The Donkey Kong that Nintendo Forgot

[Music] when you think of the Mario Kart games you typically picture huge casts of Nintendo a-listers you know we're talking cream of the crop here Mario Luigi peach Daisy toad Yoshi like that's a huge part at least for me of the series's charm it seemed there's beloved Nintendo darlings cutting to the death but picture the original games cast who doesn't Superamerica there's your standard Mario Luigi peach and Yoshi we've got toad Bowser Koopa Troopa and then Donkey Kong jr. now this guy is an enigma what games to see peanin where does he come from plus what's he doing here shouldn't it be Donkey Kong the much-loved much revered to Nintendo darling instead of this impostor but it turns out there's a fascinating story behind a well this character was created the eat how the heck he ended up in Super Mario Kart instead of Donkey Kong and see what the hell happened to him afterwards let me take you on a journey a journey to discover the Donkey Kong that Nintendo forgot [Music] hi there welcome to Thomas game docks so let's start by answering that first question who is this guy where do you come from well to get started we're going to need to look to a game the Nintendo loved not to talk about maybe accusing them of sweeping it under the rug is a little melodramatic they did re-release it on both the 3ds and the Wii U but looking over their marketing for this game especially in recent years you do get this feeling that it's not one of the prouder moments of Nintendo's history I don't like to boast about it really and for good reason because the game I'm talking about here is Donkey Kong jr. the classic arcade game see this was a follow-up to the arcade smash hit Donkey Kong but while in the original game we play as Italian plumber Mario on his quest to rescue Pauline from the evil animal brute Donkey Kong this time round things are a little different now we play as Donkey Kong jr. on a quest to save his father Donkey Kong and the villain is Mario himself who goes to great lengths to separate this Kong family he acts rather inhumanely really so it's no wonder that Nintendo of today seemed to keep fairly quiet about this game but let's step back how was this game created who thought up this well kind of cruel idea for a game why who else but she could hurt him Miyamoto you see while developing the original Donkey Kong arcade games a few years prior Miyamoto and his team had thought up a bunch of ideas that wouldn't really fit into the game back then they had even designed full complete levels like ready to go but because of various constraints these didn't end up making it in and that made me a moto sad these were some he thought high quality designs couldn't really throw them away the very thought sent shivers down his spine but just as Miyamoto was mid panic maybe I'm exaggerating a little one of his co-workers piped up we've got all these ideas why don't we make another game but would they be allowed with the top dogs at Nintendo permitted well luckily for Miyamoto and his gang Donkey Kong the original turned out to be a huge hit massively successful on the scale Nintendo as a company had never seen before so you can imagine their enthusiasm about developing a sequel you want to earn as more money happier and so Miyamoto and teams started working on their sequel using all their ideas and level designs that hadn't made it into the first game but that wasn't all you see because Miyamoto had this idea that he really liked what if this time around people played as Donkey Kong himself Mario already had his turn in the limelight now it was the turn of everyone's favorite ape or at least that was how it was meant to go almost instantly the team encountered a major problem Donkey Kong was just too big he didn't fit the levels weren't suited to him it was a disaster and so the team returned to the drawing board if Donkey Kong didn't work because of his unusually large size what have they changed that what if they made Donkey Kong smaller and so after some tweaking Donkey Kong jr. was born and as soon as the game was brought to arcades it proved itself to be a huge hit similar in scale to its predecessor the original Donkey Kong critics described it as quote great fun very insightful plus many regarded as one of the 100 greatest video games of all time that's certainly high praise but in spite of this major major success I think for me I don't remember Donkey Kong jr. for this original arcade game no when I picture this off forgotten Kong it's because of his appearance in Super Mario Kart drifting round corners throwing banana pills at his comrades that for me is Donkey Kong jr. but why why is Donkey Kong jr. in Super Mario Kart surely it should be regular old Donkey Kong I mean this classic Kong is far more iconic more well-known and has returned to screens with Donkey Kong Country was just around the bend but instead the representative chosen for the Donkey Kong franchise was dije jr. so how did this happen well the short answer is I don't know and neither do Nintendo's developers wait what yeah let me explain so Maria cot originally came about because shigeru miyamoto asked two game designers within nintendo Tadashi Sugiyama and Hideki Konno who developed a version of f-zero with two players but it turned out that the humble SNES couldn't handle a two-player version of this fast-paced racing game so to bring Shi Gary's vision to life the two designers switched out f-zero high-octane racing with some slower paced go-karting and in the early days of this software's life the characters driving these go-karts took the form of generic men in overalls not Mario I might add though he is known to wear an overall - on occasion but know these drivers were just regular old ladies and gents wearing overalls however as development continued the need became clear to change out these overall wearers for some more distinct looking characters the team wanted them to be easily recognizable from behind but that's easier said than done how many videogame characters are distinct from the back this was a real conundrum for Connor and Sugiyama but then a sudden thought flashed through their minds what if they used Mario characters now well this was a bit of a stretch at the time obviously nowadays there's Mario spin-offs galore the tennis golf football but back then there were none to my knowledge practically none if there were a couple either way this was a pretty gutsy suggestion but it was approved by the company and so the team got to work deciding on which characters would make it in they started with the obvious ones Mario Luigi both of these characters looked distinctive their overalls made it clear who they were plus their iconic green and red color schemes made it obvious who was who out of the pair of them all right that's two down what about the rest well Connie and Sugiyama just started running through Mario characters that they thought would fit one