And how she waited more nearly forty years to become a playable character. My introduction to Donkey Kong (both the game and the ape) didn’t come in an arcade but on my family’s first computer. Along with more practical programs, we ended up with a port of the original Nintendo arcade title that was trying its best but nonetheless falling short. Although we got our NES shortly thereafter, I didn’t realize that Donkey Kong’s little jumping man was supposed to be Mario until much later, mostly because the graphics on this computer port were so limited that I don’t think you could even tell that he had a mustache. To me, he was just some guy with a few white pixels for a face. He liked hammers, and he was trying to get to the running lady, whoever she was. Sometime later, I encountered Donkey Kong in an arcade and based off the cabinet art, I realized that this jumping man was the same guy as the one adventuring through the Mushroom Kingdom. The running lady, however, still confused me because she didn’t look like the princess from the Super Mario games, even with the higher resolution of the arcade original. I wondered who she was for some time.