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**Benny** · 07-07-2006, 01:52 PM

Other trivia about Donkey Kong (source):

The game was designed as a Popeye game, however license agreements fell through and as a result Nintendo was forced to create their own characters.

The name Donkey Kong is not Japanese, as it is widely believed. Instead, it is a combination of two words: The first word is supposed to stand for something that is hard to deal with: A mule, or donkey. The second word stems from King Kong. Hence, Donkey Kong.

In the movie, "Billy Madison", Billy refers to Donkey Kong as the best video game ever, combating a 1st grader who said Mortal Kombat was the best.

At the time Donkey Kong came overseas, Universal Pictures sued Nintendo because they thought Nintendo was making fun of one of their most famous movies, "King Kong". However, the judge decided that since the movie was already 50 years old at the time, Universal had no more exclusive rights over it. Since Universal was aware of this fact beforehand, the lawsuit was considered a waste of time and resources and it was forced to pay Nintendo 1.8 million dollars instead for costs and damages.

Donkey Kong was popular enough to have a Saturday morning TV cartoon based on it in the early 1980's.

Donkey Kong was popular enough to have a song inspired by it on the full-length "Pac-Man Fever" album - "Do The Donkey Kong".

Certain versions of the ColecoVision came packaged along with the Donkey Kong cartridge and manual.

Jumpman/Mario's design was decided upon largely because of the graphical constraints of gaming hardware at the time. He was given overalls to make the movement of his arms easier to see. A mustache made it easier to see his nose. The cap keeps one from noticing that his hair wouldn't move when he'd run and jump.

The Intellivision version of Donkey Kong (programmed by Coleco) doesn't work on the Intellivision II system. Why? Mattel had the EXEC (the operating system of the Intellivision) purposely changed to look for a bit that third parties don't use when programming copyright info in their games. This also affected a couple of other Coleco releases for the Intellivision.

This is the game that changed the name of "Jumpman" to "Mario", a name which became one of the most famous in gaming history when the NES release hit the American market in 1986 featuring better graphics with more colors.

Donkey Kong was voted #60 in the Top 100 Games of All Time poll published by Game Informer Magazine (Issue 100, August 2001).

This game represents one of the few (if only) relationships Nintendo would have with Atari. At the time of this PC port, Nintendo was small in the arcade world and Atari was king. Years later in 1988, when Nintendo was king and Atari was small, Nintendo would sue Atari for coming out with a port of Tetris that was not officially approved by Nintendo.

07-07-2006, 01:52 PM	#11 (permalink)
Benny Super Duper Poster Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: UK Posts: 604 Credits: 1,762 Nominated 0 Times in 0 Posts TOTW/F/M Award(s): 0	Other trivia about Donkey Kong (source): The game was designed as a Popeye game, however license agreements fell through and as a result Nintendo was forced to create their own characters. The name Donkey Kong is not Japanese, as it is widely believed. Instead, it is a combination of two words: The first word is supposed to stand for something that is hard to deal with: A mule, or donkey. The second word stems from King Kong. Hence, Donkey Kong. In the movie, "Billy Madison", Billy refers to Donkey Kong as the best video game ever, combating a 1st grader who said Mortal Kombat was the best. At the time Donkey Kong came overseas, Universal Pictures sued Nintendo because they thought Nintendo was making fun of one of their most famous movies, "King Kong". However, the judge decided that since the movie was already 50 years old at the time, Universal had no more exclusive rights over it. Since Universal was aware of this fact beforehand, the lawsuit was considered a waste of time and resources and it was forced to pay Nintendo 1.8 million dollars instead for costs and damages. Donkey Kong was popular enough to have a Saturday morning TV cartoon based on it in the early 1980's. Donkey Kong was popular enough to have a song inspired by it on the full-length "Pac-Man Fever" album - "Do The Donkey Kong". Certain versions of the ColecoVision came packaged along with the Donkey Kong cartridge and manual. Jumpman/Mario's design was decided upon largely because of the graphical constraints of gaming hardware at the time. He was given overalls to make the movement of his arms easier to see. A mustache made it easier to see his nose. The cap keeps one from noticing that his hair wouldn't move when he'd run and jump. The Intellivision version of Donkey Kong (programmed by Coleco) doesn't work on the Intellivision II system. Why? Mattel had the EXEC (the operating system of the Intellivision) purposely changed to look for a bit that third parties don't use when programming copyright info in their games. This also affected a couple of other Coleco releases for the Intellivision. This is the game that changed the name of "Jumpman" to "Mario", a name which became one of the most famous in gaming history when the NES release hit the American market in 1986 featuring better graphics with more colors. Donkey Kong was voted #60 in the Top 100 Games of All Time poll published by Game Informer Magazine (Issue 100, August 2001). This game represents one of the few (if only) relationships Nintendo would have with Atari. At the time of this PC port, Nintendo was small in the arcade world and Atari was king. Years later in 1988, when Nintendo was king and Atari was small, Nintendo would sue Atari for coming out with a port of Tetris that was not officially approved by Nintendo.

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