He has blue flipper-like hands, though they are usually covered by a pair of yellow mittens. He is consistently seen with his round red cap, which has a yellow or golden rim and a white ball at the top (a crown in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards and the anime pilot). His irises are a blueish hue with a large white highlight in the middle and Dedede's eyelids often varies between blue visible eyelids or simple black dashes. King Dedede himself is rather portly, is blue-skinned and has a yellow mouth (which has been depicted as more of a beak). King Dedede resembles a penguin-like creature dressed in royal, red finery, with his personal emblem (either a picture of himself performing the peace sign, or, in the anime and later games, just the peace sign alone) embossed on the back of his robe, as well as most of the items or weaponry he owns and/or endorses. 4.1 Elemental Attributes in Kirby Star Allies.3.19 Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition.3.16 Kirby's Epic Yarn and Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn.3.9 Kirby Super Star and Kirby Super Star Ultra.3.2 Kirby's Adventure and Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land.
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. He is also able to inhale objects and spit them out in a manner similar to Kirby. King Dedede's trademark weapon is a large star-studded hammer which he can swing around with the greatest of ease. 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. 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. He is the greedy self-proclaimed king of Dream Land, which is located on the quaint Planet Popstar. 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." Due to his many roles as Kirby's main adversary, many consider Dedede to be the series antagonist.
As such, he is the most recurring major character of the series besides Kirby, Meta Knight and Waddle Dee. He (or something in his likeness) has appeared in every game in the series except Kirby & The Amazing Mirror. King Dedede, also written as King DeDeDe, or King De De De (in certain older games), is Kirby's arch-rival in Nintendo and HAL Laboratory's long-running Kirby video game series.