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You guys already know that I love Guitar Hero, but my video game fascination began a long time ago. One of my favorite Nintendo games back in the day was Burger Time. And who can resist Frogger? Nick Cannon can’t. He claims to be majoring in business administration at Elon University in Elon, N.C., but I bet he plays Tetris on his cell phone during lectures. -Stacy Conradt
The Origin of Your Favorite Video Game Friends
by Nick Cannon
Ever wondered why Mario is, well… Mario? Just like you and I have a story of how we came into existence, so do our two-dimensional video game favorites. Here’s a tribute to some of our faithful flat friends with whom we all have logged many an un-moving hour.
Donkey Kong
Space Invaders came on the video game scene in 1978 and was an overnight hit. Such a hit, in fact, Japan suffered a nationwide coin shortage, resulting in the need to quadruple the amount of Yen in circulation. Nintendo, previously a playing card company, wanted their slice of the pie. They created a similar game called Radarscope, which bombed spectacularly. Nintendo had banked on Radarscope being a blockbuster and had already ordered and paid for an entire warehouse full of arcade gaming cabinets. The job of what to do with the surplus was given to programmer/designer Shigeru Miyamoto.
Miyamoto had originally been working on a Popeye-based game, but had to drop the project when he was unable to obtain the rights. Wanting to stick to his original Popeye theme of “beauty and the beast”, he created a disgruntled, gigantic gorilla that had escaped from his annoying, tiny owner. For the “beauty” aspect, the gorilla kidnapped his owner’s girlfriend out of retribution for years of captivity. So that leaves us with the name. Kong obviously makes sense, but what about the first part? Miyamoto wanted to demonstrate the beast’s stubbornness – what better name than Donkey?
Mario
Donkey Kong was also the birthplace of another staple video game character – although he was originally known as Jumpman.
Donkey Kong’s original owner was none other than the Mario that you and I have come to love. Once DK had taken off (selling 65,000 units to Asteroid’s 70,000), all promotional materials referred to his owner simply as Mario. I guess Jumpman didn’t have the same ring to it.
Believing that people would identify better with a blue collar hero, Miyamoto made Mario a carpenter in the first video game; he later switched professions, becoming a plumber. The name came from the landlord at Nintendo’s Headquarters in NYC, Mario Segali. Mario’s trademark mustache is the result of low pixel resolution: a mustache looked a lot better than any mouth they could come up with. Low pixel resolution is also the reason Mario’s has a hat instead of hair.
Sonic
Sega went on a quest for a recognizable Mario-esque character to compete with Nintendo. But they hit a few bumps in the road before creating the tough guy we know today as Sonic.
Before hitting the jackpot with Sonic in 1991, Sega’s research and development team came up with many an odd character. Some of his predecessors include an Armadillo, a Theodore Roosevelt character (in pajamas), a rabbit, and a dog. Finally, Naoto Oshima came up with the fun-loving, fast-paced face of Sega, Sonic the Hedgehog. His original name was Mr. Needlemouse. That was changed for obvious reasons. Although no blue hedgehogs exist in nature, that color matched Sega’s sleek logo. Sonic rolled off to immediate success. He was so popular, he even has his own protein named after him. In 1993, a scientist discovered a protein that caused spiny backs in fruit flies. Because of the resemblance – and his love for Sonic – the scientist named it the “Sonic the Hedgehog protein.” To this day, Mario still does not have his own kind of protein.
Pac-Man
We all have a special place in our hearts for our insatiable, round, yellow friend, but no one ever asks to hear his story. The best-selling arcade game of all time came on the scene in 1980 and has been devouring our quarters ever since.
Japanese game designer Toru Iwatani was 26 when he invented the timeless masterpiece. In the original Japanese release, our star was called “Puckman” which was just a wee bit too close to a certain English swear word for the developers’ liking. Thus, “Pac-Man” emerged. His name is derived from the Japanese slang term ‘paku paku,’ which describes the motion of the mouth opening and closing while eating, and in the literal English translation means “to eat.” It was rumored that Pac-Man’s shape was created over pizza. Iwatani took one slice from a full pie, the legend goes, and presto! They had their character. But in a 1986 interview, Iwatani admitted that was only half the story, and Pac-Man’s design was also influenced by the shape of the Japanese character kuchi, which means mouth. Wanting to appeal to a bigger audience than just young boys and teens, he added the maze aspect and the rest is history.
If you think you’re the biggest Pac-man fanatic, then you’ve probably never heard of Billy Mitchell. In July of 1999 die-hard Pac-Man fan Billy Mitchell attained the first-ever recorded perfect score of 3,333,360. After playing for six hours straight, he beat all of the 256 screens, ate every pellet, fruit and ghost, all using just one Pac-Man.
Check out the rest of our College Weekend festivities.
