50 Fun Facts About Banjo-Kazooie

Before starring in Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo made his debut as a playable driver in which Nintendo 64 kart racer?

Diddy Kong Racing filled Nintendo's Christmas 1997 schedule after Banjo-Kazooie slipped to the following summer. Rare had been building it as Pro-Am 64 and swapped in Diddy Kong to give it a bigger name.

Kazooie spends Banjo-Kazooie riding in which item, originally meant to sprout wings and fast-running legs?

A backpack came first: the designers wanted wings and sprinting legs to pop out of it so Banjo could double-jump and run fast. They then decided the limbs should belong to a second character living inside.

Which younger sister of Banjo is kidnapped by the witch Gruntilda, who wants to steal her beauty, in Banjo-Kazooie?

Tooty was first shown to the press in 1997 as Banjo's girlfriend, under the name Piccolo. By release she had become his kid sister, judged the prettiest girl around by a talking cauldron.

An early look at which Nintendo title convinced Rare to rebuild Banjo-Kazooie as a full 3D adventure?

Super Mario 64 reached Rare in a 'really, really early' version, two months into Banjo's short life as a 2.5D side-scroller. The team dropped that approach and built a new 3D engine.

What are the golden jigsaw pieces called that Banjo and Kazooie collect to open new worlds in Banjo-Kazooie?

Jiggies slot into unfinished pictures around the witch's lair, and each completed picture unlocks a world. The lead designer wanted a shiny collectible that 'could actually be used for something'.

Mumbo Jumbo can turn Banjo into a termite, a walrus, a honeybee and which Halloween favourite in Banjo-Kazooie?

A pumpkin is the only one of Mumbo's five spells that is not an animal. The small forms were added to give some of the worlds a different sense of scale.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer called it an 'easy deal' to let Banjo and Kazooie join which crossover fighter in 2019?

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate added the pair as a single fighter in September 2019, with a stage based on their home. They had been the second most requested character in a 2015 fan vote.

After two years trapped under a boulder, the witch Gruntilda returns in Banjo-Tooie in what grisly form?

A skeleton is all that is left of Gruntilda when her sisters dig her out, so she plots to drain the land's life force and regrow her body. By the end she has even less of herself left.

In the 2008 Xbox 360 sequel Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, what must players build to complete its challenges?

Vehicles replace the running and jumping of the first two adventures, with more than 1,600 parts to bolt together. Fans were divided, though the idea has since been called ahead of its time.

Rare wanted Banjo-Kazooie to charm players of every age in the same way as which studio's animated films?

Disney was the model: Rare aimed the characters at younger players but gave them enough humour and attitude to keep adults on board. A few of Kazooie's sarcastic lines were still rejected for pushing the E rating.

Which mole teaches Banjo and Kazooie new moves in Banjo-Kazooie, then is killed by a spell early in Banjo-Tooie?

Bottles ignores his friends' warnings and dies in the blast that flattens Banjo's house, so his ghost asks the heroes to bring him back. He is revived once the witch's life-draining weapon is thrown into reverse.

Which creatures, hidden five to a world in Banjo-Kazooie, help knock Gruntilda off her lair in the final battle?

Jinjos stand and whistle until Banjo finds them, then return in force for the rooftop fight. Their own designer later called them the most ill-considered collectable in the adventure.

Which collectible, found 100 to a world, opens the doors to new sections of Gruntilda's Lair in Banjo-Kazooie?

Musical notes are lost when Banjo dies or leaves a level in the Nintendo 64 original, a deliberate choice to balance the difficulty. The most demanding door in the lair asks for 882 of them.

Banjo and Kazooie share which home region with the witch Gruntilda, whose lair is cut into its cliffs?

Spiral Mountain is home to hero and villain alike, which is how the witch comes to envy Banjo's sister next door. In Nuts & Bolts, the deed to the whole place is the prize.

Which 2017 spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, starring a chameleon and a bat, was made by former Rare staff?

Yooka-Laylee was pitched on Kickstarter by the new studio Playtonic Games and passed its £175,000 target within 38 minutes. The campaign went on to raise more than £2 million.

Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, a story set between the two Nintendo 64 adventures, came out on which handheld console?

Game Boy Advance owners got the interquel in 2003, after Rare had left Nintendo's fold, so THQ published it instead. It had first been planned for the older Game Boy Color.

Instead of recorded speech, which sound accompanies the on-screen dialogue of characters in Banjo-Kazooie?

