Jumpman

Did you know that Mario wasn't originally called Mario? He was Jumpman. I'm glad they didn't call him Hammerman. Or Generic Construction Worker. Whatever his name, he worked in the most dangerous environment ever. Even if the ape wasn't throwing barrels around, you could fall off a conveyor belt and die really quickly. What looked like pies would be coming towards you, but I think they were deadly dishes of concrete, or perhaps a very coarse sand. After watching King of Kong, I was determined to get to this level I've just described, because they inexplicably left it out of the documentary, even though it was totally another screen to delight and entertain the audience! The only problem was, that game is too damn hard. It took me weeks to just get to that level and watch conveyor belts destroy poor Jumpman, leaving his love for Pauline unrequited. And don't even think about jumping very well. For a guy called Jumpman, he couldn't jump very far. Those Track and Field guys would waste him. They even had similar mustaches. I really think I should start writing descriptions this way. Maybe I didn't think of this before because I didn't have good Dig Dug anecdotes. It's also scary if I actually do have real video game anecdotes....