Several gamers have also obtained the coveted perfect pac-man score, and now it’s seen as an even greater accomplishment to get a perfect score in the fastest time. Mario may have no protein named afeter him, but he is the best selling video game intellectual property with over 200,000,000 mario games sold. Super Mario Bros is the best selling game of all time with 43,000,000 units sold, but it was origanally bundled with the NES. Finnally, Mario games have gone into the world of 3-d without becoming terrible.
posted by John P on 2-10-2008 at 5:27 pm
So has the Monkey Kong story been debunked? I had heard that the translator heard/read ‘donkey’ instead of ‘monkey’, or something like that.
posted by Knifey on 2-10-2008 at 7:39 pm
Great post! Not only was I obsessed with Mario and Donkey Kong growing up (Donkey Kong for Super NES remains the only game I’ve been able to beat totally on my own), but I live about 30 minutes from Elon College and went to the neighboring UNCG. It is so cool when colleges and writers from my home state of North Carolina are represented. Keep up the good work Nick, and don’t feel bad about the Tetris thing - I did the same thing during my psych research lab.
posted by bas on 2-10-2008 at 9:04 pm
What a wonderful trip down memory lane with some
of my favorite video friends. May my Atari 2600 rest
in peace. Great article Nick.
posted by jules on 2-11-2008 at 9:41 am
Hey Nick,
Great article!!! I didn’t recognize you in your picture!!!! Hope everything is going well for ya!!!
posted by Kamden Merrill on 2-11-2008 at 10:06 am
I guess it is time for me to give up on Pac-Man. I have the high score at the laundry mat, but it is far from a perfect game.
I have contributed at least $100 to that machine.
posted by Levi Blackman on 2-11-2008 at 11:56 am
No need for the nostalgia, the classis are back. Frogger on Xbox 360’s Live Arcade, Nights on Wii, Donkey Kong on DS even Sega Rally from Saturn.
posted by video games player on 2-11-2008 at 1:05 pm
The Monkey Kong story is true to my knowledge. So I don’t think this is the correct origins above.
posted by Paul on 2-11-2008 at 1:07 pm
I’m fairly certain the Monkey Kong story has been thoroughly debunked (per the Snopes link in my comment.) Miyamoto has said on numerous occasions that the above story is true; he picked Donkey to show the stubbornness of the character.
posted by Ryan on 2-11-2008 at 1:23 pm
yea, discovery or tlc, one of those two channels did a thing on early nintendo games with interviews with miyamato and such. They confirmed it was monkey kong and a translation error made it donkey kong… It was not donkey because hes stuborn, thats just, um… no comment :-\ Unless I guess the tv show got their translation of that conversation wrong or something? meh.
posted by denis on 2-11-2008 at 1:26 pm
Snopes backs up the author:
snopes.com/business/misxlate/donkeykong.asp
posted by Brad on 2-11-2008 at 1:30 pm
A small, nerdy clarification on the subject of the Sonic Hedgehog protein - hedgehog proteins are a class of developmental protein that are actual quite crucial in laying out the basic pattern of mammalian physiology during early development (that is, sonic hedgehog tells early cells which ones are going to be the progenitors of brain & nerve, which ones are going to become limb, etc.). So, not only did Sonic get a protein named after him, he got one of the most important proteins out there.
posted by saurabh on 2-11-2008 at 1:36 pm
“Puckman” which was just a wee bit too close to a certain English swear word for the developers’ liking
—————
It was bang on the money when kids took black markers to the ‘P’
which is why it was changed
posted by Jonny on 2-11-2008 at 5:20 pm
OMFG ELON
lol. I just had to get a little excited because I run into Elon students all the time :)
posted by sarakenobi on 2-11-2008 at 6:04 pm
Among other unheeded warnings I gave you,including “Playing video games was going to rot your brain”, apparently didn’t. Bravo kid. Great article.
Call you mom some time.
p.s. Remind me to renew your subscription to Mental Floss
posted by mom on 2-11-2008 at 6:16 pm
Rogue Brewery in Oregon has its own patented yeast they call “PacMan”.
posted by David Preiser on 2-14-2008 at 2:00 pm
“I guess it is time for me to give up on Pac-Man. I have the high score at the laundry mat, but it is far from a perfect game.”
Don’t worry about it. Nobody who’s gotten a perfect score has done it by winging it. It’s a matter of memorizing exactly what to do in each level (and then performing it correctly).
In other words, skill is important, but not as much as an OCD-ish personality.
posted by Deuce on 2-14-2008 at 2:18 pm
I already know this stuff, but why didn’t you focus on other characters, like Samus Aran, Link, Solid Snake, and Kirby?
posted by Kenji Hinds on 2-15-2008 at 7:20 am
Man, I start to forget how far we’ve come in technology, and then I look at the graphic of Mario above… Wow. I never got to have a Nintendo growing up (my dad flat out refused), so I’d just go over to my cousin’s house and watch him play. (he was 2 years older and a boy, so I never got to play, but I thought I was cool just by sitting in the same room- so it was a win-win.) I was afraid of the last level of Mario Bros. Really, really afraid. I would have nightmares. (I was about 7 yrs old at the time)Something about the music and the lava freaked me out.
posted by greenstrawberries on 2-25-2008 at 5:17 am
I’ve seen in numerous reputable places that it was actually Monkey Kong, mistranslated. Snopes may disagree, but they may also be greatly outnumbered (and out-logic-ed… why would you name an animal after a different animal, just to say it’s stubborn? For that matter, does he even act particularly stubborn in the game? Not really, not more than any other opponent).
posted by M on 3-15-2008 at 5:40 pm