SATURDAY MORNINGS FOREVER: Donkey Kong

By the time the 1980s rolled around, the American video game market was booming. Arcades were experiencing a Golden Age with rapid advancement in technology and growing cultural impact beginning with the release of Space Invaders in 1978. Likewise, home consoles were entering their second generation thanks to the affordability of new microprocessor technology, with the Atari 2600 leading the charge. This resulted in a combined revenue of $11.8 billion for the video game industry by 1982.

Hanging out at the arcade.

Television and studio executives were not ones to let a popular trend go by without finding a way to capitalize on it. ABC and Hanna-Barbera struck first: adapting the highly successful arcade game Pac-Man into a hit animated series. TBS was next with a game show that utilized arcade games, Starcade. CBS, looking to compete, decided to hedge their bets by not just licensing one hit game, but several from both the arcades and home consoles.

The stars of Supercade: Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Q*bert, Pitfall Harry and Frogger.

Among the chosen properties was the game that saved Nintendo of America from bankruptcy, Donkey Kong, and its sequel, Donkey Kong Jr.; Gottlieb’s most successful game, Q*bert; Konami’s hit Frogger; and Activision’s home console smash, Pitfall! These five entries were combined under the banner Saturday Supercade where they would air four segments over the course of an hour every Saturday (Q*bert and Pitfall! would alternate weeks). Naturally, as video games at the time were a bit limited in their story and presentation, some liberties were taken in adapting them for the small screen; such as making Frogger (Bob Sarlatte) an investigative reporter or setting Q*bert in a pastiche of the 1950s in a town dominated by cube shapes.

Character models for Donkey Kong's Pauline and Mario.

Saturday Supercade debuted on CBS on September 17, 1983. The series was produced by former Hanna-Barbera employees Joe Ruby and Ken Spears through their company, Ruby-Spears Productions. Despite sharing screen time in the intro and during commercial bumpers, and that both Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. were set in the same universe, none of the shows or characters crossed over or interacted with each other. Jack Enyart, Gary Greenfield, Gordon Kent and Michael Maurer served as story editors, while Haim Saban and Shuky Levi composed the series’ theme. Dean Elliott handled the rest of the series’ music.

Supercade was renewed for a second season; however, there were some changes. Donkey Kong Jr., Frogger and Pitfall! were dropped from the line-up. In their place came Sun Electronics’ (aka Sunsoft) hit arcade Kangaroo, and the second game from notable Disney animator Don Bluth, Space Ace. Richard Merwin, Cliff Roberts and David Villaire served as story editors this season. CBS also expanded their video game offerings with a series based on the racing game Pole Position, but as it was by DiC Entertainment it was kept separate from Supercade. Supercade continued on until December of 1984, and then left the airwaves forever.

Article published during Atari's decline.

One of the contributing factors to its cancellation was that it was unable to compete with the powerhouse Smurfs over on NBC. The other factor was that during the show’s production, the video game industry was hit by the crash of 1983: too many consoles, too many similar games of questionable quality through the establishment of third-party publishers, plus the rise of the home computer meant that there was a lot more product than consumers. Arcades fared no better as there really hadn’t been any major innovation in game design and they were blamed for instances of delinquency in their vicinity. Video games had lost their luster for Americans and wouldn’t begin to rebound until Nintendo imported their revamped Famicom as the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986. The console wars began anew when Sega entered the fray, challenging the 8-bit Nintendo console with its high-speed 16-bit Genesis. With this new era in gaming came new attempts to adapt them for the screen, but those are stories told in their own entries.

A revived console war meant a new lease on life for video games--and new shows based on them.

