Mad Jack
Mad Jack is a large seemingly insane jack-in-the-box from the game Donkey Kong 64.
After opening Frantic Factory's boss door, Tiny Kong ventures inside of it. Inside, Tiny finds herself in a pitch-black room with several glowing squares on the floor. Venturing onto one of these squares, Tiny is surprised when they rise into the air. Suddenly, Mad Jack appears from a large box that falls out of a nearby toy rejection chute.
Mad Jack first attacks by re-entering his box and hopping from square to square attempting to crush Tiny, who has to frantically jump to different squares in order to avoid the crazed toy. If Tiny manages to avoid Jack, he will then pop out of his box and begin hurling fireballs at the Kong. While Mad Jack is busy doing this, Tiny must press a switch on a nearby square. If the square the switch is on is the same color as the one Jack is on, then he will be electrocuted. However, Tiny will electrocute herself if the switch's color doesn't match Mad Jack's platform color.
Eventually, after being damaged multiple times, Jack will begin to hop around faster and also shoot energy blasts from his robotic eye, which create shockwaves when they hit the platforms. He will also turn invisible after taking four hits. In order to track where Jack is, Tiny must watch the sparkles that trail behind him when he jumps. Eventually, Jack will sustain too much damage, and his square (along with all the other squares) will fall, and Mad Jack will (humorously) crash into the ground below. He is apparently destroyed.
Trivia
- Mad Jack is commonly referred to as Quack-in-the-Box, due to a mistake in Prima's Strategy Guide for the game.
- Mad Jack is listed as Jake-in-the-Box in the "Bosses" section of the Official Donkey Kong 64 Perfect Guide by Versus Books, adding more confusion to this character's name.
- He is one out of two bosses in Donkey Kong 64 that are unknown to be K. Rool's minion, the other being Puftoss.
- The laugh heard during the battle isn't coming from Mad Jack. It is part of his theme.
