The main villain of the series who seeks to destroy Kirby by any cost. He has ruled Dream Land for 300 years (so he claims), and is still going strong, but is not regarded actually as a king. Despite the fact Dedede is greedy, scheming, and even outright sadistic- even going as far as to say that people’s suffering amuses him- no one has ever tried to dethrone him, despite the fact that he also threatens the children. He's actually harmless for the most part, but his intense dislike of Kirby compels to purchase monsters from Nightmare Enterprises and cause mayhem for the people of Dream Land.

He loves buying new "toys" and acts like a spoiled child despite his age. He's jealous of the attention Kirby gets, and while at first he even wanted to annihilate Kirby, later he focuses more on trying to kick him out or just make him look bad. Of course he has a kinder, gentler side, but it only shows in the most extreme of circumstances. (like in the De-appreciation-day episode where he played a prank on Kirby which blew him up which made Dedede upset that he thought he actually killed Kirby, and in the episode where a meteorite was going to hit Pop Star, so he built a playground to make up for his mistakes.)