Piñatas; a dedicated essay on sentient paper animals

A SMALL NOTE;
Bejungled will go through a major revamp soon. The header and background, and possibly the colours, will change. On top of that, I'll be adding ads for some extra moolah. It'll be worth it! As I'm officially a game art student now, it means my posts will improve too. Now, on to the article...

Having been playing and watching all material available of Viva Piñata recently, I thought it would be interesting to elaborate on the sentient piñatas that inhabit Rare's extended universe. This article spans both the cartoon and the games.

1. Anatomy

Piñatas, by definition, are hollow forms of paper-maché, dusted with crepe paper, usually in an attractive shape. They are a popular party game, notoriously in the Americas.
The piñatas in Viva Piñata seem something unique altogether. All species are similar to earth species of animals in some kind of manner, fictional or otherwise, but follow the standard piñata model closely. They have nubby limbs, and only rarely do they possess digits. Yet, they can sort of curve their "hands" so they can hold stuff or make sassy gestures. (In one episode of the cartoon, Langston miraculously grew a single thumb to give a thumbs-up... I'm not sure what that was all about.) Their limbs are stretchy to make up for the short length.
As implied by some episodes of the cartoon, and by sick piñatas in the game after ingesting a certain weed, they possess inner workings of some sort. They sneeze, bleed, and defecate candy.
In one episode of the cartoon where the cast is shrunk to go inside Hudson Horstachio's body, it is shown first-hand how ingested fruit turns into candy as soon as it reaches the stomach. It can be argued that ingested food has effect on the candy's flavour.

For whatever reason, they're waterproof. All species can withstand the rain just fine in both media and there are some (semi-)aquatic piñatas. It's unclear what this is all about.

They can lose limbs, heads, and whatnot and not experience any negative effects, still having full control of all parts. However, some parts of their body still have a mind of their own and might cause all sorts of ruckus, as one does. (Hudson's body, for one, is stubborn and fond of baking. Fergy's gravitates towards thistles and away from Piñata Central.)
In the game, every piñata has a Life Candy within them. The description for any and all of it is beyond amusing. ("Sorry if you already knew this, but piñatas have candy in them.") If a piñata is smacked within the garden or preyed upon, they burst and leave candy, including their life candy, which is only eaten by predators of the species that had it. I initially figured the life candy substituted the brain and the heart, and went along with playing with their location in the actual piñata, sort of playing with a Steven Universe-inspired idea that it hints at their personality and contains their life essence. However, piñatas in the show are depicted with actual brains much like humans, but this might be exaggerated for comedic effect. Hearts are never depicted, so life candy might still be canon to the show. I personally think fatalities during parties can occur but is mostly prevented for the life candy is hidden very well within the papery body.

5 wonderful, little hidden details you probably didn't notice

There's a lot of stuff hidden in these games, but some of them aren't as regularly pointed out as others. Yeah, we all know Conker started out kid-friendly and that Stop 'n' Swop isn't as real as we hoped it would be. But there's some other stuff I noticed that make these games a little more than just games...

5. David "Bon Jovi" Wise

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze is a wonderful game, and the soundtrack only makes it even better. David Wise's work goes from atmospheric to melodic to hardrock. Yes.
One such music pieces, entitled Punch Bowl, plays at the final battle of the second-to-last world. The polar bear boss is a threatening guy, but that's only because DK made him drop his popsicle.
The music sounds like something from Bon Jovi, might I add. David Wise has a tendency to subtly reference existing songs, and it's pretty rad, but this is the first time it's another band I really like from the get-go. The polar bear's name is Bashmaster the Unbreakable, and it just so happens that Bon Jovi has a song entitled Unbreakable.

Coincidence? Probably. But the last time we had a polar bear in the extended Rareniverse, he was named Boggy.

"Kids crying? Nah, I'm gonna sled. Priorities, man."

4. Kazooie! Meinem Schwester ist Verschwunden!

Banjo-Kazooie is notorious in having bad translations. The humour is so incredibly British, that any attempts to translate it to anything else fall flat. Since I'm almost trilingual, I can afford to play the games in English, Dutch, and German. Which would be kinda rad, if not for the decrease in quality...
In the German translation of Banjo-Kazooie, the jokes are mostly absent. Instead of the all-famous "How's your nuts, bark breath?", Kazooie says the much less suggestive "Warm, oder?" as in, it's warm. Yeah.

