It has come to our attention here at Evil Robots that the name "Donkey Kong" makes no sense. We had just never thought of it before. We can't think of any good reason why an ape whose original function was to throw barrels at a squat and mustachioed Italian named Mario (whose name may be stereotypical, but still makes perfect sense) is himself named "Donkey Kong"..

Let us examine the name of this ape- Donkey Kong. The "Kong" makes perfect sense as a reference to King Kong. This might even mean that DK and King Kong are somehow related. This does not seem to be improbably since both are short-tempered and destructive apes. It's the "Donkey" part of the name that mystifies us. We just don't get it. A donkey, as far as we know, is a relative of a horse. It is equestrian. Apes are not. Apes are primates and have nothing to do with donkeys.

The only possible reason that we could think of behind the naming of Donkey Kong is that "donkey" is one letter off of "monkey". This isn't much of a reason, but at least it's something. This could be an error in translation from Japanese. Maybe DK's creators supposed that "donkey" had the same meaning as "ass" since they do share at least one common meaning. Maybe it should be read as "Ass Kong". It's hard to say.

Whatever the reason is, Donkey Kong seems to be happy with his name. For this we must commend him. If we were called "Donkey Robots" we would be quite upset- come to think of it, we would probably be driven to throw heavy barrels at all of you too. Maybe this stupid name is the ultimate motivation behind all of DK's outbursts. In either case, we certainly wouldn't name our son after ourselves as Donkey Kong has. We just hope that Donkey Kong Jr. doesn't suffer any lasting emotional scars. We would hate to have to smash Donkey Kong Jr. on the top of his head after a psychotic outburst like his father before him.