Because with Cranky as the original Donkey Kong, the video games have been following the Kong family for what appears to be roughly three generations. It’s just unsettling that the only time Cranky himself has spoken about the subject, it contradicts all other canonical story information created by Nintendo. You could chalk all of this up to continuity errors on Nintendo’s part the series is literally decades old, it’s an easy and understandable mistake. “And if you think you have skeletons in your closets, who do you think put them there!?” except we never see DK’s father. Cranky, however, says that DK is his son, which would make DK the protagonist from Donkey Kong Jr, but it was originally Diddy who was to be Donkey Kong Jr. That is until Nintendo made the choice about Diddy’s genealogy very clear for the developers.

It establishes a fixed beginning point in the series to work from Nintendo has said that Donkey Kong is Cranky’s grandson, which would make DK the son of Donkey Kong Jr. To understand the ideas in this article, we have to go back to Donkey Kong’s roots, and I do mean the 1981 arcade game it’s important because Cranky Kong is actually the titular character of that game. Why do some characters wear pants and not others? Is it a dominance thing? Why are there so many roving armies and why are they always attacking DK? This is all stuff that addresses the loose ends left over by the limited storyline presented in the games, but I’m talking about the really weird stuff. Donkey Kong games have been telling a demented tale for over thirty years now, but that’s all hidden behind a few things that we’ve just accepted about the Kong family and without ever really questioning them. Sometimes it’s just out in the open, and you don’t even realise. Sometimes you don’t have to go looking for the dark stuff, though. They’re pretty well known for creating child friendly content, and there aren’t many gamers who haven’t enjoyed harmless fun with Nintendo games at some point in their lives.

I’m not insinuating that Nintendo deliberately goes out of their way to create games whose back-stories and histories easily lend themselves to some dark, disgusting, and potentially child-traumatising concepts. It’s not as though I set out with this intention in mind when I began this series, it was to “roast” a range of different games from a variety of systems, series, and genres. It’s starting to look as if I just love to pick on Nintendo, because this is the third article in the series, and I’m still focusing on their first-party titles.

Donkey kong family