As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance:
- Why does Weldar have terrible vision? Because he's a welding torch who has a constant front-row-seat view of his own blinding flame.
- In Banjo-Kazooie, Gruntilda speaks entirely in rhymes, however, in Tooie, she stops doing so at her sisters' request. However, in Nuts & Bolts, she goes right back to it. Why is that? She crushed her sisters at the end of Tooie as part of another gameshow, so they aren't around to stop her anymore.
- At first, Gruntilda locking up all the Jinjos in those worlds of hers just seems like kicking the dog, but once the Jinjonator comes out, it makes more sense why Grunty would want to keep them imprisoned and stranded from one another. The Jinjos are apparently one of the few ways Gruntilda can be defeated, so of course she doesn't want them working together.
- Mumbo being able to create instruments out of nowhere in the first game's intro makes even more sense when you remember that Grant Kirkhope, who composed the music for the game, also did Mumbo's voice.
- On the box and cartridge art for the first game, Gruntilda looks considerably larger than she does in-game. This could be considered symbolic of how menacing she is...until you realize that her counterpart in Project Dream wasn't a witch, but a giant.
- Why is Mingy Jongo, an evil robot version of Mumbo Jumbo, the boss of Cloud Cuckooland despite being a sinister robot instead of being something goofy? Because that world in particular is weird and full of unexpected surprises (be it good or bad). A goofy, silly boss being in this world is something you would expect, but since the world loves breaking all conventional logic and thought, a edgy murderous robot based off one of your friends and a certain T-Unit would catch you off guard, yet still be a fitting boss for the world.
- For that matter, Why does said boss actually be able to hurt you in-cutscene (taking away one honeycomb in the process)? Because the world he's in breaks all conventional and expected logic.
- What's the first hint that something isn't right? There's a Jinjo that needs saving inside his house! Likewise, Mumbo's normal hut has a Minjo inside it, likely either trying to blindside Banjo on his way to the real Mumbo, or waiting for Mumbo to come down so he can attack him.
- Why do some cheats trigger Grunty's Code Vengeance but not others? The "illegal" cheats (i.e, ones that aren't either the codes that let you get the Stop 'N Swop items or given to Banjo by Bottles or Cheato) that trigger this condition actively rhyme. Considering rhyming is Grunty's Verbal Tic, it only makes sense that inputting those particular codes would allow her to work her magic and erase your file! Though this raises the question of why the Stop ‘N Swop codes and infinite item cheats don’t also trigger Code Vengeance since they also rhyme. However, in the XBLA version, there is a consequence for them - saving and achievements become disabled until you turn the game off. Apparently Gruntilda stepped up her game in the time between the original and the XBLA port.
- Banjo is noticeably smaller than any of his enemies or other characters, which is strange considering he's a bear. However, he's repeatedly referred to as a honey bear, which is the smallest species of bear by far, being on average smaller than even most adult humans. Banjo probably is just very tiny compared to most creatures in his world.
- For as much as Banjo is The Load (sometimes even literally), it's not as simple as it looks. Banjo is Unskilled, but Strong, having musculature & weight to put behind it, but not much in the way of platforming or combat talent apart from being a surprisingly good jumper for a bear. Kazooie is Weak, but Skilled, having a lot of talent but not much raw power to put behind it, being an incredibly quick learner, and... being surprisingly bad at basic bird stuff. (Look, if a mole needs to teach you to flap your wings, peck, lay eggs, and fly... Heck, Kazooie even needs to be taught how to glide, hatch eggs and even how to jump high, in the sequel.) But together... they are Strong and Skilled. Banjo supplies the leg strength for basic jumps (and weight training to help Kazooie strengthen her own legs), while Kazooie supplies aerial maneuverability (most apparent with the Feathery Flap, where Kazooie can't add much height, mostly just acting as a jump extender... but, while less obvious, especially true of the Flap Flip, which is Kazooie giving a boost while Banjo backflips). Kazooie is the faster swimmer, she's also too buoyant to Dive, and needs Banjo to actually get her under the water to begin with. Banjo uses his weight as leverage for the Rat-a-tat Rap, rotating (very slightly) forwards in midair to give Kazooie's pecking more momentum. The Beak Barge and Beak Buster are similar, with Banjo putting his strength and weight behind Kazooie's precision, respectively. Flight is wholly Kazooie, and Banjo's just a load in the skies, but his mass still adds a lot of force to the Beak Bomb. Overall, while Kazooie still does most of the work, it's only Banjo's raw power that actually lets her work; the only moves they have where Banjo doesn't supply the "oomph" are Egg Firing and the Talon Trot (and shoe variants).
