Hypothetical solution to the age issue: It only takes gorillas 12 years to reach adulthood in real life and they only live to be around 40. I could reasonably believe a young Mario having his adventure with Cranky who's already about 40, then DK Jr who could already be 6 years old grows up and has his own child 6 years later, and then modern Donkey Kong grows up to age 12 to be fully grown. This would leave Mario at around 40 years old if he was 21 during the events of Donkey Kong, which is still a little older than you'd expect, but isn't completely unreasonable.
Mario is canonically in his mid-twenties throughout the games though. Maybe he just has "mascot syndrome" or something where he just stops aging once he reaches adulthood and is just perpetually in his mid-twenties for the rest of time, much like, idk, Sonic being a mid-teenager perpetually or something lol.
My unifying Marioverse theory explains the Kong age discrepancy well, I think. See, as far back as Super Mario Bros, Extra Lives have been a real tangible resource in the Mario world. You can get one for 100 coins and find them growing in the world as mushrooms, and even farm them by jumping on Koopas on staircases. As such, the Mario characters who are possessed of great wealth - such as adventurers like Wario and Mario who go about collecting coin, and royals like Peach and Bowser who have the resources to fund armies - are functionally immortal and unaging due to the effects of the 1-Up Mushrooms. In fact, most citizens of the Mario world likely have one or two extra lives, but only the most powerful people have a near limitless supply. Strangeness surrounding these would also explain the presence of alternate incarnations of characters, like Dr. Mario and Dry Bowser, as being a discarded version of themselves that didn't quite die before the 1-up replaced them. And this clears up the Kong family tree discrepancy as well. We know that Cranky Kong, the original Donkey Kong, was Mario's pet gorilla, and that he was held captive by Mario during the events of Donkey Kong Jr. At this time, neither Mario nor Donkey Kong had access to in-universe extra lives, but after Mario was sucked down the warp pipe into the Mushroom Kingdom he quickly became near-immortal. Meanwhile, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. had escaped captivity and fled to the jungle, but without access to 1-ups, they aged as normal. It was Donkey Kong Jr's son, DK III, whose adventure across DK Island to recover the Banana Hoard, led him to the collection of 1-Up Balloons (which may be a type of inflated fungal sac with a dangling thread of mycelium, related to the 1-Up Mushrooms). From then on, the Kong family has also had enough 1-Ups to stay alive indefinitely, which is why Cranky Kong is able to still be around despite his old age. (Wrinkly only died because, as a woman of faith, she believed it necessary and just, and chose to relinquish her 1-Ups to the rest of the Kong family.)
Lol. I love this so much. The flipside of the immortality stuff would be Dry Bowser / Dry Bones / Koopa involvement with necromancy in general via Kamek magic.
@@backseatsakurai 1. Fedora Kong could actually be an older Donkey Kong Jr. since he was meant to appear in Donkey Kong Land for the Game Boy, specifically in Big Ape City, which was supposed to be full of references to the Arcade games. 2. Kamek's magic would actually be the only real explanation for the existence of Dry Bones and Dry Bowser.
@@backseatsakurai There could also be some members named DK Kong where DK stands for Donkey(smthn) Kong or inversely, DK jr and DK II. There could be as many identical DK monkeys as we want, and anyone can be anywhere!
It would be deliciously dark if Swanky actually was Diddy's lost dad. There is the abandoned son, finally finding his long-lost dad, and that very dad doesn't even acknowledge him, only wanting to play some weird game show he dreamt up, presumably in a drunken stupor.
I’d also say that Swanky is a sibling of Donkey III, but I think Swanky fell out of the family before both Donkey III and Funky where born. He led his life on the run, and Diddy Kong was the result of a fling, so he never actually knew his family, besides Wrinkly and Cranky. This results in Cranky finding Diddy, and through some old man wisdom realizes that Diddy is a kong, and invites him into the family.
