King Dedede during the show's theme song And his most famous quote.
I need a monster to clobber that! There, Kirby.
There's only one bonafide ruler of Cappy Town and that's KING DEDEDE!King Dedede in "Curio's Curious Discovery".
🎶Dedede! That’s the name you should know!
King Dedede's own theme song he wrote himself and sung in the episode "Cartoon Buffoon".
Dedede He’s the king of the show!
You’ll holler and hoot, he’ll give Kirby the boot!
Dedede is the one!
(Lively trumpet fanfare plays)
DEDEDE IS THE OOOOOOOOOONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🎶
Comin at ya! YEAH!!!!
King Dedede is the main antagonist of the anime series Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. Much like his initial characterization in the video games, he is the evil, greedy, lazy, selfish, cruel, abusive, self-absorbed and dangerously immature self-proclaimed king of Dream Land/Cappy Town, and the one-sided nemesis to Kirby who is bent on getting rid of him in any way possible. Instead of usually being more upfront with getting rid of Kirby as he is in the games, his most prominent tactic is buying monsters from Nightmare Enterprises who can later terrorize Kirby. He is also accompanied by a anthropomorphic snail named Escargoon who serves as his right-hand and enforcer.
He was voiced by Kenichi Ogata in Japanese and Ted Lewis in English, who also voiced Escargoon.
Biography
Not much is known about King Dedede's past, but it is known that he somehow managed to become the ruler of Dream Land some time ago, a status he maintains to the current day. He eventually managed to hire Escargoon as a sidekick, and also secured Meta Knight and Captain Waddle Doo as affiliates working for him (though Meta Knight only worked for him for his own ends). In his throne room, he has a teleportation device that sends him monsters from Nightmare Enterprises. At one point, this caused Kirby to wake up from his sleep hundreds of years early, as his ship detected a monster that Dedede hired.
After he discovered that the owner of Nightmare Enterprises, ENeMeE, has betrayed him, Dedede joins Kirby and his friends to take him down once and for all. In the end, the company is destroyed, and Dedede no longer has the ability to purchase monsters. He is last seen observing the phone Customer Service gave him, which has no signal. It is unknown what became of Dedede afterwards, though he no longer has his main source of malice.
Personality
Much like he is in the games, Dedede is a conceited, wrathful, and immature tyrant who prioritizes his own passions at the expense of his people and loves bullying and abusing the Cappies, especially Kirby. He will completely ignore anyone who even slightly says anything negative about him being a king unless it pushes his goals further, seeing the townsfolk as weaker, less wealthy, and therefore less meaningful than him. Much like his greediness stays the same in this version, and Dedede keeps his love for eating way too much food and being mean.
Despite being very similar to his video game counterpart, this version of King Dedede is much more twisted and morally reprehensible. His hatred for Kirby has taken over him and instead of keeping it just between him and Kirby, he has no regard for the townsfolk at all and often takes his huge hatred of Kirby out on innocent citizens of Cappy Town. Strangely enough, despite being a complete bully to pretty much everyone in Cappy Town, citizens still see him as a king and occasionally show some respect to him. While he's certainly more villainous than his other versions, he still keeps a comedic and incompetent personality, especially with his new partner Escargoon, who is smarter and slightly more competent than his king.
While he is a lot more villainous here than he is in the video games, King Dedede can briefly have a soft side to him at times regardless of what his cruelty, immaturity and wrath implies of him. Seeing as how he decided to keep his word and build a playground for the children as the asteroid Gerath came closer and closer to crashing into Dream Land, and takes Kirby there to show that his soft side truly does exist. He has also shown to actually have remorse and care for his foes; in one episode, while Dedede tried once again to defeat Kirby, Tiff and the town decided to pull a prank on him by faking Kirby's death with a full funeral that the entire town was in on; upon his discovery of this funeral, Dedede actually felt terrible about what he thought he did and cried at Kirby's fake gravestone, and when it was revealed to all be a prank, Dedede cried tears of joy and relief.
Relationships
Friends/Allies
- Escargoon (right-hand man and sidekick)
- Captain Waddle Doo (army captain)
- Waddle Dees (soldiers)
- Nightmare Enterprises monsters
Neutral
- Meta Knight
- Sword Knight
- Blade Knight
- Sir Ebrum (cabinet minister)
- Lady Like
- Tokkori
Enemies
- Kirby (arch-nemesis)
- Tiff
- Tuff
- Fololo & Falala
- Chef Kawasaki
- Whispy Woods
- Kabu
- Cappies
- NME Sales Guy (former ally)
- ENeMeE (former ally)
Gallery
Trivia
- This version of King Dedede (specifically the English dub) has become a very memeable character for fans of the Kirby series, mainly for his voice and some of his funny quotes.
- The two most memed quotes in particular are when he says "I need a monster to clobber that there Kirby!" in the intro of the English dub and when he says "If you wanna help me, hand me another bag of them chips!" in the episode 61 Fitness Fiend.
- In the Japanese version, King Dedede usually adds "zoi" at the end of sentences. This is not present in the English dub.
- During the episode 44 (38 in Japanese) "A Novel Approach", it is revealed that not only was Dedede expelled from kindergarten, he is also illiterate.
- Despite 4Kids having a reputation animated of poorly dubbing anime, Ted Lewis' casting of King Dedede received critical acclaim from most audiences, some considering it a definitive voice for him.
- He, Kirby and Escargoon are animated in 3D the most out of anyone on the show.
External Links
Navigation
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King Dedede's Army Nightmare Enterprises Other | ||