Tambourine is Piccolo Daimao's second son, a humanoid gargoyle-like Namekian, and another offspring who looks exactly like Tambourine was seen earlier in Master Roshi's flashback depicting him terrorizing various humans alongside other offspring, though there's no logical way this could have been Tambourine unless Piccolo Daimao can somehow recycle his offspring. His orders were to hunt down and assassinate all contenders who participated in the World Martial Arts Tournament from the most recent dating back to the past ten and a few years so that Piccolo Daimao's hostile takeover is a smooth one. He was also ordered to pickup up any Dragon Balls he sees along the way if he happened to come across any. Tambourine kills Kuririn by chance, along with some of the other participants of the past tournaments; including Man Wolf, King Chapa, Panput, Bacterian and Giran. Tambourine also savagely beat up Goku, who was furious at him for murdering Kuririn.

Tambourine also destroyed the Kinto'un using the mouth beam technique, until Goku got a new one from Karin later in the series.

He also made a cameo as one of the villains who escaped from Hell in Dragon Ball GT. Later on he was sent back like all the other villains.