Donkey Kong is a video game series and media franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto, a Japanese game designer working for Nintendo. The series follows the adventures of Donkey Kong, a large and strong gorilla, and other members of the Kong family of apes. Donkey Kong games include the original arcade trilogy made by Nintendo R&D1; the Donkey Kong Country series developed by Rare and Retro Studios; and the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series created by Nintendo Software Technology. Other studios have made spin-off games in genres like edutainment, puzzle, racing, and rhythm. The franchise also includes animation, books, theme parks, and merchandise.
Shigeru Miyamoto designed the original 1981 Donkey Kong game to use leftover arcade machines after the failure of Radar Scope (1980). The game was very successful and led to two sequels: Donkey Kong Jr. (1982) and Donkey Kong 3 (1983). Nintendo later paused the franchise to focus on the Mario series. In 1994, Rare released a new version of Donkey Kong called Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), which brought the franchise back to popularity. Rare made Donkey Kong games for the SNES, Game Boy, and Nintendo 64 until it was bought by Microsoft in 2002. After that, Nintendo, Retro Studios, Namco, and Paon developed new games. The franchise paused again after Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (2014) and returned with Donkey Kong Bananza (2025).
Most Donkey Kong games are platform games where players must reach the end of each level. Donkey Kong can be either the hero or the villain, depending on the game. The original games included characters like Donkey Kong, Mario, and Pauline. Rare’s games added more characters, such as friendly Kongs and the Kremlings, a group of crocodiles led by King K. Rool, who is Donkey Kong’s enemy. Mario, who was the main character in the 1981 game, became Nintendo’s mascot and appears in many Mario games, such as Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Mario Tennis. Donkey Kong characters also appear in crossover games like Mario & Sonic and Super Smash Bros.
Outside of video games, the franchise includes an animated series called Donkey Kong Country (1996–2000), a themed area in Super Nintendo World at Universal theme parks, music albums, and Lego toys. Donkey Kong is one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises, with more than 65 million copies sold by 2021. The original game helped Nintendo of America recover from financial trouble and became a major player in the video game industry. The franchise introduced or popularized ideas like storytelling in games and pre-rendered graphics, inspired other games, and influenced popular culture.
History
In the late 1970s, the Japanese company Nintendo changed its focus from making toys and playing cards to creating arcade games. This happened after the 1973 oil crisis, which made it more expensive to make toys, and because of the success of Taito’s arcade game Space Invaders (1978). In 1980, Nintendo released Radar Scope, a game similar to Space Invaders. It did not sell well and caused financial problems for Nintendo of America, a new branch of the company. The founder of Nintendo of America, Minoru Arakawa, asked his father-in-law, Nintendo’s CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi, to create a new game that could use the leftover Radar Scope machines. Most of Nintendo’s top game designers were busy, so the task went to Shigeru Miyamoto, who had never designed a game before.
Miyamoto worked under Gunpei Yokoi and decided to use characters from the Popeye comic series: Bluto, Popeye, and Olive Oyl. However, Nintendo could not get permission to use these characters. Bluto became a gorilla, named Donkey Kong to describe a stubborn and strong animal. Popeye became Mario, the main character, and Olive Oyl became Pauline, the person Mario tries to rescue. Miyamoto said his ideas were inspired by the story Beauty and the Beast and the 1933 movie King Kong.
Donkey Kong was one of the first platform games, where players control Mario as he jumps over obstacles and climbs a construction site to save Pauline. Unlike earlier games that focused on climbing, Donkey Kong emphasized jumping to avoid dangers. Miyamoto wanted the game to feel like a comic strip with different levels and scenes. This was unusual for arcade games, which usually had the same scene repeated. Because Miyamoto did not know how to program games, he asked technicians if his ideas could work. Four programmers from Ikegami Tsushinki spent three months turning his design into a finished game.
Even though Miyamoto’s team thought the game would fail, Donkey Kong became Nintendo’s first big success internationally when it was released in July 1981. It earned $280 million, saving Nintendo of America from financial trouble and making the company well-known in the United States. In 1982, Nintendo released a portable version of Donkey Kong and allowed Coleco to make it for home consoles. The game earned $4.4 billion across all platforms, becoming one of the most successful games ever. In 1982, Universal City Studios sued Nintendo, claiming Donkey Kong violated its trademark for King Kong. The lawsuit failed because Nintendo’s lawyer found that Universal had already declared King Kong to be in the public domain in a 1976 court case.
