Story elements in Mario that have been changed or re-written

[Manspeed]

Super Smash Bros. Melee stated DK and DK to be one and the same, and it was released during a time when Rare had been cut off and Nintendo was both unsure what to do with the DK brand and in the middle of celebrating the Famicom and NES's anniversaries/launching their "retro is cool" marketing campaign. Games like Mario vs. Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat reflect this attitude, as they take what is ostensibly Rareware's DK character model and inject it with a more animalistic personality and toothy grin like the original arcade DK.

But at the same time, you had Rare being permitted to make ports of all three Country games for the GBA, which preserve all of Cranky's dialog. And you also have dev teams like Camelot, Namco and PAON who preserved the Country characters and story elements, so it wasn't completely dead in everyone's mind.

Nintendo would eventually find a new pair of hands to inherit DK in the form of Retro Studios, so it's clear they decided to go back to the way it was during the Rareware days and straight-up tell us "Cranky Kong is the original DK and the current DK is his grandson" in both Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Donkey Kong Country Returns. And it's been like that ever since.

I pretty much covered a consolidated version of this story in the original post, guys.

[Kriven]

So along those lines... is Baby Donkey Kong supposed to be Cranky Kong? Jr. wouldn't be old enough to father the current DK yet at the time, assuming he would even be born.

[Koopaul]

A lot of theorist figure that Baby DK is the current DK. The original Donkey Kong from the arcade was a middle-aged Cranky and Mario was a young adult at the time.

[Kriven]

So Mario's age is that of Donkey Kong's... approximately twenty-eight.

In Donkey Kong Arcade, Mario could be estimated as eighteen or twenty, perhaps. Here we see the adversary, "Donkey" Cranky Kong being maybe thirty. We also see his son, the onesie-wearing Donkey Kong Jr., clearly an infant.

Cranky Kong grows into his old, cranky self. Jr. grows up and leaves the nest. Cranky's grandson, presumably Mario's contemporary, takes over the mantle of "Donkey".

But how can that be possible?

If Baby Donkey Kong is the modern Donkey Kong, largely thought to be Jr.'s son and Cranky's grandson, he would have to be eighteen at a time when his father is only about three.

I don't see how BDK could possibly be the modern Donkey Kong.

Edit: For that matter, I don't see how he could be Cranky's grandson. A grown-up Junior makes more sense, all things considered. But of course, a grown up Junior already has a baby form...

[Shrikeswind]

Jun 20, 2014 2:58:08 GMT -5 Koopaul said:

A lot of theorist figure that Baby DK is the current DK. The original Donkey Kong from the arcade was a middle-aged Cranky and Mario was a young adult at the time.

So, Cranky Kong would have to be 40 years old, and Mario would have to be in his 20's when DK Arcade took place? Sorry, I don't buy it. Gorillas don't live that long. 10 is sexually mature, 40 is maximum in-wild life expectancy. Cranky would have to be about the same age as Mario in order for his visible age to make any kind of sense, so if Mario's around 30 (reasonably young for a human,) Cranky should be around 30 as well (quite old for a gorilla,) while the current DK should be around 10 (college age for a gorilla.)

[Manspeed]

Jun 20, 2014 3:12:01 GMT -5 Kriven said:

So Mario's age is that of Donkey Kong's... approximately twenty-eight.

Mario is 26, not 28.

We also see his son, the onesie-wearing Donkey Kong Jr., clearly an infant.

...How is he "clearly" an infant?

In the original Donkey Kong Jr. he's bigger than Mario. He even makes a loud THUD noise when he hits the ground.

In Super Mario Kart and Mario's Tennis on Virtual Boy, he's the same size as Bowser!

In Donkey Kong for Game Boy, he's been downsized considerably. I'd peg him as a little kid for sure, but infant?

But how can that be possible?

Simple answer: It's Mario. Just go with it.

Made-up answer: Perhaps time in Mario's world works similarly to time in Hyrule. Maybe time on DK Isle moves along at a normal or heightened pace, while time in Mushroom Kingdom either stands still or runs at a much slower pace.

Or perhaps video games operate on the same logic as classic cartoons - Cranky only grew really old because he sort of fell into the background after Mario became Nintendo's mascot, but much like how Slappy Squirrel became an old lady.

Direct answer: Just go with Rare's original intention. DK is Cranky's son rather than his grandson.

