremling army who long to steal it in order to rule Kongo Bongo. Each episode features two songs performed by the show's various characters.

Characters

* Donkey Kong - the future ruler of Kongo Bongo Island, tasked with guarding the Crystal Coconut * Diddy Kong - DK's sidekick and buddy. * Cranky Kong - DK and Diddy's ill-tempered mentor. *

Funky Kong is a series of video games published by Nintendo since 1981 and created by game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Donkey Kong and Mario have both had the roles of protagonist and antagonist in the series. Other characters have included other Kong ...

- the resident pilot. * Candy Kong - DK's girlfriend. *

Dixie Kong is a series of video games published by Nintendo since 1981 and created by game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Donkey Kong and Mario have both had the roles of protagonist and antagonist in the series. Other characters have included other Kongs, t ...

- Diddy's girlfriend. * Bluster Kong - the boss of the Bluster Barrelworks factory. He has a massive ego and continually makes unsuccessful attempts to romance Candy, his employee. *

- the villain, attempting to steal the Crystal Coconut and take over the island. * Krusha - K. Rool's bodyguard. * Klump - K. Rool's general. * Kritters - K. Rool's soldiers. * Klaptraps - small crocodiles who like to eat wooden surfaces in a manner similar to

termites Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes ( eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blat ...

. They are fired out of Klap-Blasters by the Kritters and usually give comments on whatever they are eating. * Kaptain Skurvy - a pirate captain and Klump's long-lost twin brother. He persists in chasing the Crystal Coconut, claiming it to be the birthright of one of his ancestors * Kutlass & Green Kroc - Skurvy's minions. * Polly Roger the Parrot - a pet parrot of Kaptain Skurvy. * Junior the Klaptrap - a large Klaptrap. * Eddie the Mean Old Yeti - a white-furred

yeti The Yeti ()"Yeti"
''

Voice cast

Season 1 of the French version was done in Quebec, with the exception of Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong and Funky Kong's voice actors who are from France. Season 2 was not given a French version until later when it got released on DVD years afterward, which had a new voice cast and it was done in France, with DK and Funky's voice actors reprising their character roles. Hervé Grull never returned as Diddy Kong, as he had long since hit puberty, replaced by Lucile Boulanger as a result.

Episodes

Production

Over seventy percent of the character animation in the series was produced using performance capture. Two performers were required for each character; one performed the character's body movements, while the other used hand movements to control the character's face. The limitations of the technology used meant that actions like picking an object up could not be produced with this method and had to be keyframed. This process allowed the character animation of one episode to be completed in two weeks, as compared to the six to eight weeks keyframed animation was estimated to require for the same length.

Telecast and home media

''Donkey Kong Country'' was first introduced in France on September 4, 1996, on

, on a block titled ''La Planète de Donkey Kong'' (''The Planet of Donkey Kong''). The French-language version of the show later premiered in Canada on Télétoon on September 8, 1997, making the series one of the channel's launch programs, while the English version premiered on its English counterpart on October 17, also as a launch program. In the U.S., it was one of the first series to be shown on Fox Family (now Freeform), in which the series was broadcast in its entirety from August 15, 1998 (the same day Fox Family was launched) until 2000. It was also seen on

Fox Kids Fox Kids (originally known as Fox Children's Network and later as the Fox Kids Network; stylized as FOX KIDS) was an American children's programming block and branding for a slate of international children's television channels. Originally a jo ...

from 1998 to 1999 for a very short time airing two episodes as specials on December 19, 1998, and aired a few more episodes during the summer of 1999 before being taken off. 40 episodes were produced. In Japan, the series aired with a Japanese dub and took over

TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certifie ...

's 6:30 p.m. time-slot from ''

Gokudo the Adventurer is a Japanese light novel series written by Usagi Nakamura and illustrated by Takeru Kirishima. The light novel was first serialized by Kadokawa Shoten in their light novel magazine Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. It was later adapted into a manga ...

'' airing on October 1, 1999, and was later replaced with '' Hamtaro'' after ending on June 30, 2000. Over the years, the series has been released throughout many VHS and DVDs in several countries. In total, 13 DVDs around the world were released with English audio. For North America, four episodes of ''Donkey Kong Country'' that feature Kaptain Skurvy were edited together into a

videocassette Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocasset ...

release titled ''Donkey Kong Country: The Legend of the Crystal Coconut'' and was marketed as a feature-length anthology film. However, these episodes are not in chronological order, as a flashback shown in the third episode actually occurs in the fourth episode of the tape. It was released in Canada around 1997 with both English and French dub tapes separately with distribution handled by Seville Pictures and

themselves as the secondary distributor. The United States version of the tape was distributed by

Paramount Home Video Paramount Home Entertainment (formerly Paramount Home Media Distribution, and originally Paramount Home Video) is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures, a division of Paramount Global. The division oversees PPC's home entertainme ...

and was released in the nation on November 9, 1999, marking this the only time that the U.S. had a VHS release of this series. France has gotten a release of this tape as well under: ''Donkey Kong Le Film!'' In Japan, the TV series was very popular and proven to be successful, since the video game that the series is based on was also a hit. It was also because the Japanese dubbed version of the series was produced with a very high budget thus investing to having a big-name well known voice cast. On top of that, the Japanese and also the Latin Spanish dub editions had ad-libbed a lot of extra humour that were not in the original scripts. The Japanese dubbed version of the entire series has been released on home video through Rental VHS tapes in 2000. Shogakukan Video has released all the episodes of the series spreading through 13 volumes and they were sold by

Nippon Columbia , often pronounced ''Korombia'', operating internationally as , is a Japanese record label founded in 1910 as Nipponophone Co., Ltd. It affiliated itself with the Columbia Graphophone Company of the United Kingdom and adopted the standard UK ...

