An Old Timey Podcast - 99: The Story of Donkey Kong (Part 1 of 2)

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Nintendo was in trouble. It was 1980, and they’d just poured a ton of money into an arcade game they’d hoped would be a hit. They called it Radar Scope. It was a massive flop. In a panic, the company rushed to create a new game that they hoped would make good use out of all their unsold Radar Scope arcade cabinets. That game – Donkey Kong – took the world by storm. Nintendo basked in the success of their new game. They had no idea that a massive lawsuit was headed their way.Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Norm pulled from: Audureau, William. The History of Mario. Pix’n Love, 2014.Internet Archive. “Universal v. Nintendo Court Documents.” 2026. https://archive.org/details/universal-v-nintendo-court-documents.Sheff, David. Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children. Random House, Inc., 1993.Are you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

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Start your free trial today. Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Norman Caruso. And I'm Kristen Caruso. And on this episode, I'll be talking about the making of Donkey Kong. Are you qualified to talk about this? Ooh.

I don't think you have the skills. I don't think you have the knowledge. I don't think you have the know-how, buddy. Hmm. Hmm. Hey there, history ho. Why not support our small, sexy, independent podcast on Patreon? For just $5 a month, you'll get our beefy back catalog of bonus episodes with video.

They're ad-free. amusing. We've got a weirdly funny episode about the man who inspired D.B. Cooper. We've got one about a man who murdered Confederate pirates. Yarg! And ouch! And we've got an episode where my dad tells us about a sexy kidnapper. It's too weird to miss. So support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. That's patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Thank you. Folks, I don't mean to give you a little tease here, but here's a tease for you. At the end of each episode, we have a little segment called The Slop. It's for our pig butter investors on Patreon. It's a little exclusive thing. And today, we're going to be talking about Norman Caruso's dramatic exit from YouTube. Oh, you'll get all the drama.

You will learn why. You will learn why Kristen made me quit making videos. It's always the woman's fault. Always. This is what I've learned, but also what I've always secretly known. Are you a self-hating woman? A lot of us are. No, I'm excited for that segment of the slop.

Folks, I don't know if you cut the vibe, but it probably won't be quite that dramatic. No, it's actually pretty boring. Oh, well, don't say that. No one's going to sign up. Damn it, Norm. Are you a business cat or not? I feel like you're not. It's very dramatic.

Yeah. Very sexy. Uh-huh. Oh, okay. Um, currently pending trial. Mm. Oh, we probably shouldn't talk about this. There are bodies.

There are bodies. I'll be honest, Norm. I never thought I'd see the day. Never thought I'd see the day that you'd be bringing your video game stuff into this, these hollowed walls of this podcasting studio. But I'm excited for today's topic. Thank you. So I do want to talk about the fact that this was,

going to be a gaming historian episode. It was going to be my newest episode. But man, trying to make this video was like pulling teeth for me. I think I was just done. But I had all this great research, all this great information. So I thought, hey, let's turn it into an old-timey podcast series. This story is about Donkey Kong, a beloved arcade game from Nintendo. It's also about how a giant media corporation called Universal Studios decided to sue Nintendo over that game.

We're calling them the underdogs. Who Universal? Yes. How dare you? They are clearly the bad guys in this story. Okay, fine, fine. Didn't know where to go with it. All right.

So here's the deal. When I announced that I was no longer making videos, I uploaded hundreds of court documents from this case to the Internet archive. So if you want the nitty gritty of this story, please check out that upload on the internet archive. If you just search Universal versus Nintendo court case, it'll come up. But this will be a general overview of the story. I'm just setting the expectation. Like, I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty. I'm just going to tell a good story. Bullshit. Everyone. Oh, we all know you by this point. You love context. So your version of not getting into the nitty gritty. That's true. I mean, come on.

That's true. You once told us a story that involved a ship, and you told us what wood it consisted of? What type of wood? That's important. No, okay. I'm not going to argue with you. I'm just going to sit back and listen to this tale. Okay, picture it.

It's the winter of 1980, and every cool cat and kitten is hanging out at the hottest joint in town. It's the video arcade, because unlike today, Chris, If you wanted to check out the latest video games featuring stunning life-like graphics, you went to the arcade. This was considered the golden age of arcade games. In 1980 was a pretty good year for video games, Kristen. First up, we have berserk from Stern Electronics, a top-down shooter featuring voice synthesis. What was that supposed to say? Attack the humanoid, get the intruder?

Oh, okay. Here, I'll play it again. Listen carefully. Attack the humanoid. Get the intruder. Man, that technology. So lifelike. I feel like I'm in the room with the robot.

Okay. Well, how about Atari's Missile Command? A classic game featuring a trackball controller where you have to protect cities from falling missiles. Kristen's looking at me with glazed. eyes. She has no idea what's going on. No, that here's a thing, like, you would think that as the gaming historian's

wife, I would know a little more about video games, but I really don't. My favorite thing about Kristen. Oh, here we go. With video games was growing up, she loved Super Mario World, but she could never beat Super Mario. The video

game nerds are going to love this episode. They're going to come run into it, and then they're going to hear this story about me. I think it's charming and cute. Kristen actually didn't know that you could beat the game and it would end. She just thought there were endless levels

of Super Mario World. I was so bad at video games, but I did enjoy them. But yeah, I was so bad that it was not until I was an adult and I met you that I realized that video games all end.

Some actually don't. Some are endless, but Okay, but the ones, I wasn't playing Sims just going on forever, Norm. I was in second grade playing Super Mario World thinking, wow, I can do this for the rest of my life. I will play this game for the rest of my life. I will make it a career somehow. Yeah, but I thought it was very special one time we streamed on Twitch, us beating the game together. And that was a magical moment because you got to see the ending of Super Mario World.

I was shocked. You had no idea. Oh my gosh, Bowser. I just thought he was a myth. Okay, Kristen, we talked about Berserk. He didn't seem that impressed with the voices. No. Talked about Missile Command.

You were like, what the fudge is that? No, the sound of it sounded familiar. Sure, sure. But none of those games, Kristen, compared to the highest grossing game that year, Namco's Pac-Man. No, you know, Pac-Man. I loved Pac-Man. I was all so terrible at Pac-Man. Inside the arcade, rows and rows of games filled the room.

from companies looking to strike gold on the next big hit. In one company, a relatively small newcomer called Nintendo of America, thought they had the next big hit on their hands. In fact, Nintendo of America had sunk most of their budget into this game. I know that's risky, but trust me, this game is going to blow all the others out of the water. Your children and grandchildren will be talking about it. It's called Radar Scope. What?

That's right, Kristen. Radar Scope. We were all waiting for you to say Donkey Kong. No, while we're talking about the classic Nintendo game Radar Scope right now. No one has heard of that. Okay, if you've never heard of this game, that's understandable. Radar Scope is a mostly forgettable space shooter. It's pretty similar to games like Gallagher or Space Invaders.

It had some clever 3D perspectives. It had some cool colors, but... Okay, you don't have to be this nice. It's not in the room. with us, Norm. I'm just saying, not a super unique game, okay? But don't tell that to Nintendo.

The Japanese company was banking on a radar scope to help establish themselves in the North American video game market. So in December of 1980, Nintendo brought over an initial order of like 3,000 radar scope machines to sell to distributors. But by March of 1981,

three months later, it was clear that radar scope was, what we call in the industry, a dud. Out of those 3,000 radar scope machines, Nintendo was only able to sell maybe a thousand of them? So around 2,000 radar scope cabinets

sat in Nintendo's warehouse, taking up a ton of room and collecting dust. And for all our hot young fans out there, these machines were like the size of refrigerators, right? Oh, yeah, it was like an appliance. Okay. It's not like your modern floppy disks that you see today.

