Super Monkey Ball and Chiquita Banana: Suck It, Dole

For the upcoming Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll, Sega and Chiquita Banana are bringing back the sponsored banana, and this time it’s real. According to Destructoid, not only will the Chiquita logo grace some of the bananas in the game, but an advertisement for Super Monkey Ball will appear on 180 million real life banana stickers around the United States.

This isn’t the first time Sega’s jumped into bed with a banana maker. If you ever played the first two Super Monkey Ball games for the Gamecube, you may have noticed that the bananas devoured by your ball-encapsulated monkeys were of the Dole brand. Later games in the series lost the branding, presumably because Sega and Dole couldn’t agree on the terms. But Dole’s loss now appears to be Chiquita’s gain.

The two companies are celebrating with the “Super Bonanza Sweepstakes,” due to appear on Chiquita’s Web site in February. The grand prize winner gets a home game room makeover, including a 50” HDTV, a sofa and four gaming chairs, a copy of Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll, a Wii console, a Wii Balance Board (including Wii Fit Plus) and other prizes. It’s a win-win for everyone, except for Dole. They’re rotten. [via Destructoid]