by one Yoshi peach toad Bowser and Donkey Kong jr. we'll get back to him oh and that left one free slot that the team weren't sure who to fill with they felt as though they'd run out of well known famous Mario characters to include but they still had a free slot though what the heck said the two designers and they threw in Koopa Troopa sure and with that the character roster was complete but let us rewind for a second because that still doesn't tell us why Donkey Kong jr. and not Donkey Kong was chosen for the game well it turns out this is actually quite debated in an interview released not long after the game came out producer Shigeru Miyamoto claimed the recent Donkey Kong jr. was included was that it was the 10-year anniversary of the original arcade game Donkey Kong jr. and so it would only be fitting he saw to include the character as a sort of nod to the Mario franchises history and how far it had come and that makes sense but Cano and Sugiyama the directors of Super Mario caught remember things slightly differently according to them yes the 10-year anniversary might have weighed into it but a major factor in their decision was the design of the character itself because if we put Donkey Kong and DK jr. side-by-side you'll notice one major difference DK jr. is wearing a shirt but how on why would that affect things a Nintendo so prudish they can't include Donkey Kong's sexy sexy midriff no the reason actually harkens back to Cano and Sugiyama z-- original prototype for the game featuring the men in overalls they had noticed when drawing these characters and when drawing Mario who lest we forget also wears overalls it makes it a lot easier to design the character from all the different angles this is now just me speculating but I would think that if the character had some kind of shirt it's much easier to tell which angel' we are seeing them from if they had used regular old Donkey Kong whose back is just one single color it could be hard to tell precisely which angle the Kart was facing and so in 1992 Super Mario Kart was released Donkey Kong jr. included and just like the DK jr. arcade game this Super Mario Kart proved to be massively successful more so I would say considering the fat hit launch Mario's most successful spinoff series Mario Kart in fact I couldn't believe this but the second best-selling Mario game of all time is Mario Kart Wii behind only the original Super Mario Bros these games sell like hotcakes and it's all thanks to Super Mario Kart for the SNES and that answers the question of why DK jr. appeared in Super Mario Kart rather than his father but it still leaves one final mystery what happened to Donkey Kong jr. well he's had a number of cameos and such there's one in Donkey Kong Country tropical freeze for the Wii U he appeared as a trophy in smash bros melee a sticker in Smash Bros Brawl and a spirit in Smash Bros ultimate but I'm talking about proper appearances has he had any well in short very few very very few he was in Mario Tennis for the furture boy of all things although he did also appear in the game sequel for the n64 which is clearly a bit better in the hood but as for the Mario Kart series almost nothing looking at the roster for Super Mario COTS sequel Mario Kart 64 we can see no sign of DK jr. but there is Donkey Kong the original this guy which I think led many to believe myself included that Nintendo replaced DK jr. with his father dearest weathers actually a trail of clues which disproves that very hypothesis because there's a few screenshots of this game in a beta form an unfinished form and the selection of characters is ever so slightly different you'll notice that instead of Donkey Kong there was a different Nintendo a Lister comic or magic koopa whatever you prefer so what does this tell us in essence DK jr. was never a candidate for the game he wasn't replaced by Donkey Kong because decayed unit was removed way before Donkey Kong was added it turns out that the character Donkey Kong replaced was not DK jr. it was comic and there we go mystery solved except I don't find that completely satisfying is that really Donkey Kong Jr's last appearance in the Mario Kart series well it turns out yes and no because I want to refer back to some more beta screenshots but this time for a completely different game Mario Kart Double Dash you see we actually have a screenshot of an early version a prototype version of double dashes character select screen and look closely you should see a familiar face Donkey Kong jr. that's right it might seem crazy but this is definitive proof that Donkey Kong jr. was originally planned to be in Mario Kart Double Dash I mean you can't get clearer evidence than this but hang on a sec Donkey Kong jr. is not in the final version of double dash so what happened to him well this time he was replaced replaced by none other than Diddy Kong ouch and let me be clear Diddy Kong is perfectly fine I don't mind him me and him don't have any personal beef or anything but it does make me sad I mean there could have been this piece of Nintendo heritage in the game for the world to see that would have been awesome I think but alas and alack it was not meant to be or was it because while DK jr. may not have made it in as a full character he did manage to worm his way in to make one tiny little of Heron's if you've played either this game or mario kart wii it's not - you'll remember waluigi stadium it's like this monster truck dirt Derby thing and it's one of the few courses to have a live audience spectating you who react to how well you're doing with appropriate chairs or booth depending on what's happening in the game and in the original game not the Wii version only Double Dash for the Gamecube one audience member in the stands proves to be a familiar face look carefully spectating the game cheering on the other characters including I might add his father is Donkey Kong jr. just like in the original arcade game way way back DK jr. is rooting for and I suppose in a way trying to save his turn and I like that it kind of circles all the way back round a reflection of the original game is hidden in the stands of Mario Kart Double Dash isn't that neat hey thanks for watching to the end thanks for sticking with me Oh my voice is almost gone it's 11 p.m. I got 5 hours sleep last night so I'm ready to conk out but you can follow me on Twitter at Thomas G Docs to see updates on me and videos plus you can subscribe to this channel just with the button see my future videos how can you tell I'm sleep-deprived and I will see you next week a great week goodbye [Music]

Channel: Thomas Game Docs

Views: 742,793

Keywords: Nintendo, Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Country, Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart, Super Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Jr, Thomas Game Docs

Id: OjCYSOQ6xEM

Length: 14min 26sec (866 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 05 2019