And this is why with the Movie they took a more streamlined approach to the family tree: in that they just made DK into Cranky's son, and if the events of the DK Arcade title happened it's implied Cranky would have taken on Guiseppe instead of Mario.
Alternative idea, Donkey Kong III is the baby DK from Yoshi’s island DS. A big part of Yoshi’s Island DS is that all the main baby characters have Star power in them, so wouldn’t make sense for that baby DK to grow up to punch the moon out of orbit. Making Cranky Kong, significantly older then Mario and co. cranky could’ve been in the twilight of his youth in his arcade appearances. For conspiratorial evidence in DK64 Cranky is a mad scientist that can create potions that allow Kings to preform special moves. Why did he learn that? He rags about any basic quality of life game feature. My theory is that he studied the art of potion making So that he could stay physically fit for as long as possible but in the end it was never enough to beat the Star powered Mario and he became the Cranky Kong we all know today. How Donkey Kong Junior fits into all of this? I don’t really know, maybe he just never grew out of wearing that outfit, or between all the magic and science in the Mario world he got stuck as a child, or he was retconned out of existence, who’s to say. But yeah, this was a really fun video, and I hope to see the Mario universe one get uploaded some day. Thanks for reading have a nice day.
So what you're saying is, the SMB Movie just erased DK III from existence and moved the family tree below Jr. up a generation? I honestly will never know why Illumination replaced the word "grandson" with "son".
My man: I'm late to the party, but Bowser, when taking Baby DK out of time for Yoshi's Island DS, had to get through an Adult DK Jr, meaning that DK Jr. is dead in our main timeline and DK lll is actually just the time displaced version.
MatPat suggested that maybe Jumpman is actually Mario’s father. I know he makes a lot of blunders, but this idea in particular is worth keeping in the back pocket imo.
@@prageruwu69 the woman in the dk game isn’t Pauline that was a mistranslation Pauline became her own character later on The woman in the dk game her name is lady and she’s gotten her own smash trophy where she’s labeled as lady So ya that’s not Pauline
i love the idea that Lanky is from an outcasted part of the family i feel like that background just fits him. could also give him reasons to be overly funny just a way for him to cope all the negative treatment he could have potentially gotten (maybe im overthinking that but its interesting)
I'm pretty sure that Fedora Kong is DKs Dad who used to be Junior, Old DK became Cranky Kong aka current DKs grandpa. Current DK is a matured baby Donkey Kong hence why he is a baby the same time as current day Mario.
@@lookslikenik6931 That's also a possibility. From what I've heard I don't think Cranky is called “Dad” in the Japanese dub which is also interesting. May be wrong though it's been months since I did research.
Much respect to you for doing this deep dive. You are doing a service to DK lovers everywhere with your research. Very well-explained and well-edited. Awesome video; earned yourself a new subscriber.
Feels like Miyamoto tries to nix the whole "Cranky is the original Donkey Kong" thing, as multiple later games would address DK III as the original rival to Mario, and also included Baby DK to prove it more. I wish they'd have Jump man be a separate character and I'm surprised Miyamoto doesn't use that idea because saying it's been the same one from the beginning means that Mario being a poacher is still canon.
Well Donkey Kong Jr. explicitly refers to Mario by name in the game so to retcon Jumpman into being a separate character you'd have to say that DKJR is not the direct sequel to the original DK game anymore and the characters are not the same characters and all that mess, and ignore the literally identical sprites between the two games lol.
