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For the original arcade game called Donkey Kong, see Donkey Kong (arcade game). For the 1994 Game Boy game, see Donkey Kong (Game Boy game).

Donkey Kong (Japanese: ドンキーコング), often shortened to 'DK', is a gorilla character from Nintendo that appeared in many video games since 1981. Like many Nintendo franchises, Donkey Kong was created by Shigeru Miyamoto.

Contents 1 History 2 Overview 3 Sequels and spin-offs 4 Anime 5 Other characters 6 See also 7 External links

History

Donkey Kong was created when Shigeru Miyamoto was assigned by Nintendo to convert Radar Scope, a poor selling arcade game in the U.S., into a game that would appeal more to Americans. The result was a major breakthrough for Nintendo and for the videogame industry. It was likely the first game with a "hero", a "villain", and a "damsel in distress". Sales of the machine were brisk, with the game becoming one of the best-selling arcade machines of the early 1980s. The gameplay itself was a large improvement over other games of its time, and with the growing base of arcades to sell to, it was able to gain huge distribution.

MCA Universal sued Nintendo over copyright violations, claiming that Donkey Kong was a copy of King Kong. If victorious, this lawsuit would have crushed Nintendo of America, and the history of videogames would have been drastically altered. Nintendo's lawyer, Howard Lincoln, who would go on to become a Senior Vice President of the company, discovered that Universal didn't own the copyright to King Kong either, and was able to not only win the lawsuit, but got Universal to pay the legal costs; ironically, it was MCA Universal that previously won a lawsuit declaring King Kong was in the public domain. This incident earned the #20 spot in GameSpy's The 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming.

Due to the huge success of Donkey Kong, Nintendo of America was able to grow and release many more games in succeeding years, and had the resources necessary to release the NES in the USA.

Overview

The name was chosen by game designer Shigeru Miyamoto as a combination of the word "Kong", since the movie King Kong had caused it 'to colloquially mean monkey' in Japan. According to Snopes, "Donkey", was chosen because Miyamoto intended it "to convey a sense of stubbornness." Various incorrect stories exist surrounding the name, which have also been declared false by the well known Urban Legend site Snopes.

In the original Donkey Kong game, the player's character, "Mario" (originally called Jumpman in Japan) must jump over barrels thrown by Donkey Kong while climbing ladders up a crooked construction site to reach the top of the screen to rescue his girlfriend Pauline (who was originally called Lady in Japan). Each screen is a game stage, with stages grouping to form levels. As the player advances through each level, the degree of difficulty increases proportionately.

This game was first released in the arcades, but was ported to home video game consoles and home computers. The game was also sold as a portable LCD game (1982) by Nintendo.

The game was quite revolutionary for its time, featuring multiple, distinct levels, large colorful graphics, and a unique form of play control.

Sequels and spin-offs

Donkey Kong spawned two sequels, neither of which were as popular as the original arcade hit. In Donkey Kong Junior Donkey Kong was kidnapped by Mario and players had to control his son Donkey Kong Jr. to rescue him. In Donkey Kong 3 DK broke into a greenhouse and got chased out by Stanley the Bugman, who carried a spray can to protect his greenhouse from Donkey Kong's insects. In 1994, Nintendo produced a remake of the original game for the Game Boy (known under the informal title of "Donkey Kong '94" to disambiguate it from the original) which contained 97 new stages (most of which were puzzle-oriented) in addition to the original four from the Arcade game. Donkey Kong's and Pauline's respective character designs were updated for this game (DK now wore a tie and Pauline was made into a brunette to distinguish her from Peach).

Shortly after that, he appeared in Donkey Kong Country (in Japan, Super Donkey Kong). Donkey Kong Country was an entirely new DK franchise established by the British company Rareware which took the Donkey Kong premise in an entirely new direction. Severing DK's ties to the Mario world (until Mario Kart 64), Donkey Kong Country established a whole new world for DK, and became a showcase title to show off then-revolutionary 3D CGI graphics.

In Donkey Kong Country, DK was the hero and he and his sidekick Diddy Kong had to save his hoard of bananas from the thieving King K. Rool and his Kremling Krew. The game was an action sidescrolling title similar to the Mario games and was enormously popular for its graphics, music and gameplay. Some sources, such as Nintendo Power, suggest that the Donkey Kong in the Country series was the son of Cranky Kong, the original Donkey Kong from the arcade game, which would equate him with Donkey Kong Junior. Other sources, including the manual of Donkey Kong Country¹ and in-game dialogue from other games in the series, suggest that the Donkey Kong in Donkey Kong Country is Cranky's grandson and the son of Donkey Kong Junior.

This is also contradicted by the in-game dialogue from Donkey Kong 64, as Cranky specifically calls DK his son. Rareware released an official statement some time ago, stating that Cranky is indeed the DK of the arcades and that the current Donkey Kong is DK Jr. In Issue No.8 of the Nintendo Online Magazine in Nintendo's Japanese website ([1]), it is stated that the current Donkey Kong is Cranky's grandson (who is confirmed to be the original Donkey Kong in the same issue) and list Junior as a separate character. However, DK's biographies in the Super Smash Bros. games contradict this, calling DK the one true original. As is the case with the multiple Links and Zeldas in the Legend of Zelda series, the player really has no choice but to ignore all given stories and form their own personal conclusions as to which character is who.

