Donkey Kong Jr.

Donkey Kong Junior, also known as DK Jr. or simply Junior, is the protagonist of the 1982 arcade game of the same name and the son of the original Donkey Kong. Junior wears a white singlet with a red letter "J" on it. His objective in the game is to save his father, who was locked by Mario in a cage. He returns in the 1994 Game Boy video game Donkey Kong, where he teams up with his father, who has kidnapped Pauline, against Mario. Junior also appeared as a playable character in Super Mario Kart, but he didn't return in any of the future installments, he was also in the Virtual Boy game Mario's Tennis, and as a hidden character in the Nintendo 64 version of the similarly named Mario Tennis. He also has his own educational video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System: Donkey Kong Jr. Math. Other appearances by Junior includes the Game & Watch games Donkey Kong Jr. (in wide-screen, tabletop and panorama versions) and Donkey Kong II, as well as the Game & Watch Gallery series compilations for Game Boy. He also appears as the physical appearance of the transformed king of World 4 in theSuper NES and Game Boy Advance versions of Super Mario Bros. 3. Donkey Kong Junior had his own segment in the first season of Saturday Supercade and was voiced by Frank Welker. Like his father, he had his own cereal brand in the 1980s.

According to Rare, the developers of Donkey Kong Country, there are multiple Donkey Kongs, and the modern one who appears in Donkey Kong Country onward is actually a grown-up version of Junior himself.[1] However, the Donkey Kong Country manual stated that Cranky is the grandfather of the game's titular character. More recently, Super Smash Bros. Brawl andDonkey Kong Country Returns have stated that the current Donkey Kong is the original Donkey Kong's grandson.

The character Diddy Kong was going to be an updated version of Donkey Kong Junior. However, Nintendo did not like this idea, suggesting either to give him his old look or make him a new character. Rare chose the latter and Diddy Kong was made.