I'm sorry, what? A floppy disc. I'm talking to the children, Norm. Oh, right, right. It's not like those zip discs you kids are using today. Or USB thumb drives. People don't even use those anymore, I feel like. Everyone today, Norm's sister texted us and was like, do y'all still listen to CDs?

And we were all like, CDs. What? Yeah, and honestly, I had to really think, I have not owned a single. CD in 15 years, I think. Hell no. Hell no. But Norm's sister still hanging on to all her CDs. Yeah. And...

Her husband is trying to get her to clear some out. It's not going well. Some people hang on to the old technology. Yeah. And she found a bunch of old mixtape CDs from high school. Hell yeah. With the Sharpie designs on them. Randy's fire mixtape, you know.

I mean, it is fun to kind of see what's on there. I was going to say those are the only ones I'd keep, I think. You would get rid of the like the official release ones. Yeah, but you want like, you want the stuff that your junior year of high school, you were like, I will never get sick of this. I will never stop listening to drops of Jupiter. It will always make me cry. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I will always tear up listening to this. You know, analog is coming back, Kristen. Okay. This digital world, you don't own anything anymore. You just have a licensed. to listen to it. Yeah, I think that's... So there's some benefits to have an owning CDs, you know.

Okay. You don't have to make everyone happy, Norm. Wow. Just me. Just my wife. Which is why I quit the gaming history. Stop it. Okay, everyone. Should we explain that or are you just going to keep making that job? You got to get in on the slot.

Okay, okay. Very good. Wow. Now he's a business cat. Let's get back to the story. Sure. Some of us, we have a lot of new listeners, you know. Okay, okay.

Yeah, we want to put on our best face for them. That's right. Okay, so Nintendo of America's warehouse has like 2,000 radar scope machines sitting there. And that really bothered Nintendo of America president Minoru Adakawa. He said he was, quote, disgusted when I saw it. Well, yeah, that's like all your money. And it's just sitting there. That sucks.

Yeah, I don't know. The word disgusted seemed a little dramatic. Well, is English his first language? Like, give him a break. Yeah, okay. He's Japanese. But Minotu Atacawa was under tremendous pressure, Kristen. not just because he was tasked with making Nintendo of America a success,

but also his boss, Nintendo of Japan president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, was his father-in-law. Oh, that sucks. Okay, he was disgusted, Norm. Wait, what was that? Put the whole clip in, just Daddy Please Don't? That's the only relevant part. That's the most horrifying part.

Oh, God, that might be worse than the splat sound. No way. It's just a commentary on family business. It's rough. Take it from me, folks. I'm sleeping with my boss. Minotu Aracawa needed to do something to turn his company's fortunes around and figure out what to do with all of these damn radar scope machines sitting in his warehouse.

So he came up with an idea. What if we made a new arcade game using these unsold radar scope cabinets? That would cost a lot less than making a brand new cabinet. Without getting too technical, Kristen, basically, Nintendo would make a new arcade game on a computer chip and then install that chip into those unsold radar scope cabinets. Wake up. It's not that boring.

It's a little boring. I really, really simplified it for you. Okay, I appreciate it, yes. So Minota Adakawa had to talk to Daddy, Nintendo of Japan President Hiroshi Yamauchi. He told him the bad news. He was like, hey, we've got 2,000 radar scope cabinets sitting here. But here's an idea.

Let's make a new game. Apparently, Hiroshi Yomuchi was pretty mad. He was furious. But he ultimately did agree, yeah, we should probably make a new game. It would have to be a hit, though. They couldn't put out another flop like Radar Scope. So Yamauchi entrusted the project to his top engineer in research and development. Gunpei Yakoi.

History hos, let me tell you. Gunpey Yokoy was a legendary engineer in the video game industry. I'm sure most of you out there remember the Game Boy. Gunpei Yikoi had a hand in creating that. Kristen, Game Boy, thoughts? I'm just smiling because, like, okay, it's true that for most of my life, I did not know that you could finish a video game. And it's true that I don't know much about video games in general.

but as the person who edited your scripts for almost your entire YouTube career. I weirdly know a lot about some very specific things. And so when you said Gunpei, I was like, my good friend. You're like, I know Gunpei Yucoy had been with Nintendo since the 1960s, and Yucoy was responsible for some of Nintendo's most successful toys in video games. For example, ever heard of the Ultra Hand? No. Okay. This was a novelty device that was basically like an extendable arm. So it had a set of handles on one end that kind of like garden shears. And when you close the handles, the arm extended out and you could like grab stuff with it. Okay, that's really cool. A very fun toy. It came out in 1966 and it became Nintendo's first million selling product.

It feels very inspector gadgety. Yes. Okay. That's a great comparison. Thank you. I'm a brilliant woman. Mm-hmm. Here's another Yukoi invention. The love tester. Sexy times. It was a little device with two sensors on it.

Each person would hold a sensor, and the love tester would tell you the love score to see if you were a good match. How did it determine that love score? Science. No, it's science. Don't ruin it, Norm, it's real. Okay. It did it out of pure love. Okay.

It measured pure love in your body. Okay. No, how did it really do it? It just did electrical conductivity. Uh-huh. So, like, if you were sweaty, it might say you're really in love. I love stuff like that. Yeah.

It was a novelty thing. No, it was real. It was science. Come on, Norm. Okay. You got to respect it. We should get one. A love tester?

Yeah, and we should use it on camera. And if the results aren't good, we have to divorce. Now, okay. That sounds fun. Oh, what? But we can't get a Nintendo one because they're very expensive. Oh, okay. So maybe we can get like an Amazon.com one.

Wow. Wow. You're not willing to invest in our love test, huh? I mean, how much are the ones from Nintendo? I mean, they're collectibles. Yeah, but how much? I don't know. They're expensive.

Okay. Okay, so those two products, the Ultra Hand and the love tester. They were big hits primarily in Japan. So let's look at something that Yakoi made that went global, baby. How about the Game and Watch? Sound familiar, Kristen? Very. These were little handheld electronics with an LCD screen.

They were part video game, part alarm clock. Gunpey Yokoy got the idea when he noticed a bored man on a train playing with a little pocket calculator. Game and watch handhelds were a massive success for Nintendo, so much so, in fact, that it kept Gunpey Yacoy pretty damn swamped at work. So, when Hiroshi Yamauchi ordered him to make a new arcade game using radar scope hardware, he was like... I'm busy! Okay, he actually wasn't like that. You definitely did not want to backtalk Hiroshi Yamauchi. He was a notoriously tough boss.

Gunpey Akoy was more like, yes, sir, right away, sir, we will make a new game. Wait, how tough was he? What did he do? He was kind of, you know, my way or the highway kind of guy. He had some good quality. He was a good businessman. Sure. So, like, when the Nintendo Famicom first came out, which is the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Yeah. I guess it had, like, a bad batch of electronics in the first run. Yamauchi basically ordered all of them recalled. Yeah. And he put out ones that were fixed. And that cost Nintendo a lot of money. But he was like, hey, our reputations on the line. So had the media gotten out that, oh, this is.

a bad thing and so then he... No. No, it hadn't gotten out yet. There were just reports coming into Nintendo from consumers that were like, my FAMMICOM's not working. Uh-huh, uh-huh. And the engineers were like, oh, here's why. And he was like, recall all of them. We're going to replace all of them.

