Breakthrough Hit: While Naughty Dog made games beforehand, it was this series where they had their first true hit.
Channel Hop: The original games were co-published by Sony and Universal, then Universal dropped Sony and had complete control of the franchise. After Universal splitted from then-parent Vivendi and left their video game and music division with the latter company, the property went to Vivendi Games note formerly Vivendi Universal Games . Then Vivendi sent the series to subsidiary Sierra, who had the series for a few games. Then Vivendi Games/Sierra got bought by Activision, who had the series until that company was bought out by Microsoft in 2023. On the developer side, the games were initially developed by Naughty Dog, but once they were done with the series, it got handed off to multiple developers from Eurocom, to Traveller's Tales, Vicarious Visions, and Radical Entertainment.
Creator Backlash: Jason Rubin admitted that he doesn't like the post-Naughty Dog Crash games. The co-president of Naughty Dog, Evan Wells, when asked how he felt about other developers working on Crash titles, replied, "It's a little bit like watching your daughter do porn." On the other hand, character designer Charles Zembillas actually liked Crash's redesign at the hands of Radical Entertainment, actually desiring further involvement in the series while co-creator Andy Gavin at the very least praises Crash Bash and Crash Twinsanity for staying true to the original games.
Cross-Dressing Voices: Cortex is voiced by Debi Derryberry in a flashback to his school days in Crash Twinsanity. His appearance as a baby in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped is an aversion.
Development Hell: An animated TV show was in the planning stages since when the first game came out and has yet to do so even to this day.
Interviewer: Is Naughty Dog completely finished working on the Crash Bandicoot franchise? Evan Wells (co-president of Naughty Dog): Yeah, we have to be. Unless we go back to the developers and pay them a lot of money to work on the game that we created, then we're done with Crash Bandicoot, unfortunately. I love the character to death and those games have a special place in my heart, in fact CTR is the one game that I'll continue playing for years to come. Interviewer: Is it disappointing to see other developers work on Crash Bandicoot? Evan Wells:It's a little bit like watching your daughter do porn.
The first game had a completely finished level called "Stormy Ascent" cut from the final version. The level resembles "Slippery Climb" in terms of design, only it's A LOT harder. It became playable as DLC in the N. Sane Trilogy.
Sunset Vista was originally going to be longer and much harder.
The Wrath of Cortex uses a few areas from early development and planted new levels on top of them. Ice Station Bandicoot for example uses a small platforming area as a background under the helicopter racetrack. An unused racing and dogfight level have also been found inside the game, as well as some extra Coco animations suggesting she was meant to be more fully playable.
Twinsanity had the most dummied out content, however, with stages, alternate dimension counterparts of Coco and Cortex, and even whole other dimensions.
Naughty Dog's original vision for Tawna was that of a Jessica Rabbit-esque bombshell. However, the marketing director of Universal Interactive did not take kindly to the voluptuous concept art and chastised Crash’s co-creator, Jason Rubin, for designing a character that she felt was demeaning to women. The design bothered her so much that she even took to reprimanding the female employee whose outfit had inspired Tawna's original ensemble. Her criticisms allegedly spooked the President of Universal Interactive enough to make him force Naughty Dog to give into the marketing director's demands and tone down the character. Naughty Dog didn’t like this “1800s safari” version of Tawna and so they retired her in favor of Crash's less controversial little sister, Coco Bandicoot.
Universal wanted the main character to be named Wez, Wezzy, or Wazzel the Wombat or even Ozzy the Otzel, (possibly to make him the video game equivalent of Woody Woodpecker) but Naughty Dog demanded to keep his name Crash Bandicoot or they will stop development altogether. What's interesting is that the name "Ottsel" was used in Jak and Daxter as the species of Daxter.
Fake Australian: Dingodile is voiced by mostly American actors (William Hootkins, Dwight Schultz, Nolan North and Fred Tatascoire), as well as by Canadian-American David Anthony Pizzuto, all of whom put on a thick Aussie accent fitting of the species the character is a mashup of.
In 2000, Taco Bell had a set of four toys, two for each franchise. Crash's toys included a skateboarding figure who could be launched off his skateboard and a scuba-diving figure.
In 2001, Carl's Jr. and Hardee's had four different toys, three of which were of Crash. One was a bendable figure and two were pull-back toys.
The Other Darrin: Each of the series' major recurring characters has been voiced by at least two voice actors — sometimes more. Some particularly noticeable examples are Cortex and Coco:
In the original game, all the voices were provided by Brenden O'Brien. However, in the second game, Cortex was voiced by Clancy Brown, who would voice him until 2003. From 2004 onwards, Cortex's voice was provided by Lex Lang, who would voice the character in every single appearance afterwards. In Cortex's case, the change is especially noticeable when comparing the original game with everything that came afterward — Clancy Brown's Cortex sounds nothing like O'Brien's, while Lex Lang at least tried to imitate Brown's version of the character.
In her first appearance, Coco was voiced by Vicki Winters, who never played the character again. In 1999, she was voiced by Hynden Walch. From 2001 until 2020, Coco was voiced by Debi Derryberry, who would voice the character in every single appearance afterwards until Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time.
Science Imitates Art: A species of extinct bandicoots from the Miocene was given the scientific name Crash bandicoot.
Vaporware: An unknown PS2 game, Crash Bandicoot Evolution (eventually transformed into Twinsanity), Crash Clash Racing (eventually reworked into Tag Team Racing), a Pikmin - Mega Man type game called Cortex Chaos, a 2010 racing game, the aforementioned Crash: Landed, a tie-in racing game to Landed, a PC game called Crash Online, and an unknown game from sometime in the 2000's, among others.
The earliest name of the project was "Sonic's Ass", a Creator In-Joke about what the developers were hoping to accomplish.
The game and the main character was originally named Willy the Wombat. It was changed to make the game look less dorky, for lack of a better word. The fact that another studio took the name to use it for an otherwise completely unrelated game likely also played a part.
Other Trivia
The Blue Gem is found in a level whose acronym is "TW" in all three games of the original trilogy; Toxic Waste in Crash Bandicoot, Turtle Woods in Cortex Strikes Back, and Tomb Wader in Warped.
On the other hand, character designer Charles Zembillas actually liked Crash's redesign at the hands of Radical Entertainment, actually desiring further involvement in the series while co-creator Andy Gavin at the very least praises Crash Bash and Crash Twinsanity for staying true to the original games.
