Donkey Kong Country (TV series)

Donkey Kong Country is a computer-animated television series loosely based on the Nintendo franchise "Donkey Kong" as portrayed in the "Donkey Kong Country" video game series by Nintendo and Rare. The series was co-produced by Nelvana, Medialab Studio L.A. (Season 1) and Hong Guang Animation (Season 2), in association with WIC Entertainment, with the participation of Teletoon, and for Season 1, was produced in co-production with France 2, Canal+, in association with Valar 4.
The show debuted in France on September 4, 1996 on France 2, on a block titled "La Planète de Donkey Kong" ("The Planet of Donkey Kong"). The French version of the show later premiered In Canada on Télétoon on September 8, 1997, making the series one of the channel's launch programmes, while the English version debuted on its english counterpart on October 17, 1997, also as a launch programme. In the United States, it was one of the first series to be shown on Fox Family, 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 from 1998-1999 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, "Donkey Kong Country" took over the TV Tokyo 6:30 p.m. time-slot from "Gokudo" airing on October 1, 1999 and was later replaced with "Hamtaro" after ending on June 30, 2000.
"Donkey Kong Country" was one of the earliest television shows to be entirely animated with motion capture technology. Several elements of the series, such as the Crystal Coconut, appeared in later "Donkey Kong" video games like "Donkey Kong 64", which was released a year after the show began airing on Fox.
Plot.
Donkey Kong is an ape who happens to find a magic coconut called the Crystal Coconut, which grants wishes and is capable of answering questions asked of it. Donkey Kong is the protector of the Crystal Coconut, which is housed in Cranky Kong's Cabin. King K. Rool and his minions want to steal the Crystal Coconut from Donkey Kong and company in order to rule Kongo Bongo Island, the setting of the show. Try as they may, King K. Rool and his minions never succeed in stealing the Crystal Coconut. Each episode features two songs performed by the show's characters, and the series spanned a total of 40 episodes in two seasons.
Characters.
Main from the games.
These characters all came from "Donkey Kong Country" and "" (mostly the former). However, some of them went through some design changes.
Exclusives to the show.
These characters appeared only in the show and have not appeared in any games to date.
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 afterwards, 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 did not return as Diddy Kong as he had long since hit puberty and was replaced by an adult woman as a result.
BGM.
The background musics were picked up on the albums, for example:
Home video releases.
Over thirty "Donkey Kong Country" DVDs have been released with only five being in English for the longest time.
For North America, four episodes of "Donkey Kong Country" that feature Kaptain Skurvy were edited together into a VHS cassette 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 distribution handled by Seville Pictures and Nelvana themselves as the secondary distributor. The United States version of the tape was distributed by Paramount Home Video 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.
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. 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, a record label company. Each tape contains three episodes each and in consistent order of its Japanese broadcasting on TV Tokyo, with the exception of its series finale, "Message in a Bottle Show" was not included due to mostly being a clip episode. However, 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 UK in 2008.
Finally in 2013, Phase 4 Films, a small Canadian low-budget film company, officially purchased the rights to license and distribute the series for a DVD release in Region 1 alongside with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and began releasing episodes starting off with the "He Came, He Saw, He Kong-quered" DVD that was released on August 20, 2013. 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.
The episodes of the show are all available on iTunes and on the Amazon Prime Ameba channel. The first two seasons are available on IMDb TV and on Amazon Video with advertisements.
39/40 episodes are available on Retro Rerun's YouTube channel.
Legacy.
The show had a large line of merchandise in Japan, 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 cartoon, was covered by Scottish heavy metal band Alestorm in their "Curse of the Crystal Coconut" album. Additionally, the album cover contains several nods to the "Donkey Kong" video game franchise.
In the Nintendo Switch version of "", the "banana slamma" catchphrase was used in one of Tawks' lines when visiting Funky's Fly 'n Buy as Funky Kong, paying a homage to the animated series.