The German comics, however, did everything right. Kazooie totally says there that the house reminds her of the house in Psycho. And she makes a really good point, 'cause it does.

And let's not even mention the Dutch version of Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts. Let's skip over the fact that the translator had little to no knowledge of Banjo lore and that Kazooie is a pleemeeuw ("toilet gull") rather than a breegull, but Jolly Roger/Jolly Dodger, our favourite flamboyant frog, is referred to as Piet Piraat. Which translates to Pete the Pirate, but we already have a completely unrelated character with that name, courtesy of Studio 100 from Belgium. ...Oops.

The Donkey Kong theory

Sure, another theory. Except this one is one of my favourites.

So anyway. We all know the amazing Donkey Kong Country games and the... less-than-amazing Donkey Kong Country animated series. I loved the TV show a while back, around three or four years ago. But now, I'm re-watching it in amusing annotated form and now that I look back at it, I find it being less than impressive. Not because of the differences from the game, but rather because the characters sometimes get on my nerves. But this is not about that. This is about the theory that I imaginatively call 'The Donkey Kong Theory'.

The theory itself is as follows; The Donkey Kong Country TV show is a prequel to the games.

Why would I have such a bone-headed idea? Cranky would probably call me a big baboon (he calls everyone a big baboon) and I wouldn't blame him. Some things would make sense, though. For example, take Cranky, only because he's playable in Tropical Freeze (which is great) and also because he'll call me a big baboon if I don't tell about him first (which is not great.)

 

Honestly, Cranky's show design is quite faithful to his original design. The only thing that differs is his beard, which is shorter in the cartoon. Of course this is because back then, emulating hair with CGI was considered the most impossible thing that ever was impossible, but from a theory viewpoint, it would make sense -- it didn't have the time to grow to the length it is currently! As for his tendency to break the fourth wall in the games, we'll get to that later.

Assorted over-analyzations of the piñata kind (AKA headcanons)

Whoa, it's been ages since I've been here. This blog is my personal ranting space, as long as it's relevant to Donkey Kong or the surrounding games somehow. Where have I been? To the distant and the dangerous, thinking that I am a pathetic fool. Also, watching a lot of Viva Piñata, whining about the fact that I'm broke and there's so many cool things I want to buy, and chatting with my friends.
Oh, and wallowing in self-pity for some reason. Also drawing things and working on stuff I'm actually supposed to be working on, like homework. And my original story, which I'm certain I'm gonna publish someday. I hope, at least. As well as--... nah, that's a story for another time!

Well then, I have obviously neglected this blog for too long and will now attempt to make up for it by sharing some more of my far-fetched headcanons and theories that border on the weird and the whimsical and happen to concern Viva Piñata some way or another. When this is published, though, I have found out that my frantic obsessing over piñatas has quieted down a little. So this is probably the last post in a loooong while. Bear with me.

1. The Big Boss and LOG are one and the same.

Also pictured; Langston Lickatoad, who is awesome. He also basically makes both the Viva Piñata show and the games canon.

This might need some clarification, since both characters are rather recent.

3 characters crueler than K. Rool

We all know the Donkey Kong Country cartoon. If you have been following this blog for a while, I'm sure you do. And most people don't like it as much, but I am convinced it is as good as the games, just in a totally different way. To accentuate my point, I feel the need to point out I went out of my way to download the entire series to my PC for the sole reason of making shallow parodies of it.

Well then, all silliness aside, let's start this thing off.

In DK lore, there have been three true villains - namely King K. Rool (under different aliases), Ghastly King, and Tiki Tong.

K. Rool was just some asshole who decided to troll DK by stealing the banana hoard, Ghastly King was an evil monkey from SPACE that wanted to rule over the Fruit Kingdoms for no real reason and Tiki Tong stole the banana hoard to keep his race alive and possibly take over the world. Fair share of hindrances, right? It is nothing compared to the vast amount of baddies Mario fought in the past, but this is mostly to blame on the fact that Nintendo obviously favours Mario over Donkey Kong. Which is saddening, because they debuted in the same game.

Anyway, K. Rool and co. were typical antagonists, setting up the games' plot. But what about those other characters who had done unspeakable things people presumably forgot all about because they weren't the main villains?

(note that this article is meant to not be taken entirely seriously and is here for humorous purposes only.)

