The Bizarre Popeye Problem That Led To Donkey Kong’s Creation

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In 1976, Warner Communications made a significant investment in video games by buying Atari for almost $30 million. Warner then leveraged its ownership of Atari to demand a video game based on Superman, hoping to capitalize on the popular 1978 movie. This 1979 game was the first ever to translate a comic book character into a video game.

In 1981, Nintendo tried to make a video game based on the comic character Popeye, but it didn’t go as planned. Surprisingly, this failure led to the creation of Donkey Kong, a hugely popular game that launched the careers of Mario and Donkey Kong. Both characters were originally inspired by Popeye and his rival, Bluto.

Why did Nintendo almost do a Popeye video game?

Released in 1978, Taito’s Space Invaders revolutionized the gaming world. Its simple, continuous gameplay and shooting format were widely copied, and it essentially launched the arcade video game industry. Just two years later, in 1980, Pac-Man arrived, sparking a massive surge in the sale of arcade machines nationwide. These games were incredibly influential and changed everything.

Minoru Arakawa, who was married to the daughter of Nintendo’s president, became the first president of Nintendo of America. He was a strong believer in a game called Radar Scope, Nintendo’s take on Space Invaders. Because Nintendo didn’t have a lot of money at the time, Arakawa risked almost everything on the game, commissioning the production of 3,000 arcade machines.

The game itself was good, but it didn’t sell well at all. They ended up with thousands of unsold arcade machines. To solve this, Arakawa asked his father-in-law for help, and they came up with a new plan. Nintendo decided to create a brand new game that could be installed in the existing Radar Scope machines, essentially turning them into a completely different game.

To make a video game that would be easier to market, Nintendo decided to use a well-known comic book character, just like they did with Superman. They chose Popeye the Sailor Man, who was incredibly popular at the time, boosted by the recent release of the 1980 Popeye movie starring Robin Williams.

As Shigeru Miyamoto explained later, Nintendo was looking for licensed properties, which is why they initially asked him if he could create a Popeye game. The core idea behind Popeye – a hero overcoming a rival with the help of spinach – was appealing to them.

The game features Popeye battling his enemy, Bluto, in a quest to save Olive Oyl.

In the end, Nintendo wasn’t able to reach an agreement with King Features regarding Popeye – they were still dealing with the character’s recent popularity. Unlike the situation with Warner Bros. and Superman (which Atari also had rights to), Nintendo would have needed to negotiate a fair deal with King Features to use Popeye.

Game designer Shigeru Miyamoto needed to find a new use for his ideas from the Popeye project, and he made a fantastic change in direction!

How did Popeye and Bluto evolve into Mario and Donkey Kong?

Years ago, the great Shigeru Miyamoto :

I came up with some game concepts featuring Popeye. Thankfully, Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo’s lead engineer and the project leader, presented these ideas to the President. Eventually, one was officially greenlit. Yokoi-san believed that game designers would be crucial for future game development, and that’s ultimately how Donkey Kong was born.

He was asked if he’d started working on the game itself, or if issues with King Features Syndicate had derailed the project before it even began.

Yeah, it’s true. I can’t quite remember the specifics, but we weren’t able to use Popeye in that game. It really threw us for a loop, honestly – we were completely stuck on what to do next. Then someone suggested, ‘Hey, why don’t we just create our own character from scratch?’ And that’s what we ended up doing!

Around this time, Shigeru Miyamoto started drawing inspiration from popular culture, particularly films like Beauty and the Beast and King Kong. He decided to redesign the villain, Bluto, as a gorilla, believing gorillas weren’t overly frightening or unpleasant. This allowed him to create a menacing character without making him too scary.

The idea for Donkey Kong came next. The story centers around a gorilla who kidnaps the girlfriend of his owner, a character originally called Jumpman (who would later become Mario in the US). Jumpman has to climb a construction site filled with ladders to rescue her, all while Donkey Kong throws barrels to stop him. Donkey Kong was groundbreaking for its time, being one of the first games to feature a story and recognizable characters. It moved beyond simply destroying objects, giving players a clear goal: rescuing a woman in danger!

Although factors like the movie King Kong played a role, Miyamoto originally designed the game with the idea of creating a Popeye video game in mind.

Interestingly, after the huge success of Donkey Kong, King Features Syndicate licensed Popeye to Nintendo. This led to a 1982 video game that clearly took inspiration from Donkey Kong.

The influences had come full circle!

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2026-04-02 20:17