In Donkey Kong's cabin hangs a picture of a dolphin. This is a reference to the code name of the Nintendo Gamecube, "Dolphin". The game was released before the Nintendo Gamecube was revealed, and is thought to be the earliest reference to the code name "Dolphin."

The Kong's weapons were originally real guns, as opposed to the comical fruit and nut based weaponry seen in the final game. This was changed in response to Shigeru Miyamoto being horrified by them upon paying a visit to the Rare headquarters to check on the game's development. He then sketched out and offered a replacement that would be more fitting to the world of Donkey Kong, which would ensure that the game would receive a child friendly rating.

According to the game's Japanese website, K. Lumsy is King K. Rool's younger brother. This detail is not mentioned at any point in the English version of the game.

According to composer Grant Kirkhope, the DK Rap was written as a joke song that ended up being interpreted by audiences as a serious attempt at writing hip-hop. Consequently, he expressed confusion at the tongue-in-cheek cult following the song picked up decades later, noting that "bizarrely, this became its own thing now."

Diddy Kong Racing DS is somewhat infamous for introducing the newly redesigned Tiny Kong, who despite being originally conceived by Rare as Dixie Kong's younger sister in Donkey Kong 64, is now depicted as a taller teenager. This design would carry over into future titles such as Donkey Kong Barrel Blast and Mario Super Sluggers.

Contrary to popular belief, as revealed on a December 20, 2007 edition of Rare's Scribes, the decision to redesign Tiny into a teenager was not Rare's call, but Nintendo's, which is appropriate considering Nintendo has retained full ownership of Rare's Donkey Kong characters since the latter company were acquired by Microsoft in 2002, and thus now have full creative control on how they're presented and portrayed.

One detail that is worth pointing out, and may provide an explanation to why Nintendo had no qualms with redesigning a character who was meant to be Dixie's younger sibling into a teenager, is that the Japanese localization of Donkey Kong 64 reportedly makes zero mention of Tiny being related to Dixie, instead just being described by the manuals as just a "Charming girl Kong". It's also worth pointing out that every game that has featured Tiny Kong since 2002, such as Mario Super Sluggers, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U has also made zero mention of Tiny's relationship with Dixie Kong, which adds credence to the theory that Nintendo opted to ignore and essentially retcon Rare's initial lore of the two being siblings.

Based on an early version of the script, Snide was originally going to have a slightly different backstory and motivation for helping the Kongs. Rather than being King K. Rool's chief technician like in the final game, Snide was instead his personal handyman who grew frustrated that K. Rool wasn't letting him work on bigger projects such as the "Super Gun" (the original name for the Blast-o-Matic), eventually deciding to betray him. Notably, instead of mentioning time (in reference to the final level being on a time limit), Snide instead mentions the weapon having "weak points". It's unknown if this is based on an earlier version of Hideout Helm, or if it's just another way of describing the energy barriers, which are called weak points on the complete blueprint.