3. Bluster Kong

Bluster Kong is one of the show-only characters, and nearly everybody who doesn't appreciate the show blames their dislike of it on Bluster. I honestly don't blame them - while this specific Kong provides a lot of humorous scenes and dialogue and I don't mind him, he takes up a lot of space, having three episodes with him in the limelight.

"Don't blame me! That miserable Donkey Kong was already hogging the spotlight in the games!"

He's a pathetic mommy's boy, constantly whining about his mother and whenever he has to do manual labor, all hell breaks loose. Figuratively, of course. Bluster can't really... do anything. He's not strong, he can't jump high, and he certainly isn't a hell of a guy. He also has a grudge towards Donkey Kong, for the sole reason that DK is constantly hitting on Candy, the only adult female ape in the cartoon who isn't Bluster's mom or Great Aunt Grouchy. Bluster is not happy with this because he too has an eye on Candy, to the point where he gets a bit desperate in some episodes, like in A Thin Line Between Love and Ape, where he makes a love potion to make her love him.

Evil?

The episode Bad Hair Day, AKA the only episode most people know of, had him being introduced as another all-around jerk. Fair enough. But eventually, Donkey Kong loses his hair (and his muscles) and Cranky makes a potion to make it grow back. Candy and Bluster set out to find DK. Eventually, in the jungle, Bluster complains that "I can't walk anymore! My feet are sore, I've got sand in my shoes, and I'm thirsty!" leading to him snatching the potion from Candy. He empties the bottle on the ground.

Whose show is it anyway

And now, it's time for something completely different.

Sorry for not posting much here. School has been eating me alive. That, and I've found out about the Regular Show and for some reason this cartoon has captivated me. (I might or might not have a crush on Mordecai now and I have no clue why.) But do not worry, this doesn't mean BeJungle'd will turn into, uh... something centered around that. Although the show is awesome, trying to think of logic behind it is a lost cause. And I'll always love Donkey Kong Country.

I have been writing on this article for a few months now, so some thoughts might be outdated.

The Donkey Kong animated series (there I go again) isn't too well-received on the internet, for shame. Though I hear much people saying it isn't good, I personally find it quite clever, and much more fun to watch than most recent cartoons (sans the Regular Show, of course, which is clever. Other clever cartoons are Adventure Time and uh... more stuff.) Ahem. Moving on...

What would a Donkey Kong cartoon be like if I was in charge?

In no way an insult to Nelvana's work, by the way. They've done amazing work. I just wondered how it would be if I was allowed to write it.

Warning; we are now moving into highly unstable Loads and Loads of Characters territory. Approach with caution.

1. The Kong Clan

Primary main characters would be Donkey Kong, Diddy, and Dixie. These three are just what makes DKC to me.

Keep Diddy's personality from the show with a bit of added 'tough kid' attitude, make DK a bit tougher and make Dixie more cheeky, like a female equivalent of Diddy. I'm not certain about the voices, but I am certain that Andrew Sabiston should return as Diddy Kong 'cause I find his Diddy to be the best Diddy portrayal so far.

Watch out, Dix! I'mma pop ur bubblegum!

The secondary cast would consist of Kiddy (taking the role of Baby Kong), Tiny (in either her original design or the newer, I don't know. Maybe the original because I'm tired of seeing her recent design being portrayed as fetish fuel all the time.), Funky, and Cranky. Tertiary characters would be Candy, Swanky, Chunky, and Lanky.
Less about DK gushing over Candy and more interaction with his family. Add fluff. Lots of fluff.
Quartiary characters? Hell, Bluster can return too.

Not much to it. Let's move onto my personal favourites...

2. The Kremling Krew

Properly labelled as such this time, the Kremling Krew still consists of Klump and Krusha with K. Rool as the leader. Though this time they're accompanied by Kalypso, the fair lady lizard with the awesome pink hairdo and Kludge, that big, hulking blue dude that apparently has the mindset of a small child (even moreso than Krusha). Sometimes Kritters, Kip and Kass, Kopter, and some others tag along as well. Kruncha is Krusha's slightly flamboyant cousin, and Krusha may or may not undergo a name change thanks to copyrights. For the sake of simplicity I will just refer to him as Krusha.

