Banjo

Banjo is a brown honey bear and one of the two protagonists on which the series centers. He is always seen wearing a pair of yellow shorts, a shark tooth necklace, and a blue backpack. He first appeared in Diddy Kong Racing alongside Tiptup as a racer with a high top speed and low acceleration before starting in his own game several months later, and has since been the main character of every Banjo-Kazooie game yet. He will return in the series's next installment for the Xbox 360. A while back Banjo "adopted" a breegull named Kazooie who is often seen seeking shelter in his backpack. The pair has gone on numerous adventures together, the purpose of most of them being to stop the sinister plans of the evil witch Gruntilda. Banjo also has a younger sister named Tooty, who lives with him and Kazooie in a house at the bottom of Spiral Mountain. He also plays his namesake instrument.

But Banjo wasn't born a Rare icon, despite being quickly loved by millions. He originally was planned to be a small time character in a Super Nintendo videogame named Project Dream. After the Nintendo 64 was released, the game was moved to the new console and was found to be too generic and so a rabbit would become the main character. But again, this was not successful so Rare tried a game based around Banjo himself.

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Banjo