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“Drill sergeant Jamjars reporting f'duty, sir!”
Jamjars, Banjo-Tooie


Jamjars is Bottles' brother and serves as the replacement trainer for Banjo and Kazooie in Banjo-Tooie. Assertive and strict, this militaristic drill sergeant mole requires the pair to prove themselves by collecting a certain number of musical notes before teaching them any new moves. Like his brother, Jamjars doesn't think too kindly of Banjo's smart-aleck sidekick, Kazooie, but tolerates her enough to teach the pair some of the game's most important moves, possibly because of Kazooie's enthusiasm to beat the living (or in this case, undead) daylight out of Grunty.

Banjo and Kazooie must find his hatches in each world (unlike Banjo-Kazooie, all of Banjo-Tooie's worlds have at least one hatch and one move to learn) and have the minimum amount of notes to obtain the next move. His hatches are flat with a red light if the move hasn't been learned yet and green when it has. Pressing B button (N64) next to a green-lighted hatch will give a quick recap on how the move is performed. Also, if Banjo opens a hatch without full health, Jamjars will provide him some honeycomb "rations", instantly filling the health bar.

Each move is taught by Jamjars dancing to a military style flute and drums tune, with the instructions being sung in rhyme, similar to an Army march or cadence. When finished, he "dismisses" the duo, jumps up high, and dives back into his opened hatch. Occasionally as a gag, the hatch door will close early, causing him to land on his head. Comically, he groans, opens his hatch just far enough to wiggle inside, and then opens it once again to grab his fallen hat.

Jamjars also was involved in the revival of King Jingaling and Bottles via the B.O.B. (presumably via radio due to his speaking despite not physically being nearby). However, the latter nearly didn't end up revived due to Jamjars chewing Kazooie out due to initially thinking that she caused the B.O.B. to detonate by pressing buttons and initially refusing to apologize when Jingaling was restored to life, forcing him to swallow his pride and grudgingly giving her apologies to allow Bottles to be revived.

In Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, it is revealed that Jamjars has now become the MC of Spiral Mountain's local radio station. He tells the heroes that it has been ten years since they were created (Banjo-Kazooie had been released 10 years prior) and tells them how fat and lazy they've become since Banjo-Tooie.

Trivia[]

  • In Banjo-Kazooie, when Banjo and Kazooie come to one of Bottles' first molehills in Spiral Mountain, Kazooie refers to Bottles by the nickname Jamjars. This could be where Jamjars's name comes from. Jamjars is also an incorrect answer for Bottles when Grunty asks a trivia question in Grunty's Furnace Fun.
  • Jamjars is also a playable character in the multiplayer mode shootout games in Banjo-Tooie. He has eight Honeycombs and is the second slowest character (although significantly faster than Gruntilda), but makes up for this by being a slightly smaller target.
  • If Mumbo Jumbo talks to Jamjars, he will tell him that he only teaches moves to bears and birds and also calls him a freak and a weirdo.
  • Transformations are unable to talk to him. If the player presses B near a silo, nothing happens.
  • In Banjo-Tooie, instead of every item talking and explaining what it does when it is picked up for the first time (as in Banjo-Kazooie), Jamjars will be the one to tell you about the item and what it does instead, even before Banjo and Kazooie meet him in person.
  • He doesn't seem very emotional about the death of his brother. This is most likely because of his army background, having seen many soldiers passing away. He also could've been very confident Banjo and Kazooie would either avenge Bottles or bring him back.
  • Jamjars' military cadence is based on the Duckworth Chant, made popular by the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket.
    • It is interesting to note that while he rhymes in military cadence in the Original B-T, in the XBLA version some of his training "songs" don't rhyme. This is due to the fact that the X button on the 360 controller replaces the B button as the basic attack button on the N64 version.
  • Jamjar's voice is modeled after American Gunnery Sergent and actor R Lee Ermey, who fought in the Vietnam War and portrayed Drill Sergent Hartman in Full Metal JacketTemplate:Citation needed.
  • Due to his glasses, Jamjars doesn't possess a blinking animation (like the Stonies, the Unga Bunga Tribe and the Rocknut Tribe).
  • Jamjars is the only character that Grant Kirkhope voiced in the N64 games to still be voiced by Kirkhope in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, though they are merely archived recordings[1].

Gallery[]

Names in Other Languages[]

Language Name Meaning
Japanese ジャムジャー -
Spanish Jamjars (BT)
Mermelado (BKNB)
-
From mermelada (jam)


References[]

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