True Story. About a Donkey named Kong.

It was a reasonable observation. Donkey, my ass. He really looks nothing like a donkey. I've seen beauty pageant contestants that look more like a donkey, with their toothy smiles and their mouth chucked full of brilliant white Chiclets. And yet his name is synonymous with that braying beast of burden. And it begs the question,

"Why?"

So I researched it. For me. And for you. It was early in the 1980s. It was late in the night in the Land of the not-so Rising Sun. There was a lot sake and a lot of bad karaoke. He was short and wearing a suit. His tie was loose and sweat was pouring down his round inebriated face after a spirited rendition of Michael Jackson's "Rock with You." He slapped a fistful of yen down on the bar and ordered another drink. "Sushi, sushi." (Japanese, for "Make it a double and make it fast, please." Roughly translated.)

He was under a lot of pressure. The gaming industry was brutal. He needed an idea and he needed it yesterday. He was sipping on his drink, watching the TV as the bartender flipped through the channels. As she changed the channel, it hit him. A flash of brilliance more brilliant than any flash since Nagasaki ... or was it Hiroshima? Anyway, it was a flash. And it was brilliant. He raised his head up and said, "Hello, Kitty," because that was her name, "could you change the channel back?"

It was a sporting event. Something simple and otherwise insignificant. But inspiring, nonetheless. He had been reading a book earlier in the day. "Pongography:How Pong Made Friday Night's Less Lonely for Nerds." It was a book about the story of Pong, the computer game invented after a computer nerd saw a tennis match and thought, "What if there was a ridiculously miniature-sized game of tennis that people could play on a computer?" Still not sure how they came up with the name. I started reading Pongography, but I didn't care for it much.

So, back to our bar with our sake-slinging Samarai of computer games. It started as a joke. He had never seen American basketball before. At least he hadn't given it much thought. The developer, with his Pearl Harbor-sized hangover in tow, took the idea to work the next morning. It was an inter-office racist joke before lunch. Originally, they intended to have a monkey tossing watermelons but they switched it to barrels because they were afraid Americans would see right through it. Maybe they were right. Adding "donkey" to the name was their last-ditch effort to try and keep their racist joke subliminal. You're not fooling me. (I'm pretty sure that's the story. Snopes it if you think I'm wrong.)

Why can't Wii all just get along?

Seriously. You don't think I know you are mocking one of America's premier rappers?