Miyamoto and his team used ideas from Donkey Kong that were not included in the game to create a sequel. Miyamoto wanted Donkey Kong to be the main character, but the image was too large to control easily, so he created a new character, Donkey Kong Jr.. To keep Donkey Kong on screen, the team made a story where Mario had captured him, and Donkey Kong Jr. had to rescue him. For Donkey Kong Jr. (1982), Nintendo studied the code from Ikegami’s Donkey Kong to make the game without outside help. After Donkey Kong Jr. was released, Ikegami sued Nintendo for copyright issues. In 1990, a Tokyo court ruled in favor of Ikegami, and the companies reached a settlement.
Donkey Kong 3 (1983) had shooter gameplay, unlike earlier games. Instead of Mario, players control Stanley, an exterminator from the Game & Watch game Green House (1982), who must fight Donkey Kong and bees. In 1983, Nintendo released the Famicom, later known as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), in Japan. Two of the three launch games were versions of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. The early collection also included Donkey Kong Jr. Math (1983), an educational game based on Donkey Kong Jr., while Hudson Soft made a Japan-only version of Donkey Kong 3: The Great Counterattack (1984) for NEC and Sharp computers. Donkey Kong 3 and Donkey Kong Jr. Math were not successful. A line of other educational games was canceled after Donkey Kong Jr. Math failed. Bruce Lowry, Nintendo of America’s vice president of sales, later called it “the worst game we ever sold.”
Sega got permission to make a game where players could control Donkey Kong as a parking attendant, but the project was canceled after a company buyout in 1984. Donkey Kong was not made for many years, while the Mario series became popular on the NES, making Mario Nintendo’s mascot. Donkey Kong only appeared in small roles in other games. Nintendo staff began planning a Donkey Kong revival as the original game’s tenth anniversary approached in 1991. They could not start a new game, so they included Donkey Kong Jr. as a playable character in Super Mario Kart (1992). This led to the creation of Donkey Kong (1994), the first new Donkey Kong game in ten years. It features Mario as the player and starts as a remake of the 1981 game before adding over 100 puzzle-platforming levels that mix elements from Donkey Kong Jr. and Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988).
The 1987 Official Nintendo Player’s Guide advertised a Donkey Kong revival for the NES called Return of Donkey Kong, but it was never made. In the early 1990s, Philips got permission to use five Nintendo characters, including Donkey Kong, in games for the CD-i format. Philips hired Riedel Software to make a CD-i Donkey Kong game, which was developed between 1992 and 1993 but canceled. A 2020 Nintendo data leak showed a prototype for Yoshi’s Island (1995) featuring a character who looks like Stanley. The game’s title, Super Donkey, suggests that Yoshi’s Island was originally planned as a Donkey Kong game before being changed to star Yoshi.
Around 1992, Rare, a British game company started by Tim and
Story and characters
The original Donkey Kong game includes three characters: Donkey Kong, a large, hostile gorilla; Mario, the hero who wears overalls; and Pauline, Mario's girlfriend. In the game, Mario climbs a construction site to rescue Pauline from Donkey Kong, who is described as his escaped pet ape. In the sequel, Donkey Kong Jr., Mario captures Donkey Kong in a cage. The game introduces Donkey Kong Jr., a younger character who wears a diaper. Mario, Pauline, Donkey Kong, and Jr. return in the 1994 Game Boy version of Donkey Kong, where Mario again rescues Pauline from the Kongs. This Game Boy version was the first to show Donkey Kong wearing a red necktie with his initials, "DK."
Starting with Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong's role changed from a villain to a hero. Rare's Kevin Bayliss redesigned Donkey Kong, giving him the red tie from the Game Boy version, as well as "menacing, sunken eyes" and a "beak-like muzzle." Bayliss made him blocky and muscular to make animation easier. The Donkey Kong in Rare's games is a different character from the one in the arcade games, who appears as an older version called Cranky Kong. Cranky Kong uses humor that breaks the fourth wall, comparing modern games to older ones like the original Donkey Kong. Nintendo has not clearly stated whether Cranky is Donkey Kong's father, making the modern Donkey Kong a grown-up version of Donkey Kong Jr., or his grandfather.