Because Sony owned Q*bert through Columbia Pictures’ previous ownership of Gottlieb, it remains the only entry in Supercade to have seen a home video release. The Best of Q*bert came out in 2015 to coincide with the release of their film Pixels, which featured the character. Warner Archive announced via their Facebook page in 2010 that plans were underway to release Supercade to DVD since they currently own the Ruby-Spears library, but because of rights issues with the various game properties the project needed extensive research before it could happen. Segments from Space Ace have appeared as filler between programs on Boomerang and Toonami, but otherwise the various segments have only become viewable through recorded uploads on sites like YouTube.

February 05, 2020

SATURDAY MORNING MASTERS: SOUPY SALES

SOUPY SALES

(January 8, 1926-October 22, 2009)

Notable Roles: Donkey Kong, Professor Prophet/Sonny Dey

Born Milton Soupman, he adopted the stage name “Soupy Hines” from his childhood nickname of “Soup Bone”. He later changed it to “Sales” after vaudeville comedian Chic Sale as “Hines” made him sound too similar to the Heinz soup company. Sales abandoned his interest in journalism to become a writer and disc jockey for WHTN (now WVHU) in Wet Virginia while also doing a comedy routine in clubs. After DJing in Cincinnati, Sales went into television in 1950 as the host of Soupy’s Soda Shop, TV’s first dance television program, followed by the talk show Club Nothing that showcased his zany brand of comedy. In 1953, he began The Soupy Sales Show on Detroit’s ABC-affiliate WXYZ-TV. Convinced by colleagues who performed as clowns on television, Sales opted to abandon anonymity (and the ability to be easily replaced) and chose a costume comprised of a sweater, a top hat and an oversized polka-do bowtie. WXYZ expanded his work with the daily daytime kids’ show 12 O’Clock Comics, later renamed to Lunch With Soupy Sales as he always ate lunch with his audience, and the late-night show, Soupy’s On. ABC offered Sales the Saturday slot on the network for Lunch. Sales continued to do variations of his show until 1966, with a revival attempt in 1979. Sales appeared in guest spots on various programs, usually as himself but sometimes playing another character, minor roles in several movies, and eventually carved out a second career as a recurring guest on a variety of game shows; including being a regular on the revival of What’s My Line? and hosting Junior Almost Anything Goes. In 1983, he starred in his first cartoon as the titular character of the Donkey Kong segment of Saturday Supercade. Sales returned to radio on WNBC in New York from 1985-87. He died in 2009 from cancer.

Saturday Credits:

Lunch with Soupy Sales

Junior Almost Anything Goes

Saturday Supercade

June 27, 2015

DONKEY KONG CEREAL

DONKEY KONG CEREAL

Ralston

After several failed attempts to break into the American video game market, Nintendo finally scored a hit with its game Donkey Kong in 1981. The game featured the titular ape kidnapping Pauline, the girlfriend of carpenter Mario (later known as a plumber and Nintendo’s mascot). Mario was tasked with rescuing Pauline from Donkey Kong at a construction site, jumping over thrown barrels and fireballs along the way.

The game became incredibly popular and profitable, spawning a diverse line of merchandise featuring the characters. The following year, as Donkey Kong’s first sequel was set to hit arcades, Ralston entered into a licensing agreement with Nintendo to produce a cereal based on the game. Released in 1982, the cereal was shaped like barrels, and those who remember it often compare its taste to that of Cap ’n Crunch. It did not prove as popular as the game and only lasted a year.

The baseball card promotion box.

The commercials for the cereal were the first animated appearances of Donkey Kong’s characters, as it wouldn’t be until 1983 when the game was adapted to be a part of CBS’ Saturday Supercade. They featured Mario chasing Donkey Kong around a live-action breakfast table as kids looked on. The cereal offered several premiums, including baseball cards and stickers. A sweepstakes allowed kids a chance to win either the Game & Watch version of the game or the actual arcade machine.

The instant win box.

