6 Apetastic facts about Donkey Kong you can’t miss

It all started back in the day with that crazy monkey Donkey Kong! Back in the old arcades when Mario was still “Jump Man” this now famous Gorilla was busy owning it up throwing barrels and kidnapping Pauline!

Anyway, here at Mario Mayhem we like to cover most things Nintendo and especially when they are closely related to the Mushroom Kingdom like DK is! This has lead us to create this list of 6 interesting facts you probably didn’t know about the legendary Donkey Kong!

If you are lazy or just like sweet jungle beats there is also a video compilation of these DK facts at the bottom!

1. Rare studied Gorillas for inspiration

The developers of the famous Donkey Kong game, “Rare”, are said to have visited zoos to actually study real Gorillas for inspiration for the game.

After playing many hours of Donkey Kong this really makes me wonder exactly which Gorillas they were observing…I have never seen one with a coconut launcher for example.

Apparently Gorilla’s movements were scrapped because of their slow pace and instead DK is more loosely based upon the movements of a horse.

2. DK Country just got competitive

Have you ever heard of the “competition cartridge” version of Donkey Kong Country?

Made for the 1994 “powerfest” game competition this cartridge featured a cut down 8 levels of the game with an emphasis on scoring points. You do start with 50 lives instead of 5 but the game has a time limit of 5 minutes, after which the game freezes.

With only roughly 2,500 copies produced this is now quite a collectors item!

3. Cranky Kong is the original DK

You may not know but the official back story of Cranky Kong is that he was the Arcade version of Donkey Kong from back in the 80’s!

That’s right, this grumpy old bugger kidnapped Pauline, threw barrels and fought Mario back in his Prime and now has the audacity to give DK moral guidance…

4. DK has an unknown Easter egg

The Atari 400 Version of Donkey Kong must nearly hold the record of the longest hidden Easter Egg in a game.

The original programmer included the egg when a player was to die in certain circumstances and then wait for the title screen to appear. The programmers initials, Landon Dyer, would then appear on the title screen.

This secret was revealed 26 years later by Dyer via his blog, however he can’t actually remember the correct circumstances to make the Easter egg appear so I guess the whole point is moot…

5. Donkey Kong Country Rocked it

It might surprise you to hear that Donkey Kong Country is actually the best selling (non-bundled) 16-bit game of all time!

Selling around 9 million copies it is no wonder that when you ask most people about their SNES playing days they will often mention Donkey Kong Country as one of their fondest memories!

6. Bananas can buy you DK games

Back in 2010 when “Donkey Kong Country Returns” was just released, 2 retailers ran a competition where by the first 20 customers to bring in a bunch of Bananas to their stores were able to trade for the new game!

Thankfully this kind of promotion wasn’t featured for some more gruesome genre of game…

And now for easy watching, this post in video form: