With Banjo and Kazooie’s semi-recent inclusion in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, we thought we’d make a list dedicated specifically to the bear and bird duo, a list of our favorite Jiggies!  Today, I am listing my top 5 Jiggies from each game on the Nintendo 64.  Let’s get started!

Top 5 Banjo-Kazooie Jiggies

5: Planting…Eggs Outside the Church – This might not seem like a super exciting Jiggy to collect, but I’m placing it on my list because it’s…memorable, to say the least.  Outside the church in Mad Monster Mansion, there are several flowerpots, into which Kazooie can…expel eggs in order to make flowers grow.  Why Kazooie’s eggs would create anything besides a yolky mess, I know not, but that’s not where the true question lies.  What truly confounds me is the mysterious voice you hear every time you plant new flowers.  I could have sworn it was saying “voooOOOOooodka”, while other people thought that it said something…a bit more foul.  It turns out, the guy was just saying “thank you”.  To this day, I still have no idea who was talking, though.

4: Freeing Gobi – Gobi is a recurring character throughout both main Banjo-Kazooie games.  He is memorable thanks to our heroes’ habit of stealing the water he had stored up for various things.  Watering Trunker.  Watering a flower in Click Clock Wood.  Or even cooling off Chuffy the train.  Since Gobi’s misery was so amusing, I thought the Jiggy we obtain upon our initial meeting deserved a spot on this list.

3: Within the Bowels of the Rusty Bucket – Yes, yes, I know, everyone seems to really hate the mechanical hellscape that is the inside of the Rusty Bucket.  Just about everything in here is turning or revolving or spinning…above a bottomless pit (I know I always say this, but how can there be a bottomless pit inside…you know what, never mind).  Well, this particular location is home to one of the most difficult challenges in the entire game and often the site of my very first death for that particular playthrough…and I can’t help but love the added challenge that is unlike anything else the game has to offer.  Plus, I just really like the music here.

2: Getting Flushed – Call me immature, but I can never get over the fact that, while in your pumpkin transformation, you can get flushed inside Loggo the toilet.  Come to think of it, he’s a mighty good toilet to be able to handle flushing both a small gourd and a Jiggy.  What an example of fine craftsmanship indeed!

1: Freeing Clanker – One character everyone seems to remember quite fondly within the Banjo-Kazooie series is Clanker, Gruntilda’s living garbage disposal.  Part shark, part whale, this poor darling is stuck floating within mucky water.  In order to free him, you must swim to the deepest depths of the cave and swim through the key, or whatever it is.  Once it turns enough times, the chain holding Clanker down loosens up, allowing him to reach fresh air.  Though we receive a Jiggly for our troubles, knowing that Clanker’s sad life has improved by at least a small bit warms the cockles of my heart.

Top 5 Banjo-Tooie Jiggies

5: Getting Chuffy the Train to the Icy Side of Hailfire Peaks – To start, this Jiggy is not really all that special.  It’s the story behind it that is.  Throughout my first several playthroughs of Banjo-Tooie, I never got all the Jiggies (excluding that one with Canary Mary in Cloud Cuckooland, which is impossible, for all we know…).  One such Jiggy was always on the other side of a transparent wall of ice in Hailfire Peaks…mocking me.  I pondered for years over how to get this Jiggy, when it occurred to me…there’s a train track behind it, isn’t there?  Hmm…  This got my noggin thinking, and I finally realized how I could use Gobi to cool off the train on the Fire Side so that the train could take me to the Ice Side.  I was so proud when I finally managed to obtain this elusive Jiggy, and I’ve gotten excited to revisit it every playthrough since.

4: Crossing the Stomping Plains – The Stomping Plains in Terrydactyland has always been both terrifying and amusing.  This huge area, ominously adorned with large footprints, was decidedly eerier when I first visited it nearly two decades ago as a duckling.  Creep closer, and a giant foot (the foot of the Stomponadon, no less) will come down with a roar, letting you know to whom these plains belong.  But if you stand inside a footprint and look up at the approaching footsie, I could swear that this thing truly is nothing more than a dismembered dinosaur foot.  This notion, paired with Stomponadon’s complete obsession with trying to flatten you, turns this previously frightening place into one more comical.

3: Riding the Saucer of Peril – I’m not a big fan of mini games, but the Saucer of Peril in Witchyworld is just so much fun to ride!  Riding a flying saucer all around the park, shooting targets, is just a great time indeed.

2: Shooting Questionable Brown Blobs in Clinker’s Cavern – I absolutely loved the first-person Breegul Blaster levels in Banjo-Tooie.  While the one in Mayahem Temple was a bit too easy, the one in Glitter Gulch Mine was way too frustrating.  Clinker’s Cavern in Grunty Industries, while stressful, was more my cup of tea.  You have a time limit to explore this maze-like place, shooting all the Clinkers before time runs out and the air gets too toxic to breathe!  Good times!

1: Popping Mr. Patch – Perhaps my favorite Jiggy of the entire series, I loved the boss battle against Mr. Patch, the Strange Wobbly Inflatable Thing.  You get to fly around in first-person, shooting grenade eggs at his patches in order to pop them, making him lose air and get smaller and smaller.  Plus, the music for this boss fight is as fun as the battle is!

Screenshot by Flickr User: Justin Taylor