The sentence I am about to write is no doubt going to cost me a lot of fans, but I cannot in good conscience pen this induction without fessing up to the following: I am not a huge Nintendo fan.
I apologize to those of you who just put a fist through whatever device you’re reading this upon, but it’s true. You’d think a huge arcade and video game aficionado such as myself would cherish the almighty Nintendo, and to be fair, I do like a great many of their games. I think Mike Tyson’s Punch Out! is fantastic, one of the best games ever made. Ditto the original Wii Sports; I still bowl on that stupid thing from time to time. Heck, I own Vs. Super Mario Bros. AND Donkey Kong arcade machines (check ’em out at the charity arcade I help with here!), that counts for something, right?
But…but…but…overall, a lot of the most famous franchises are largely a miss for me. I’ve always found Metroid to be a complete bore, and simply saying the word Zelda to me elicits an instant and unavoidable eye roll. No joke, I swear to the good Lord almighty above that when I just typed “Zelda“, my mouth opened wide and a mighty yawn escaped. I’m half ready to fall asleep at the mere mention of it here.
But by far the most overrated game I’ve ever played is the original Donkey Kong Country. Great graphics at the time, but the actual game itself was a subpar Mario in my book. I remember when the game originally came out being completely appalled at the price tag. I don’t remember exactly how much it was. It could have been $50, it could have been $60, $70, not really sure. But I can tell you exactly what happened when I heard how much it was: I rented the game and beat it in one night, in the span of about six hours. I credit my best friend to this day, Eric, who helped me to do this. Pretty sure he didn’t want to drop that kinda coin for it either.
It was nearly a quarter of a century ago (!!!!) that happened. You’d think in that time, I’d find it in my heart to forgive this game, especially since I see kids playing it all the time at Rupert’s.
But I can’t.
I can’t, because my eyes have been damaged beyond any possible recovery. If you continue reading this induction, yours will be too. And since I just warned you of this, I ain’t being held responsible for it.
For did you know that Donkey Kong Country existed not only as a video game, but a cartoon as well?
An incredibly crappy cartoon, I should add.
Further, did you know that said series also did a holiday special?
An incredibly crappy holiday special, I should also add!
For no other reason than my annual yuletide tradition now requires me to watch awful Christmas films and television specials and then review them for YOUR enjoyment, I am going to induct it tonight. Consider this my charitable contribution this holiday season.
Sorry, Salvation Army. I’ve got a Donkey Kong cartoon to recap!
The episode, should you wish to follow along and torture yourself, is called The Kongo Bongo Festival of Lights. And I don’t even get through that one sentence before I again have to take exception with Nintendo, this time for blatantly ripping off that classic Sega arcade game of the same name.
Everyone remembers Congo Bongo, right? The game where you set a monkey on fire?
No really, at the end of the game, you celebrate by quite literally LIGHTING A MONKEY ON FIRE. If that happens at the end of this pile of crap, I will retract all negative comments I’ve ever made about Nintendo.
So this one is about Christmas. Everyone gives each other presents, everyone is filled with cheer, and warring factions such as monkeys and lizards call a truce. It’s just like in that Snoopy and the Red Baron song. So while they don’t call it Christmas here, trust me, it’s Christmas. Well, except at the end of the night they light fireworks to celebrate. So I guess you could argue it could be the Fourth of July. But I don’t do Fourth of July non-wrestling inductions, so let’s just call it Christmas and get this over with.
The show opens with Cranky Kong reading a book, ala The Night Before Christmas. In fact, it is the very same book, just with mentions of monkeys and bananas and other junk that will make you embarrassed to be watching. Here, enjoy yourselves.
Now the very first thing you notice is that the animation and graphic style looks quite horrible. You know how folks will say, “this game didn’t age well”, like when you go back to a Playstation 1 game and you wonder how we ever thought it looked acceptable? It’s the same thing here times a million.
It gets worse when we are introduced to Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. In the game, the two worked together and while I would never say they were my all time favorite characters or anything, they were acceptable. But this?
THIS?
THIS???
That’s just good old fashioned NIGHTMARE FUEL.
And as bad as they look in still shots, it’s a gazillion times when we see them moving around and talking. They aren’t help by the voices, which are also incredibly annoying, especially Diddy. What is it with cartoons always wanting to have fingernails on the chalkboard levels whiny kids on their shows?
