Franchise: The Legend of Zelda

When writing the story and setting of the first two The Legend of Zelda games, Takashi Tezuka was inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien’s "The Lord of the Rings" high fantasy book series.

Tingle's effeminate mannerisms have caused many fans to assume the character is supposed to be gay, and so much so that in 2006, GayGamer named Tingle as gaming's #1 "gayest character". The Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma would say to Kotaku in 2015: "He's not gay. He's just an odd person." The Tingle spin-off games very overtly portray Tingle as a heterosexual man, with Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love being a combination of a dating simulator and point-and-click adventure where every date is female, while in Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, part of Tingle's motivation is that he wants to be with beautiful women.

According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the design of the Deku Baba enemies in The Legend of Zelda series were a cross between a dog and the giant snapping Clams from Super Mario 64.

In a 1994 interview with the game's creator Shigeru Miyamoto, featured in the liner notes of "The Legend of Zelda: Sound and Drama" CD, he was asked what themes he was trying to convey through the series as a whole? He responded:

In the German releases of the franchise the word "Rupee" is translated to "Rubin", the German word for Ruby, which the Rupee's name is based on.

The name of the Moblin enemies come from the Japanese words "Mori" (Forest) and "Goburin" (Goblin), an obvious nod to the fact that the enemies are Forest Goblins.

Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess have trailer songs that all use the same orchestrated soundtrack. This music track is an orchestrated piece from the 1982 Conan The Barbarian movie, "Riddle of Steel/Riders of Doom", composed by Basil Poledouris, and it is played during Ocarina of Time's 1998 trailer, Wind Waker's E3 2002 trailer and Twilight Princesses E3 2004 trailer.

Tingle's magic words: "Kooloo-Limpah!" are actually a play on "kururinpa" the Japanese equivalent to the word "Cuckoo", which is often used to describe someone who is crazy.

Eiji Aonuma states that the name "Majora" comes from "[Takaya] Imamura, who made the design for Majora's Mask, invented the word by combining characters from the movie title Jumanji and from his name Imamura". In Japan Majora's name is "Mujura".

The late actor and comedian Robin Williams admitted to being a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda, even naming his daughter after the Hyrulian princess as suggested by his son Zachary. Both Robin and Zelda Williams were later featured in commercials for The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures and the 3DS remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

In 2007, Imagi Animation (known for producing TMNT and Astro Boy) approached ##Nintendo## with a proof of concept trailer for a CGI animated film of The Legend of Zelda. The film ultimately didn't get approved for development by ##Nintendo##.

The act of hitting an energy ball back and forth has been used in a large number of Zelda games, starting with A Link to the Past. However, it wasn't given the official name of "Dead Man's Volley" until Phantom Hourglass, 15 years after its debut.

WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes has a Triforce on his wrestling boots, and plays A Link to the Past on an annual basis.

Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto has stated that inspiration for The Legend of Zelda series came from his experiences as a young boy exploring fields, lakes, woods, and caves around Kyoto Japan. Most prominently he mentions a certain small cave he would regularly explore with a lantern.

The shields of The Legend of Zelda and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link both had crosses on Link's shield. The cross was removed in A Link to the Past, likely in order to remove any religious references.

During the Zelda portion of the Gamecube's Spaceworld 2000 trailer, Link is using the Hero's Shield of Majora's Mask, instead of the Hylian Shield which is commonly associated with Ocarina of Time's Adult Link, which the tech demo portrays.

For The Legend of Zelda's 25th anniversary, Nintendo of America wanted to do a compilation release featuring various classic titles from the series, however series creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata were against the idea. This was because they already released the Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Edition a year prior and didn't want to do something similar twice in a row.

In the Japanese manual of the original NES Legend of Zelda, the recurring boss, Manhandla, is described as a "four-limbed, jumbo-sized Piranha Plant". A Piranha Plant is a kind of enemy from the Mario series.

According to Eiji Aonuma, the director for most of The Legend of Zelda games, the CD-i titles "Link: The Faces of Evil" and "Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon" (and presumably also "Zelda's Adventure") aren't considered part of the series canon and don't really fit in the franchise.

Excluding Twilight Princess, the Octorok enemy has been in every canon Zelda game. This has also made them the most reappearing enemy in the series.