Very smart. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, Yacoy has to make a new game, even though... I'm busy! What's that from? You've seen that movie Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds and Amy Smart and... No, I never saw that.

Ferris. Boy, that's a deep cut. Yeah, it's not that good, but... But I love that clip. I watched it quite a bit. So, on March 2, 1981, Gunpe Youkoy organized a meeting with some engineers and designers, and their mission, come up with a new arcade game to replace Radar Scope. But there were a few ground rules, Kristen.

First of all, no space shooters. We tried that with Radar Scope. It did not work out. Also, no racing games. they're kind of, they're a dime a dozen right now. We don't want to make a racing game. Okay, with those rules in mind, the group started brainstorming. Hmm.

Hmm. Well, what if we, uh, never mind. Um, well, how about, oh, wait. I've got it. We'll make a game where in the middle of the screen, there's like the sun. And then there are like birds flying around the sun. And if any birds get too close to the sun, they're going to plop out boiled eggs. Wait, so you're playing as the birds in that scenario?

So it's not really clear what the game was about, okay? That was just one of the ideas they had. That's terrible. Well, you know what they say? There are no bad ideas in brainstorming, Kristen. I think we've found the exception to that role. So it's pretty obvious. The group was struggling to come up with a new idea.

So Gunpei Yokoy finally gave up and he decided, you know what? We are going to make a Popeye game. Was Popeye still popular around this time? Um, yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah, in Japan, too. Okay, cool. Yeah.

Boy, that just goes on forever, doesn't it? Yeah, I let it go for a while. Sorry about that. Now, not that other clip. That other clip you cut really short. Oh, wait, this one? Daddy, please don't. Yes.

But Popeye, you were like, let's do the whole podcast with Popi. Well, I was planning on talking while the Popeye theme played, but we're going to ax that. Oh, okay. This production is ruined. I'm sorry. Thanks to my co-host. I apologize.

Okay. So at that time, Kristen, Gunpey Akoy and his Game and Watch team were making a Pop-I Game and Watch. So they thought, yeah, why not make an arcade game, too? You know, the two products would pair up nicely. So from there, Gunpey Akoy and his team created a basic framework. This new Popeye game would follow a very simple plot. Popeye must rescue his girlfriend, Olive Oil, from his arch-nemesis, Bluto. The game would have

multiple stages with lively animated graphics to attract players. Things were moving along, but Yucoy was having trouble finding time to work on this new Popeye game. Those game and watch products were eating up way too much of his time. And the other research and development teams, they were just way too busy. It's not like Gunpei, Yokoi can just go to Hiroshi Yamauchi and be like, yeah, I don't have time to work on this. Sorry. You know, he's got to finish this game somehow. Well, luckily for Yokoi, there was a young 28-year-old designer on the team who seemed really eager to take charge.

And his name was Shigeru Miyamoto. Oh. I know you know that name, Kristen. I do. Many of you listening may hear that name and think, wow, Shigeru Miyamoto. That's the man behind Super Mario, the legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Pick. and many, many more legendary Nintendo games. You like my Star Fox t-shirt, Kristen?

I sure do. I love this thing. By the way, you know, everyone has the Hots for Robin Hood, the Disney's Robin Hood. Yeah, he was a hot fox. Yeah, what about Star Fox? Check him out. Oh, okay, you want my honest answer here? Yeah.

That outfit is ugly. Oh, wow. It's got nothing. Well, I'm not ready for. the future. I can do dip and dots that's as far into the future as I can go, my friend. Did you see the bulge? Show it to me again? That is a sizable bulge, I got to say. But also he's got bulging knees. I'm wondering if he's got some fluid retention going on. I'm just, you know, give me the Fox

from Robin Hood any day. He may need a checkup before his next mission. So yeah, Shigato Miyamoto, legendary game designer, Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Pickman. But back in 1981, He was just a young artist working in Nintendo's creative department. He mostly did artwork for arcade games, including Radar Scope. But Miyamoto had a strong desire to get into game design and development. And with everyone else working on other projects, this new Popeye game kind of fell into his lap. Miyamoto himself admitted that he only got his first chance to make a game because, quote, no one else was available. Gunpei Yakoi must have seen promise in the young Miyamoto, because on March 16,

1981, about two weeks after that first brainstorming meeting, he put Miyamoto in charge of the new Popeye game. Yucoy would stay on in a mentor role, with final say in all decisions. Miyamoto was clearly excited. In his work notebook, he scribbled down that he was now directing the game. He also wrote down notes on what kind of game he wanted to make. He commented that Pac-Man fever was dying down in Japan. Maybe an indication that this shouldn't be a maze game, The game should be non-space-themed, easy to play, have multiple levels. Miyamoto also wrote down the names of four arcade games. They were Deep Scan, which is a submarine simulator,

Defender, a horizontally scrolling space shooter, Rally X, which is a maze game where you drive around collecting flags, and Space Panic, which is a platforming game where you climb up and down ladders, trapping aliens. I'm not sure what the context was for this list. Maybe they were just games Miyamoto really liked. Perhaps they would serve as an inspiration for this new Popeye game. It was just something interesting I observed from the court documents.

Okay, so one's a space game, one's a racing game, one's a submarine game, and another is a what? And then Space Panic, which is a platforming game where you climb up and down ladders. To me it sounds like he's establishing here are the four main categories. of games that are out right now. Okay. That's interesting, possibly. Thank you. Now, I will say, space panic definitely has Donkey Kong vibes.

So there's no doubt he was inspired by Space Panic. Okay. Also, Space Panic is an amazing name. You like that? I really like it. It's panic, but in space. It's even scarier. That crew on the Artemis, too, they've got Space Panic.

So either way, Shigero Miyamoto was excited to make this game. He regularly worked on the game at home after hours. And Miyamoto and Yokoai met up regularly to discuss progress, although it was pretty informal. Sometimes they met for five minutes, other times they met for a whole hour. And by March 21, 1981, Miyamoto had come up with a conceptual drawing for the first level of this Popeye game. And Kristen, this conceptual drawing was the coolest. thing I found in those court documents when I scanned them from the National Archives. This is original research, people, only on an old-timey podcast.

Because this drawing, it really gives us a great sense of what the Popeye game was going to be like. And for anyone who has played Donkey Kong before, some of these things we're going to talk about might sound familiar. So, the first level of this new Popeye game was called Barrel Attack. The level took place in a port. Obviously, Popeye is a sailor. Sailors hang out in ports. Duh. It's nature.

On the screen were rows of gangways lined vertically. You know what a gangway is? Okay, well, I'm picturing the game in my head, but I've never in my life heard the term gangway. So it's... Sounds terrifying. Sounds worse than space panic. It's the ramps people use to get on and off a ship. Okay.

You know, like cruise ships or Titanic head gangways, I'm sure. So the objective was for Popeye to make his way up the gangways using ladders to reach the top where he could rescue olive oil. But standing in Popeye's way is Bluto, who is constantly throwing barrels down on him. But there were more than just barrels to contend with. Popeye would have to avoid enemies Miyamoto labeled as Ojamma Mushi, which literally translates to disturbing insects. which, man, I love translation sometimes. A good literal translation is pretty fun. Disturbing insects is very funny to me.