Sequels and adaptations soon followed. A computer generated animated television series that lasted 40 episodes was produced by a French animation studio, released in North America as simply Donkey Kong Country.

The official sequel, Donkey Kong Country 2 (Super Donkey Kong 2) involves Donkey being kidnapped by King K. Rool (now Kaptain K. Rool) and getting rescued by Diddy Kong and his girlfriend Dixie Kong, in a less cheery and a more darkly-themed game.

In Donkey Kong Country 3 (in Japan, Super Donkey Kong 3) he and Diddy both got kidnapped, and Dixie and her cousin Kiddy Kong had to save them in the final game of the series for the SNES.

The Donkey Kong Land series for the Game Boy were smaller and slightly modified versions of the "Country" games.

A successful Nintendo 64 sequel was also developed. In Donkey Kong 64 DK once again had the starring role as he joined forces with Diddy Kong, Tiny Kong, Lanky Kong, and Chunky Kong to save Donkey Kong Island from destruction at the hand of the Kremlings.

A demo for a Donkey Kong game on the GameCube, Nintendo's sixth generation console, was shown at SpaceWorld 2001. The game was called Donkey Kong Racing and showed various characters, including Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Taj the Genie racing on Ellie, Expresso, Rambi, Enguard, and Zinger, and presumably, Necky, Army, and Chomps Jr. that had been introduced in previous Donkey Kong games by Rare. Following the sale of Rare to Microsoft in 2002, Rare announced that they were concentrating their efforts on Xbox games, although they have continued to support Nintendo's portable consoles, the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS. This decision will have taken in to account the fact that Microsoft do not have their own portable console in direct competition. No further information about Donkey Kong Racing has since been released, leading the game to be classed as cancelled.

Donkey Konga was released for the GameCube in 2004. Created by Namco, this musical rhythm action game relied upon used of a konga drum peripheral (purchasable separately or included, depending on the package) to hit a beat in time with the tune. The tunes included pop songs and themes from some previous Nintendo games. A sequel, Donkey Konga 2, was released in 2005 and Donkey Konga 3 was released in Japan in the same year.

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat was released in Japan in December 2004 and elsewhere in 2005 where Donkey Kong fights Dread Kong, Ninja Kong, Karate Kong, and Sumo Kong. This platform game used the aforementioned konga drums as a controller- tapping one drum repeatedly made Donkey Kong run, tapping the other made him jump. Clapping or blowing in to the microphone caused an explosion, shown by a ripple in the screen, attracting assorted jewels or clearing obstacles to progress. A standard Gamecube controller could be used instead of the konga drums.

Nintendo's first title after Rare left was Mario vs. Donkey Kong, a return to the earlier arcade-style games. While its style was that of the original games, the Rare-design for Donkey Kong carried over.

Mario Kart 64 reintroduced DK to Mario's world, and since then, he's appeared in every outing featuring Mario's all-star cast, including the other Kart games, the sports titles, the Mario Party series (only playable in 1-4, after which he was relegated to being an incidental character on the game board), most of the Game & Watch Gallery games, and the two crossover games Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Melee. In nearly all of these games, Donkey Kong is presented as a powerful but slow and cumbersome character. Donkey Kong is slated for several games on the Nintendo GameCube and the Game Boy Advance.

While still under Rare's influence, numerous spin-offs of Donkey Kong were created. Diddy Kong Racing, released in 1997, guest-starred Banjo of the Banjo-Kazooie games and Conker the Squirrel of Conker's Bad Fur Day and Conker's Pocket Tales. While Diddy Kong Racing was these characters' first appearance in a game, they were already famous for being in development with the first installments of their own highly anticipated franchises (the instruction manual even describes them as taking a break from their own games in order to assist Diddy on his quest), and therefore cannot be said to be part of the Mario/Donkey Kong universe. Donkey Kong: Coconut Crackers was originally developed by Rare for the Game Boy Advance, but was eventually released as It's Mr. Pants after the Microsoft purchase. Likewise, a GBA racing game called Diddy Kong Pilot was transformed into Banjo Pilot.

Anime

CG animated cartoon "Donkey Kong (DONKEY KONG)" of the U.S.-made work to which the character that appeared in the Donkey Kong Country series performed was broadcast in TV Tokyo in 1999.

Other characters

• Diddy Kong
• Dixie Kong
• Lanky Kong
• Tiny Kong
• Chunky Kong
• Kiddy Kong

See also

• Donkey Kong cameos

External links

• The Killer List of Video Games entry on the original Donkey Kong
• MobyGames entry on the Donkey Kong consumer games
• Nintendo's official Donkey Kong Country website
• Nintendo's official Donkey Konga website
• Donkey Kong Universe - A fansite that links Donkey Kong to other video game franchises like Banjo-Kazooie and Conker
• Nintendo's announcement of Donkey Konga 3
• Donkey Kong Flash game
• Donkey Kong Anime website: using Web Archive
• Donkey Kong Database
• The History of Donkey Kong

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