June 06, 2015

SATURDAY SUPERCADE: DONKEY KONG

DONKEY KONG

(CBS, September 17, 1983-October 13, 1984)

Ruby-Spears Productions

MAIN CAST:

Soupy Sales – Donkey Kong

Peter Cullen – Mario

Judy Strangis - Pauline

Nintendo had tried unsuccessfully to expand into the North American market with their arcade games; never landing what would be considered a surefire hit. Their third attempt, Radar Scope, had exhibited a brief period of popularity in Japan and received a large order by the newly-founded Nintendo of America’s president, Minoru Arakawa, to be placed into American arcades. Unfortunately for Arakawa, by the time the machines were delivered the hype surrounding the game had died down and American audiences found its sound effects annoying. The game was a complete failure. Facing a financial disaster, Arakawa pleaded with his father-in-law, Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi, to give him a new game he could use in refurbished leftover Radar Scope cabinets.

Ad for the Radar Scope tabletop machine.

Yamauchi had asked all of his employees to come up with a new game that could be made with Radar Scope’s hardware, and ultimately selected the idea proposed by designer Shigeru Miyamoto that made use of Nintendo’s current access to the Popeye comic strip license. Unfortunately, Nintendo soon lost that license, leaving Miyamoto without a cast for his game. It was decided to continue on by creating original characters that fulfilled the same roles as the Popeye ones would have. He eventually devised a love triangle between a carpenter, a girl and an ape, mimicking the love triangle in Popeye between the titular character, his gal Olive Oyl and the burly bully Bluto. The fact they were all-new characters meant that they could be marketed and reused later on (and boy were they ever). King Kong and Beauty and the Beast also served as influences for the basic storyline. The ape was named Donkey Kong (based on American slang for “stubborn” or “dopey” and Japanese slang for “gorilla”), the hero was Jumpman (after his ability to jump over obstacles and for its similarity to popular brands like Walkman and Pac-Man), and the damsel in distress simply called Lady. Jumpman’s red overalls and blue shirt, hat and mustache came about due to graphical limitations; allowing his clothing to contrast against each other and the background and prevent them from needing to animate a mouth, hair and eyebrows. His big nose was meant to emphasize that he was human in comparison to his foe. The game was developed under the supervision of head engineer Gunpei Yokoi.

Mario closes in on rescuing Pauline from Donkey Kong...or so he thinks.

Speaking of the storyline, the game became one of the first to feature one that played out visually on screen; both in gameplay and through the use of cutscenes (the second to do so after Pac-Man). Donkey Kong kidnapped Jumpman’s girlfriend and took her to a construction site to fend off the hero, stomping to cause the girders to go on a slant and breaking some of the shortcut ladders. One of the earliest examples of the platforming genre, Jumpman would have to traverse several levels while jumping over barrels thrown by Kong, two types of sentient fireballs, cement tubs on conveyor belts, and jacks leaping from higher levels, or smashing them with a hammer power-up in order to reach the top. Once the player reached Kong, Kong would snatch Lady away and climb further up the site. The game became the first with multiple levels, with four unique ones designed in total and each representing 25 meters of the construction site. The game had no true ending as after completing the 4^th original level, the levels would reset at a greater difficulty. The game either ended when the player stopped putting in more quarters after dying, or encountering a programming glitch on level 22 that caused Jumpman to die after a few seconds. Miryamoto named the game after who he felt was the strongest character, and it officially became Donkey Kong.

Original Japanese Donkey Kong cabinet art.

Believing in the game, Yamauchi told Arakawa to secure the trademark and the game was sent to Nintendo of America for testing. Despite some reservations over the game’s differences from the popular genres at the time and the strange name, the American staff began translating the storyline into cabinet art done by Zavier Leslie Cabarga. They changed Jumpman’s name to “Mario” after Mario Segale, the generously lenient landlord of Nintendo of America’s original office space, and Lady became “Pauline” after Polly James, wife of Nintendo’s Redmond, Washington warehouse manager Don James. Distributors Ron Judy and Al Stone tested the game out in two bars in Seattle, and the bars ended up ordering more units after they became a hit. A skeleton crew proceeded to convert 2,000 more Radar Scope machines into Donkey Kong and the game made its official debut on July 9, 1981.

Coleco's mini-arcade version of Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong became extremely popular in North America, with Nintendo selling through the initial 2,000 units with more orders in the pipeline. Orders increased to 4,000 machines per month until Nintendo had sold over 60,000 machines by June of 1982. The game was also doing well in Japan, and would become one of the top-grossing arcade games of all time. Coleco won the rights to produce the game for home consoles, as well as make a tabletop version. Within the first year of the game’s release, clones began to emerge; including Tiger Electronics’ licensed King Kong game which copied Nintendo’s gameplay while using Universal City Studios’ name. When Universal attempted to sue Nintendo for copyright infringement, Nintendo won the case and the profits from Tiger’s game, and revealed itself able to stand up to other industry giants.

Donkey Kong’s popularity held strong through 1983, with some speculating that the home console versions contributed to its extended popularity. The game also became the subject of a merchandising frenzy, yielding board games, figurines, candy, cereal, clothing, stickers and more. It also spawned two arcade sequels: Donkey Kong Jr. in 1982, in which Kong’s son had to rescue his father from Mario (the only time he was portrayed as a villain in gaming history), and Donkey Kong 3 in 1983, which had new hero Stanley try to remove Kong from his greenhouse as he caused bugs to attack Stanley’s flowers. Five Donkey Kong games were released for the LCD-screened Game & Watch handheld games series. Along with adapting the arcade games (with Jr. split between Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong II), it also featured the original entries Donkey Kong Circus, a reskin of a Mickey Mouse game that had Donkey Kong balancing on a barrel while catching pineapples, and Donkey Kong Hockey, where Donkey Kong played against Mario in hockey either against the computer or a second player.

1983 CBS ad.

CBS was looking to get in on the video game craze and to combat ABC’s Pac-Man produced by Hanna-Barbera. Figuring to hedge their bets, they licensed several gaming properties and commissioned former Hanna-Barbera employees Joe Ruby and Ken Spears to handle it through their company Ruby-Spears Productions. The resulting series was Saturday Supercade. Making up the Supercade every week were segments based on Frogger, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr., while Q*bert and Pitfall! rotated weekly.

The animated Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong saw the giant ape (Soupy Sales, who received top-billing of the Supercade) as a circus performer who finally escaped his captivity and went on the run. Charged with bringing him back was Mario (Peter Cullen) and Kong’s trainer, Pauline (Judy Strangis), who was changed from Mario’s girlfriend to his niece. Ken Boyer and Patrick A. Ventura created the character models that adapted the American cabinet artwork into easily animated television stars.

Mario and Pauline on the endless quest.

Kong was portrayed as both being intelligent enough to avoid Mario’s traps, causing them to backfire on him constantly, but yet also dumb enough to display limited speech (typically his name) and constantly fall into the schemes of criminals who wanted to use him. Often, Mario and Pauline would find themselves having to simultaneously rescue Kong and thwart the criminals while preventing the big ape from escaping their grasp. Likewise, despite their always trying to capture him, Kong never hesitated to stop and rescue the pair from any danger they end up in. In keeping with the game, Pauline would be most often the one in need of saving (although Mario got the occasional rescue as well). In the second season, Stanley made an appearance in the episode “Greenhouse Gorilla.”

Stanley the exterminator with Pauline.

Saturday Supercade debuted on CBS on September 17, 1983. Donkey Kong ran as a feature during both seasons; however, the second season only featured 6 new episodes intermixed with reruns from the previous. The first season’s introduction featured a visual telling of the backstory; from Kong’s escape to his constant eluding of Mario and Pauline in various places and situations. The second season was more generic and featured clips from that season’s episodes. Donkey Kong was written by Duane Poole, Tom Swale, Gary Greenfield, Michael Maurer, Mark Jones, Richard Merwin, Cliff Ruby, Elana Lesser, Gordon Kent, Jack Enyart, Michael Ray Brown, Matt Uitz, Janis Diamond and Sheryl Scarborough. The theme music was composed by Shuki Levy and Haim Saban.