Fridge Horror:
- Snorkel the Dolphin, in Rusty Bucket Bay. After freeing him, he disappears, despite the nonexistence of any kind of exit in the water. Where could he have gone? There's only one possibility: he went inside Snacker's cage... or jumped the gate like in Free Willy. Also keep in mind, the water's incredibly poisonous. Banjo drowns after a fairly short amount of time. Consider how long poor Snorkel was stuck down there...
- Where did Clanker come from? His Gentle Giant nature and conspicuously organic anatomy suggest that he used to be a (very intelligent) whale out in the ocean, before being captured and 'redesigned'. His gills are probably artificially implanted, while his blowhole is how he'd breathe naturally—when Banjo shows up, the first thing that Clanker does is ask for Banjo to please raise him to the top of the water so he can breathe the way he'd like to. He's been trapped in a decaying shell of machinery for who knows how long, and they even left him as intelligent as he was originally.
- Really, Clanker is great example of Fridge Horror. You can actually see visible blood on him and it's clear he's been subject to a horrible fate as a living trash disposal. The player shoots out rotten teeth that's causing him pain, and lifts him up so he can breath easier, but otherwise he's left to this fate without Banjo and Kazooie even attempting to free him or do anything more. In Nuts & Bolts he's been dismantled but is still conscious, and you keep his eyes from being stolen, but Banjo and Kazooie still don't really try to help him more than that.
- The giant octopi beneath Jolly Roger Bay must have swum into those caves at a younger age, because they wouldn't fit through the passages now... And that's why they're not going to leave now; they can't. They'll just flail their tentacles at anything swimming by, because that's the only chance they've got of eating something. Or perhaps they're flailing out of fury and panic.
- Octopi in general have no bones. They can very easily cram themselves into tight places or contort themselves as needed to maneuver around underwater. These octopi are not trapped, they've set themselves up in places where they can easily catch whatever it is they eat down there.
- The cowboy versions of Jippo Jim seem to have some blood splattered on them, especially on those heavy mallets they're carrying.
- The industrial levels in both games show off mind-boggling amounts of pollution, including a permanent haze in the background that makes the sky permanently dusky in both levels. Gruntilda has been operating long enough that the Rusty Bucket Bay's water has a massive oil spill in it and Grunty Industries has polluted and/or exploited nearly half of the other locations in the Isle O' Hags. And with no government oversight Gruntilda can continue to pollute like a Captain Planet villain essentially forever...
- In the Game Over screen, Gruntilda gets to steal Tooty's beauty and become pure sexy. However, learning about her disgusting personal habits from Brentilda, as well as one of the rhymes she occasionally remarks; "Once I'm young and thin one more, it's burgers fries and chips galore!", reveals another horror. Gruntilda has no real intention of changing her personal habits and attitudes to maintain her beauty when she gets it. She'll binge on junk food until she becomes fat and ugly again. Not only that, but now that she's got her makeover machine, she'll just find another suitable victim to steal the beauty from in order to continue the cycle.
- In the first game, the only known Jinjo colors were purple, blue, green, orange, and yellow, and since there was one of each in every world, this would equate to there being nine Jinjos in their families total. Come Tooie, and the only Jinjo family shown to have nine members in it is the black Jinjo family. The purple Jinjos are down a family member, the blue Jinjos are down two family members, the green Jinjos are down four, the yellow Jinjos are down six, and the orange Jinjos are down a whole seven members. What happened to the original five Jinjo families between the events of Kazooie and Tooie that resulted in them losing twenty family members total? Were they killed by the HAG 1 in the same way that the grey Jinjo family was? Could they have been trying to save the grey Jinjos from being flattened, but were futilely killed alongside them in the process?
