King Dedede, also written as King DeDeDe or King De De De (in certain older games), is Kirby's arch-rival and a major character in Nintendo and HAL Laboratory's long-running Kirby video game series. He (or something in his likeness) has appeared in every game in the series except Kirby & The Amazing Mirror. As such, he is one of the most recurring characters in the series besides Kirby, Meta Knight, Waddle Dee, Kracko, and Whispy Woods. Due to his many roles as Kirby's main adversary, many consider Dedede to be the series antagonist. Despite this, he has helped more than harmed since Kirby's Return to Dream Land, and Nintendo has even described Dedede as Kirby's "arch-frenemy."[3]

He is the greedy self-proclaimed king of Dream Land, which is located on the quaint Planet Popstar. Due to an ambiguous description of the geography of Popstar, it is never made entirely clear how much of the planet King Dedede assumes leadership of, though he seems to have castles and fortresses all across the planet. Even so, he seems to perform no administrative functions, and for the most part, the planet seems to ignore any edicts that are issued by him.

King Dedede's trademark weapon is a large star-studded hammer which he can swing around with the greatest of ease. He is also able to inhale objects and spit them out in a manner similar to Kirby. According to his trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee, he underwent a series of rigorous training programs to learn and master the use of inhaled air to fly like Kirby at some point after the events of Kirby's Dream Land.