The whole grandson thing is likely a communication error on the part of Dan Owsen. If you watch the Making of Donkey Kong Country video, there's a part where Dan talks about Cranky and seems to be unsure if Cranky is supposed to be DK's father or grandfather. He would soon carry this over into the manual, where he refers to Cranky as DK's "pappy".
Leigh Loveday of Rare's Scribes mentioned that their intention all along was to have Cranky be DK Sr. and DK be DK Jr. Later on, some other guys from Rare confirmed that they did this because they wanted to work DK Jr. into the game somewhere after Nintendo rejected the idea of Diddy being a hip new redesigned version of DK Jr.
Unfortunately for Rare, Dan's explanation is what Nintendo of America and Nintendo Co. Ltd. would go with in all their future material, while DK64 would be the only game where Rare managed to have Cranky call DK his "son".

Once again, I covered this in heavily consolidated form in the original post.

Edit: For that matter, I don't see how he could be Cranky's grandson. A grown-up Junior makes more sense, all things considered. But of course, a grown up Junior already has a baby form...

While I just mentioned that Jr. doesn't really look like a baby, I do have another slightly made-up explanation for this.

If one does go with the original notion that Rare's DK = DK Jr., then you could easily compare his maturation to that of a certain other "Jr." from a long-running Japanese franchise...

I of course refer to Godzilla Jr.

He's introduced in the 1993 movie "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla", and appears twice more across the next two movies.

In his first appearance, he is called Baby Godzilla and looks essentially like a man-sized Godzilla with big button eyes. His role is kinda similar to that of DK Jr. in the old Saturday Supercade program. He forms a strong bond with the human characters.

In his second appearance, he's now called Little Godzilla and despite being almost as tall as Godzilla's leg, he looks drastically different than he did as a baby. An astute Godzilla fan would note he seems to have been redesigned to pay homage to Minilla from the original 1960s Godzilla movies.

In his third and final appearance, he's fully grown into Godzilla Jr. Now he looks almost exactly like his father, except maybe a little slimmer. Had this series of films continued, Toho would've had him take over as the new Godzilla. Sounds familiar, don't it?

The similarities between this and "Baby DK becomes DK Jr. becomes Rare's DK" are honestly kinda surprising. Basically what I'm trying to get at here is that if I can accept something this silly from a franchise like Godzilla, then accepting it from Mario shouldn't be any problem.

Hell, if you take into account this audience render from Mario Kart: Double Dash, then DK Jr. being DK becomes even easier to accept, I think.

[Shrikeswind]

Jun 20, 2014 10:14:12 GMT -5 Manspeed said:

Made-up answer: Perhaps time in Mario's world works similarly to time in Hyrule. Maybe time on DK Isle moves along at a normal or heightened pace, while time in Mushroom Kingdom either stands still or runs at a much slower pace.

Or perhaps video games operate on the same logic as classic cartoons - Cranky only grew really old because he sort of fell into the background after Mario became Nintendo's mascot, but much like how Slappy Squirrel became an old lady.

Direct answer: Just go with Rare's original intention. DK is Cranky's son rather than his grandson.

Or they are gorillas, see my previous post.

[Manspeed]

I don't know if I like applying real-world animal logic to Mario characters.

[Shrikeswind]

Jun 20, 2014 14:30:58 GMT -5 Manspeed said:

I don't know if I like applying real-world animal logic to Mario characters.

Usually I wouldn't either, but here, the explanation actually makes some damn sense. The only problem now is Baby DK from Yoshi's Island DS, since Mario's apparently 26...which means "No change." I'm willing to say, though, that the timeline works as follows.

Donkey Kong is born.
Years pass. Donkey Kong is roughly 10.
Donkey Kong has a son. The son is named Donkey Kong Jr.
Yoshi's Island DS occurs. Junior is Baby DK.
Years pass. Mario and Junior are roughly 15. Donkey Kong is roughly 25.
Junior has a son. The son is named Donkey Kong III.
Years pass. Mario and Junior are roughly 20. Donkey Kong I is roughly 30. Donkey Kong III is roughly 5.
Donkey Kong Arcade series occurs.
Years pass. Mario and Junior are roughly 25. Donkey Kong I is roughly 35. Donkey Kong III is roughly 10.
Donkey Kong I's age starts to catch up with him. He grows cantankerous and earns the nickname Cranky Kong.
With Donkey Kong I now known as Cranky Kong, Donkey Kong III becomes simply known as Donkey Kong.
Junior vanishes.
Donkey Kong Country series and Super Mario series occur. We are here.