K'Rool's gang of evul dudes (and two dudettes) continue to wreak havoc on DK Isle for no reason. Well, except to steal the Crystal Coconut. Again? Yup. And the banana hoard. But here's the catch; they want the coconut 'cause it's the only thing that can tell the true location of the bananas, which are much-renowned golden bananas! Heh. I'm a friggin' genius. /brag

Kremlings - the definitive classification

One of my headcanons dictate that Kremlings are actually mammals that happen to look like reptiles.

Well... mostly.

Obviously, they're meant to be reptiles. But I'm a nerd and I think these things through too much. I mean, c'mon. I have a lot of theories to make sense of it. SO here goes nothing.

There will be talk of mammaries in this article.

1. They're actually warm-blooded.

A lot of kritters and maybe a single krusha hop/strut around in the icy peaks of Gorilla Glacier, in the first game. The second game had krunchas walking about merrily in K. Rool's own personal ice storage. And let's not forget the skiddas around the K3! A reptile wouldn't last in those icy areas for more than an hour.

Not to mention they run around for little reason nearly all the time. Real crocodiles lay about in the sun all day, only moving to eat or mate, being dependent on warmth to survive. Kremlings usually also spend time playing video games and running after crystal coconuts, among other frivolous pastimes.

That, and King K. Rool clearly blushes in shame, in the episode Just Kidding.

Resources

We all know Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong wear clothes. Same for the Kremlings. And Banjo-Kazooie and Conker are even more blatantly clothing-wearing than DK and pals, so there you go. They also use a lot of items made of wood, steel, even rock, possibly taking after the citizens from the Mushroom Kingdom that attempted colonizing their isles all those years ago.

Now you might wonder; why the hell is this a blog post? Well, here you go; where do they get their resources?

I mentioned power sources not too long ago, but I mean, stuff like DK's television and K. Rool's PC didn't just fall out of thin air, now did they?

But the resources they have... where do they go?

I am presuming the Isle o' Hags, as large as it is, has some specialists whom buy the resources in bulk and in turn make objects of it.

Resource 1; Wood

Wood is abundant and necessarily for life nearly everywhere. Chop down a tree and you can make stuff with it. DK Isle abounds in wood, obviously, but it's mostly tropical. No, the real deal is the Northern Kremisphere.

A mainly forested region, abundant in large, stately, ominous redwood trees. (sequoias?) Most notable in the Kremwood Forest. The little isle in its centre provides a place for the Mekanos factories. They, presumably Kremlings, chop down the trees for use as fuel, building material, and suchlike, if the level Ripsaw Rage is of any significance.
So, they ship the wood to the Isle o' Hags where it gets changed into useful appliances. The Kremlings have a cutting-edge scale of technology for some reason with large airships... which brings us to our next subject;

And so my quest ends

A while ago I posted an announcement about how I wanted to find the missing DKC episodes, right? Well, great news - I have now finally seen them. A kindly DeviantART user pointed me to them. On YouTube, no less! The quality left something to be desired but now I can at least happily say I have seen alllll episodes. Oh, and a while ago a nice fellow on the DKC-Atlas forums sent me the episode To the Moon Baboon.

As awesome as the episodes were, there's one thing now...

I've been jossed. With all those fan theories, it was bound to happen, really.

Subject 1; Speed

The holy grail for me, being a Krusha fan, was this episode, where he got a starring role! It begins with Krusha and K. Rool conversing about how to acquire that crystal coconut. Suddenly, Klump comes in riding a mine cart and being the goof that he is, drives all over poor Krusha.
No harm done, though. Instead Krusha gets insanely smart and more smooth-talking than the King himself and devises a plan to get rid of the Kongs, take over the island, and get the Coconut while he's at it. Implements a bomb on a mine cart accompanied by Candy Clone, messes around with everyone else with his recent possession of a brain and considers K. Rool, the former evil mastermind, to be disposable. Until the end where he gets driven over AGAIN and regains his stupid but lovable attitude.

Why does this joss my views?

For one, I had always seen Krusha as one who couldn't sing at all, as the only one in a group of singers. But in this episode, he gets a song all to his own where he claims being evil is AWESOME and his voice isn't too shabby either. So erm... yeah? It can be argued that in his normal state he's still as bad at singing as Justin Bieber.

Not to mention Klump frequently calls him lunkhead even after driving him over. I mean, DUDE! Where's the LOVE you just drove over your ADOPTIVE S- Oh yes, fan theories... excuse me... the sweetest thing in all episode he did was say "Welcome back, soldier." after Krusha became as dumb as he was before. Aww.