Another interesting feature of this game, Popeye couldn't jump. They say white men can't. Yeah, it sounds crazy, right? It really does, and it sounds like no fun whatsoever, because half the fun is just making those little dudes jump. I mean, so, yeah, this is a platforming game. where you can't jump.

So how the heck is Popeye going to avoid the barrels? How is he going to get around the disturbing insects? So there's two ways. Popeye could either dodge the barrels by climbing up ladders as they rolled by, or Popeye could hide in little vents scattered throughout the level. So if you hit in the vent, you were basically invincible. Okay. But you might be thinking, well, can't Popeye just hide in the vent for as long as he wanted?

No, he couldn't. because Miyamoto thought of that scenario. So on the right side of the screen, he added a bomb with a long wick that slowly burned. And when the wick ran out, it was game over. So the bomb was basically a timer for the level. Popeye could extinguish the wick to reset the timer. It was pretty dang clever.

I do love the stories about how game engineers have to think about, like, how could this be misused or how could this be used against us? I think about your story about the Oregon Trail video game and how originally they had it so that kids could put their whole name in there. Wasn't that right? But then they found out from teachers that like, excuse me, fuck you got all the way through the Oregon Trail. How dare you do this with this video game?

Yeah. So they had to add in a... Well, didn't they just have certain naughty words that you couldn't use as your name? No, they added a way for the teacher to clear the high score list. Okay. Because, yeah, kids were writing naughty words. My goodness. Yeah, so I do love game design stuff like this.

Yeah. So the very first level of Super Mario Brothers, you walk up, the first enemy you see is a Gumba, who's just walking slowly towards you. And you just press the A button. Because you're trying to figure out how do I kill this enemy and you jump. And it's like you naturally learn, I have to jump on this thing to kill it. Yeah. And that's Miyamoto right there.

Like, he was so good at that. Yeah, he was good at intuiting. Intuitive, is that a word? I damn it, Norm. I was about to have us edit that out because I was like, that sounds dumb. Don't bother me. I'm intuiting right now. Got to change my pants.

I intuit it so hard. No, like, it's, it's, there's no way to say this that sounds smart, but I think I'm making a smart point, which is he had great intuition about what would be intuitive to others. There we go. Right. So, there's one more thing I want to mention. In this Popeye game, it had spinach because what Popeye game is complete without spinach. So there's a spinach power up you could pick up and it would let Popeye destroy barrels or destroy those disturbing insect enemies.

you know. So there you go. That was the first level of the Popeye game. Barrel attack. And again, if you've ever played the original Donkey Kong arcade game,

that sounds pretty similar, right? So what happened to this Popeye game? How did it become Donkey Kong? Well, it started when the team began creating the pixel art for the game. So they have to turn these character drawings into little pixel art squares. Yeah.

Yeah. I like how you're making yourself smaller as you describe it. If you're on the $10 tier, you can see me do that. And that was worth $10 right there. Seeing Norm scrunch up into just 16 pixels, the technology we've got on this set is really sensitive. It's amazing.

So they're taking this drawing of Popeye, turning him into pixel art, and they realize something, oof, this Popeye, he's kind of ugly. You're so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece. Yeah. Yeah. So the problem was the pixel art, it just didn't really look like Popeye. I mean, it kind of looked like Popeye. But you kind of had to know what it was and then squint a little?

I mean, if you played this game and you were like, that's Popeye, that's how you would react. Yeah. I mean, you'd know it was Popeye, but you might be thinking, well, just make it look better. But they couldn't because they were building this game using the Radar Scope hardware. So there's limitations for what they can do. Yeah. And so the Popeye character, he can only be so big. Specifically, he can be 16 by 16 pixels, which is a little square on the screen.

So Shigato Miyamoto relayed the bad news to Gunpei Yakoi. He said, quote, "'Popi cannot be depicted quite well in such a limitation.'" Gunpei Yikoi agreed, stating, quote, "'It is a technological problem. In those days, we could not depict or draw the character of Popeye using the circuit in those days properly. In other words, using pop-eye characters was out.

Nintendo would have to come up with some new characters. For a long time, most people believed Nintendo didn't make that Popeye game because of licensing issues. Right. That's what I would assume. Miyamoto did an interview one time, and he was asked, hey, why was that Popeye game scrapped? And he said, well, I can't really remember, but I think it was because of licensing

issues. And so people just went with that. But, you know, I went through all of these court documents. Zero mention of licensing issues. It was all this technological problem. It just pop-by just doesn't look right. Now, I will say there's a possibility they made this ugly little pop-by. They sent it to King Feature syndicate for approval. Right. And it's very possible. They said, no, that has to look better than that. Right. So I'm not going to rule that out, but I will say going through the court dogmonds, zero mention of a licensing issue. Okay. Shigato Miyamoto and Guimpa Yakoi, they have to get rid of the Popeye characters.

But they decide to keep the basic framework of the game, which is a comical hero rescues a woman from a villain. But again, they have to make new characters. Luckily, Shigato Miyamoto was an artist. So he started the process with the easiest character to replace, and that was blue. Pluto. Bluto was a big character on the screen. He didn't move around that much. So Miyamoto had a lot of freedom in creating a new character. So in his work notebook, Miyamoto sketched a few ideas. There was a sketch of a big, dumb-looking bear. There was a sketch of an animal that it's either a wolf or a dog, I'm not really sure. But ultimately, Miyamoto settled on another animal, Kristen, a gorilla. Oh, God. So why a gorilla? Two reasons.

Number one, Bluto kind of reminded Miyamoto of a gorilla. Think about Pluto? Yeah. Like a big old gorilla, right? Big hairy guy, yeah. And also, wasn't Pluto kind of like all arms, skipping leg day, he had a big old barrel chest. He was a huge guy.

He was the liver king, as I understand it. He's the liver king of the Popeye universe. And he's totally natural. want to hear anything about steroids. Mm-hmm. His one weakness, spinach. He really is liver king. Reason number two, a gorilla was an animal that Miyamoto felt confident drawing.

Okay. It's easy. By the way, Miyamoto must have really had gorillas on his mind because during this time, he also did the artwork for another game called Skyskipper. And that game also had gorillas in it. Well, you know, he's under this time crunch. He is under a time crunch. you just need a big, mean character.

Yep. Yeah, why not? Get really good at drawing gorillas. Go with it. Little did he know that gorilla would become one of the most famous guerrillas of all time. Well, no, because he just stole it from King Kong. We'll get to that later, Kristen, about how Miyamoto is nothing but a thief. No.

And a liar, son of bitch. So, one character down, two to go. Next up was the skinny maiden olive oil. Personally, I don't think Miyamoto thought too hard about this one because olive oil became a generic blonde woman wearing a pink dress known as beautiful lady. They didn't even give her a name. She only got a name when the game came over to North America. Okay. And they named her Pauline.

Okay. The final character to replace was Popeye. And Miyamoto would save his best work for last. So, he's working within those graphical limitations. And Miyamoto used every design trick in the book. So he created an ordinary-looking man, an every man. He wore red overalls and a blue shirt, strong, contrasting colors to make him stand out from the background and help define arm movement. Instead of detailed facial features and, like, a distinct hairstyle, Miyamoto just gave him a hat.

He gave him a big nose. He gave him a mustache. And what resulted was the most famous video game character of all time, Mario. Although at that time, he was not called Mario. He was called Wario. No. No, that would not come until the early 90s, Kristen. I'm just trying to trigger the gaming historian here, folks.

