Dingodile

Dingodile (ディンゴダイル, Dingodairu) is a hybrid of a dingo and a crocodile and a recurring villain in the Crash Bandicoot series. His name is a portmanteau of "dingo" and "crocodile". Dingodile is one of Doctor Neo Cortex's two main mutant henchmen, alongside Tiny Tiger. Dingodile enjoys reading Shakespeare, playing croquet, and he carries around a flamethrower with him, also enjoying to roast orange bandicoots with it.

Doctor Neo Cortex and Doctor Nitrus Brio have both been credited for the creation of Dingodile, although Naughty Dog has never stated who they intended his creator to be. Having said that, he has only been shown in service of the former, otherwise working on his own accord.

Dingodile was created by character designer Charles Zembillas when the employee Joe Labbe asked for a character that was a cross between a dingo and a crocodile.

Crash Bandicoot: Warped
Dingodile made his debut in Crash Bandicoot: Warped as the second boss of the game. Here, he is seen serving under Uka Uka and Doctor Cortex, attempting to take whatever Crystals Crash has gathered and bringing them to Cortex during the Ice Ages under his orders. Crash encounters Dingodile as he is about to kill a penguin, who runs away upon Crash's arrival. In retaliation, Dingodile surrounds himself with large, rotating stalagmites, and shoots small bursts of flamethrower ammo into the air, causing fireballs to rain down from the sky. When Dingodile fires directly at Crash in another attempt to kill him, he ends up destroying the stalagmites that have been protecting him, allowing Crash to attack Dingodile, causing his flamethrower to malfunction and explode. When Dingodile admits defeat, he warns Crash of the more powerful enemies he will face ahead as the penguin he tried to kill earlier hops up and down on his charred body.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
Dingodile appears as an attendee of Uka Uka's bad guy convention in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, not speaking a single line in the entire game. He later serves as an obstacle in certain levels, firing spurts of flamethrower ammo in an attempt to stop Crash.

Crash Twinsanity
In Crash Twinsanity, Dingodile is seen as one of the attendees of Crash's "birthday party" (which is really a gathering of past villains in the Crash series). After watching the ensuing boss battle, he discusses lunch with Ripper Roo. Later, he is seen inside a small shack reading a green book (originally, he was having a date with Tawna, but this was omitted due to time constraints), but is interrupted when a large snowball (containing Crash and Cortex) crushes the shack with him in it. As Cortex laments his humiliation, Dingodile learns of the Evil Twins' treasure, and secretly follows Crash and Cortex to the boiler room of Madame Amberly's Academy of Evil, where he tries to kill Crash for the treasure, believing he already has it. However, with the help of the boiler room's emergency sprinkler system, Crash is able to disable Dingodile's flamethrower and beat him into submission. Dingodile is last seen laying unconscious in the boiler room.

Crash of the Titans
While Dingodile doesn't appear in the console version of Crash of the Titans, he appears as the first boss in the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance versions of the game. In the Nintendo DS version, Dingodile is assigned to stalling Crash Bandicoot while the other villains gather materials and build Neo Cortex's new CortexBot. Dingodile attempts to defeat Crash with a new water cannon, but ultimately fails. In the Game Boy Advance version, Dingodile is given the task of sending barrels of oil from Wumpa Island to Tiki Island. He is defeated by Crash, who attacks him with inhabited beehives.

Other appearances
Dingodile appears as a playable character in Crash Team Racing and Crash Nitro Kart, driving a high-speed, low-control kart in both games. In Crash Nitro Kart, Dingodile is seen assisting Doctor N. Gin when the tower they're standing in is abducted. The next time he is seen, he is brainwashed by N. Trance and racing under Trance's team, which drives green vehicles. His flamethrower is not seen in the game, has odd, green, criss-crossed eyes, and dons a strange device on his head, presumably a brainwashing/control helmet.

Dingodile also appears in the party game Crash Bash, in which he is summoned by Uka Uka to do battle with Aku Aku's team in a tournament. However, he and Tiny Tiger are switched over to Aku Aku's team, because Uka Uka had too many players. Dingodile performs a tail whip as his default attack in the "Crate Crush" levels, and has the ability to fire two-shot volleys in the "Tank Wars" levels.

In Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure, Dingodile serves as the first boss. He fights Crash in a shark-infested underwater cavern, and fires torpedoes at the cavern ceiling in an attempt to impale Crash with the falling stalactites, but eventually manages to impale himself, leaving him open for attack. He is later merged with Doctor Cortex, N. Gin and Tiny Tiger, and becomes Mega-Mix. After chasing Crash down a space station hall, Mega-Mix is left inside the space station, which explodes with the villains in it.

Physical description
Dingodile is generally portrayed as a bulky mutant with a dingo's body, and a crocodile's stomach and tail (the tail is green in most games but is orange in Crash of the Titans). His lone article of clothing is a pair of large, tan (blue in Twinsanity and Titans), baggy pants, which are traded for sky-blue trunks with a flower design in Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure due to the boss fight against him being underwater. His flamethrower resembles a large cylinder with a red-and-yellow checker design on it. This flamethrower is traded for a yellow torpedo launcher (which also doubles as an air supply tank, as a tube can be seen going from the tank to his glass helmet) in The Huge Adventure, as a flamethrower cannot function underwater. In Crash of the Titans, Dingodile uses a water cannon instead. According to the same game, Dingodile is 2 meters tall (6 feet, 6.744 inches), and weighs 95 kilograms (209.475 pounds), putting his body mass index at 23.75 (normal range).

Personality
Dingodile's personality isn't explored as thoroughly as the other villains in the series, but it is apparent that Dingodile is cruel and has pyromania, frequently sporting a large flamethrower and willing to kill anything weaker than he is (as evidenced in Crash Bandicoot: Warped, where Dingodile is seen preparing to kill a small penguin during the Ice Ages before Crash intervenes. Dingodile is also known to have his greedy side, willing to betray Doctor Cortex to obtain the Evil Twins' riches in Crash Twinsanity.

While Dingodile may seem like a vicious brute, he is capable of living in a more sophisticated manner; in a stark contrast to the stupidity of Tiny Tiger or his daytime job of burning innocent bandicoots, his hobbies include reading Shakespeare and playing croquet. In a deleted scene from Crash Twinsanity, Dingodile is shown to be romantically interested in Crash's former girlfriend Tawna, having a romantic dinner with her in his shack before it is crushed by a giant snowball. This scene does not appear in the final project, and is therefore considered non-canon. It is also hinted at that he is almost or is as intelligent as the doctors in the epilogue of Crash Team Racing, in which he opens an animal breeding program made for the creation of hybrids like himself.

Portrayals
In the PlayStation games, Dingodile is voiced by William Hootkins in the English version and Keisuke Ishida in the Japanese version. In the English versions of Crash Nitro Kart and Crash Twinsanity, Dingodile is voiced by Dwight Schultz, while Hajime Iijima voices him in the Japanese dubs. Nolan North voices Dingodile in the Nintendo DS version of Crash of the Titans.