Subject 2; Baby Kong Blues

This one is about how Candy and Dixie are babysitting Baby Kong. DK and Diddy walk past and joke about how easy it is to babysit. Candy and Dixie then decide to leave the two men to care after Baby Kong. Naturally, disaster follows with the baby going everywhere and he eventually ends up at K. Rool's place. DK devises a plan to trade the crystal coconut for Baby Kong but K. Rool insists on keeping the kid to raise him as his heir. Meanwhile, he and his cronies mess around, tell tales to get the baby to sleep, and DK thinks of another plan. DK's plan is to switch Baby Kong with another baby... Diddy in baby clothes. Donkey Kong pulls the ol' switcharoo (the writers like this cliche it seems) and puts Diddy in Baby Kong's place. DK and Diddy now leave with the infant, leaving everyone in the cave sad.

Why does this joss my views?

Baby Krusha, anyone? Bet you heard that story before... K. Rool doesn't act like he'd ever seen a baby before. MY THEORIES, MY LOVE! Ahem. And let's not mention Klump. While he suddenly mentions being able to put a nappy on er... Baby Kong that's actually Diddy, can't blame Diddy for yelling and wanting to GET OUTTA HERE (let's not mention that in-show with everyone adult disregarding Baby Kong) he too acts completely oblivious to the fact there's a baby in the hideout. "KOOCHIE-KOOCHIE-KOO." indeed, General.

And in one of his tales he mentions a hot day in July that was so hot he could saute seaweed on his tail... AND how he met K. Rool that day. I pictured it more a dreary November and that the King took him in mostly out of pity, but eh... never mind that

Subject 3; Watch the Skies

Unrelated image is unrelated. Sorry.

Rumours about alien zombies on the isle arise and the Kong family (just DK and Diddy though) gets sent into a tizzy. Later on, DK discovers that the Kongs' weird acting has just to do with them planning a surprise party for Diddy's birthday. Meanwhile, the UFO they presumably saw was just another one of K. Rool's plans... eventually he persuades Diddy into getting him the crystal coconut. But he fails and DK takes it back... and Krusha barfs all over Klump's clean uniform.

Why does this joss my views?

It doesn't, really. Huh.

The end?

It's quite a shame - now I've got nothing to search for anymore. But oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I have ordered two Dutch videos of this show and will decide if the Dutch voices are as awesome as the English ones. But after that, there's nothing left for me to search for apart for collectible figurines and plushes that are insanely expensive...

Thank you kindly for this awesome show, Nelvana!

When Vangelis met DK (part 1)

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest's musical piece In a Snow-Bound Land has been one of my most favourite tracks in the game for a long time. But I searched it up on YouTube, and what did some people say?
"Rip-off of Vangelis's Antarctica!"

I, being naturally curious, went to search for this Vangelis dude and his music. Finding the piece they were referring to, I discovered something.
It almost sounded exactly like the DKC track. Listening to more musical pieces by this man, I became a fan of the atmospheric tunes he had created. Some of it just sounds so unmistakably Donkey Kong-esque! And mr. Vangelis, and David Wise, too if you happen to be reading this... that's a good thing.

But really, it just can't be a coincidence!

Power source? What power source?

As most of you may know, and if you don't, shame on you, the Donkey Kong games mostly take place in deep, dense jungles. Jungles on an island, just near a few other islands. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong regularly watch television and/or play video games and/or listen to the radio, while King K. Rool and his henchmen may occasionally sit down in front of a computer to annoy people on Facebook.

Well, except not really. (this image is purely fictional, I made it myself.)

Not really internet, though. K. Rool does own a snazzy PC thingy that he uses to play games with, among some more stuff. However, what has been bothering me - where did they get the power from, to use electrical appliances?

I have been paying a little bit more attention to Physics at my school, and we're at the chapter electricity and power now. Power is what one needs to have working electrical appliances. Power usually comes from power stations. Power stations most often are ginormous, take up a lot of space, and produce electricity for others to use, to, say, watch TV. However, there are no power stations in sight anywhere on DK Isle, nor Crocodile Isle. Well, used to be for the latter, at least, as it sunk... But alas. No power stations at all! There might be some at Showdown Town, but that's quite a swim from DK Isle.

So how in the world is DK able to watch television?