In May 1995, an interview with series creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Rare co-founder Tim Stamper about the development of Donkey Kong Country (DKC) was published in the magazine Electronic Games, conducted by game journalist Steven L. Kent. Kent later claimed on an episode of G4's docuseries "Icons" that Miyamoto was angry during this interview, channelling it into bitter criticisms of DKC's gameplay and the Western market's praise of its pre-rendered graphics, and that Stamper "sat there and took it, even though really the anger wasn't meant to be at Stamper". Miyamoto clarified in a 2010 interview with IGN that he did like the game despite these rumored criticisms, and that he worked closely with Rare and Stamper during development.

Years after the interview's publication, Kent would print an alleged portion of a later interview with Miyamoto in his 2001 book "The Ultimate History of Video Games", claiming that the anger had stemmed from "touchy" internal discussions regarding Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. The hand-drawn crayon art style of that game was said to be a result of the alleged anger over DKC's graphics causing him to rebel against Nintendo's internal evaluation committee, who wanted Yoshi's Island to use pre-rendered graphics. Part of the Miyamoto quote reads:


Developers on Yoshi's Island have given less angered statements regarding the choice in art style over the years. Yoshi's creator Shigefumi Hino and game director Takashi Tezuka each claimed that it was done for sentimental reasons, as the development team believed that all video games from that point on would likely utilize 3D graphics. They decided to "fight back" in Hino's words by scanning in hand-drawn illustrations and manually editing them to be readable sprites, creating a unique art style intended as a bow-out for 2D graphics:


Since then, every game in the Yoshi series has taken on a deliberately different visual style, including hand-crafted assets and real-world materials, to set itself apart from the Mario series.

Diddy Kong was originally going to be Donkey Kong Junior. According to character designer Kevin Bayliss, Donkey Kong Jr. was given a significant redesign inspired by Coco the Monkey, a mascot used for the Kellogg's breakfast cereal Cocoa Krispies/Coco Pops. Nintendo felt that Rare's redesign was too different from the original appearance of Donkey Kong Jr. and mandated that Rare either use Donkey Kong Jr.'s original look, or change the character's name. Rare decided the second option would be best. The potential names were Diet DK, DK Lite, Titchy Kong and Dinky Kong. Dinky Kong was almost the final name, but was dropped due to legal considerations.

Cranky Kong is the antagonist in the original Donkey Kong arcade and NES game. The Donkey Kong that you play as is the grandson of Cranky Kong.

This game was Donkey Kong's only playable appearance in a main-series Donkey Kong game until Donkey Kong 64, despite the game's sequel and triquel games bearing the Donkey Kong Country name.

In an earlier version of Donkey Kong Country, Jungle Hijinxs was known as "Jungle Japes". The title Jungle Japes was reused as the first level of Donkey Kong 64.

The Kremlings in Donkey Kong Country were originally created for another game in development at the time, an unannounced cancelled point-and-click adventure game titled "Jonny Blastoff and the Kremling Armada", but Rare repurposed them for DKC and they seemed to fit perfectly.

Early in development, Cranky had a much nicer personality compared to his mean spirited one he has in game.

In the opening intro, Cranky can be seen standing on the red girders from the original Donkey Kong playing a phonograph. The music playing is from the NES version of Donkey Kong.

It was rumored that Shigeru Miyamoto disliked Donkey Kong Country. The rumor stated that Miyamoto said "Donkey Kong Country proves that players will put up with mediocre game play as long as the art is good."

Later in an interview with IGN, Miyamoto clarified that he did in fact like Donkey Kong Country, and that he worked very closely with Rare on the game.

The Japanese version is actually easier than the American or PAL versions, unlike many games of its time. The Japanese version has many more DK Barrels, and has fewer enemies.

When visiting Funky Kong, a piece of music is often played which features a sound byte going "Hi-yah!" This sound byte is a sample from The System song "The Pleasure Seekers."

Through the use of an Action Replay code in the Super Nintendo version, it's possible to access a debug tool that makes all enemy objects lose their solidity and freeze in place. The player can use the D-pad to move around freely. Some gravity is present, but not much.

At the file select menu of the game, entering Down, Down, Down, Down, A, R, B, Y, Down A, Y, then Select will take the player to a sound test menu.

In early pre-release footage of the game, the banana-counter went up beyond just two digits, presumably up to 999. It is not known why the counter was reduced from three-digits to two-digits in the final release.

In the international release of the game, the title screen shows Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong swinging on a rope. In the Japanese version, it says Super Donkey Kong (the Japanese name for Donkey Kong Country) and shows Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong walking with Rambi, Squawks and Expresso with a Slippa and some Zingers following them.

The "Puftup" enemy from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest was originally intended to appear in this game, and its idle animation is even found in the game's code.

According to Donkey Kong Country director Gregg Mayles in a discussion with YouTuber Jirard Khalil "The Completionist", Cranky's infamous line "I did this using one life! And I took less than an hour!" during the credits was the last remnant of a scrapped mode where the player would be able to play as Cranky Kong, who would be much slower and in general perform poorly in comparison to Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. There is however an unused walking animation for Cranky left in the files of the SNES version of the game that would later be used in the GBA version after the player defeats a boss.

According to character designer Gregg Mayles on Twitter, after the announcement that King K. Rool would be in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a character that Gregg had named and designed the actions of, he revealed that the character was original called "KOMMANDER K. ROOL" and that Donkey Kong Country was originally to be called MONKEY MAYHEM. He also mentioned that the "K." in K. Rool does not actually stand for anything and the name itself is only intended to be a play on the word "cruel", though he joked that the initial could stand for something mundane and off-character, such as "Keith".

In addition, Gregg's brother Steve, who designed the look and visual design for the character, also revealed that the programmers thought King K. Rool was "too big" and too taxing on the game's memory, and thus several frames of the character's animation had to be dropped as a result.

Nintendo was apparently worried that the game was "too 3D" and that it would make players feel overwhelmed by the complexities of the graphics.

An early pitch made by Rare to Nintendo in the mid-1990's was titled "Donkey Kong VS Super Wario". The premise was that Mario had invented a time machine, but Wario snuck into his laboratory and used it to acquire a futuristic beam gun that he then used to turn Mario into stone. Wario then proclaims that he will use his new weapon to rule all of "Nintendo Land", but unbeknownst to him, a parrot in the corner of the room witnessed everything that took place. The parrot goes off to warn Donkey Kong, who immediately decides to stop Wario then and there.

The pitch was rejected by Nintendo, who asked Rare to create entirely new enemies for the game rather than just using Wario. Rare instead decided to re-use the Kremlings, a group of enemies originally conceived for an unannounced cancelled point-and-click adventure game titled "Jonny Blastoff and the Kremling Armada", and developing a new pitch titled "Donkey Kong and the Golden Bananas". The plot of this pitch was that Donkey Kong nodded off while guarding the Golden Banana, a relic sacred to his home island, allowing Korporal Krizzle (a prototype Kremling) to steal it. Grandpa Kong (prototype Cranky Kong) wakes up Donkey Kong and tells him to rescue the Golden Banana as the entire island was at stake. Before going, Donkey Kong enlists the help of Junior (a prototype Diddy Kong who started as a re-design of Donkey Kong Jr.) to retrieve it. This pitch would become the basis for Donkey Kong Country.