So, yeah, he wasn't called Mario at first. Originally, the team called him Osan, which is a generic term for a middle-aged man in Japan. Okay. Okay. Miyamoto wanted to call him Mr. Video. But that got scrapped. And Mario's first official name was Jumpman. Take a guess why.

Because he jumped. That's right, Kristen. So Miyamoto's game had new characters. So why not change the setting as well? Because it would be kind of odd to find a gorilla in a sailor's port, right? Miyamoto and Yucoy looked at the ports level design and thought, well, you know, if we really want to make this easy, we could just say this is a construction site. I mean, these gangways, they kind of look like girders.

And, you know, there would definitely be, you know, what a girder is, Kristen? No, that's not why I'm making that face? I'm like, why is it totally unreasonable that a gorilla would be at a port? But it's totally normal that you'd find one in a construction zone. Okay. Well, hang on. No, you hang on. That's ridiculous.

For a long time, everyone thought that Donkey Kong was a Popeye game and that it always took place at a construction site. And it was based on this old Popeye cartoon from like the 30s where Popeye battles Bluto at a construction site. Okay. Okay. But these court documents say otherwise. It was originally took place at a port because Popeye is a sailor, duh.

And then they changed it to a construction site. And from me reading these documents, It really does seem like they were like, well, we can't make this a pop-by game. Let's just change it. Yeah, it's now a construction site. It's not a port anymore. These gangways are now girders. Yeah.

Steel beams or whatever. And, you know, there'd definitely be ladders at a construction site. And, hey, there's probably barrels at a construction site, too, right? And I also think, subconsciously, they were probably thinking of King Kong. We'll get to that later. but I think subconsciously they were definitely thinking of King Kong. You got a little weirdly defensive. I don't know what we're going to have to cut from you.

I'm just saying, I know we're on Nintendo's side here, but I will say the logic of it makes no sense for a gorilla to be at a port, but it makes total sense for him to be at a construction zone. I don't know, man. Is the construction zone next to a zoo? Okay. Maybe. Apparently, like, Mario is his owner or the Donkey Kong is his pet and he like escapes from Mario.

The Donkey Kong has revolted against Jump Man. It's terrible. Poor Jump Man. Here's all we need to know, Kristen. It no longer takes place at a port. It's now at a construction site with Mario, or sorry, Jump Man working as a carpenter. So they've got new characters. They've got a new setting in place.

but the deadline is here. They have to start programming this damn game. Okay? But fun fact, Wow, wow. Nintendo did not program their own arcade games. At that time, anyway. They were handled by a third-party company called Ikegami Sushinky.

And together, Nintendo and Ikegami Sushinki further refined the game. So they changed the game mechanics a little bit. Instead of hiding in vents, jump man could... Jumpman could jump. He could jump over the barrels, which is now Mario's iconic. move. That bomb timer was removed. They just put in a traditional timer.

And the disturbing insect enemies they were changed to fireballs that spawned out of an oil barrel. And instead of eating a can of spinach as a power-up, Jumpman, aka Mario, got a hammer to destroy barrels, which is a fitting tool for a carpenter.

By the way, fun fact, Miyamoto's grandfather was a joiner. What? It's an old-timey term for a woodworker. a joiner. Okay. I've always wondered if that's why he made Mario a carpenter. That is really cool.

He's inspired by his grandpa. I do kind of like that. Yeah. In total, the game had four different levels, all with the goal of climbing to the top of the level. So you have the barrel dropping stage, you have a maze stage with multiple ladders and routes, you have a jumping stage with difficult platforming,

and then you have the final showdown with the gorilla, where jumpman would have to unhook girders to cause the gorilla to fall to his Doom. By June of 1981, Nintendo's new game was just about ready for prime time. It just needed one thing. A name. During development, the team referred to it as table Kong game.

Table because of the cocktail style arcade cabinets that were popular in Japan. And for those of you that are wondering what a cocktail style arcade cabinet is, is basically, it's a table so you can set your drink on it and play the game.

You used to have one of these. I had a donkey con. Cocktail style cabinet. It was awesome. So yeah, it was called Table Kong game, Table for the Cocktail Star Arcade cabinets, and Kong for the giant gorilla character, throwing barrels around the level. But, you know, Nintendo's not going to ship a product

called Table Kong game. They had to come up with something fresh, vibrant, exciting. And, you know, the company had a policy of picking game titles that people all around the world could understand. So, for example, Nintendo had games called Sheriff, Space Firebird, Wild Gunman, Radar Scope. Gunpei Yucoy presented the game to Nintendo's Export Manager. He was a man named Shinichi Todori.

Todori knew the markets well, and he was often asked to come up with game titles. Gunpei Yikoi had two requirements for him. Number one, the name should be funny. It should be comical. I mean, look at these goofy characters we added. Let's keep it light and fun. And number two, it should use the word Kong. Gunpey Akoi really liked that word, Kong.

It's a synonym for gorilla. It sounds way better than gorilla. It's fun to say, Kong, Kong, Kong. Yeah, I mean, I do keep thinking about King Kong. Sure. But also they say that words that start with K's are more memorable. Really? Yeah.

I hope I didn't just make that up. But also the one syllable, that's, you know, you got to love simplicity. Okay, I'm into it. So people remember words that start with Kay. Did I just make that up? What's your name again? Shh. Oh.

Hey. Ha, ha. Pauline. What a terrible name. Sorry to any Pauline's out there. A Nintendo employee named Don James named that character after his wife. How dare you, Kristen? My apologies to his wife.

But you know what? Actually. Okay. My last name, for those of you who don't know, is Pitts. Right. P-I-T-T-S. Mm-hmm. And I think that gives me the authority to say with certainty and confidence that just

because something is your name doesn't mean that you should use it. Again, like if, well, right here for this show. For this show, my name is Kristen Caruso. You know why? Because it's a literative and it's a beautiful name. You know what's not a beautiful name? Kristen Pitts. I fell in love with Kristen Pitts.

Well, because you saw me. How could you not, folks? Oh, yeah. I saw her struggling on Super Mario World. I said, I can save this woman. I can help this poor woman. You know, it's true that, like, first time we hung out, I brought over a Super Nintendo and Super Mario Kart. You're going to tell them what else?

How I kicked your ass? Well, no, that goes without saying it'd be hilarious if I kicked your ass. But no, that was, that was before you were, like, so gaming historian, for those who don't know, that was like Norman's dirty little secret for like a year. He didn't tell me about these videos he was putting of himself online. And so you came over to my house and you had this, it wasn't a Super Nintendo. It was Super Nintendo Model 2. So it's a much smaller Super Nintendo. Right.

So you came over. I didn't know much about you at that time. And I was just like, oh, what's that? I've never seen, like, that didn't look like the one I had growing up. And you were like, well, this is a boo-woo, and you talked for so long in such detail. Oh, no. And you said something else. Well, Norman, it all worked out.

Here we are today. Madly in love. But no, you said, I brought this one because it's smaller. and it's easier for travel. It is, yeah. And I said, by the way, we lived three minutes apart. It's true. And I said, wait, you have more than one of these?

I was like, yeah, yeah. You got the model one, you're at the model two. And that's when I said to myself, I found myself a certified nerd. You said, this guy fucks. This guy is the man for me. Anyway, back to our story. Weird that you don't want to explore that more, Norman. I think we've explored it plenty.

So yeah, Gunfeiakoi just said the name should be funny and it has to use the word Kong. Okay. So Shinichi Toruri, he brainstormed and he came up with a list of ten names. Kristen, would you like to hear his ten suggestions? Yes, I love it. This is in no particular order. Mr. Kong. I like that.

