My sister and I have a simple arrangement when it comes to video game plushies: I’ll buy them for her, but I won’t keep any for myself, unless it’s something really special. My rationale being that if I drop dead in the middle of the night, I don’t want the EMTs to come in and find a grown man surrounded by Mario and Link stuffed animals. I jest, I jest (seriously, though, I ain’t going out with a plush Princess Peach near me), but in any event, Diddy here is one of the special plushies. With a picture perfect face and form, this doll is one of the most accurate representations of the character I’ve seen in the stuffed variety.
A quick Internet search reveals that Toy-Site.com (Diddy’s maker) is no more, sadly, but my memories of this plush will always remain! Released in 1999, it’s about five inches in height, give or take, and is very meticulously made. Though Nintendo has always merchandised its various franchises, anything beyond Mario was in far less abundance in the late ’90s. Except for Nintendo Power, of course, where a wider variety of merchandise offerings could be found in that magazine’s Nintendo Super Power Supplies catalog (oh, we’re getting to that, believe me!). Donkey Kong’s popularity skyrocketed post-Donkey Kong Country, though, so there were those willing to give the good ape and his brood their own chance to shine, too.
Not that stuffed animals were the only place that DK and his pals were getting any love. There was also the Donkey Kong Country TV show that came out a couple of years prior, itself also a byproduct of the success of the SNES game of the same name. It was also notable for being one of the earliest TV shows to be entirely computer animated! Donkey Kong Country was no Toy Story, but it was an intriguing venture nonetheless, though unfortunately a short-lived one, lasting only a couple of seasons. This Diddy doll would have been released right toward the end of the cartoon’s run. The cartoon also spawned a number of action figures of its own, something else we’ll eventually get to here in Toy Box.
The world of stuffed Nintendo memorabilia is almost frighteningly huge. It’s also one rife with counterfeits. From claw games in malls to milk bottle tosses at carnivals, there are a ton of fake Pikachu and Mario plushies out in the wild. I obviously don’t condone manufacturing these dolls, but there is something oddly alluring about them! Of course, there are just as many legitimate Nintendo dolls to find, too, including Target and Toys R Us, where stuffed Pikmin can currently be found along with staples like Mario and Pokémon. This subsect of video game memorabilia is a world unto itself, and one that we look forward to delving deeper into in the future!