Rare's games moved the main setting from a city to Donkey Kong Island, a peaceful island. Since Donkey Kong's universe was not well developed, Rare added new characters. Donkey Kong Country introduced Diddy Kong, Donkey Kong's sidekick and nephew. Diddy's design was based on a spider monkey, and he was created as a redesigned version of Donkey Kong Jr. but became a separate character at Nintendo's request. As a result, Donkey Kong Jr. has appeared in few games since Country. Other characters introduced by Rare include Funky Kong, a surfer; Candy Kong, Donkey Kong's girlfriend; Dixie Kong, Diddy's girlfriend; Kiddy Kong, a large toddler; Chunky Kong, Kiddy's brother; Tiny Kong, Dixie's sister; and Lanky Kong, a clumsy orangutan.
Donkey Kong Country introduced King K. Rool, a crocodile who is the main villain of the series. K. Rool leads the Kremlings, a group of crocodiles who try to steal Donkey Kong's bananas. The name "Kremlings" is inspired by the Moscow Kremlin, and their music includes Soviet influences. Polygon described K. Rool as a typical game villain who "often wears disguises and invents strange gadgets for his evil plans," such as pretending to be a pirate captain in Donkey Kong Country 2. Later games by Retro Studios introduced different villains, such as the Tiki Tak Tribe, a group of floating masks that hypnotize animals, and the Snowmads, Viking invaders who summon a dragon. Bananza features VoidCo., a mining company with villainous apes named Void Kong, Grumpy Kong, and Poppy Kong, before K. Rool and the Kremlings take over in a plot twist.
Although the Mario and Donkey Kong franchises are mostly separate, they exist in the same fictional world. Donkey Kong and other characters often appear as playable characters in Mario games like Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Mario Tennis. Pauline appears in the 2017 game Super Mario Odyssey as the mayor of the city from the original Donkey Kong. Bananza shows a 13-year-old Pauline as Donkey Kong's sidekick, suggesting she is the granddaughter of the original Pauline.
Gameplay
Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. are early examples of a type of video game called a platform game. In these games, the player helps the main character (Mario in the first game, Donkey Kong Jr. in the second) move through four levels. The player must jump to avoid obstacles like barrels, cross gaps, and climb ladders or vines to reach the top. In the first game, Mario can break obstacles by picking up a hammer power-up. In the second game, Donkey Kong Jr. can destroy obstacles by knocking fruit from vines. Players earn points for avoiding or destroying obstacles, collecting items, and finishing levels quickly. Each game starts with three lives, which are lost if the player touches an obstacle or falls.
Donkey Kong 3 changes the gameplay. It is a shooter game where the player controls Stanley, an exterminator who must stop Donkey Kong from causing trouble in a greenhouse. The player uses bug spray to attack Donkey Kong and enemy insects that steal flowers. Levels are completed by spraying Donkey Kong until he moves to the top of the screen or by killing all the insects.
The 1994 Game Boy version begins with the same four levels as the original Donkey Kong. After completing the fourth level, players face over 100 new levels that mix puzzle-solving with platforming. In these levels, Mario must find a key within a time limit. Mario can pick up and throw objects and enemies, similar to Super Mario Bros. 2, and perform acrobatics to reach hard-to-reach areas. This gameplay inspired Mario vs. Donkey Kong, where Mario guides six Mini-Mario toys to a toy box while avoiding dangers. Later games in this series use touchscreen controls to move the toys. This style of gameplay is often compared to the 1991 game Lemmings.
The Donkey Kong Country series uses side-scrolling levels, similar to the Super Mario games. Players move through a world map to access themed levels. They jump between platforms, avoid enemies, and complete each world by defeating a boss. These games are known for being challenging and requiring quick reactions to avoid obstacles.
Players control different Kongs, such as Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, or Dixie Kong, depending on the game. Some games have two Kongs: one controlled by the player and the other acting as extra lives. In Retro Studios games, the second Kong rides on Donkey Kong’s back and provides special abilities, like a jetpack that lets Diddy Kong hover.
Barrels from the original games return and can be used as weapons or broken to find power-ups. Some barrels release other Kongs when thrown. Levels include collectibles like bananas, letters, balloons, and puzzle pieces, which can be found in main levels or bonus stages. Players can also ride barrels as cannons, use minecarts, or swing on vines.