That's my favorite one. Yes. Fun fact, in early licensing deals with Nintendo. they did call the guerrilla character Mr. Kong. Okay, so this was clearly a frontrunner. Clearly. You said this was not in any particular order, but you've started very strong. Okay, how about this one?

Custom Ultra Kong. That is terrible. That's a very Japanese name. Custom with a K? No. That's even worse. Custom Ultra Kong. So a lot of old Nintendo toys, like the ultra hand.

Okay. They had the ultra-kand. a machine. They liked that word ultra. Yeah, but why custom? You know, I'm not too sure about that. Why give them three names like a serial killer? That's too much. It's even weirder. It's custom

and then ultra in parentheses and then Kong. That is weird. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know about that one. I like it. How about this one? Kong Chase. Wait, this is for the character's name? Kong, no, this is for the name of the game. Oh, the name of the game. Name of the game. Sorry, say that.

again. Kong chase. Okay, yeah, you're chasing that Kong. Mario's chase and donkey Kong, sure. Oh, but you know what? What? I know exactly what would happen. The danger is some kids get to scribbling with some sharpies. All of a sudden that nice arcade cabinet becomes Dong Chase. Now you've got a real problem

on your hands. Mm, right, right. Kids did that with Puckman too. Oh, well, that, well, that really, It was really easy to do. So, yeah, Pac-Man was originally called Puckman. Uh-huh. And you can guess what they graffitied on there. So Kong Chase, no.

How about this one? Kong boy. I still like Mr. Kong, the best. Mr. Kong is my favorite. Yeah. Okay. Kong boy, maybe a little too young. How about Kong man?

Yeah, I guess it depends on who their target audience is for this. game. Yeah. That's too generic to me. Kong man. Doesn't really tell you anything. I like Mr. Kong. That is very formal. And yeah, there's, um, seems like the kind of game I'd play after I set down my briefcase after a long day, you know, take my, not totally take my tie off, but I'd loosen it some. I'd roll up the shirt sleeves, play some Mr. Kong. Right. My son would play Kong boy. Pour yourself a glass of whiskey Kentucky bourbon sip on it while you enjoy Mr. Kong

It's the 80s I'm drinking Zimas Oh Zimas Okay You gotta be historically accurate Norm I'm sorry to be the one to tell you You'd probably be cracking open a bud light Okay About this one

Kong fighter Yeah okay That seems like a fighting game to me This isn't a fighting game Right right But I do love the idea. Again, the graffiti, again, the graffiti of Dong Fighter. Yeah.

Wild Kong. Okay. I kind of like that. That could be Wild Dawn. I like that too. That's when you go out to a bar looking to fudge, looking for Wild Dawn. Out in the wild, yeah. You're out in the wilderness searching for dog.

Right. Rookie Kong. Why rookie? I don't know. There's no context for these names. It was literally a list. All right. I'll stop asking questions.

Rookie Kong. That may be a mistranslation, too. Okay. These are names that Nintendo of Japan is coming up with. Okay. Kong Holiday. That sounds like a fun family movie. And it's set in a construction zone.

Again, it's like, how does any of this make sense? How about Mr. Kong's holiday? That's the family movie right there. It's funny because it's like there is something compelling to me about Kong holiday. But then I would start playing it and being like, I'm spending my holiday at the construction zone. The hotel hasn't been fully created yet.

Damn it. The plot is Donkey Kong was going to go on holiday. But then Mario showed up. Oh, okay. And Donkey Kong got mad. His holiday was ruined, so he stole his girlfriend. Please don't use his government name. His name is Jumpman.

Sorry, Mr. Jumpman. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and the final name, Donkey Kong. ultimately Nintendo went with Donkey Kong You might be wondering how Shinichi Todori came up with the name Donkey Kong

So Gunpa Yikoi told him to make a comical name And so Todori thought of the Japanese word Tonma Which means idiot or fool So he looked up synonyms in a Japanese English dictionary and he noticed the word Donkey Fucking donkey

Thus we get Donkey Kong Makes sense? Yeah. Yeah. Donkey Kong was ready to hit arcades across Japan and North America. Nintendo of America president Minoru Adakawa quickly started calling distributors to tell them about Nintendo's exciting new arcade game. And he was like, hey, we've got a new game coming out, and you can even replace those old dusty radar scope machines with this new platforming adventure.

But distributors did not share the excitement. Many of them heard that name, Donkey Kong, and we were like, excuse me what did you say the name was Donkey Kong is that sounds awful I mean

yeah I guess it's funny when something becomes iconic you just go well yeah of course that's the name and of course that's the best name right but when you hear for the first time

yeah it doesn't really make sense does it? No I hadn't even thought about that distributors started cracking jokes. They were like Donkey Kong, more like Donkey Dong. Wow, rude, rude. Some of them even requested, you got to change the name.

We're not buying this unless he changed the name. Even Minoru Atacawa's own employees were questioning the game. They were like, our entire business rests on the success of a game called Donkey Kong. So Otakawa panicked a little. He quickly called Nintendo of Japan and was like, look, people are in. not into the name Donkey Kong. Can we maybe change the name at least for the North American release? But Nintendo of Japan responded.

They're like, hey, we've already programmed the game. We've got the copyright and trademark paperwork started. It's already been filed. Plus, the name's fine. Just go with it. Yeah. So, in July of 1981, Nintendo of America employees replaced all those old dusty radar scope machines sitting in the warehouse with Donkey Kong.

Employees may have been worried about the name, but as far as the actual game went, it was damn good. One employee, a young man named Howard Phillips, had to be pried off the machine to get back to work. But how would the public react? Nintendo of America decided to test it out. They quietly installed one Donkey Kong machine

at a local watering hole, spots tavern in Renton, Washington, still around today, by the way. And they brag on their website. We had the very first Donkey Kong machine. Well, yeah. So, yeah, they put a Donkey Kong machine in this bar. The next day, Minoto Atacawa checked to see how many quarters it collected.

And, ooh, about 140. What were they expecting? I don't know what the expectation was, but that was high. Okay. That's around $35 for one day of an arcade machine. Otakawa was stunned. He was like, ooh, that's a lot. he was like maybe this is an anomaly.

So he emptied out the coin box and he would check it again the next day. Next day, $38. And so for the next week, Minota Adakawa went daily to empty that coin box in the Donkey Gong cabinet. And every day, it just made more money. And the owner of Spots Tavern was like, hey, you got any more of them donkey dong games? Because my customers are lining out the damn door to play it. It turned out all those fears about the name were unwarranted. In fact, the name Donkey Kong became a huge plus.

It was unique. It was quirky. It really stood out amongst a sea of games in the arcade. And people thought, Donkey Kong, what the heck is that? I got to see this for myself. Yeah, you know, that's interesting because it's weird, but it's not weird in a way that intimidates you. No, it's a very comical name. Yeah.

It's fun, which is what video games should be, you know? I do know. Hot take. And you know what? I think they should last forever. I need to introduce you to roguelike games. Those are games that just go on forever. Norm, I just told you, to me, all video games go on forever.

Okay, fair. So people would play the actual game and they would discover how much fun it was. It was an addictive platforming game, jumping over barrels, running from fireballs, climbing ladders up to the top before time expired. I mentioned before that Nintendo had a bad thing. about 2,000 radar scope machines collecting dust in the warehouse. Well, they converted all of them to Donkey Kongs. And in the first two months, Nintendo of America sold about 800 of them.

