Nintendo courtroom paperwork state that Donkey Kong as soon as had a heap of different proposed names – together with, sadly, “Kong Dong”.
The revelation is included in 1983 courtroom paperwork from a lawsuit between Common and Nintendo (paradoxically now greatest buddies within the theme park enterprise with precise Donkey Kong lands you’ll be able to go to).
Stated paperwork had been initially scanned and positioned on-line by gaming historian Norman Caruso in 2020, and had been lately resurfaced once more by Supper Mario Broth.
Again within the 80s, Common and Nintendo went to courtroom when the Mario maker stood accused of basing the Donkey Kong identify on King Kong, which Common held the rights to. (Spoilers: Common misplaced the case, and Donkey Kong stays Nintendo’s property to this present day.)
The courtroom paperwork listing an intensive roll-call of different names for Donkey Kong that Nintendo had beforehand thought of, together with: Humorous Kong, Kong the Kong, Jack Kong, Invoice Kong, Metal Kong, Large Kong, Huge Kong, Kong Down, Mr Kong, Customized Kong, Kong Chase, Kong Boy, Kong Man, Kong Fighter, Wild Kong, Rookie Kong and the fairly seasonal “Kong Vacation”.
Oh, and Kong Dong. Let’s simply be glad Nintendo did not select that.
In one other part of the courtroom documentation, the presiding choose notes that Donkey Kong and King Kong had been completely different as the previous was “farcical and nonsexual”. Which, once more, let’s simply be pleased about that too.
“Donkey Kong creates a humourous impression by leaping up and down and strutting forwards and backwards to tease Mario,” the choose famous. “The Donkey Kong gorilla is thus fairly completely different from King Kong, a ferocious gorilla in quest of a lovely girl who goes on rampages, chases individuals, crushes them underfoot, or throws them to the bottom, and fights with dinsosaurs, big snakes, airplanes and helicopters, all culminating in his tragic and bloody demise.”
The choose in the end determined that Nintendo’s Kong was “at greatest” a parody, and due to this fact exempt from infringement.
Again in the actual world, Donkey Kong is ready to return subsequent 12 months on Nintendo Change in a re-release of Wii traditional Donkey Kong Nation Returns, scheduled for launch on sixteenth January 2025.