, a record label company. Each tape contains three episodes each and in consistent order of its Japanese broadcasting on

, with the exception of its series' final episode, ''Message in a Bottle Show'' was not included due to mostly being a clip episode. That episode was later introduced as part of another TV Tokyo program which is a quiz show known as ''Ohashi''. In the PAL regions, ''Donkey Kong Country Vol. 1'' (released in Australia) and ''Donkey Kong Country - Bad Hair Day'' (released in the United Kingdom) were released on DVD. The other two DVDs, ''Donkey Kong Country: Hooray for Holly Kongo Bongo'' and ''Donkey Kong Country: The Kongo Bongo Festival of Lights'' (both released in Australia) only held one episode. After over three years of no new English DVD, ''I Spy With My Hairy Eye'' was released in the United Kingdom in 2008. In 2013,

Phase 4 Films Phase 4 Films was a Canadian film distribution company based in Toronto. It had two branches in the United States: Los Angeles, California and Fort Mill, South Carolina. Its subsidiary kaboom! Entertainment markets children's entertainment. Hist ...

, a small Canadian low-budget film company, officially purchased the rights to license and distribute the series for a DVD release in Region 1 along with

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (abbreviated as SPHE) is the home video distribution division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. Background SPHE is responsible for the distribution of the Sony Pictures l ...

and began releasing episodes starting off with the ''He Came, He Saw, He Kong-quered'' DVD that was released on August 20. The Complete First Season was then released on DVD in Region 1 on May 12, 2015. In 2017, Pidax Film has gotten the distribution rights in Germany to release all fourteen episodes of Season 2 on DVD with English and German dubbing audio included. Germany still has yet to get a release of the first season. As of 2022, the show is now added on the Tubi streaming service. The episodes of the show are all available on iTunes and on the Amazon Prime's Ameba channel. The first two seasons are available on Freevee and on Amazon Video with advertisements. 39 of 40 episodes are available on Retro Rerun's YouTube channel.

Legacy

The show had a large line of merchandise in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

, including a manga and collectible card game featuring drawings of characters—some of which never appeared in the series. The card game was later adapted to be based on ''Donkey Kong 64''. Pirate's Scorn, a song from the show, was covered by Scottish heavy metal band

Alestorm Alestorm are a Scottish Heavy metal music, heavy metal band formed in Perth, Scotland. Their music is characterised by a Pirates in popular culture, pirate theme, and as a result, they have been dubbed a "pirate metal" band by many critics and ...

in their ''

Curse of the Crystal Coconut ''Curse of the Crystal Coconut'' is the sixth studio album by Scottish Heavy metal music, heavy metal band Alestorm. It was released on 29 May 2020 via Napalm Records. The album was recorded at Krabi Road, Thailand with the band's long-time produ ...

'' album. This cover of Pirate's Scorn was also included in ''DKC: Curse of the Crystal Coconut'', an animated fan tribute to the show. Additionally, the

album artwork An album cover (also referred to as album art) is the front packaging art of a commercially released studio album or other audio recordings. The term can refer to either the printed paperboard covers typically used to package sets of and 78-rpm ...

contains several nods to the '' Donkey Kong'' video game franchise. In the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a ...

version of '' Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze'', the "banana slamma" catchphrase is used in one of Tawks' lines when visiting Funky's Fly 'n Buy while playing as Funky Kong, paying an homage to the animated series.

References

External links

*
''Donkey Kong Country'' at Nelvana.com

''Donkey Kong Country'' at Retro Junk
{{Teletoon Donkey Kong Animated series based on Nintendo video games 1990s Canadian animated television series 2000s Canadian animated television series Canadian children's animated adventure television series Canadian children's animated fantasy television series Canadian children's animated musical television series 1997 Canadian television series debuts 2000 Canadian television series endings Television series by Nelvana Canadian children's animated comedy television series Television series based on Nintendo video games Teletoon original programming Canadian computer-animated television series Canal+ original programming French computer-animated television series 1990s French animated television series 1996 French television series debuts 2000 French television series endings French children's animated adventure television series French children's animated comedy television series French children's animated fantasy television series French children's animated musical television series Chinese children's animated adventure television series Chinese children's animated comedy television series Chinese children's animated fantasy television series Animated television series about apes Animated television series about monkeys France Télévisions children's television series France Télévisions television comedy Fox Broadcasting Company original programming Fox Family Channel original programming TV Tokyo original programming Fox Kids Jetix original programming