The infamous DK Rap was featured in the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", with the chorus portion used to chant Donkey Kong's name as he enters the Great Ring of Kong to battle Mario. Donkey Kong's voice actor Seth Rogen reacted to the DK Rap prior to the film's release, referring to it as "objectively one of the worst rap songs of all time." The original songwriter Grant Kirkhope expressed excitement upon hearing about the song's inclusion in the film, but was dismayed upon seeing that he was not credited as the song's original composer in the movie's credits.

Donkey Kong 64 features a unnamed bat enemy found within certain stages such as Fungi Forest, Creepy Castle and Crystal Caves. This enemy would reappear in future games such as DK: King of Swing but under a seemingly new name: Flipflap.

It turns out that this particular name was already used for this enemy back in the Japanese localization of Donkey Kong 64. In the bestiary within the official Japanese DK64 guidebook, they are named フリップフラップ (Furippufurappu), which of course translates to Flipflap in English.

The Gloomy Galleon level music in Donkey Kong 64 originates from Dream: Land of Giants, the game that eventually became Banjo-Kazooie. Fittingly enough, it was originally intended to be the theme for Captain Blackeye, Dream's villainous pirate antagonist, who would later go on to cameo as a non-playable character in Banjo-Tooie's Jolly Roger's Lagoon world.

As a bonus feature for Rare Replay, Rare included a set of music tracks dubbed "Top-Secret Tunes", which primarily features previously unreleased music from Rare games in development, including many hailing from Dream. One of these is a rendition of Blackeye's theme, called "High Tides, Swift Sails". While Rare had made efforts to avoid any legal issues with Nintendo as they were putting together Rare Replay (such as removing the remix of the Donkey Kong Land boss battle from its version of Blast Corps), this song's appearance may be an exception as the original version comes from a game owned by Rare that was never completed, while the game the song was repurposed for was never planned to be included in Rare Replay to begin with.

In an interview with GamesRadar+, creative director George Andreas revealed that the game's notoriously high volume of collectibles was the result of an executive request from Rare co-founder Tim Stamper. According to Andreas, Stamper believed that the emphasis on collectables would help differentiate the game from Banjo-Kazooie, which the Stamper brothers had previously produced. This desire also influenced the decision to feature five playable characters and the inclusion of "thrilling moments" such as mine cart and slide segments.

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.

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.