Donkey Kong is one of the oldest and most popular Nintendo characters there is but many fans may not be aware of his canonical birthplace. Fortunately, this information has resurfaced thanks to one Twitter user sharing a major throwback.
Super Mario Broth shared a photo of an excerpt from a 20-year-old Burger King activity book collaboration with Nintendo that quizzes fans on their favorite characters, including Donkey Kong.
One of the questions asks where the character was born and thanks to the answers sheet we now know that Donkey Kong is canonical British. According to the quiz, the character was in fact born in the United Kingdom, but has since relocated to Donkey Kong Island — the locations fans will know from the games.
Donkey Kong made his video game debut in a titular 1981 arcade game as the villainous foe to take on Mario. This was a role that he reprized many times before getting his own adventure as the protagonist in Donkey Kong Country.
Given Donkey Kong’s birthplace being the United Kingdom it would suggest that the events of these games have taken place in a world more grounded in reality than first thought. Sadly, we don’t believe that Donkey Kong Island is a real place that is going to be found anytime soon.
Nintendo quizzes like this one from 2002 have provided a ton of backstory for these unique characters over the years and as Nintendo’s catalog grows larger we can only expect more surprising information to come to light.
Published: Jun 9, 2022 3:17 AM UTC