The title of the Donkey Kong Country animated series.
Donkey Kong Country was a Canadian/French computer-animated TV series, produced by Nelvana Limited[1], Medialab[2] and Hong Guang Animation[3] , in association with WIC Entertainment[4], in 1996. The television series is loosely based on the Donkey Kong Country series' games.
Overview[]
The television series was first aired in France on September 4, 1996, and was originally titled La Planète de Donkey Kong, meaning "The Planet of Donkey Kong", and later DKTV.cool. It was one of the first television series to be entirely animated with motion capture[5] technology. The same technology allowed the live-action segments to be recorded live in studio and to be hosted by the Donkey Kong's character model from the animated series, along with the actress Mélanie Angélie. Diddy, Candy and Funky Kong would also make appearances during the same segments. The animated series won a publicly-voted award at 7 d'Or[6] for "Meilleure émission d'animation et de jeunesse" ("Best Animation and Youth Program") in 1999.
The Donkey Kong Country animated series, albeit the French live-action segments, premiered in North America (Fox Kids and Teletoon in Canada) on August 15, 1998, and the original run finished on July 7, 2000. Strangely, many episodes were aired in random order, confusing all fans. In the U.S, the show is currently available on both Tubi and Apple TV.
Characters[]
The Kongs from the Donkey Kong Country animated series.
The animated series stars Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Candy Kong, Cranky Kong, Funky Kong, Dixie Kong, King K. Rool, as well as many other Kremlings, all residing in the Kongo Bongo Island. The series featured all of the Kongs from two games Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Country 2, except for Swanky Kong and Wrinkly Kong. There were also introduced new characters exclusive to the series, such as Eddie the Mean Old Yeti, Kaptain Skurvy and Bluster Kong.
Voice Cast[]
| Character | French | English | Japanese |
|---|---|---|---|
| Donkey Kong | Franck Capillery | Richard Yearwood[7]/ Sterling Jarvis[8] (singing voice) |
Kōichi Yamadera[9] |
| Diddy Kong | Hervé Grull (season 1)/ Lucile Boulanger (season 2)/ Donald Reignoux (season 2) (singing voice) |
Andrew Sabiston[10] | Megumi Hayashibara[11] |
| Cranky Kong | Yves Massicotte (season 1)/ Yves Barsacq (season 2) |
Aron Tager[12] | Ryūsei Nakao[13] |
| Funky Kong | Emmanuel Curtil | Damon D'Oliveira[14] | Banana Ice |
| Candy Kong | Camille Cyr-Desmarais (season 1)/ Odile Schmitt (season 2) |
Joy Tanner[15] | Mika Kanai[16] |
| Dixie Kong | Violette Chauveau (season 1)/ Annie Barclay (season 2) |
Stevie Vallance[17] | Becky[18] |
| Bluster Kong | Daniel Lesourd (season 1)/ Patrice Dozier (season 2) |
Donald Burda[19] | Daiki Nakamura[20] |
| King K. Rool | Éric Gaudry (season 1)/ Daniel Beretta (season 2) |
Benedict Campbell[21] | Jūrōta Kosugi[22] |
| General Klump | Jean Brousseau (season 1)/ Jacques Bouanich (season 2) |
Adrian Truss[23] | Keiichi Sonobe[24] |
| Krusha | Pierre Auger (season 1)/ Daniel Beretta (season 2) |
Len Carlson[25] | Tomohisa Aso |
| Eddie the Mean Old Yeti | Unknown (season 1)/ Patrice Dozier (season 2) |
Damon D'Oliveira | Kenyu Horiuchi[26] |
| Inka Dinka Doo | Unknown | Lawrence Bayne[27] | Tomohisa Aso |
| Kaptain Skurvy | Unknown | Ron Rubin[28] | Katsuhisa Hōki[29] |
| Kutlass | Unknown | John Stocker[30] | Takuma Suzuki[31] |
| Green Kroc | Unknown | Richard Newman[32] | Takuma Suzuki |
| Kritters | Unknown (season 1)/ Michel Tugot-Doris (season 2) |
Lawrence Bayne | Daiki Nakamura/ Takayuki Yamaguchi[33]/ Tokuyoshi Kawashima[34]/ Tomohisa Aso/ Toshitaka Hirano |
| Polly Roger the Parrot | Unknown | Rick Jones[35] | Unknown |
| Junior the Giant Klaptrap | Unknown | Ron Rubin | Unknown |
| Baby Kong | Unknown | Bryn McAuley[36] | Unknown |
| Kong Fu | Unknown | Richard Newman | Hōchū Ōtsuka[37] |
List of Episodes[]
The animated series is consisted of 40 episodes, but divided into two seasons. The first season was produced by Medialab Studio and the second one was produced by Hong Guang Animation. The list below does not reflect necessarily the chronological order of episodes. They were aired in the U.S. in a disparate order which can be found on the side.