In some levels, players can rescue animals that give the Kongs special abilities, like a rhino that charges at enemies or a parrot that helps find items. The Rare games include areas where players can talk to characters like Cranky Kong for advice or collectibles. Retro Studios games have shops where players can buy items like power-ups or extra lives.
The Donkey Kong Land trilogy uses gameplay similar to the SNES version of Donkey Kong Country but adapts to the Game Boy’s hardware. Jungle Beat adds a score-attack mode, where players earn points by completing levels with high scores.
Donkey Kong 64 combines platforming with adventure gameplay, similar to Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie. Players explore worlds, solve puzzles, and use the unique abilities of five Kongs. Donkey Kong Bananza focuses on exploring open worlds and collecting items, with destructible environments that let players break surfaces or tear parts of the world.
Games like DK: King of Swing and DK: Jungle Climber use mechanics from Donkey Kong Country but require players to climb pegboards using shoulder buttons. Diddy Kong Racing and Donkey Kong Barrel Blast are kart racing games similar to Mario Kart, with Diddy Kong Racing including an adventure mode and Barrel Blast using the Wii Remote to accelerate. The Donkey Konga trilogy is a rhythm game where players hit notes in time with music, building combos by hitting multiple notes in a row.
Music
The music for Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. was created by Yukio Kaneoka, one of Nintendo's first audio engineers. Kaneoka aimed to create a "pretty melody" that would take players on an adventure, similar to music in Disney films. However, game designers preferred comical music to match the games' style. Hirokazu Tanaka, a sound engineer who later became famous for his work on Metroid and Pokémon, also contributed. Shigeru Miyamoto composed the opening and closing music for Donkey Kong.
The Donkey Kong Country series includes music that blends natural sounds with melodies and rhythms. It was mainly composed by David Wise, who worked at Rare from 1985 to 2009. Wise was inspired by music from Super Mario and Legend of Zelda by Koji Kondo, the Plok! soundtrack by Tim and Geoff Follin, and 1980s rock and dance music. He tried to copy the sound of the Korg Wavestation synthesizer. After Wise left to work on Project Dream, Eveline Fischer composed part of the first Donkey Kong Country and later handled most of the music for Dixie Kong's Double Trouble. Fischer wanted to give levels a clear purpose and was influenced by film composers like Alan Silvestri and Klaus Doldinger. Wise later rewrote the soundtrack for the 2005 GBA version of Dixie Kong's Double Trouble after problems arose with converting Fischer's music.
Graeme Norgate and Grant Kirkhope adapted Wise's Donkey Kong Country music for the first two Donkey Kong Land games. Fischer adapted the Dixie Kong's Double Trouble soundtrack for Donkey Kong Land III. Fischer was originally chosen to compose Donkey Kong 64, but she shifted to sound effects and was replaced by Kirkhope. Kirkhope worked on Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark (2000). Nintendo Life said Kirkhope's Donkey Kong 64 music was more similar to his Banjo-Kazooie work than to Wise's Country style. The game's introduction includes the "DK Rap," a comedy rap song that introduces the Kong characters. It was written by the game's director, George Andreas, composed and recorded by Kirkhope, and performed by Andreas and Chris Sutherland, with other Rare staff joining in the chorus.
David Wise was not available during the development of Donkey Kong Country Returns, so Kenji Yamamoto took over. At the request of Miyamoto and Iwata, the Returns soundtrack mostly includes rearrangements of music from the original Donkey Kong Country, plus new material by Yamamoto. Yamamoto focused on elements that made Donkey Kong Country music famous, such as piano arrangements and basslines. Wise left Rare during Returns development and later worked with Yamamoto on the Tropical Freeze soundtrack. Advances in technology allowed Wise to create a "1940s big band jazz" sound, which he could not achieve on the SNES. Outside the Country series, Wise composed the Diddy Kong Racing soundtrack. Other composers who worked on Donkey Kong games include Mahito Yokota, who composed for Jungle Beat, and Lawrence Schwedler, who composed for Mario vs. Donkey Kong.
Other media
Donkey Kong appears in every game in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series, which are fighting games that include characters from different video game franchises. He first appeared in the original Super Smash Bros. (1999) as the only heavyweight fighter, meaning he moves slowly but has strong attacks. Diddy Kong joined the series as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008), and King K. Rool was added in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018). The games also include stages and music inspired by Donkey Kong.