Is there actually a demographic they are catering to with that horrendosity?
We learn the Kongs are the protectors of the legendary Crystal Coconut, which is literally an ellipsis with a fog filter on it. I’ve seen some lazy animation in my day, but that one takes the cake. Still, you’ll soon be wishing that the animators would have kept up their lax ways throughout the show, especially when you bear witness to the horror of…
…General Klump’s big black alligator nipples!
Would someone please get that guy a bra?
I’m talking to you, King K. Rool! You’re the guy’s boss (and the big bad of the show), don’t let him wander around your work facility completely bare breasted. If nothing else, there has to be a safety issue.
Where’s OSHA when you need them?
So everyone decides to go home for the holiday, but poor ebony areolas has no family. In light of this, he turns off all the lights then sings a sappy song about pizza pot pies (???) that will have you longing for Princess Leia singing about life to the Star Wars theme.
Meanwhile, Donkey Kong talks about how he has gotten all his friends a fantastic gift: bananas. Somehow, this is viewed as the worst idea ever and all his pals mock him for it.
Wait, you’re MONKEYS.
Don’t you like bananas?
What a bunch of ingrates.
And then…THEN…we are introduced to this:
That would be CANDY KONG.
Part of me wants to write about how stupid it looks to have a monkey with a pasty human face.
Part of me wants to write about how it literally looks like the animator started the job of rendering her and then just didn’t finish the fur modeling on her head.
But all of me thinks the same thing, and that is that I need to apologize to both Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong above. Because if ever there was a subject that defined the words “nightmare fuel”…
…it would be CANDY KONG.
Oh, and hey, those black nipples on General Klump? Those aren’t this production’s only example of the animators’ bizarre obsession with making random items anatomically accurate.
Behold Funky Kong’s buttocks!
Here, I’ll make them dance for you.
Don’t hate me for that. Hate the creators of this show.
I really hope you don’t still have that Snoopy and the Red Baron song playing in the background like I do watching that GIF. It makes something incredibly disturbing somehow mesmerizing.
Befuddled by his failure to get “good” presents for his friends, Donkey runs off to consult the mystic Inka Dinka Doo for advice. And when I say he “runs off”, you know what that means.
More naked monkey butt.
And then that naked monkey butt runs smack dab into Klump’s untethered funny bags!
They share a tender moment and decide to work together to find better presents.
You know, better presents for monkeys than bananas.
From there we visit Kaptain Skurvy’s pirate ship. He reminds us of the truce that exists between apes and lizards during the Festival of Lights, and determines that there could be no better day to steal the crystal coconut.
So they head to Cranky Kong’s pad to steal it and…hey, wait.
What is Cranky staring at?
Yep – more lizard nips!
And lo and behold, they look just like the ones on Klump!
Kids, it’s a Christmas…well, Festival of Lights miracle! For you see, those matching chesticles can mean only one thing:
That Klump and Skurvy are FAMILY!
No, really. I’m not making this up. That’s the whole point of this show.
Let us all celebrate this life event with this ear splitting tune!
If that wasn’t enough to make you vomit all over the place, we get a make out session between Donkey and Candy. Is it too late get everyone air sickness bags for Christmas?
So fireworks go off and the island rejoices.
I rejoice as well, because that means this induction is over. Now I can go back to my real yuletide tradition, which is watching classic Christmas movies. Holiday Inn, White Christmas, The Bishop’s Wife, and of course my all time favorite…
Sweet mother of neptune, they made a Donkey Kong Country cartoon of the exact same name as what is perhaps my all time favorite movie period???
One that has the exact same plot, only with a video game monkey seeing what the world would be like had he never existed in lieu of George Bailey???
Sorry, but I ain’t going over this. You know why? Because it contains the following image.
An image that I did not Photoshop.
An image I did not render.
I present this to you in its complete, unedited form:
Yes, kids, in the world of Donkey Kong Country, Christmas means naked butt Funky Kong next to presenting himself for mating Cranky Kong and o-face Diddy Kong.
You want to try to defend Nintendo to me now?
Seriously, I hope all of you have a fantastic holiday season. May God bless you all not only now, but throughout 2018 and beyond.
And save the hate mail about Nintendo – I got RD Jr. a Switch for Christmas. 😉
Oh, and one more Christmas present coming for YOU guys…a new WrestleCrap Radio will be posted on Christmas Eve! Come back and join the fun!