I'm Banjo! WHOOAAA-AAAOOOO!!

Six months later, Nintendo mailed out another one. By the way, if you weren't sent a video, you could also rent one from Blockbuster's video game section, for free. I doubt anyone did it though. Informercials are a hard sell, even when they're the cost of nothing. And even when you put together a tape like this:

"FIRST on the scene! FIRST with the news! LAST in the Reporters Invitational Softball Tournament, this is HOT TOPIC!! With TRENT TILLMAN, your HOST!!" Trent is the least hyperactive of any N-Video host, but not by much. He cooly takes us through the world of "Diddy Kong Racing," mainly by cutting to his reporters in the field, but first by interviewing Dirk Monaghan, a professional adventurer who's braved sharks, lions, tasmanian devils and malfunctioning blenders. He's just returned from racing with Diddy Kong...how'd he fare THIS time?

Not too well. Dirk says a few lines of muffled dialogue--"WHHRRFMMFF FFMMR FFMMRFF FFRFF." This is clearly no sissy title full of talking animals and an evil entity known as "Wizpig." This is SERIOUSLY HARDCORE!! With that established, it's time for Trent to move on to his other reporters.

"Frank Fontaine" can barely contain himself (I don't think he did). "This is big news, Trent! I've recieved reports that among the many vehicles in this game, you can pilot...hovercraft! That's right...hovercraft! And cars, and boats! Think of the possibilities! Car versus plane, plane versus car, car versus hovercraft, hovercraft versus plane, PLANE VERSUS PLANE, HOVERCRAFT VERSUS CAR, CAR VERSUS---" It's too much for one man. He loses it.

Dent Chassis reports on other aspects of the game. It's no mere racing title, it's a racing adventure, with an overworld and secret areas. Actually, this WAS a novel idea...no racer had really done that yet(or had hovercrafts racing against planes). Still, DKR was up against Final Fantasy VII, AND Rare's own Goldeneye. And Parappa the Rapper.

Sheila Westin is Diddy Kong's heartbroken ex-girlfriend, who has given up a lasting relationship for the love of his new cars and racing tournaments. "I MISS MY MONKEY!!" Sheila belts out. Something seems wrong about this. Besides the obvious, I mean that Diddy's girlfriend is DIXIE. What happened to Dixie?

Kandi Krause reports high above the tracks in her flying contraption. She sees over 15 areas and various weapons, boost circles and balloons.

Cornelius and Darryl don't get much screen time, but make their impressions nonetheless. I forget what they said about the game, but it must have been a repeat of something stated earlier, because I've run out of things to say about DKR myself. Oh, right...there's the feature Nintendo has been drowning us in on the Gamecube: MULTIPLAYER!!

That polygon count on Diddy is low because they had to fit eight competitors on the screen at once without slowdown. In Mario Kart 64, this was fixed a different way by using sprites instead of polygons. The most interesting thing about Diddy Kong Racing is what happened to its characters after its release...Rare intended this to be a showcase for every character they planned to use on Nintendo systems. Banjo moved on to his own game first, and did well. Tiptup got a few cameos in Banjo's games. Prince Tricky, the triceratops you raced in one track, got a role in Star Fox Adventures next to Fox himself. Conker disappeared, then returned a few years later with a mouth straight from a construction site and friends that were talking pieces of manure. DKR Stress Syndrome hit Conker the hardest....he was never the same.

Just like last time, the tape ended with shots of other games available now or soon. Goldeneye was shown for 2 seconds. Why did this get a video and Goldeneye didn't? Strange. Super Mario 64 is on the list too, even though if you had an N64, chances were good you had that already. Zelda 64 is missing....it was back on the drawing board. Thank goodness we didn't get what we saw on the SF64 tape.

A sequel was planned for the Game Boy Advance called Diddy Kong Pilot, but when Rare was sold to Microsoft, Diddy could no longer be used(and neither could Conker for other reasons). The game was retitled Banjo Pilot and remade into a BK-themed sequel. It's not out yet, but it looks nice.

After this came the Jon Lovitz video, and it was made up entirely of game clips, so this makes it easier to show--as an audio file. To recreate the experience for yourself, stare at these pictures as you listen to the following. It speaks fer itself: