Tag: Donkey Kong

Like a lot of geeks, I saw King of Kong when it finally made its way to my corner of the world. Liked it; laughed at it; thought Billy Mitchell was an ass.

Then the other night I’m forcing my wife to watch it, and I decide to Google Billy Mitchell for the hell of it to see if he ever responded to the very negative portrayal of him in the “documentary.” And up comes a link to this MTV story which basically suggests the “documentary” was largely a work of fiction thanks to clever editing.

For example, consider this new light on one of the most outrageous parts of the movie…when Steve Wiebe beats Mitchell’s score live but Mitchell’s taped score is accepted almost immediately afterward,

The movie doesn’t show Mitchell’s answer, but it shows Day going over to the computer and inputting Mitchell’s score. Day tells MTV News that he remembers Mitchell answering, “Yup,” to the aforementioned question, but Mitchell says he doesn’t remember the call. And he wants the record to show what “The King of Kong” does not: that cooler heads prevailed after New Hampshire, and Mitchell’s taped score was yanked within 48 hours of its posting, giving Wiebe the record and the glory for months to come.

King of Kong’s producer and director call that “streamlining the narrative” but it looks a lot like lying through ommission to me.

And anyone who saw the movie knows that Mitchell can barely stand to be in the same room as Wiebe and never deigns to play against him live. Except that also appears to be a case of “streamlining the narrative,”

Then came CGE. “I thought at the Classic Gaming Expo, Steve would see we’re good people, we’re straight shooters, and we’re fun,” Mitchell said in the recent interview. At the event, the two gamers shared a podium where they joked about their budding rivalry and sat for a joint Web radio interview. They also tried to play “Donkey Kong.” The problem was there was no real “DK” machine there. They found a cabinet that could run a version of the game.

Mitchell remembers playing it and doing well on his first try at the machine. “There’s a little luck involved. I got 929,000. I got there on my second guy.” He recalled Wiebe spending much of the event playing at that machine: “There’s always good luck and bad luck. He struggled. In the end he came through with a good score: 893,000. He got there with his last guy on his last game on the last day.”

Weibe remembers the actual game slightly differently, but there seems to be little doubt that the two played together.

Steve Sanders, probably the most normal person in the movie, puts it best in the MTV article when he says that the movie is accurate but not fair. Or as the Violent Femmes put it, “I told the truth but it was still a lie.”