Mumbling gave each character a personality without full voice acting, which Rare feared could ruin how players imagined them. One reviewer compared the effect to Charlie Brown's teacher.

Which composer wrote the soundtrack of Banjo-Kazooie and also created every one of its sound effects?

Grant Kirkhope also supplied voices, including Mumbo Jumbo and most of the villains. It was the first time he had handled all the music and effects for a single release.

What is the quiz show called that Gruntilda hosts near the end of Banjo-Kazooie, offering Banjo's sister as a prize?

Grunty's Furnace Fun was added to make the adventure stand out from other platformers. Beating it leans on gossip about the witch that her own good-natured sister shares earlier on.

Kazooie, the red-crested bird who rides with Banjo, belongs to which fictional species in Banjo-Kazooie?

Breegull is an invented species, and Kazooie is the troublemaker of the duo. Her own name comes from the kazoo, an instrument her designer found as annoying as her personality.

Which friendly sister of Gruntilda feeds Banjo and Kazooie the secrets they need to win the Banjo-Kazooie quiz?

Brentilda is the helpful one of the family, and the facts she hands over get the heroes through the final quiz. In the sequel, two far less kindly sisters turn up to free the witch.

Which minion of Gruntilda helps build her beauty-stealing machine in Banjo-Kazooie, then quits on her in Banjo-Tooie?

Klungo loses to the heroes several times in Banjo-Tooie and is beaten by his boss after each defeat, so he abandons her. He later fronts a side-scrolling parody minigame in Nuts & Bolts.

In Banjo-Kazooie, what does Kazooie fire at enemies from either her front or her rear?

Blue eggs can be shot forwards or dropped behind, and the pair can carry 100 of them at first. The idea of a bird laying ammunition mystified some of the gaming press at the 1997 unveiling.

Which collectible item shields Banjo and Kazooie from damage when it is used in Banjo-Kazooie?

Gold feathers protect the pair, while the red kind are spent on flying. Even then, Kazooie can only take off from special pads marked with a red plume.

Which hidden items, two to a world, extend the shared health bar of Banjo and Kazooie in Banjo-Kazooie?

Honeycomb pieces come empty and exist only to lengthen the health bar, a fitting reward for a hero described as a honey bear. Statues of Banjo, by contrast, hand out extra lives.

Which move lets Kazooie carry Banjo quickly up slopes that are too steep for the bear in Banjo-Kazooie?

Talon Trot swaps the walking around, so the bird runs faster than the bear can. She is also the quicker swimmer of the two, although she turns less sharply than he does.

Which speed-boosting shoes help Banjo and Kazooie reach a destination before time runs out in Banjo-Kazooie?

Turbo Trainers give a short burst of speed for timed challenges. The other collectible footwear lets Kazooie cross hazards such as piranha-filled water and shifting sands.

Which spell book hidden in Gruntilda's Lair rewards Banjo and Kazooie with codes that raise their item limits?

Cheato hands out secret codes that double how much ammunition the pair can hold. In a later racing spin-off, loose pages torn from him serve as the currency.

Which sentient cauldron sets off Banjo-Kazooie by telling Gruntilda she is not the prettiest girl around?

Dingpot resents the witch for her years of abuse, so after her quiz show he switches sides. He helps the heroes reach the roof of the lair for the real final battle.

Which animal briefly replaced the boy hero of Dream, Rare's cancelled project, before Banjo the bear took over?

A rabbit held the starring role for only 'two or three days' before the developers settled on a bear in a cap. The original boy, Edson, had come to seem too generic.

The composer of Banjo-Kazooie found its dark but comical style after hearing Danny Elfman's score for which film?

Beetlejuice showed him that really dark chords would not scare children as long as the rhythm stayed comical. Another score by the same film composer shaped one of the spookier level themes.

Which children's song lends its melody to the Gruntilda's Lair theme that plays in the hub of Banjo-Kazooie?

Teddy Bears' Picnic is echoed in the lair theme, and reviewers at the time spotted the borrowing. The tune also gains and loses layers of instruments as the player moves from one area to another.

Which scrapped Banjo-Kazooie feature relied on changing cartridges while the console still held data in memory?

Stop 'N' Swop was dropped at Nintendo's request, partly over fears that it could damage consoles. Its secret items finally found a use a decade later in the Xbox 360 re-release.