That's not bad. But then Word started getting out about Donkey Kong. And so in October of 1981, Nintendo of America sold 4,000 Donkey Kong machines in one month. Damn. That is huge. And its popularity just snowballed. Nintendo of America went from about five employees to 125 employees.

There were 25 people on staff full-time just assembling Donkey Kong machines and testing them. And just to give you a sense of how popular it was in terms of revenue, so right before Nintendo of America released Donkey Kong, they had about $4.7 million in sales. A year later, after Donkey Kong came out, Nintendo of America, America had $111 million in sales. Holy crap. So, $100 million bump from that game alone.

That's amazing. Yeah. And it was wildly popular in Japan as well. Players just could not get enough of this addicting, platforming game with its colorful cast of characters. And pretty soon, other companies, they came knocking to cash in on this craig. According to the book Game Over by David Schiff, a company called Taito, the makers of space invaders, they offered to buy all the rights to Donkey Kong for a ridiculous amount of money. But Mano Araqawa said no.

Even though apparently people advised him, oh, you should take that money. How ridiculous are we talking? It never said. Okay. It just said it was a very large amount of money. All right. So with Nintendo retaining control of Donkey Kong, they started like. licensing out the characters to other companies for merchandise,

TV shows, video games, and more. So Milton Bradley got a license. They made a Donkey Kong board game. Roustin Purina made Donkey Kong cereal, which was sweet little corn barrels. I think it tasted like Captain Crunch. I mean, it sounds very Captain Crunchy. Or maybe corn pops, you know.

House Glass made Donkey Kong mugs, Manton Cork made Donkey Kong-themed chalkboards and cork boards. Animation studio Ruby Spears wanted to add Donkey Kong to their Saturday Supercade cartoon show. Video game giant Atari obtained the exclusive rights to make Donkey Kong for home computers. Toy company Calico obtained the exclusive rights for a home cartridge version of the game. By the way, Calico, Cabbage Patch Kids? Oh, big fan. Mm-hmm.

But you know, Kristen? Some companies wanted in on that Donkey Kong craze without actually paying for the rights to do that. Sure. For example, there is a bootleg version of Donkey Kong being sold across North America called Crazy Kong. And then there were bootleg versions of that bootleg game called Congarilla, Big Kong, Donkey King, Monkey Donkey. It's bootleg exception here. I like Big Kong. I like Monkey Donkey.

Well, yeah, that's clearly the favorite. I'm just still thinking about the graffiti possibilities because I am 12. Right. Oh, I see Big Dong. Yes, you do see because it's right in your face. You monkey donkey donkey. Like a donkey's dick. Fucking donkey!

Yeah, there were tons of bootlegs. And that made going after these companies tough. One Nintendo attorney said, quote, we just can't get to the manufacturer. We close somebody down, and a week later, they reopen in someone's garage. Ironically, for a video game company, this is whack-a-mole. I mean, it kind of was whack-a-mole with crazy con. They're never leaving the arcade.

Yeah. But, you know, that's a whole other story for another day. That's an entirely different lawsuit. We're not going to get into that today. Yeah, so everybody calmed down. So calm down. Because in this series, I'd like to talk about a company that did not make a bootleg of Donkey Kong but it was more like a copycat game.

And that copycat game opened up a whole can of worms that sent Nintendo of America into a legal battle against one of the biggest media companies in the world. Kristen, do you remember Tiger Electronics? It sounds familiar? So when we were kids growing up in the early 90s, Tiger put out these little handheld LCD games. They had like a Ninja Turtle,

one, Street Fighter, Sonic the Hedgehog. Okay. Do you remember those at all? Vaguely. Maybe it was more of a little boy's toy or something. Maybe. But, you know, for me growing up, it was like, if you couldn't afford the actual video game, you could get the cheap tiger handheld version. Okay, yeah, yeah.

And they were never as good as the actual video game. Another product you might remember, though, the talk boy. Remember the talk boy? No. Okay. Do you remember Kevin McAllister using a talk boy in Home Alone 2? Norm, I am sorry. I feel like I should lie and say it. Okay, wait, I'm going to play this. Wait, is that the one where like, yeah, you'd push the different buttons and it would say different stuff?

So you could record stuff and then you could play it back normally or in slow motion. Okay, yeah, and it would alter the voice. Yeah. Like, do you remember this scene? Yes, I do. Yeah, so Kevin records his uncle. Yeah. He records that voice with the talk boy. I remember I wanted one and I was not allowed to have one.

They made a talk girl, too. Well, everything should be gendered, so that's good. Exactly. I think it was pink. So, yeah, that's Tiger Electronics. But back in the early 80s, before you and I could experience the magic of Tiger Electronics, they were a company mostly known for just little electronic gizmoses. They had a phonograph, educational toys.

They had like a talking robot or something. Okay. And oftentimes, Tiger Electronics would find a product overseas in the Asian markets or like at a trade show. And then they would just release it in North America under their own brand. With permission or? Yeah, they would usually license it. So in the late summer of 1981, Tiger President Randy Risman was browsing a video arcade in Tokyo, maybe looking for the next big hit, and there he saw a new game, one that was very, very popular.

Donkey Kong. Randy Risman saw dollar signs, and he thought, hmm, maybe Tiger could make a game similar to this and cash in on the hype. So pop quiz, Kristen, when you think of giant guerrillas, what immediately comes to your mind? King Kong. Yes. I don't think King Kong needs any introduction. But guess what? I love context. So I'm going to give you one. King Kong is one of the OG movie monsters. He's from the classic 1933 film from RKO pictures. We've talked about RKO a few times on this podcast. That was Lucille Ball's first movie studio, right? I think so. Yeah. King Kong is based on a story from director Marion Cooper, who had a dream about a giant gorilla attacking New York City. And this big ape spawned a whole movie franchise. There was King

Kong, son of Kong, King Kong versus Godzilla, King Kong escapes, and finally in 1976, a remake of the original. So now in the late summer of 1981, Tiger Electronics has decided they're going to make a King Kong video game, basically ripping off Donkey Kong. But in order to do that, they have to acquire the rights to King Kong. So Randy Rissman reached out to the company he thought owned those rights, Universal Studios. Universal was, and still is, one of the biggest media companies in the world. You've got movie franchises like Jurassic Park, The Fast and the Furious, Despicable Me, Jaws, ET, Back to the Future, a bunch of monster movies like Frankenstein and Dracula, and let's not forget the theme parks in Orlando and Hollywood.

So for Universal's merchandising department, you know, getting a call from a company about licensing a universal IP, that's not out of the ordinary. But that call from Tiger Electronics, it was a little surprising to them. Because quite frankly, they were wondering why anyone would want to license King Kong in 1981. The last King Kong film had come out in 1976. when Paramount Pictures and director Dino DeLorentis made a remake. In fact, at that time, Universal only had two active King Kong licenses. One was an architectural studio that was making a King Kong amusement park ride for Universal. And the other was a company called Ben Cooper, and they made Halloween masks.

And the profits from those licenses were negligible. So the merchandising department asked Randy Rissman over at Tiger Electronics. So why exactly do you want to license King Kong? Randy Ristman couldn't admit he was simply going to copy Nintendo's new arcade game. Right. So he was just like, oh, I'm just a big fan. I love King Kong. And I'm going to make a video game.

