In the distant past of the ’90s and early 2000s, live-action video game advertisements were fairly commonplace on TV. Nintendo was especially fond of this approach, leading to the following mini-masterpiece for the platformer Banjo-Kazooie:
You probably have a lot of questions regarding that commercial, but we can answer one of them: Yes, practical effects were used in that advert in the form of an animatronic Kazooie, and believe it or not, it still exists. It was recently acquired by a Banjo-Kazooie fan, who posted about their success in a Facebook group for Banjo fans.
As spotted by GamesRadar, the animatronic puppet went on auction in December 2024, with the listing for it revealing some interesting details, like its final price of $2,100. For something that barely appears in the TV advert, there’s an impressive amount of detail in this puppet–which looks like a Five Nights at Freddy’s character–as it has a full spread of feathers, working animatronic parts, and was the work of AnimatedFX. The company has worked on several Hollywood productions like the Arnold Schwarzenegger Christmas classic Jingle All The Way and Team America: World Police.
Meanwhile, the Banjo-Kazooie series has been dormant since 2008. Their last notable appearance was in 2019 as guest DLC in Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighting game, but if you’re looking for something to scratch that platformer itch, there is the 2017 game Yooka-Laylee. A remaster dubbed Yooka-Replaylee was announced in 2024 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5, but there’s no release date for it yet.