Which world of Banjo-Kazooie is explored across different seasons of the year rather than at a single moment?

Click Clock Wood changes with the time of year, an ambitious idea for a cartridge with so little memory. A later retrospective picked it out as proof of how far the worlds pushed the hardware.

Which Banjo-Kazooie world has a chord progression inspired by the cathedral scenes in the 1989 film Batman?

Mad Monster Mansion owes its harmony to Danny Elfman, the film composer whose work set the tone for the whole soundtrack. Its organ section was later praised for squeezing so much from limited memory.

Which Banjo-Kazooie world, designed mostly around a single ship, did the lead designer name as his favourite stage?

Rusty Bucket Bay earned his vote for the extreme pace and difficulty of the vessel's interior. Each world began with a theme, and everything else, down to the magic transformation, followed from it.

Which Banjo-Kazooie world has piranha-filled water that Kazooie can wade through wearing a pair of special boots?

Bubblegloop Swamp makes even paddling dangerous, so the bird does the wading in wellies. The same boots cope with the shifting sands of the desert world.

Which brothers, the founders of Rare, reportedly threw stones at a Banjo-Kazooie developer's window to get him to work?

Tim and Chris Stamper also brought a McDonald's meal to coax him in. The crunch on the project was severe, with every member of the team working weeks of at least 80 hours.

A scrapped stage of the final boss fight in Banjo-Kazooie had Gruntilda turn Banjo into which animal?

A frog would have been the witch's last trick, but the extra phase never made it into the finished adventure. A multiplayer mode and a mine level were also dropped for lack of time.

Which drill sergeant mole takes over as move teacher for Banjo and Kazooie in Banjo-Tooie?

Jamjars is the brother of the first adventure's teacher, and his lessons have to be paid for with collectibles. Every move from the original is available from the start, so he only teaches new ones.

Which shaman, a bitter rival of Mumbo Jumbo, takes over transforming Banjo and Kazooie in Banjo-Tooie?

Humba Wumba is paid in small magical creatures for her spells, which frees Mumbo to become a playable character. She returns as a shopkeeper in Nuts & Bolts.

What is the overworld of Banjo-Tooie called, whose life force Gruntilda plans to drain to restore her body?

Isle O' Hags links its worlds directly to one another, and a train called Chuffy carries the heroes between stations. In the first adventure, each world sat apart behind a magic door.

Banjo-Tooie opens with Banjo, Kazooie and two friends playing which card game as Gruntilda's sisters arrive?

Poker is on the table when a giant digging machine breaks in and frees the witch from under her boulder. One of the four players ignores the warnings to run and is killed in the blast that follows.

In which Banjo-Tooie quiz show, hosted by Gruntilda, are the losing contestants flattened under one-ton weights?

Tower of Tragedy pits the heroes against the witch's own two sisters, who lose and are crushed. The round echoes the board-game quiz that ended the first adventure.

Banjo-Tooie ends with Banjo and friends playing which game with Gruntilda's still-talking head?

Hacky sack is the heroes' consolation after they arrive too late for the victory party. The witch, by then reduced to a head, swears revenge once more as she is kicked about.

Which self-proclaimed creator of every video game referees the contest between Banjo and Gruntilda in Nuts & Bolts?

Lord of Games, known as L.O.G., is a computer-like being who interrupts the old enemies mid-squabble. He promises the winner the deed to their homeland and the loser a job in his factory.

Rare's co-founder wanted Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts to feel like an interactive set of which building toy?

Lego was the comparison he made, and a prototype for snapping blocks together was tested in a level built for an abandoned remake of the original. The idea took over the whole project.

In the 2005 handheld spin-off that sends Banjo and friends racing, what do they steer instead of go-karts?

Planes replace the usual karts in Banjo-Pilot, so racers can climb and dive as well as steer. It was first announced with a cast of Nintendo characters, who had to go once the studio changed hands.

Banjo's severed head hangs over the fireplace on the main menu of which foul-mouthed Rare adventure?

Conker's Bad Fur Day also puts Kazooie's head on the end of an umbrella on its chapter select screen. The squirrel and the bear had shared a starting grid years earlier, before either had a title of his own.

Which Scottish studio, later famous for bringing Minecraft to consoles, ported Banjo-Kazooie to Xbox 360 in 2008?

4J Studios, based in Dundee, gave the 1998 original a widescreen picture, cleaner audio and achievements. It handled the re-release of the sequel the following year as well.