Water Monke / Searching For The Sea Banana

Water Monke / Searching For The Sea Banana refers to a video of a CGI monkey swimming underwater through a school of fish, which originates from a 2003 advertisement for Donkey Kong Country on the Gameboy Advance. The video, as well as a screenshot from it, became the subject of memes in mid-2020 on subreddits like /r/ape, YouTube, and Reddit.

Origin
Sometime prior to the June 9th, 2003 release date of Donkey Kong Country on the Gameboy Advance, an advertisement for the game began airing on TV featuring a CGI ape swimming underwater, followed by a voiceover saying, "Only in Donkey Kong Country." (Shown below.)

Spread
The image was reposted to /r/okbuddyretard by obafu on July 31st, 2020, garnering over 630 upvotes in just under 3 months. On the same day, it was reuploaded to Instagram by clippy_is_epic and itwiistyy.×. On August 5th, Redditor long-pee-pee uploaded a meme featuring the image of the monkey next to the baby from the cover of Nirvana's album "Nevermind" to /r/ape, garnering over 400 upvotes in 2 months (shown below, left). This is one of the first posts to specifically refer to the monkey as "water monke." On August 17th, Redditor Jimbo 4699 uploaded a meme using Water Monke, garnering over 410 upvotes in just over 2 months (shown below, right). The meme continued to circulate around Reddit, with video edits popping up on YouTube as well. On August 12th, YouTuber Soulty uploaded a Sanctuary Guardian variation of the meme, garnering over 17 thousand views in just over 2 months (shown below, left). On August 16th, a video of the water monke swimming set to the Super Mario 64 song "Dire, Dire Docks" was uploaded by AI, garnering over 384 thousand views in a comparable length of time (shown below, right). The meme continued to circulate around Reddit, with video edits popping up on YouTube as well. On August 12th, YouTuber Soulty uploaded a Sanctuary Guardian variation of the meme, garnering over 17 thousand views in just over 2 months (shown below, left). On August 16th, a video of the water monke swimming set to the Super Mario 64 song "Dire, Dire Docks" was uploaded by AI, garnering over 384 thousand views in a comparable length of time (shown below, right).