The development of "Grabbed by the Ghoulies" began in 2000, after the completion of "Banjo-Tooie". The idea for the game began with the name, which is a pun on "goolies", a British slang term for "testicles". According to designer Gregg Mayles, the name of the game materialised after he overheard someone mention "being grabbed by the goolies", and thought that it would make a suitable name for an upcoming Rare game. Before any details of the game were publicised, it was rumoured that "Grabbed by the Ghoulies" would be the subtitle to the next Conker the Squirrel game. After Microsoft purchased Rare for £375 million in 2002, development of the game for the GameCube was delayed until Rare converted it to the Xbox console.