Season 1[]
- 1. Bad Hair Day (Aired 3rd)
- 2. Ape Foo Young (Aired 5th)
- 3. Booty and the Beast (Aired 6th)
- 4. Barrel, Barrel... Who's Got the Barrel (Aired 25th)
- 5. Kong for a Day (Aired 7th)
- 6. Raiders of the Lost Banana (Aired 4th)
- 7. From Zero to Hero (Aired 8th)
- 8. Buried Treasure (Aired 9th)
- 9. Cranky's Tickle Tonic (Aired 10th)
- 10. Get a Life, Don't Save One (Aired 11th)
- 11. Orangutango (Aired 13th)
- 12. Double Date Trouble (Aired 22nd)
- 13. The Curse of Kongo Bongo (Aired 12th)
- 14. Speed (Aired 14th)
- 15. Klump's Lumps (Aired 15th)
- 16. Bluster's Sale Ape-Stravaganza (Aired 16th)
- 17. Legend of the Crystal Coconut (Aired 26th)
- 18. Kong Fu (Aired 17th)
- 19. I Spy With My Hairy Eye (Aired 1st)
- 20. Bug a Boogie (Aired 18th)
- 21. Watch the Skies (Aired 19th)
- 22. Baby Kong Blues (Aired 20th)
- 23. Ape-Nesia (Aired 23rd)
- 24. The Big Chill Out (Aired 2nd)
- 25. To the Moon Baboon (Aired 21st)
- 26. A Thin Line Between Love & Ape (Aired 24th)
Season 2[]
- 27. Hooray for Holly-Kongo Bongo (Aired 28th)
- 28. The Kongo Bongo Festival of Lights (Aired 27th)
- 29. Speak No Evil, Dude (Aired 29th)
- 30. The Day the Island Stood Still (Aired 30th)
- 31. Monkey Seer, Monkey Do (Aired 32nd)
- 32. Four Weddings and a Coconut (Aired 33rd)
- 33. Follow That Coconut (Aired 34th)
- 34. Vote of Kong-Fidence (Aired 35th)
- 35. The Big Switch-a-Roo (Aired 36th)
- 36. Hunka Hunka Burnin' Bluster (Aired 37th)
- 37. Best of Enemies (Aired 38th)
- 38. It's a Wonderful Life (Aired 39th)
- 39. Just Kidding (Aired 40th)
- 40. Message In A Bottle Show (Aired 31st)
Videos[]
![Short documentary showing the production of the first season of the Donkey Kong Country animated series by Medialab Studio[2].](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/donkeykong/images/6/64/Aventure_DonkeyKong_Medialab.wmv/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/185?cb=20220222095652 "Aventure DonkeyKong Medialab.wmv (17 KB)")
Trivia[]
- The Crystal Coconut, a prominent item in the animated series, would later appear in the Donkey Kong games, such as Donkey Kong 64 for Nintendo 64.
- In similar way, a single Golden Banana is featured during the episode "Raiders of the Lost Banana". The item would also later first appear as special collectables in the game Donkey Kong 64.
- In the second season of the animated series, all characters and environments have received new textures, displaying more vibrant colors when compared to the first season, but they still keep their overall designs. It is more evident on Kremling characters which are covered with scales. The most likely reason for that is the change of animation studios from Medialab to Hong Guang Animation between seasons.
- On the same note, the opening cutscene used for each episode during the entire animated series (see Videos section above) did feature only footage from the first season.
- In 1997, the episodes "Legend of the Crystal Coconut", "Bug a Boogie", "Ape-Nesia" and "Booty and the Beast" were released together as a direct-to-video[38] film called Donkey Kong Country: The Legend of the Crystal Coconut.
- In the English version of the animated series, the groups lead by King K. Rool and Kaptain Skurvy, respectively, are never referred to as Kremlings, the name used for their species of high intelligent crocodiles in the Donkey Kong series games. The other characters in the animated series called them by their individual names or "the lizards" as a group.
- The Medialab Studio also produced a French TV commercial for the game Donkey Kong Land 2 for Game Boy in 1996 (see Videos section above). The commercial features the same character models used for Donkey and Diddy Kong in the first season of the Donkey Kong Country animated series. During the short video, Donkey is sitting on a tree branch, and Diddy asks him to say goodbye to the camera. After the gorilla complies with the request, he disappears in thin air. It is followed by a short segment showing gameplay footage running on the Super Game Boy for Super Nintendo Entertainment System. At the same time, a narrator says "Donkey Kong Land 2 on Game Boy and Game Boy Pocket. Now, the hero..." And then Diddy appears again, in front of the box for the game cartridge and a Game Boy system, and he continues the narrator's speech by adding "...is Diddy Kong!"
- Donkey Kong is the only character with two voice actors in the English version of the animated series, one for talking and one for singing.