10. Princess Daisy

Princess Daisy might play second fiddle to pampered Princess Peach most of the time, and with new girl Rosalina catching everyone’s eye, Daisy might find herself stuck with third fiddle, or even viola, before long. But when it comes to orangeness, Daisy of sun-scorched Sarasaland is still the Mushroom Kingdom’s number one princess.

Yes, her outfits are mostly yellow – but they have orange trims! And how does the colour orange feel? Warm; happy; lively? That’s spunky tomboy Daisy in a nutshell, and the nut is on a table next to an orange. Plus her hair is a bit orange, and didn’t she used to have a nasty fake tan? Don’t tell me Daisy’s not orange – she’s as orange as marmalade!

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9. Clyde

When arcade owners in 1980 plugged in their new Pac-Man machines, it was like opening a window; drawing the curtains and flooding the room with sunshine. Videogame enthusiasts accustomed to the monochromatic void of Asteroids and the dim, cellophane colour of Space Invaders were suddenly bombarded with a radiant rainbow of cartoon colours, causing them to shriek and shield their eyes like frightened cavemen.

But their primitive fears yielded to Pac-Man’s friendly yellow; Blinky’s exciting red; Inky’s gentle cyan; Pinky’s innocent pale magenta... and most importantly, Clyde’s orange orange. For most people playing Pac-Man in 1980, it was the first time they had seen orange in a videogame – making Clyde’s orange, in effect, more orange than any orange since. Clyde is also called Pokey; in Japan his name is Otoboke or Guzuta. But most people call him, simply, ‘the orange guy’ – and that’s exactly what he is.

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8. Q*bert

While Clyde may have been the medium’s first orange character, Q*bert was its first orange star. Anyone who breathed air in 1982 and 1983 will remember ‘Q*bert fever’, which swept the globe and resulted in over two hundred deaths.

And Q*bert isn’t just mostly orange – he’s orange all over! He is entirely orange, and what’s more, constantly orange: With every step Q*bert takes, the ground beneath him changes colour, but Q*bert remains orange, like a beacon. Modern videogames, with their polygons and lighting effects, can’t provide that sort of unchanging, reliable orangeness – and maybe that’s why our readers voted Q*bert into the number eight position on this list.

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