So Universal, they don't think anything of it. They were like, okay, sure. Okay, so that's very interesting to me that it didn't occur to them in that moment what he might be up to. Right. They had no idea. That doesn't bode well for their lawsuit, I think. Explain. Well, I mean, I feel like we're going to get into this more, but like they're going to try to argue that this is an obvious rip-off of King Kong, right?

That Donkey Kong is an obvious rip-off of King Kong. Yes. Okay. And Donkey Kong was sweeping the nation, sweeping the world. Right. If they thought it was an obvious ripoff, wouldn't that have occurred to them much earlier? Yes. And that is definitely pointed out by attorneys in this lawsuit. Man, you can really tell I did a whole semester of law school. But anyway, yeah. So Randy Ristman lies and is just like, I just love King Kong. I'm a big fan.

and Universal grants him a license in September of 1981 Universal granted Tiger Electronics the exclusive license to make a King Kong home video game. Tiger Electronics was riding high. They were going to make a Donkey Kong clone

and they were going to rake in some serious cash. But Kristen, good times are never meant to last because Universal caught on to what Tiger was doing. In January of 1982, lawyers in Universal's merchandising department were doing a routine trademark search on King Kong. And this time around, they noticed a result they had never seen before. A pending trademark for an arcade game from a company called Nintendo of America. It was called Donkey Kong. The lawyers were curious, and so they went to a local arcade to

check it out. And after playing the game, it finally clicked with them. Oh, so that's why Tiger Electronics wanted a King Kong license for video games. They are. trying to copy this popular arcade game. And Tiger Electronics was not alone. Soon, Dunbar Electronics requested a King Kong license for a digital game watch. And during those negotiations, Dunbar was like, hey, we were wondering, if we get this license from you guys, does that protect us from lawsuits against Nintendo of America? I'm just curious. It's totally, just an innocent, weird question.

I'm just throwing this out there. I was just call me curious. The balls on them. I'm just going to be intuiting right now. Uh-huh. If I go into that bar and punch that big guy in the neck, are you guys going to stand up for me? Are you guys going to take care of me through that?

So, yeah, universal lawyers are like, they're on high alert now. Yeah. They're getting a lot of inquiries into licensing King Kong. Mm-hmm. The fact of the matter was, Universal's claims to King Kong was kind of shaky. It was not super clear which rights they owned and which rights they did not own. More on that in the next episode.

You split this one and two? I did. You split her in half? Mm-hmm. My God, Norman. Okay, okay, a little cliffhanger. So up to that point, those rights hadn't really mattered because no one was licensing King Kong. No one cared.

No one cared. But now all of a sudden they were getting inquiries left and right. Yeah. And so now Universal lawyers were concerned. They were like, oh, crap, we are potentially opening ourselves up to a lawsuit by handing out all of these King Kong licenses. Maybe we should take a step back. And so Universal's merchandising department decided they were going to turn down Dunbar electronics for their little King Kong watch they wanted to make. Which definitely wasn't a rip-off, so everybody calmed down.

Definitely not. They went a step further. They removed King Kong as a licensable IP from their catalog. And as for that Tiger Electronics contract, they knew they were going to rip off Donkey Kong. And so they're like, hey, when they send us the artwork to like finalize this deal, we're just going to make the contract null and void and be like, yeah, you're ripping off Donkey Kong. We can't do this anymore. It's interesting that they made it so they couldn't license out.

They were going to remove it as a licenseable IP. You're smiling over there. I am smiling. I think I know what's going to happen in this next episode. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I do. At this point, Kristen, the story could have ended. You know, they could have removed King Kong as a licenseable IP

and Donkey Kong does great in the arcades and the end. Yeah. But Kristen, Universal is a big company. Maybe not everyone agreed about it. about who owned King Kong. Maybe some people, like certain high-level executives, thought it was pretty damn clear that Universal owned all things King Kong. Specifically, executives like the president of Universal,

Sidney Scheinberg. Scheinberg was a former lawyer who had been Universal's president since 1973. He's mostly known for discovering Steven Spielberg and signing him to a contract. Not bad. Fun fact. Wow. Wow. That's how Stephen Spielberg ended up directing the very first episode of Colombo, which is called Murdered by the Book.

It's an excellent episode. During his time as president of Universal, Shineberg got involved in a long, drawn-out court battle with Paramount Pictures, RKO Pictures, and the Cooper family about who had what rights to King Kong. And I'll talk more about that in next week's episode. But for now, just know that Sid Scheinberg thought, well, of course Universal owns the rights to King Kong. We had a whole lawsuit about it. We clearly won that lawsuit. Don't look into it.

And hey, we are even going to make a new King Kong movie. Scheinberg wasn't just interested in movies, though. He was also really wanting to get involved in this fast-growing video game industry. There was a lot of money to be made. And so, while he was browsing a video game trade publication in April of 1982, Sid Scheinberg came across an article about this new arcade game everyone can't get enough of. Donkey Kong. As Scheinberg read the article, he thought to himself,

Hmm, this game sure does look similar to King Kong, maybe even too similar. And so he sent a copy of the article to one of his vice presidents, Robert Haddle, with a simple two-word message. please investigate. So Robert Haddle took his kids to a local arcade one afternoon to play the game. And Haddle took some notes. Okay, this is a game about a giant gorilla, kidnaps a woman, climbs up a tall structure, has the word Kong in the game's title. In his opinion, Donkey Kong and King Kong were substantially similar.

Robert Haddle reported back to Sid Scheinberg with the news. I think we might have a case here. On the next episode of an old-timey podcast, Universal Sue's Nintendo of America. I'm so excited, Norm. Oh, yeah? Yeah, this is great. Thank you. Well, you broke all of our hearts with last week's episode.

Oh, about Hachi, the dog. Yeah, we couldn't handle it. Sobbed the whole way through. This is a lighthearted one. Yep, no one dies. Yeah. What's the worst that can happen? Jumpman gets caught in a can of spinach.

We're not worried. Why did Popeye eat cans of spinach? That's the most disgusting way to consume spinach. You know, future topic? Why did he eat canned spinach? I don't know, just the history of Popeye. Okay. We would figure it out in that episode.

All right. Well, I guess we should now get into the slop. Oh, okay. Norm, that was lovely. Everybody, we just had a lovely segment of snub. Oh, I almost called it snot. It's slop. We're changing the name.

Changing the name to snot. No. No, that was good. Norm just kind of told us about, you know, the decision to end the gaming historian channel. Yep. I did not expect all those hot, juicy stories. But, boy, you came with them. That's right.

We appreciate it. Hey, I got to give the pig butter investors their money's worth. Uh-huh. And I gave it to them, That's right. So next week, we're getting episode two, Electric Bugaloo. We're getting the court case. It's happening.

I'm excited, Norm. Thank you. And it's just a two-parter. So for those of you... You're going to do seven parts. For those of you who don't like series, don't worry, there's only a two-parter. But yeah, next week we'll talk about the court case and the outcome and all that jazz. Yeah.

All right, Norm, you know what they say about history hoes? We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from the books, Game Over by David Schiff, The History of Mario by William O'Duro, plus documents from the Universal versus Nintendo court case scanned by yours truly from the National Archives. Check the show notes for more information. That's all for this episode.

Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts, and while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Join the Reddit community, R-slash Old-Timey Podcast. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram at Old-Timey Podcast. You can also follow us individually on Instagram. She is the beautiful Kristen Pitts-Karuso.

I go by Gaming Historian, and until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio. Bye. Bye. See ya.