Donkey Kong Jr. (disambiguation)

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Donkey Kong Junior (ドンキーコングJr Donkī Kongu Junia) is a 1982 arcade-style platform video game by Nintendo. It first appeared in arcades, and was later released for a variety of platforms, most notably the Nintendo Entertainment System. Over the course of the 1980s, it was also released for various console systems, with the form of the title abbreviated as Donkey Kong Jr. in most versions. Its eponymous star, Donkey Kong Junior (DKJ), is trying to rescue his father Donkey Kong, who has been captured by Mario, in his only appearance as an antagonist in a video game. This game is the sequel to the video game Donkey Kong, which featured Mario as the protagonist and Junior's father as the antagonist. A Game & Watch version of the game was also made, and the NES version was also a playable game on Animal Crossing. In 2002, the game was rereleased on the e-Reader, an accesory for the Game Boy Advance, under the name Donkey Kong Jr.-e. The game is almost exactly the same, however, the 2-player mode is absent and the game can be reset at any time. The game is now available on the Wii's Virtual Console.

Donkey Kong Junior is regarded as one of the Top 100 Video Games by the Killer List of Videogames. Donkey Kong Junior was selected to be among five arcade games chosen for history's first official video game world championship, which was filmed at Twin Galaxies in Ottumwa, Iowa by ABC-TV's That's Incredible! over the weekend of January 8-9, 1983. The game later spawned a cereal which featured fruit-flavored cereal pieces shaped like bananas and cherries. Donkey Kong, Jr. is shown on the box wearing a red shirt with a big yellow J printed on the front.

In the years after the NES, Donkey Kong Jr. made appearances as a playable character in Super Mario Kart for the SNES, and in the N64 games Mario Golf and Mario Tennis.

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Conjecture and Heresy

Donkey Kong Jr. is the original Donkey Kong's son, meaning he would be the son of the character now known as Cranky Kong. In Donkey Kong Country, it was implied that Cranky Kong was Donkey Kong's father, meaning Donkey Kong was a grown-up Donkey Kong Jr. Later, in Donkey Kong Land, when the player seeks advice from Cranky, he states, "Stop your sobbing and come tell old grandpa Cranky your problems...". This likely implied that Cranky was now cast as Donkey Kong's grandfather, but it could also been Cranky referring to himself as a "grandpa," simply stating that he is old. Another recasting occurred in Donkey Kong 64]], when Cranky actually stated that Donkey Kong was his son, reinstating the fact that DK was a grown-up DK Jr. There was a seeming retcon after Rare left Nintendo and Nintendo regained control of the character. Nintendo never confirmed Rare's "legacy" of Donkey Kongs, and several games, such as Mario Vs. Donkey Kong, either implied or flat-out stated that the current Donkey Kong and the past Donkey Kong were the one in the same. This was also the case in in Super Smash Bros., which said that the old and current Donkey Kongs were the same under Donkey Kong's character info, despite the fact that Rare was still in hold of the Donkey Kong license at the time the game was released. Donkey Kong's codec info on Shadow Moses Island (where Otacon mentions that the current Donkey Kong is Cranky's grandson), however, contradicted this, adding that the current Donkey Kong is, in fact, the grandson, not the son, of the original Donkey Kong.

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Donkey Kong Jr.'s trophy in Melee.

In the Super Smash Bros. series

• Donkey Kong Jr. appears as a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
• He appears as a sticker in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
• Mr. Game & Watch's dair is based on the Game & Watch version of Donkey Kong Junior.
• The main menu music for this game is part of the Famicom Medley played on the Mario Bros. stage in Brawl.