DKC Atlas Forum

I've always thought the very first level of the very first game in our very favourite game series of all time... was a little out of place.

Jungle Hijinxs

No rhyme, no alliteration, no pun... and I believe the spelling is incorrect, too! (Many references suggest 'hijinks' — and a 'k' would be more DK-riffic, anyway!)

Why on earth did Rare choose this name for DK's home turf?


It has been mentioned here that this level used to be called 'Jungle Japes' prior to the game's release — a name DK64 fans will recognise.



Further use of 'Jungle Japes' as the level name, from Mexican 'Club Nintendo' magazine:


This long-abandoned name is a much more catchy and fitting one, I think.


Why do you think 'Jungle Hijinxs' was chosen for the name, rather than Jungle Japes?

I don't know how it became the name for DK's home turf, and I have no idea why they renamed the level to Jungle Hijinxs from Jungle Japes in the final release in the first place, Jungle Japes sounds better.

Maybe it's because they thought it sounded better than Jungle Japes.

Hijinx is a popular slang for hijinks. I think it sounds better too. Maybe that's cause I grew up calling it Jungle Hijinx

Yeah, it always bothered me that it's Hijinxs, with an erroneous 's' at the end. It's almost as if someone used a replace function on the game's text and accidentally searched for the the text string "Jape" instead of "Japes".

With that spelling, it would be pronounced like "Jungle Hijinkses."

I totally agree with you about the way it's pluralised, Matt; it looks/sounds very awkward that way.

BlueTronic wrote:Hijinx is a popular slang for hijinks.

I wasn't aware that the word was common/popular at all — let alone enough to warrant 'slang' variants. It seems a very obscure/archaic expression to me... or is that not really the case?

I have actually seen it written as 'high jinks' before, but I'm not sure where.


Somebody (VideoViking?) mentioned in chat that 'japes' without the 'e' (if the name was mistyped, misread or misheard) could be misinterpreted as a racial slur... which could have been a particular concern since the relevant race was that of the owners of the Donkey Kong franchise, and Nintendo itself!

This does seem like a possible motivation for the name change, although if this is the case, the presence of 'Jungle Japes' in Donkey Kong 64 doesn't make sense... perhaps by the time DK64 came around Rare were a little less cautious (maybe they'd forgotten about all of this entirely) and decided to use the name they'd been holding onto for the past few years.

Edit: Perhaps this was the beginning of the end for Rare's relationship with The Big N?

Yep, that was me, Qyzbud.

Ah good, thought so... it's definitely the best theory I've heard so far — not that I've heard many, but still.

Considering how many revisions were released for DKC, it's really quite surprising that 'Hijinxs' was never relieved of the seemingly superfluous 's'... although I think the text did remain largely unchanged after the first release, despite other errors being present. I'm just not sure whether:

1. Nobody noticed.
2. Nobody cared. Or
3. It was considered 'correct' in the first place...

Honestly, I don't think there's much behind this level name. But for those DKC conspiracy theorists out there reading this, perhaps Rare wanted the first level's name to stand out from the rest? Or maybe they named that level and then decided to alliterate all the other names, while keeping the first intact.

Super Luigi! wrote:[...] maybe they named that level and then decided to alliterate all the other names, while keeping the first intact.

If it weren't for the obvious use of 'Jungle Japes' as a beta name (see images/info in first post), I'd be inclined to agree with this theory... but evidence indicates that this level's name was one in particular that didn't stay intact.

[...] perhaps Rare wanted the first level's name to stand out from the rest?

I guess that's possible; they could have reviewed the names near release, and found the alliteration of the first few levels to sound a bit 'bland'. This could potentially explain the rather strange departure from the typical naming convention...

Good theory.

Prior to DK64, I had never really heard the word "japes" before. Since "hijinks" and "japes" basically have the same meaning, and the word "hijinks" was a lot more common, perhaps it was changed for clarity's sake.

Hm, I thiiiink I've heard hijinx being pronounced as jinx once... so maybe it's just sorta alliteration. Or my poor English skills... probably the latter.

So frankly...! I'm not really sure. And I'm even less sure why they'd change Jungle Japes to it. Oh well.

Looking through our gallery, I've reminded myself of something I must've read in the past, but forgotten about; take a peek at the JUNGLE summary at the top-left of this scan:



As you can see, the level is referred to as "Jungle Hijinks" here, which is a perfectly acceptable spelling.

Of course, the content of instruction booklets deviates from in-game text often enough, but it's food for thought...