Nintendo's warranty logo featuring Mario.

Probably the game franchise’s lasting contribution was giving the world Mario. After his appearance in Jr., Mario was changed to a plumber, given a brother named Luigi, and spun off into his own video game series starting with 1983’s Mario Bros. created by Miyamoto and Yokoi. Mario’s popularity would lead to him becoming Nintendo’s mascot, appearing on various merchandise and in games outside of his own series. Donkey Kong, however, was relegated to continued ports of the original onto new home systems as they came out, with one more game, Donkey Kong Circus, made for the Game & Watch Panorama series in 1984.

Super Game Boy title screen for Donkey Kong '94.

A decade later, a new Donkey Kong (also known as Donkey Kong ’94) was released for Game Boy. It started off like the original arcade featuring the same four levels, but then continued on into additional levels that combined elements of Jr. and Super Mario Bros. 2. That was also the year that Kong received a revival in the form of the Donkey Kong Country franchise, later adapted into its own animated series. The original Donkey Kong made a return to games beginning in 2004 with the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series and has an appearance in the 2015 movie Pixels as a form alien invaders took on to attack the Earth.

EPISODE GUIDE:

Season 1:

“Mississippi Madness” (9/17/83) – Donkey Kong is tricked into stealing an emerald.

“Gorilla Gangster” (9/24/83) – A pair of gangsters convince Donkey Kong to pose as one of them for when a rival mob seeks their retribution against them.

“Banana Bikers” (10/1/83) - A biker gang recruits Donkey Kong to help them get payback on a sheriff that ran them out of town.

“The Incredible Shrinking Ape” (10/8/83) – Crooked toymakers plan to turn people into living dolls and test their new shrinking ray on Donkey Kong when he wanders into their store.

“Movie Mania” (10/15/83) – Donkey Kong ends up in a Hollywood movie studio and ends up becoming a movie star, but the ape he replaced wants his old job back.

“Gorilla My Dreams” (10/22/83) – When a near-sighted millionaire is rescued by Donkey Kong, she falls for her hero.

“Little Orphan Apey” (10/29/83) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE

“Circus Daze” (11/5/83) – A rival circus captures Donkey Kong and Mario and Pauline must rescue him from the dangerous stunts he’s tasked to perform.

“The Great Ape Escape” (11/12/83) – Mario and Pauline have to keep Donkey Kong from helping two criminals escape the state prison.

“Apey the Snowbeast” (11/19/83) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE

“How Much is that Gorilla in the Window?” (11/26/83) – A wealthy boy “buys” Donkey Kong from a pet shop while his guardians plot to steal his family’s fortune.

“Private Donkey Kong” (12/3/83) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE

“Get Along Little Apey” (12/10/83) – Getting stranded in the desert leads Mario into a truce with Donkey Kong in order to enter him into a rodeo for the prize money.

Season 2:

“Sir Donkey Kong” (9/8/84) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE

“The Pale Whale” (9/15/84) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE

“El Donkey Kong” (9/22/84) – Donkey Kong volunteers to take the place of an aging bullfighter in an upcoming event in order to win the prize money needed for his daughter’s operation.

“New Wave Ape” (9/29/84) – A crooked manage ensures his band will win a competition by recruiting Donkey Kong as a drummer and hypnotizing him to steal the other band’s guitars.

“Greenhouse Gorilla” (10/6/84) – A crook convinces Donkey Kong to unknowingly help him steal a metal-eating plant.

“Hairy Parent” (10/13/84) – Another gorilla asks Donkey Kong to deliver a letter to his mother, which ends up getting the mother captured.

Originally posted in 2015. Updated in 2022.

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June 12, 2021

SATURDAY SUPERCADE