Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest "Kremland's Stupid Happy Boat Ride (Komplete Ride Through Mix)" 3:06

Donkey Kong Bananza dropped this month, so we needed to share this super-cheeky piece of DK business. :-) General Grunt, the creator of the Kremling-inspired world of Transfatylvania, is back at it again with another silly sendup to the DKC franchise (complete with his own video for us)! It's not polka this time, no siree. This time around, General Grunt leads a dirty dozen of artists into his boldest DKC voyage yet, adapting several DKC2 themes as the lyrical accompaniment for an imaginary Krazy Kremland amusement park ride!

Kredits:

Main arrangement/lyrics: General Grunt
Vocals:

• newmajoe
• Michelle Dreyband
• Dylan William van de Wal
• angrypolarbear

Trumpet: David Lallande
Violins: Shea's Violin
Viola: Nemo Fairlight
Accordion: Ian Martyn
Percussion: DeLuxDolemite
Guitar, additional instrument programming, engraving and mixing: Pixels & Paradiddles

As General Grunt wrangled these damn dirty apes, it only makes sense to hear the ringleader explain what could have posessed him to go this ridiculous route:

"Hello, OCR! Grunt here with another insane arrangement. This track has a history of twists and turns. My inspiration was basically: What if Krazy Kremland in DKC2 had a kiddie ride similar to It's a Small World in Disney? This would be the song that endlessly plays throughout the ride. Of course, that was years ago. Fast forward to 2025 and Universal Studios is actually making a Donkey Kong park. C'mon, Nintendo, THIS should really be a ride there!!! Anywell... originally this track was around a minute and a half, with no lyrics and was mainly played on a calliope organ. That version is on the VGM CON Vol. 1 charity album which you can find on most music streaming platforms. THIS version was revised recently for the Dwelling of Duels David Wise Month. This new version is MUCH more elaborate. When I was revamping it, I went with the notion that, while the Small World ride in Disney takes the ride-goer around the countries of the world, THIS ride takes the ride goer to the various Crocodile Isle locations in the order in which you play them in DKC2:

• Gangplank Galleon
• Crocodile Cauldron
• Krem Quay
• Krazy Kremland
• Gloomy Gulch
• K. Rool's Keep

I reflect this in both the lyrics/music. I used "Welcome to Crocodile Isle" as the main melody and made the entire arrangement into a major key (except the Gloomy Gluch/K. Rool's Keep part) to give it that happy Disney ride feel. I also incorporated the "Gangplank Galleon" (the piratey intro part only) and "K. Rool Returns" in there for the other lyrical segments. I managed to sneak in a SMALL portion of "Krook's March" in there too, so see if you can spot that. This is probably the most time I've spent on an arrangement since I've been working on this on/off for at least 2 years. Anyway, it's another "out there" arrangement from yours truly. Hopefully, you enjoy listening to it as much as I had fun arranging it.

And I should say everyone who helped with this deserves as much credit as well. Without the tremendous contributions from live instruments, to amazing vocals, right down to mixing, this wouldn't NEARLY have come out as great as it did. The UPDATED mix sounds way clearer. Huge thanks to paradiddlesjosh and Chimpazilla.

Thank you to everyone! Enjoy, judges (I'd bribe you with Kremland tickets but Crocodile Isle is currently sunk in the bottom of the ocean)."

Since judge prophetik music wasn't able to be bribed, one would assume a tough customer like him would be a hard sell, yet he was nothing but eager to set sail:

"oh, look, a goofball arrangement! i wonder whose idea this is...oh, right.

opens with a nice flourish and some crocodile isle in a major key to start off, with some announcer noise in the background. the cheesy choir and accordion right after are hilariously on-point in style. [...]

the switch to 3 at 1:29 complete with the same cricket sfx that we've all used for two decades was excellent. [...] we goofball our way through a few more themes, have some more announcer nonsense, and some boat sfx that unsurprisingly sounds like flatulence to end it off. [...]

it's goofy, which mirrors a lot of elements in the games, and it does a fun job of exploring different themes while aping a culturally relevant theme park ride. nice work."

Kudos for Grunt for finding the sound design to be as important as the instrumentation, vocals, and voice acting, each section being punctuated with sampled sounds from the DKC games or SFX like boat creaking and bubbling lava. General Grunt says his stuff is "out there", and while we wouldn't be foolish enough to claim otherwise, the arrangement's amazing, the performances are lively & impeccable, and it's a strong, silly concept. The extra time and pressure were clearly spent forming a DK diamond of a piece! :-) What an amazing bit of DK fanfiction in musical form, this theme park ride for a little isle of crocodiles -- 5 out of 5 bananas!