>>717872992
Because crocodiles are fucking aweseome, saturday morning cartoony villain scthick with different costumes is aweseome, and his being actually unironically an evil bastard unlike Bowser is also fucking cool. He is just a really awesome character, he is basically like a giant evil daffy duck. Which sits in strong contrast to most of Nintendo's cast, being a heavily western design both in inspiration and aesthetic.

Aside from my fanboy sperging, he gained a gigantic boost in notoriety after smash ultimate, and prior to that, a long kampaign of being considered an underdog on a meta level because Retro refused to use him and would have rather not made a new DK game for an entire 10 years than even bother acknowledging him in any capacity.