Leaping Flaming Barrels

Back in the year 2000 (or is that the future?) I finally realized one of my life long dreams of owning an actual arcade game. Of course not just any arcade game mind you but the immortal Donkey Kong (the picture to the left is the actual game I owned). Most people when moving to New York only bring the bare minimum considering the small amount of space in a typical Manhattan apartment. Not this guy (me), Donkey Kong and I were in this together...... at least until I drove the thing over 1000 miles to find out sometimes doors and hallways built in the 19th century were not quite built for a full size arcade game to fit through them. Well when that building was constructed in 1882 they must have thought to themselves that 'if arcade games are ever invented we will make the doorway and the hallway just big enough to the millimeter'

Donkey Kong and I lived in bliss until December of 2006 when I entered my current living arrangements, it now belongs to a man in New Jersey that is (hopefully) giving it a good home after purchasing it on EBay. The reason I bring any of this up is that in my unemployed bliss I took in a matinee of the fascinating new documentary The King of Kong. I would suspect none of you will ever see this movie but you really should do yourself the favor because it is really not about video games per se, but more about good vs. evil (plus it is only playing in four theaters in the country and two of them are in New York).

The premise is that in 2003 a man named Steve Wiebe (pictured to the right,picture credit: Mark Alpiger/CAGDC) was laid off from Boeing and in his time off decided he would become the best at something, and yes he decided he would become the greatest player of Donkey Kong. What makes this documentary great is that if this was a fictional movie no writer or actor could come across at being a better villain (and all around douche) than the current record holder Billy Mitchell.

Billy Mitchell set the high score back in 1982 as a whiz kid teenager and today as a man in his 40's still lives off these feats. I mean this guy has that classic 1980's Wall Street mullet that just screams 'douche' (come on, just look at this guy..... don't you hate him already?). When all around good guy Steve Weibe breaks Billy's record and submits the videotape to the governing board of all video game records "Twin Galaxies" (yes such a thing exists), Twin Galaxies sends two representatives acting like pseudo Gestapo to Steve's house when he was not home and without permission deconstructs Steve's machine looking for signs of tampering with the game. Oh, did I happen to mention that Billy is on the board of Twin Galaxies?

Billy states on record that a videotape can not be trusted in such an 'important' matter and Steve should have to prove his record in person, so Steve does just that. He flies from Washington State to New Hampshire to compete at the world championships. In front of a huge crowd (spoiler alert) and representatives from Twin Galaxies Steve breaks Billy's record again to become the new world champion. Here is the thing though, Billy did not show. Instead right after Steve breaks the record one of Billy's friends hands the head of Twin Galaxies a videotape (yes the very format Billy just denounced) of Billy setting a score higher than Steve's score. Of course this tape was accepted as Gospel (I think I mentioned Billy is on the board of Twin Galaxies right?) and once again Steve is denied his record. These kind of practices continue throughout the film as it shows an outsider trying to break into an exclusive club, only instead of a exclusive country club Steve Wiebe is shunned by exclusive classic video game geeks that can be just as cliquish and malicious as any member of Augusta Country Club.

Look, I do not make it a habit of writing movie reviews or making recommendations (I saw Superbad the same day, it was fantastic but everyone already knows that) but the real life Billy Mitchell makes such an intriguing villain if I can get just one of you to see The King of Kong my work here is complete. At one point in discussing the controversy that surrounds him Billy compares himself to the abortion issue. Abortion? Yes, if there are two things Americans can not agree on it is Abortion and video game champ Billy Mitchell. Of course now that I sold my game any dreams of becoming a champion are now long gone, but after watching what Steve Wiebe went through I think that is probably all for the best.