Hidden Details: Tropical Burn

Hey everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Hidden Details. This week, just like last week, I'll delve into the most recent comic we've made: Tropical Burn.

For some reason I had so much fun creating this comic. There's something inherently funny about drawing Cranky criticizing everything he sees. Maybe because I get to complain without actually complaining myself. Henceforth, I can't be criticized for my complaining because it's all Cranky's opinion.

Anyway, here we go:

#1: Diddy's hat reads "Hoo Ha". The Hoo Ha/Hoo Hah/Hoo Haa is a combo that Diddy can perform in Super Smash Bros for Wii U/3DS. When Smash was just released, this move, among other factors, made Diddy the most powerful character in the game. The Hoo Ha has since been nerfed, but it's still a pretty iconic move/meme. Here's a video of the Hoo Ha in action. 

#2: In the second panel, Diddy's cap reads "plz nerf", referencing the Hoo Ha again.

#3: Donkey Kong's tie originally has "DK" on it, but if I have to draw a character with two characters on his tie I feel like a kid in a candy store. I will never resist the urge to insert all kinds of stupid jokes in a situation like this. So in this panel, I replaced "DK" with "ED", referencing the Expand Dong meme:

If you're not familiar with the meme, check out Know Your Meme's article. I'm not even going to try explaining it.

#4: Cranky is talking about how games were difficult back in his day. To back up his claim, he brought a flipover with a screenshot of the Donkey Kong arcade game, which was, admittedly, notoriously hard. It is also true that Cranky is the Donkey Kong appearing in the Donkey Kong arcade game. So he really is showing a picture of him in his glory days.

#5: Also, to back up his millennial-remark, he put up a picture of a Tide Pod, telling those darn kids that those pods are, in fact, not food. If you've been living under a rock you might have missed it, but eating Tide Pods was thing among teenagers a while ago. Here's a Wikipedia article about it. 

#6: Oh, yes, I'm messing around with DK's tie again here. "420" didn't fit so I had to settle for the funniest number in world history: "69". Hilarious, huh?

#7: Some of you might have noticed, but I tried my best to faithfully recreate Funky Kong's shop from Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. I just removed all the junk and parrots because if I didn't I'd still be working on this comic:

#8: The tablet that Cranky is holding up in this panel shows the Donkey Kong Country cartoon from the 90's. It's a super weird cartoon with weird 3D models of Donkey Kong and his friends, controlled by actors via motion capture. HOWEVER: as I was researching this individual screenshot before writing this blog, I discovered this is actually from the box art of  Donkey Kong Country: Legend of the Crystal Coconut, a feature-length film:

Which means that Cranky is lying! He's not actually watching the show, he's viewing a JPEG of the box art. Or it's a thumbnail or a loading screen or something, I don't know. I couldn't find this frame in the movie, so I guess it was made specifically for the box art, but if you can prove me wrong, please do!

#9: This one wasn't really hidden, but I put some thought into how "Cranky Mode" would actually look. In my imagination, it's a first person game, where you have to target different characters and complain about them or insult them, as you can see on the screen here.

#10: Lastly, the box art does feature the Cranky new mode, just like it features Funky's new mode. Cranky doesn't care if he messes up the logo of the game. That's Cranky for ya.

And that's it! Hope you enjoyed this intermezzo of Donkey Kong memes on your Friday. Have a great weekend and I'll see you all next week :)

- Abel