Have You Seen Donkey Kong Country…Exposed?

Not that kind of exposed!  This is a family site!

Hiatus

I’ve had a lack of updates on here lately.  I had an idea for an article last week, but with my friend passing away very unexpectedly last week, I was on autopilot.  I wrote a few things that I knew she would love.  Likewise, she would have LOVED what I was going to write about last week.  After her services (which we had to attend remotely), I just had no motivation to write anything.

I will be writing about that intended topic next time – it is a followup to the “My Little Pony Merry-Go-Round Game” that I talked about a few weeks ago – similar concept, different licensed character.

It will be cute and very much an Allison original, trust me!  Like I said, she would love it.

Amie, you are missed by everyone who knew and loved you, and even by the people who never met you, but have seen the impact you had on me.  Thanks for always being one of my biggest fans!  I miss you!

Moving forward…

I saw this video while on the treadmill (surprise!) the day after I wrote something over on my blog, and I figured this needed to be said first.

Let’s go back in time to the magical year of 1994.

1994

Oh 1994, don’t you go changing on me.

Ever.

A few days ago, I was writing an article for Allison’s Written Words on Donkey Kong Country, and one of the videos I found among soundtracks and gameplay was a promotional video for the game, released by Nintendo of America.

The video was the first in a series of similar videos.  I’ll focus on the story behind these later, but first, we’ll look at the one relevant to today’s topic.

YouTube user World of Nintendo has covered all of these videos in a ten-part series, which all obviously came out during the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 eras.

We’ve got sports hats from 1994, a host that dresses like an MTV VeeJay of the time, Nintendo of America Headquarters, bananas, and Donkey Kong Country!

What happens within the thirteen minutes of this tape (there’s a short introduction by YouTube user World of Nintendo, explaining the history of these promotional videos) is an incredible study of what 1994 looked like, everything the people at Nintendo of America were willing to divulge to our host, and a sneak preview of an upcoming Super Nintendo release.  Which one, you ask?  You’ll need to stick around until the end to see this mystery game!

Oh, and there is this funny FBI Warning screen at the beginning of the video.

You just know they made one of these for each of the videos.

Did I mention 1994 was awesome?  It had Donkey Kong Country!

Enjoy this video!

Upload via World of Nintendo

History of Nintendo’s Promotional Videos

As I said, this video was one in a series of promotional videos released by Nintendo to promote upcoming games, as well as two videos that provided information about Nintendo’s goings on.  They were made between 1994 and 2000 – ten in all, and released as freebies if you subscribed to Nintendo Power.  They were also available for free at Toys R Us, and for rental at Blockbuster.  However, the tapes available for retail and rental were modified slightly.

Beginning with Donkey Kong Country Exposed, the series also covered Yoshi’s Island, Star Fox 64, Diddy Kong’s Racing, a video focusing on three different sports games, Banjo Kazooie, Pokemon, and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.  In addition to the game-focused videos, there was a video featuring an inside look at Nintendo 64 (Hot Newz 64), another video that covers three different games – Yoshi’s Island, Killer Instinct, and Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, and a video that promoted the Nintendo 64 console prior to its release in September 1996.

Wal-Mart even had a promotional video for the Nintendo 64 game Hey You, Pikachu!, which employed the use of a microphone to train Pikachu according to your clearly child-like voice.  I watched a commercial for this game from November 2000 for my own blog in May 2018, during a Throwback Thursday/Flashback Friday theme week about Nintendo.

World of Nintendo has a playlist of ten of these promotional videos.  I will definitely be watching them, most likely on the treadmill.

Uploads via World of Nintendo

Hey, it’s better than sitting in the chair and watching.  Might as well make the time constructive, right?