Diddy's relationship with the Kong family seems to vary. In some things he's referred to as a nephew but in others he's a friend. Perhaps he was a friend whose parents died and so he was adopted by the Kong family. For the sake of simplicity rather than explaining all that and possibly bringing up traumatic memories for Diddy, they just call him a nephew if anyone asks. As for Donkey Kong Junior, I have heard a rumour that he was meant to be the Fedora Kong but that idea was scrapped early in development. My own theory is that he's a big sports star in either swimming, wrestling or gymnastics given that he's wearing a leotard or swimsuit type costume, seeing as he's an ape, he would make a good gymnast. So he's busy representing Kong Island at competitions and doesn't have much time to appear in video games or go on adventures anymore like the rest of the family. If he's still active, then he'd be training most of the time. If he's retired, he's probably coaching the next generation and would still not have that much time. I'm sure he does make time for his family. He has been spotted in the audience for some of the Mario sporting games so he's probably there to support his family members who are competing. Maybe if they ever do a Kong Gymnastics video game, he could star in that, but gymnastics is a sport that doesn't really work in video game format. The wrestling possibility though, they could have him in a fighting game. Perhaps he could be a Nintendo exclusive unlockable in the next WWE game. In regards to the aging of Cranky compared to Mario, Gorillas don't tend to live as long as humans. So even if they are the same age, in Gorilla years, Cranky would be much older than Mario. Then again, he was old 30 years ago and is still alive so maybe he's actually immortal but will just continue to age.
Don't forget to include punchout characters, Stanley the bug man from Donkey kong 3, and Captain Syrup in your map of the Mario universe. I hope you dont miss a single corner. (Also idk how far along you are but you will make your life easier if you look at Mario, Wario, and Donkey kong games mainly).
@@backseatsakuraiYou made a really good Video lad ❤😊 hope your already working on the Mario Universe Video because I can’t wait because I love your Videos😁
Rare kiiiiinda made a mess of things in this regard. The main problem where this all began was making the original Donkey Kong be old because A) they believed Mario was an older man, and B) wanted the "hip young hero on the block" appeal that Sonic had - which worked for the time, but now that this time has passed, it's basically become a detriment. Nintendo clearly understands the best way to handle this, as they've been trying to shift into the mindset that the Donkey Kong Mario knew was always the same DK, but it's the more or less the fandom pushback refusing this on principle rather than any sensible standpoint that's holding it back. The Mario Movie portrayal of his and DK's rivalry is pretty clearly the way they'd like to have it.
Play DK64 - literally the first time you visit Cranky Kong, he calls the current Donkey Kong his son. (This is the case in the modern Super Mario Bros. movie as well)
Idea: 1: All the Donkey Kong Country games take place in the somewhat distant future, and Diddy Kong has traveled back in time, so the Donkey Kong we see in Mario Kart and Party is Cranky Kong's younger self. Idea 2: It was retconned. Donkey Kong 3 was the original Donkey Kong (the Mario Vs. DK games are evident enough that if they're the same DK, he hasn't really learned from his mistakes). Donkey Kong Jr. was actually DK's older brother(or parent in a midlife crisis), who later got renamed Funky Kong, and Cranky Kong was in Donkey Kong Jr, which takes place long before Donkey Kong, the antagonist of Jr. not being Mario, but someone else in conveniently similar clothes(Spike, Wario and Waluigi dress similarly after all). So timeline: 1: Donkey Kong Jr.: Cranky Kong gets jailed up by someone who looks similar to Mario(given time travel in the Luigi's Mansion 3DS games, Bowser Jr, perhaps?) and is saved by Baby Funky Kong, at the time known as Donkey Kong Jr. 2: Donkey Kong: Modern DK's debut. 3: Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: Clearly, DK has a tendency to repeat his mistakes. As for your Mario Universe project, I was wondering if it was possible to find the in-universe locations of almost every course? I understand Maple Treeway could be in the Golf Leaf Galaxy, but where the heck is Sweet Sweet Canyon!? Is it Sarasaland's CAPITAL!?
The antagonist of Donkey Kong Junior IS Mario though, that's overt because he's explicitly called Mario by name IN THE GAME, the first time he's ever even called by that name (it wasn't Mario Bros. like some people think). Though I don't blame someone if they didn't know that because those cutscenes where it happens were cut from the NES version for size reasons, and most people probably know the NES version better, but the real arcade version explicitly calls him Mario in-game ("Get key from Mario, save your papa!" for example). Unless we're trying to suggest that this is a second guy who not only looks identical but also happens to be named Mario which...yeah I'm not buying it, it's obviously supposed to be Mario lol.
