Escargoon

Escargoon is King Dedede's sidekick and one of his servents.

Appearance
Escargoon is an anthropomorphic escargot/snail (hence the name) who is Dedede's right hand man. His skin is lavender, and his shell is dark green. His eyes are green as well, and rise over the rest of his head on a stalk. He has a short, light green hair and goatee, and only four teeth.

Background
Escargoon grew up in a small house on a farm with his mother somewhere. When he grew up, he left home, promising his mother that he'd make her proud. Unfortunately, the real world was harsh, and he ended up working for King Dedede in Dream Land.

Personality
Escargoon has two distinct sides to his personality. There's the part of him that helps Dedede with his schemes and tricks, but he seems to have a genuinely nice side to him that only appears in extreme situations. Escargoon's mannerism gives the impression of someone past his youth, and tends to get quite grumpy with the children of the village. He can be quite mean and naughty towards people in general, using his status as the King's assistant to lend him the right to boss people around or threaten them with the death penalty (in the Japanese version only). It is not clear whether he really is mean and only acts nice when he needs something, or if he has a good side of him that does not show because he is perpetually helping Dedede with his schemes in order to gain his approval. Since his mother says Escargoon is cowardly and would never hurt anyone, it would seem that the latter situation is more likely.

Escargoon can be quite cheerful and animated at times, and often does oddly effeminate things such as wearing frilly aprons with hearts. (Other than that he rarely wears any articles of clothing, except an occasional bow tie, sun hat, or scarf in cold weather.) He is the usual host of Channel DDD for newscasts and special programs.

Escargoon is quite intelligent with a wide range of knowledge in botany (he wrote an encyclopedia on the subject called The Encyclopedia of Botanica), chemistry and electronics/robotics. When Dedede doesn't order something from Nightmare Enterprises, he tends to use one of Escargoon's inventions instead, such as a formula that turns things into Monsters. He builds various machines such as a submarine, missiles, and even a robotic version of himself. Unlike King Dedede, he does not trust Customer Service, and rarely orders things from him.

He has a tendency to make comparisons and similes (for example, he compares asking the Waddle Dees a question to "interrogating a mime troupe.")