Just another day at work.note
Donkey Kong Island is a web-animated workplace comedy by FreezeFlame22 and the first of his shows to not follow Koopas, with the spotlight being given to the Kongs and Kremlings instead.
It focuses on pair of brothers Donkey and Diddy Kong, who work at the K. Rool Incorporated warehouse in Kongo Island for their boss, King Konnor Rool, who after leaving his job at the Bass Station in the Koopa Kingdom became the manager of the warehouse following the previous manager's death. DK and Diddy work alongside their long-time friends Lanky Chapman and Chunky Holcroft, and there they meet the pair of sisters Dixie and Tiny Fitzgerald, Chunky's cousins. The series showcases the gang doing their daily work in the warehouse, going along with any wacky idea K. Rool has had to earn money, impress his family, or both, and avoiding resident Jerkass Frank Krusha, who tries (and always fails) to make the Kongs' life miserable and get them fired. As the series went on, two more characters joined the Kongs' crew, with these being Kiddy, Chunky's brother, and Katryna, K. Rool's niece.
The first episode was uploaded on YouTube on August 11th of 2019, and the second season of the series ended on November 24th, 2023, with Freeze and his team having confirmed that there will be a third season.
Donkey Kong Island contains examples of:
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: DK and Diddy are uncle and nephew in the games. In this series however they are brothers.
- Bad Boss: K. Rool started off as this, often attributing his employess achievments on him, but the characterization has since then being dropped and nowdays he is just cynic, but does have a hidden soft spot for his employes.
- Balloonacy: The transitions involve the main characters flying upwards by holding a balloon. K. Rool is not so lucky as his balloon pops up in mid-air.
- Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Tiny, Dixie and Katryna have this dynamic. Tiny is the Beauty (being a Dumb Blonde who constantly flirts with other men, but that is still a good person at heart) Dixie is the Brains (being the smartest and most rational of the trio, which compliments her Deadpan Snarker personality), and Katryna is the Brawn (being significantly less feminine than Tiny and Dixie, not afraid of what she says or what others may think of her).
- Big "OMG!": K. Rool's Catchphrase for whenever something bad happens.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Deconstructed with K. Rool's niece Katryna. She seems like a spoiled teenage girl at first, but that's actually because she hasn't known any better during her whole life and her father always prevented her from making any friends. The instant she makes friends with Dixie, Tiny and the rest however, she is shown to be a much different person.
- Born Unlucky: The Universe itself seems to love making Diddy suffer. Chunky and K. Rool don't have it any better.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Diddy. His friends pick on him for having a crush on Dixie, every time he tries to impress her or ask her out something prevents him from doing so, and his parents constantly embarrass him in front of others. In the early episodes, K. Rool and his subordinates bullied him badly.
- K. Rool. He is usually the victim of Amusing Injuries, his family doesn't seem to think highly of him, with his father favouring his brother Kennedy over him and Kennedy being an asshole to him, and getting dragged off to whatever shenanigans his employees or his family find themselves into.
- Catchphrase:
- K. Rool: "OH MY GOD!!"
- Candy: "I am the baddest female, after all".
- Characterization Marches On: K. Rool was originally a Bad Boss who didn't care about his employees and would even join Krusha in making their lifes miserable. Not long after that K. Rool was changed into a cynical person as a result of many things in his life always going badly for him, but who has a hidden soft spot for those who have earned it. He even finds Krusha to be a more annoying than DK and his friends.
- Ditzy Genius: Tiny shows shades of this, especially when trouble arises. While she is generally not very bright, she has shown to be more than capable of handling complicated situations on her own.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: K. Rool is more of a Bad Boss in the first few episodes of Season 1. In later episodes he is just cynical of the world around him, but genuinely appreciates his employees.
- Fatal Flaw: DK's fatal flaw is that he is too positive about others for his own good and trusts people too easily, which leads to things like him constantly forgiving Lanky for leeching off his home and hospitality, and getting stuck in an abusive relationship with Candy.
- Gentle Giant: Chunky may be big, but he's probably the nicest one of the gang, if a bit paranoid about everything.
- Hate Sink: Candy. She psychologically abuses DK while they are dating, she turns him against his friends, almost makes him lose his job, takes advantage of others and talks behind their backs, treats her pet blittys horribly and doesn't receive any sort of punishment for actions other than DK breaking up with her. The most disturbing part of it is that it is a scaringly accurate depiction of a toxic relationship.
- Hourglass Plot: Diddy started out having a crush on Dixie and had varying, but ultimately futile degrees of success. He finally meets up with a girl named Kitty and starts dating her. Everything is resolved, right? Well, turns out she also has feelings for Diddy, but she was afraid of ruining their friendship. She came to regret her decision, but she does not want to selfishly reck Diddy's relationship with Kitty.
- Interspecies Romance: Krusha, a Kritter, used to date Dixie, a Kong.
- Local Hangout: The characters all hang out at Funky's bar after work.
- The Load: Lanky, who is very lazy and barely does what he is told to do at work.
- Love Triangle: A short-lived one with Diddy, Dixie and Krusha. Diddy had a crush on Dixie and would often try to impress her or ask her out, but Krusha felt entitled to her due to a fling they had, which ended up in disaster, so he often tried to win Dixie back or threaten Diddy into backing off. When Krusha is out of the picture and Diddy finally asks Dixie out, she turns him down, but he meets a girl named Kitty shortly afterwards, whom he begins a relationship. This introduces us to a new love triangle consisiting of Dixie, Diddy and Kitty. Turns out Dixie had slowly developed feelings for Diddy, but couldn't bring herself to say anything because she was afraid it would ruin their friendship, and she immediately regrets it when she sees Diddy and Kitty bonding with each other. Another factor is that, unlike her failed relationship with Krusha, Kitty and Diddy's relationship is stable and she doesn't want to selfishly destroy it.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Most of the character names (Tiny, Lanky, Chunky, Kiddy etc.) are actually just nicknames.
- The Paranoiac: You'd be hard pressed to find something Chunky is not scared of.
- The Pig-Pen: Klump's hygiene is more than questionable.
- The Prankster: Kiddy loves playing pranks and is a huge troublemaker. The more Kiddy dislikes a person, the nastier the prank he pulls on them.
- Really Gets Around:
- Tiny seems to have quite the dating history.
- Kelly Rool, K. Rool's sister, has cheated on her husband at least fifty times!
- Running Gag:
- The first scene of every episode (the one before the intro) is completely unrelated to the rest of the episode and is always Played for Laughs.
- There is always a scene of K.Rool in his office reacting to something in his computer every once in an episode.
- Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Cranky Kong is never happy about anything and does nothing but complain about others and insult them.
- Super Gullible: DK is too quick to trust others without taking a moment to think about it first.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: After all, Kiddy didn't get sent to a juvenile hall for anything.
- The Un-Favourite: One of the reasons why K. Rool is so bitter about everything around him is that his father always favoured his brother Kennedy over him ever since he was young.
- Two Girls to a Team: Until Katryna made her debut, Dixie and Tiny were the only prominent female characters.
