Since 1981, has been downing bananas and either causing trouble or committing heroic deeds, dependin🍌g on which iteration you're looking at. B▨efore there was Mario, there was DK.

And while our beloved ape has had many a video game either in his honour or adjacently enough - Mario Party, for instance, doesn't exactly shock us when🍬 he pops up as playable - Donkey Kong has also had some surprise appearances. Since you clicked on this article, I can only assume you wish to learn about 'em. Or maybe you just want to see if ♔I know all the ones that you do. Either way, let's begin!

7 Pokemon Stadium 2 ღ

Thiꦡs first one's pretty subtle. In Pokemon Stadium 2, players could hook their Game Boys to their Nintendo 64s and get plenty of nifty little rewards for their efforts in the form of room decorations. These included the NES, SNES, and the N64 itself - as well as the Virtual Boy, which proved that, ꧒in 2000, the infamously failed system still hadn't entirely left our brains.

Connect the NES, SNES, or N64 (tough luck, VB) to Pokemon Stadium 2's in-game TꦗV, and it'll display images from four games from each console. Among the lucky NES quarter i♈s none other than Donkey Kong.

6 Futurama

In early 2002, the 50th episode of the positively unsinkable Futurama features a scene in w𝄹hich a character who is very clearly intended to be Donkey Kong tosses a barre🔥l at President Richard Nixon's disembodied head.

This is not the only time Donkey Kong has appeared adjacent to the ragtag crew of the Planet Express spacecraft. In the series premiere, a Kong-like depiction popped up briefly as the subject of an arcade game which protagonist Fry is playing in his v꧒ery first scene.

Our boy has shown up another five times, for a total of seven. Since Fox (now owned by Disney) isn'🌌t exactly Nintendo, none of these are authorized appearances. Which is to say, they're definitely cameos, but they can never be legally acknowledged as such, and we never hear "Donkey Kong" being spoken aloud.

5 Animal Crossing: 🦄New Horizons

In both Donkey Kong Country 2 and Donkey Kong Land 2, Crocodile Isle is a central location. Diddy and Dixie traverse this harsh land in a b🐼id to rescue none other than Donkey Kong himself.

Curiously, a certain recurring Animal Crossing adventurer has been to Crocodile Isle: Gulliver! In , he pr⭕oudly proclaims that his buccaneering wa🔯ys have instilled fear not just there, but at Keelhaul Key, as well.

Since Keelhaul Key is a location in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, it's 🏅safe to say our dear sentient seagull has crossed not just stormy seas, but strange interdimensional portals as well. Or I'm just reading too much into this, but y'know, nah. It's legit.

4 Captain💙 Toad: Treasure Tracker 🦋

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker tells its puzzling tale across three "episodes" (and a postgame episode, but that's a bit complicated to get into). Toward the tail end of the third ep, on the 19th course, Toad engages in a decidedly♏ Donkey-Kong-esque 🀅stage called Retro Ramp-Up.

Toad's goal is to climb to the top of an obstacle course, avoiding huge spikes being tossed down by - sure enough - an enemy Spike. The spikes replace the barrels, and the Spike replac🐼es Donkey Kong, but thꦉe nods are unmistakable, and I reckon anybody who plays Captain Toad is bound to be familiar with the origin here.

3 Pixels

Pixels is a bad movie. I subj𝔍ected myself to it on a flight to Los Angeles about two years back. It was a mist🃏ake.

But what's done is done, an🐟d at least I get to talk about it in remotely positive fashion for one sentence when I point out that, sure e💝nough, Donkey Kong makes a cameo appearance in the 2015 nightmare fuel of a film. Aw, heck, I went negative at the end there.

2 🐼Ace Combat: As💖sault Horizon Legacy+

I wouldn't exactly classify Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy+ as the venerable military flight combat sim franchise's finest hour. But I'm happy to report that I unlocked the F/A-18E , a specially-decorated jet designed from the ground up in reverence to the second-most famous fictional gorilla ever made. (I'm pretty sure King's still on top.)

To unlock the F/A-18E , you need only destroy a Question Block in the Cuckoo's Nest level. If you have a Donkey Kong amiibo, however, you can not only unlock it without the extra effort, but even gain access to an exclusive skin and a helpful special part.

1 Fallout 4

If you've ever felt like rescuing the imperiled Vault Girl from theᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ vile clutches of an anthropomorphized 🍌version of the Chinese flag, boy, do I have a Donkey Kong knockoff for you. Red Menace is a DK-style ode to the banana-lovin' character's barrel-tossing 1980s antics in Bethesda Game Studios' very own .

Accessible after locatin🔯g it in Vault 111, Red Menace then becomes a portable absurdity that you can play in-game at any ti🔥me via your trusty Pip-Boy.