Fridge / Crash Bandicoot

Fridge Brilliance

• Why are some enemies in Cortex Strikes Back cyborgs? Because they're enemies from the previous game that Crash wounded, cured by N. Cortex.
  • N. Gin could've been the one who made them cyborgs. He knows about cybernetics.
• Why can Cortex afford to build all his inventions? Because he's the owner of some power companies and he may have also patented some of his inventions, so money's not a problem to him.
• Why do the Park Drones in Crash Tag Team Racing wear gas masks? Because their boss is based on a WW1 German general, so it's only natural that they wear a uniform based on WW1 German soldiers.
• Aku Aku and Uka Uka's roles as counterparts are made more prevalent thanks to the higher-quality animations of the N. Sane Trilogy: whereas Aku Aku uses his powers on Crash to protect him and give him strength, Uka Uka uses his powers on Cortex to possess his body and give himself a new toy to play with. And when both masks are at their full strength, it takes three hits to bring down both them and their hosts.
• In Crash Bash, Dingodile gets selected by Aku Aku as one of Cortex' minions to be placed on the "good guys" side to even the numbers. Fast forwards to Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, Dingodile indeed gives up his evil ways and opts to run a diner, fighting against the bad guys because their meddling with space-time destroyed his diner. Perhaps Aku Aku might have known that Dingodile really wasn't a bad guy deep down in Crash Bash.
  • More from Dingodile: his primary weapon in his boss battles is a flamethrower, a potentially destructive weapon. As an ally in It's About Time, he's changed to a stronger-than-normal vacuum, an item used for cleaning. Dingodile literally went from destruction to reconstruction in his own character, showcased perfectly in his own accessory.
• In Crash Team Racing, the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue states that Ami became a kart racer herself, saying she was sick of giving out trophies and wanted a few of her own. Considering that Ami handed trophies to nine characters of the game (while the other trophy girls had only two characters each), it's no wonder she got tired!
• Everyone acts like a Flanderized caricature of themselves in Crash Tag Team Racing. It's literally The Theme Park Version of the Crash franchise.
• Why does Cortex hold Crash with far more hostility than the many other creations that betrayed or outdone him? Because he specifically botched Crash out of his impatience and overconfidence (discounting It's About Time's twist, though even then Cortex doesn't know that). While Coco or Crunch are just a standard project that didn't work out, Crash is a constant reminder of his own vices coming back to bite him in the ass. No wonder Cortex's ego is so jaded in later games.
  • Also gives sense to why Cortex decided to ditch N Brio so quickly after his first defeat. N Brio told Cortex this would happen, thus he has that moment hanging over him for as long as Crash is still a problem. Given how petty Cortex is, it's likely Brio only had to say I Warned You once for him to decide he had to go in favour of someone even more sycophantic.
• Tropy and Brio seem like an Odd Friendship in Twinsanity, until you remember they have one key mutuality. They both hate Cortex.
• Cortex seems a lot more impudent towards Uka Uka in Titans, no longer cowering before him like before. The plot demonstrates that Uka Uka revealed his power source to Cortex; the mojo, thus unwittingly revealed his weakspot. Uka still tries to instil fear back into him by replacing him in said game, though in Mind Over Mutant, he still makes the mistake of superpowering Cortex and Brio's mutants with his mojo, enabling a coup.
• In her first appearance, Coco is more no-nonsense and impatient towards Crash, though in later games, she becomes more cheerful and goofy, and has a closer bond with her brother. Given Coco gained a higher penchant for screwing up or looking like a buffoon herself as games went on (often with Crash the one who saves her), it's possible to interpret that over time Coco humbled and realised (and even embraced) that she wasn't so different from her brother. This may also explain why Coco is back to being serious and low-patience with Crash in It's About Time, it takes place before she cooled down.
• Tropy's vendetta with Cortex is even more poetic give he is a time traveller. Tropy appeared just as Cortex's Villain Decay hit in, designed to be as grandoise and menacing as he originally was, only to usually fail just as pathetically. Tropy hates Cortex because he is his future he actively tries to rewrite.
• Additionally in N Tranced, Tropy, upon being selected to lead a new plan by Uka Uka, hires a master of hypnotism. Mind control was a field of science Cortex constantly tried and failed to specialise in with the Cortex Vortex. Tropy essentially hired what seemed to be a more competent version of Cortex as an extra middle finger to the doctor.

Fridge Horror

• The old men imprisoned by Cortex in the first game may never be free, and considering their age, will probably die there.
• N. Gin's design and characterization changes over the course of the games before the N.Sane Trilogy seem to imply that his life support system is failing. His skin goes from a typical caucasian tone to a sickly green in Twinsanity, before becoming an ashy grey from Tag-Team Racing onward, as if he's gotten some kind of skin disease or necrosis. In addition, his change from cold and logical with a mean streak to having several concurrent psychological disorders can be chalked up to the rocket going off in his head going from giving him headaches to making his brain damage even worse.
  • This is made even more horrifying if you take into account of what it says in Crash 3's manual about that the missile is a nuke! So that would mean he's suffering from radiation poisoning! How is this poor fella not throwing up, having his hair fall out or even dead yet?
• Someone noted that Crash Tag Team Racing, you know, the game that brielfy turned Crash into a Heroic Comedic Sociopath, is also about the only Crash game to not feature Aku Aku. This raises the possibility that Aku Aku is more than Crash's guardian — he is the bandicoot's Morality Chain! Looks like Cortex Vortex scrambled the guy's head a bit too much. If it is so, imagine if he didn't meet Aku Aku after escaping from the Cortex Castle...
• Late into Crash of the Titans (Episode 18, specifically) you visit Cortex's apartment which has Titan heads hanged on the walls as trophies. The implications here are clear... And since Crash: Mind Over Mutant reveals that the Titans are just as sentient as humans and smaller mutants, they are even worse...
• Mind Over Mutant's Evil Public School. To think that one of the funniest villains in the history of video games would run a school where children can get eaten by their classmates or executed for saying someone's name out loud or tardiness...And then you remember Cortex dropped Nina off there. How has she survived for what's implied to be a year or even longer? And could it be that, as payback for her pulling a Starscream on him in the last game, Neo actually wanted to have his niece killed?
• Crash's primary trait throughout every game seems to be his determination; if roused by something, there's little that can stop him from stopping Cortex's latest plan. Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time reveals that Crash's goofiness set off the Cortex Vortex and rejected his brainwashing. Now imagine that didn't happen and how we'd have that level of determinator but on Cortex's side... and be very thankful it didn't turn out that way.
• Was Cortex legitimately thinking of doing a Heel–Face Turn in It's About Time until Coco said "our bad guy" in comparison to Dingodile? He seems rather more dejected than a standard one... which means Coco's insensitive comparison set Cortex off on trying to fix the timeline so he doesn't produce Crash at all and nearly inadvertently doomed the entire series.
• It's About Time confirms that the multiverse exists in this franchise... which means that there most likely is a universe where the evil ending from Crash Bash really happened, Uka Uka has won, and the earth is doomed.