Legal docs reveal Miyamoto originally saw Donkey Kong as “a human in a gorilla costume,” disclose other names considered for the game/character

While Nintendo and Universal are thick as thieves right now thanks to Super Nintendo World and the Super Mario movies, there was a time when the two companies were at each other’s throats. That was all the way back in 1983 when Universal took Nintendo to court over Donkey Kong, which was a lawsuit that eventually played out in Nintendo’s favor. Now, decades later, documents from that lawsuit have surfaced and they reveal all kinds of interesting tidbits.

YouTuber The Gaming Historian has announced that he’s stepping away from his channel after crafting incredibly lengthy and detailed videos that unsurprisingly led to burnout. As a parting gift, The Gaming Historian has uploaded an insane drop of Universal V. Nintendo legal documents that amounts to 1.3 gigabytes of information. That’s an insane amount of legal documents to skim through, but some very fascinating details have already been discovered.

First up, we get a breakdown of names that Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo considered for Donkey Kong’s arcade release:

• Giant Kong
• Big Kong
• Kong on the Run
• Kong Chase
• Steel Kong
• Mad Kong
• Heart & Kong
• Lady & Kong
• Attack the Kong
• Kong Attacker
• City Kong
• Build On
• Family Kong
• Funny Kong

Some of those name ideas are really out there, and it makes you happy to see where Nintendo eventually landed! During the testimony for the court case, Shigeru Miyamoto revealed that “Build On” was his favorite name for the game, but that obviously didn’t win out. Crazily enough, these names aren’t even the strangest things that were discovered in these documents.

In more testimony from Miyamoto, we learn that the famed developer tried to make Donkey Kong as “close to a human being as compared to the usual gorilla.” Miyamoto goes on to say that he, “tried to make it as a human being wearing stuffed doll,” with Miyamoto clarifying his stuffed doll comments by saying, “in other words a human being, wearing gorilla costume and acting like a human being.”

This is just the tip of the iceberg for these legal documents, and who knows what else is hiding in them?! If/when more discoveries are made, we’ll be sure to keep you posted.