Professor Curio, an elderly Cappy Town resident, is Dream Land's foremost archaeologist, paleontologist, and historian. He runs an antique shop doubling as a museum showcasing ancient Cappy artifacts and Dream Land's history. Chronic underfunding and low attendance plague his museum due to the townspeople's disinterest in history, leaving him in relative poverty and reliant on meager academic income. His establishment frequently suffers vandalism, demanding extensive repairs. To spark public interest, he organizes excavations and occasionally plants fake artifacts, such as fabricating evidence to validate King Dedede's ancestral royalty claims in exchange for financial support—a scheme that unraveled when he confessed under moral duress.

Physically, he possesses a pear-shaped build, yellowish-peach skin, grey spiky hair encircling a bald scalp, and a prominent grey mustache covering his mouth. He typically wears a green shirt and an orange bow tie. Socially awkward and unmarried, he maintains a largely solitary, withdrawn lifestyle with minimal interaction outside professional contexts. He often speaks encyclopedically or stammers when uncomfortable. Despite this, he forms a significant tutor-pupil bond with Tiff, who admires his knowledge and assists him during crises. Occasional materialistic tendencies and financial desperation drive him to ethically questionable agreements, like the forgery with King Dedede.

His development features pivotal moments of integrity and courage. After being bribed to validate Dedede's lineage with counterfeit artifacts, he exposed the deception publicly during an exhibition, stating uncovering truth outweighed proving his theories. Later, he aided Kirby against the Dedede Stone monster by chipping fragments for Kirby to inhale, enabling the Stone ability for victory. He refused future forgery involvement, declaring an end to excavating "fakes." In another incident, deceived into releasing Mumbies, he attempted a sealing ritual to contain it, accidentally thwarted by Tiff and Tuff. His expertise also contributed to repairing the Monster Delivery System during broader Dream Land conflicts.

Beyond major episodes, he frequently appeared in minor roles, providing exposition on entities like Dyna Blade's century-long nesting cycles and contextualizing its behavior. His artifacts sparked town subplots, such as a stolen ninja scroll inciting a ninja craze and an emerald ring he misappropriated as an "irreplaceable artifact" during Mabel's appraisal. His shop served as a recurring setting for events, including vandalism investigations and comedic mishaps like Kracko shattering his fossil reconstruction, consistently reinforcing his scholarly role and financial struggles.