We could've gotten a Banjo Kazooie cartoon in the '00s, but Xbox was breaking fans' hearts even then: "Microsoft did not see this as something that they wanted to invest in"

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At 4Kids, "The loss of the Pokémon franchise left a huge hole, and so began an initiative to develop new shows"

An artist who worked for Pokemon production company 4Kids in the 2000s has shed some light on the Banjo Kazooie animated series that never was.

Banjo Kazooie fans have been long-suffering. After two beloved N64 platformers hit the scene, the series had a couple of GBA spinoffs while fans waited on the third entry to arrive. When it did, in the form of 2008's vehicle building simulator Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts – which was a good game (scholarly folks like me may even say, the best one) – but it wasn't the platformer that some fans wanted. Since then, the only real love shown to the characters was by Nintendo, when the Banjo Kazooie duo appeared as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC.

"4Kids had lost the rights to localize the Pokemon franchise because of mismanagement by 4Kids Entertainment, our parent company," Lopez recalls, "The loss of the Pokemon franchise left a huge hole, and so began an initiative to develop new shows."

Included in the this batch of new shows was an adaption of Rare's Viva Pinata, so adaptations of other Rare properties like Battletoads and Sabre Wulf were also being considered, but "since Banjo had a game coming out soon – Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts – it was chosen as the one to develop. The idea was to have it ready to coincide with the release of the game, or at least close to it."

As for what the show would actually be like, Lopez described it as "somewhat of a retelling" with new elements sprinkled in, akin to how the Viva Pinata show wasn't about tending a farm like the game, though the team behind Banjo was "coming in on the idea that this is people's first exposure to" the game.

Lopez also pitched designs that "took into account some familiar elements from the original games," saying that the team wasn't bound to the art style for the then-upcoming Nuts & Bolts.

So then what happened to the show? Nothing.

"The higher ups did their pitch and it all just stopped," Lopez recalls, saying, "I remember asking after not hearing anything, and they would say they heard nothing back."

Lopez notes that it's "pretty common" in the industry, to not hear anything back about an idea, and said, "For whatever reason, Microsoft did not see this as something that they wanted to invest in."

Would a Banjo animated series have saved the franchise? Or was it always destined to go down after the negative reaction to Nuts & Bolts, and then hit radio silence for years until an Xbox exec had to say the series was still important to Xbox after it was reported he initially said "nobody cares about Banjo Kazooie"?

Despite layoffs at Xbox's Rare, Crash Bandicoot 4 and Spyro remake devs are reportedly among the studios "really interested" in a new Banjo-Kazooie game.

Scott McCrae
Scott McCrae
Contributor

Scott has been freelancing for over three years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.

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