Donkey Kong is a playable character in Mario & Sonic, a game based on the Olympic Games that combines characters from the Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog franchises. He appears as the final boss in the Wii version of Punch-Out!! (2009) and as the main character in an expansion pack of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (2017), a game that mixes Mario with characters from the Raving Rabbids franchise. Donkey Kong is also playable in Skylanders: SuperChargers (2015), a toys-to-life game released on Nintendo platforms.
A Donkey Kong cartoon produced by Ruby-Spears aired in 1983 as part of CBS's Saturday Supercade programming block. The show follows Mario and Pauline as they try to catch Donkey Kong after he escapes from a circus. The series was described as "very poor quality with silly jokes and strange situations." Soupy Sales voiced Donkey Kong, while Peter Cullen and Frank Welker (who later voiced Optimus Prime and Megatron in Transformers) voiced Mario and Donkey Kong Jr. Donkey Kong also appears in Captain N: The Game Master, a DIC Entertainment series that aired on NBC from 1989 to 1991.
Donkey Kong Country, a television series made by Medialab Technology, ran for 40 episodes between 1997 and 2000. It connects the stories of Dixie Kong's Double Trouble and Donkey Kong 64. The show used computer animation created with motion capture technology, which records movements to make animations. The series follows Donkey Kong as he tries to protect a magical artifact, the Crystal Coconut, from King K. Rool. The animation was limited by early motion capture technology, which made it hard for characters to pick up objects or introduce new locations and characters. Nintendo had little involvement in the show, and it was the last Western series Nintendo licensed before focusing on anime. The series was popular in France and Japan but not as much in the United States. Some critics later said the show lacked the adventure of the Donkey Kong games and called its animation "visually disturbing."
The first issue of Blip, a short-lived comic book by Marvel Comics published in 1983, includes a story about Mario being interviewed during the original Donkey Kong game. The story describes Donkey Kong as a failed experiment to breed construction-worker gorillas. This was Mario's first appearance in a comic book, before Valiant Comics' Nintendo Comics System series in the 1990s. Fleetway Publications, a British publisher, released a promotional Donkey Kong Country comic in the UK in 1995. Michael Teitelbaum also wrote children's book versions of Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong Land, and Donkey Kong Country 2.
Donkey Kong appears in The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), an animated film made by Nintendo, Illumination, and Universal Pictures. Mario (Chris Pratt) and Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) ask the Kongs for help to stop Bowser (Jack Black) from invading the Mushroom Kingdom. Seth Rogen and Fred Armisen voice Donkey Kong and Cranky Kong, while other Kongs appear briefly, and the "DK Rap" plays during Donkey Kong's introduction. Donkey Kong was redesigned for the first time since Donkey Kong Country, combining elements from his original arcade design and Rare's version. The movie received mixed reviews, and Rogen faced criticism for using his regular speaking voice to portray Donkey Kong. The film earned over $1.3 billion, making it the highest-grossing video game movie.
In November 2021, before the movie's release, reports said Illumination was making a Donkey Kong film with Rogen returning as Donkey Kong. In June 2025, Nintendo and Universal filed a copyright notice for a new Donkey Kong movie.
In September 2021, Nintendo and Universal Destinations & Experiences announced a Donkey Kong-themed expansion to Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan and Universal Epic Universe. The area, called Donkey Kong Country, opened at Universal Studios Japan in 2024 and increased the size of Super Nintendo World by 70%. It was designed with input from Miyamoto and includes a roller coaster, Mine-Cart Madness, based on the Tiki Tong boss fight from Donkey Kong Country Returns. The area also has a K–O–N–G letter collection game, themed food, and merchandise. A similar version opened at Universal Epic Universe in 2025.
Donkey Kong merchandise includes clothing, toys like plushes and Amiibo figures, trading cards, breakfast cereal, and soundtrack albums. In 2023, The Lego Group started making Donkey Kong Lego sets as part of its Lego Super Mario line. The first four sets, based on Donkey Kong Country games, were released in August 2023.
Legacy
Donkey Kong is one of Nintendo's most successful video game series. By March 2021, over 65 million copies of Donkey Kong games had been sold worldwide. In Japan alone, five Donkey Kong games—Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong Land, Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, Donkey Kong 64, and Donkey Kong Country Returns—each sold more than one million copies. These games have also been recognized as top-selling titles in Nintendo's Player's Choice and Nintendo Selects lines. When not counting re-releases or arcade versions, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) version of Donkey Kong Country is the best-selling game in the franchise, with 9.3 million copies sold worldwide. In contrast, DK: King of Swing sold the fewest copies, with 280,000 worldwide.