[Koopaul]

The problem is that Baby DK is one of the seven Star Children. This implies that all of them are characters of great importance. If Baby DK is just Junior who never grows up to do much at all, it doesn't make sense for him to be a Star Child.

[Shrikeswind]

That's true. And actually, I was basing my numbers on faulty info, it seems. 50 is apparently a better number for gorilla life expectancy. But we're still stuck. It boils down to this: If Kongs age like real-world gorillas, Cranky would still be too old to be in those girders and our current DK should be middle-aged. Meanwhile, if they age like humans, Cranky Kong would technically be middle-aged, but even at the youngest he could be (54) he'd still be feeling his age.

There's just no really great answer here, all because of that one freakin' Yoshi game. The best we got really is "Kongs can expect a much longer life than gorillas." But then, tell that to Wrinkly.

[Manspeed]

It becomes a little easier to work out if you go with Rare's original intention- That being that there are only two DKs instead of three.

In which case Shrike's timeline would look more like this:

Donkey Kong is born.
Years pass. Donkey Kong is roughly 30.
Donkey Kong has a son. The son is named Donkey Kong Jr.
Yoshi's Island DS occurs. Junior is Baby DK.
Years pass. Mario and Junior are roughly 15. Donkey Kong is roughly 45.
Years pass. Mario and Junior are roughly 20. Donkey Kong I is roughly 50.
Donkey Kong Arcade series occurs.
Years pass. Mario and Junior are roughly 25. Donkey Kong I is roughly 55.
Donkey Kong I's age starts to catch up with him. He grows cantankerous and earns the nickname Cranky Kong.
With Donkey Kong I now known as Cranky Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. becomes simply known as Donkey Kong.
Donkey Kong Country series and Super Mario series occur. We are here.

Although I guess Cranky's in pretty bad shape for a guy in his 50s.

[Arcadenik]

That makes no sense. If Baby DK, DK Jr., and the current DK are the same person... why is the current DK still a baby or at least a child (like Bowser Jr., for example) by the time Donkey Kong Jr. arcade game occurs if he is the same age as Mario and yet Mario is already grown up?

Yoshi's Island DS
- Baby Mario (Mario as a baby)
- Baby DK (current DK as a baby)

Arcade era
- Jumpman (Mario all grown up)
- DK Jr. (current DK as a child)

Today
Mario (Mario all grown up)
DK (current DK all grown up)

Also, if Mario is middle aged and Peach is the same age as Mario, does that mean Peach is also middle aged?

[Kriven]

I suppose Peach would likely be closer to twenty-five, being that she was portrayed as only a few months old in YIDS while Baby Mario and Baby Luigi were closer to being about a year old. Baby Wario, Baby Donkey Kong, and Baby Bowser are actually around two or three years old, with Baby Donkey Kong seemingly being the youngest of those three as he cannot talk but has learned to walk by that point. The game's finale also shows us Yoshi (THE Yoshi) being born, implying that he is the youngest of them all.

So projecting to modern times:

Yoshi - 25
Peach - 25
Mario - 26
Luigi - 26
Donkey - 26-28
Wario - 27-29
Bowser - 27-29

[Manspeed]

Jun 21, 2014 11:50:48 GMT -5 Arcadenik said:

If Baby DK, DK Jr., and the current DK are the same person... why is the current DK still a baby or at least a child (like Bowser Jr., for example) by the time Donkey Kong Jr. arcade game occurs if he is the same age as Mario and yet Mario is already grown up?

Er...

Jun 21, 2014 10:39:38 GMT -5 Manspeed said:

Years pass. Mario and Junior are roughly 20. Donkey Kong I is roughly 50.
Donkey Kong Arcade series occurs.
Years pass. Mario and Junior are roughly 25. Donkey Kong I is roughly 55.

Also...

Jun 20, 2014 10:14:12 GMT -5 Manspeed said:

In the original Donkey Kong Jr. he's bigger than Mario. He even makes a loud THUD noise when he hits the ground.

In Super Mario Kart and Mario's Tennis on Virtual Boy, he's the same size as Bowser!

In Donkey Kong for Game Boy, he's been downsized considerably. I'd peg him as a little kid for sure, but infant?

The only real discrepancy is how much smaller he is in DK for GB compared to the original arcade version. Otherwise, one could easily assume he's closer to Mario's age. In the Saturday Supercade cartoon (which I know is technically not the games) the writers portrayed him as more of a teenager, if I remember right.

Also, Mario's not middle-aged. I just established he's supposed to be 26.

This is tough to figure out, though. I think maybe the Slappy Squirrel theory may be my last resort.