The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
2007 –
PG-13 / 79 minutes
Vault Rating: 8
It was a day to remember.
Vault and Kid Vault had traveled to Playland in State College, Pa. We had designs on playing this great multi-player game called “Trog.” It was a pre-historic take on the “Pac-Man” style maze game that featured a cute little dinosaur (Not far removed from the present day Yoshi, now that I think about it.) collecting eggs while evading ravenous, club-wielding cave men.
Trog’s take on Pac-Man’s “power dot” was a pineapple which transformed our baby dinos into terrifying, Cro-Magnon chomping, T-Rexes. Kid Vault, at the time, thought this was a wickedly satisfying hoot. Truth be told, the grownup enjoyed it too.
But on this fateful day, there was a huge crowd in the arcade even while none of the games were plugged in. To our dismay, the games were being auctioned off and Playland closed forever.
So it is that we write today, curled in a bean bag chair within reach of multiple game controllers and platforms in the comfort of our living room. Kid Vault, older and wiser now, is appropriately nestled in the sofa playing “Mario vs. Donkey Kong” on the Game Boy Advance.
Our nostalgia was fired by today’s feature, “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters,” which we took in as a family the other night. It is the fascinating story of two champion gamers’ long and bitter rivalry for the official world record on the classic arcade game, “Donkey Kong.”
When Steve Wiebe, a Washington state family man, got laid off from his job, he retreated to his garage where he began playing an old stand-up, arcade version of the game of the title. He was so proficient that he decided to challenge Billy Mitchell’s 1982 world record.
Today’s feature delves into this Ali-Frazier of gaming and follows these two very different men to the land of bragging rights that is still under challenge to this day.
Wiebe (pronounced “WE-BE”) is an introvert who is found videotaping his game even as his toddler has soiled himself and is crying out for a change. For the younger set, there is no pause button on REAL video games and you don’t get to SAVE your progress. It’s one quarter, a finite amount of “lives” and it’s you versus the program. That’s the definition of video game “old school.”
Mitchell is a sort of Elvis character. He’s got long, well groomed black hair and much of his personality seems to begin with his title-holder status. He appears to be some sort of business man and he acts always the rock star. He’s got a bimbo on his arm and he actually has followers.
Both men are intensely competitive, and the film, which is substantially shorter in length than one of their actual games, is immensely entertaining when it captures the lengths to which Mitchell, especially, will go to retain bragging rights.
We are also treated to an inside look at how gaming world records are certified when director Seth Gordon introduces us to Walter Day, who since the 1980s has refereed gaming via his website, “Twin Galaxies.” Day is now recognized as the world authority on video game record certification.
This may seem odd and nerdy to outsiders, but Mrs. Vault, decidedly NOT a gamer, also enjoyed the film, so we think anyone will be captivated by the film. You’ll almost certainly begin to root for the honorable underdog, and that is the charm of it all.
“The King of Kong” shows how gaming is like any other sport or contest. It is about being really good at something and about what it means to be the best. Sports movies never get old for the same reason that this film works so well.
Back in the early 1980s, there was a guy we called “Devo” who used to play the mother of all difficult games in the Slippery Rock State College student union building. Devo was a savant master at Defender, a game like Donkey Kong only in that is deviously difficult. But with Defender, one had to have cred just to step up to the console. I remember word spreading around campus that Devo had played one game, on a single quarter, for almost a whole day. The mind boggled.
Other guys… seems it was always guys, doesn’t it?… would check back every day to make sure their respective scores still stood and to defend against all comers. Some unethical types would unplug games so the high scores would be erased. Thus it was necessary to check the “Centipede,” “Joust” or (our specialty) “Ms. Pac-Man” consoles every day in order to remain “the man” at your given game.
When it comes to “Donkey Kong,” we are told the average player never gets past the third level. This jives with our experience. The game – in which “Mario,” then simply called “Jump Man,” made his debut – is cute but maddeningly difficult as one attempts to climb the chutes and ladders of a burning building in order to save the girl from the outsized ape atop. 
“Cute but maddeningly difficult: A screenshot of level one of the original Donkey Kong arcade game.”
We’re sure there are some versions of the game out there for the different platforms of home video gaming and you might do well to try out “Donkey Kong” if you can find it. The GameCube version feels almost right. Still, it lacks the authenticity of a simple joystick and a jump button. Oh, yeah, and a quarter. Failing this, try the movie. It’s a delight.
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NEW AND NOTABLE
New out on DVD are a couple nice films that we can recommend. “August Rush” is a nice chick flick starring a young Freddie Highmore as the title orphan with the gift of music who survives with the belief that his parents will find him. Also stars Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard and Robin Williams in an interesting turn as a Faginesque urchin merchant.
Director Tim Burton finds just the right balance in “Sweeny Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” A horror-musical based on the hit Broadway play, it is grisly, weirdly charming and musically solid. A strange brew, indeed, starring Johnny Depp as Sweeny, who returns to London to exact revenge, and Helena Bonham Carter as his accomplice who uses the victims as the source of her delicious meat pies!
In the week to come:
“There Will Be Blood” – The multiple Oscar winner by Paul Thomas Anderson and based on the Upton Sinclair novel, “Oil!” is at the top of our list. John C. Reilly stars in the musical biopic send-up “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.” For family fare, one might try the decent “Water Horse: Legend of the Deep.”
A bunch of Bette Davis flicks are coming out on DVD in the week ahead. “All About Eve” is required viewing and “Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte” is also recommended.
Will Smith’s re-re-remake of the Richard Matheson novel is a close third to its previous, but probably hard to find, incarnations. We prefer Vincent Price as Dr. Robert Morgan in the 1964 chiller, “The Last Man On Earth.” Chaz Heston’s too-cool 1971 reworking, “The Omega Man,” gets the silver.
A number of eco-friendly DVDs are due out too and some are spectacular, especially the “Planet Earth” series which debuts this week with its Vol. 1 & 2. These would likely be preferable to “The 11th Hour,” Leo DiCaprio’s documentary about the state of the state of the planet.
Until next week. Enjoy!