Donkey Kong has had a major impact on gaming history. It helped Nintendo become a leading company in the video game industry. The original Donkey Kong game, released in 1981, is considered one of the most important video games ever made. It introduced Nintendo, the game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, and the character Mario to the world. The success of Donkey Kong led to the creation of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which helped revive the video game industry in the West and shifted the focus of home consoles from the United States to Japan. The NES used technology based on the original Donkey Kong arcade game. Nintendo sent a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet to Ricoh, a chip maker, to help develop the NES's Picture Processing Unit.
Donkey Kong influenced many other games, including Crazy Kong (1981) and Hard Hat Mack (1983), which combined running, jumping, and climbing. These games were called "Donkey Kong-type" or "Kong-style" games but later became known as platformers. While Donkey Kong was not the first platform game, it helped define the genre. Its colorful graphics, humor, and storytelling made it stand out from other games of its time. Donkey Kong is often credited as the first game to use graphics to tell a story, which added depth to the gameplay experience.
The Donkey Kong Country games, released in the 1990s, used detailed, pre-rendered graphics that were new for console games. These games inspired many others, such as Vectorman (1995), Crash Bandicoot (1996), Kirby Super Star (1996), and Sonic 3D Blast (1996). Even modern games like Mekazoo (2016) and Kaze and the Wild Masks (2021) show the influence of Donkey Kong Country. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said Donkey Kong Country showed that 2D games could still be popular after 3D games became common. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair (2019), developed by a team that included former Donkey Kong Country developers, also shares similarities with the series.
The Donkey Kong Country games helped make Rare, the company that created them, a top video game developer. These games set standards for future Rare games, including a focus on collecting items, humor, and creative design. However, Donkey Kong 64 was criticized for making 3D platform games less popular due to its heavy focus on collecting items. While Super Mario 64 helped launch the 3D platforming genre, Donkey Kong 64 was said to have made it less appealing.
Before Mario became famous, Donkey Kong was already an important video game character. It is often seen as a symbol for Nintendo and the video game industry. In 2007, a monster truck named after Donkey Kong appeared in a racing series called Monster Jam. The truck toured with Monster Jam in 2008. Donkey Kong also appears in the movie Pixels (2015), which celebrates classic arcade games, and in War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), where some apes are nicknamed "donkeys."
The original Donkey Kong is a popular competitive game. The Daily Telegraph called it "the most fiercely contested video game of all time," and Polygon said achieving the highest score is one of the most sought-after arcade records. A 2007 documentary called The King of Kong highlighted the competition between players Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell. The game's intense rivalries have contributed to its lasting popularity. The Donkey Kong Country games are also popular among speedrunners, who try to complete them as quickly as possible.
The music from Donkey Kong Country helped increase appreciation for video game music. The New York Times compared the game's soundtrack to famous music albums like the Beatles' Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Musicians like Trent Reznor and Donald Glover have praised the track "Aquatic Ambience" from Donkey Kong Country. A 2020 album by the band Alestorm, Curse of the Crystal Coconut, includes references to the Donkey Kong series and even offered a special prize for fans who pre-ordered it.
Fans of Donkey Kong are very active. A website called DK Vine is highly respected by fans. Because the franchise has few details about its story, fans often create theories to explain gaps in the timeline. One theory suggests that Donkey Kong Jr. died in an off-screen conflict to explain his absence in the Donkey Kong Country series. In 2021, a group of fans created an animated short film called DKC: Curse of the Crystal Coconut to celebrate the franchise's 40th anniversary. A follow-up animation, DKC: Return to Krocodile Isle, was released in 2023 with voice actors from the Donkey Kong Country television series.
After the original Donkey Kong was released, the phrase "it's on like Donkey Kong" became a common expression in pop culture. The phrase is used to describe something exciting or happening. It was popularized by rapper Ice Cube in his 1992 song Now I Gotta Wet'cha, though it is unclear if he created it. In 2010, Nintendo applied for a trademark on the phrase as part of its marketing for Donkey Kong Country Returns.