"Donkey Kong has an unknown amount of siblings, and at least one of those siblings is the parent of Diddy Kong" That's the scariest 'at least' I've ever heard
@@reeyees50 It's really not, that one guy is named Giuseppe and solely exists in the movie as a way to have Charles Martinet's non-Chris Pratt Mario voice from the games cameo in the movie and also be a fun nod to Mario's debut but nothing more. Him literally having Mario's real voice is the critical blow to the idea that he's some major new different character retconning revelation or anything, he's just a cameo role for Martinet's Mario voice at the end of the day. If Martinet WERE voicing Mario in the movie instead of Chris Pratt he probably wouldn't have even existed. Not to mention the movie doesn't even really match up with the games anyway so anything in the movie only means so much.
No, all you have to look at to decomfirm that is the very next game where "Jumpman" appears, the direct sequel Donkey Kong Jr. There he literally is called Mario in the game, and is obviously the same guy as Jumpman in the first game (even having the exact same sprite not to mention the direct story continuity). Him not being called Mario yet in the original was solely due to him not having a real name yet, but he already got his real name Mario by the very next game. And there's way more besides that, but that's the earliest evidence that Jumpman IS in fact Mario, later games would have even more.
Twist! Donkey Kong III is the one who kidnapped Pauline in the original game, but Bowser sent him back in time to get rid of him. Then, as he lived and aged, he became Cranky, due to his never getting to live his life out like he wanted. Soon, he ends up becoming his own grandpa!
The fact you can play the same Kong or Kremling twice or even thrice or 4 times, at the same time in a game, doesn't mean there's 4 Donkey Kongs, 4 Diddy Kongs, 4 Lanky Kongs, 4 Tiny Kongs, 4 Chunky Kongs and 4 Krushas existing in Donkey Kong 64 and 4 Donkey Kongs and 4 Donkey Kong Jr. existing in Mario Tennis 64. Old Games have that tendency to let you play the same characters re-colored, since they didn't have a lot of characters selectable, but of course, there's series like Super Smash Bros. that are continuing to let you play the same characters multiples times, at the same time.
Surprised you didn't acknowledged things like how DK jr. on his baby state is able to both participate on the first mario kart, and play tennis with his grown up son. that aside, the Kong family tree is so fucked up, absent father and mother figures, criminals, and how the orangutan part of the family tree is implying some kind of deformity/mutation or something that happened to the tree at some point. Wouldn't suprise me if the fact that they are "rednecks" is implying some kind of inbreeding.
The Yoshis Island thing is a hard nut to crack, but the age differemce from Cranky to DK III compared to Mario makes a bit of sense. Human life expectancy is about double that of gorillas.
@@backseatsakurai fam once I found your channel I knew then that there is still good content on RU-vid. All this other shit is for the birds so Take your time G I'll be patiently waiting.
personally I fix the space time continum issues by saying Jump man is mario's dad and the Pauline from the original DK (fun fact the damsel J.M. saves isn't Pauline according to a book that I cannot rember the name of her name is actually lady)
"Lady" isn't a name, it's just a title, description, or whatever similar to the word "woman" or "princess" or "girl." She was obviously just called "Lady" at the time because she didn't _have_ a real name yet, nothing deep to it.
@@thedragonsden2004 If you have to resort to trying to claim someone's literal name is "Lady" when she was obviously referred to that way due to not having a real name yet, then that's a very poor thing to rely on and is just ignoring basic things to try to make it work, which only results in losing the basis for anything because it means you can just throw out whatever complicates things. She's obviously intended to be the same character as Pauline, the fact that she didn't originally have a name doesn't change that. Not to mention no, this doesn't fix the space time continuum issue regardless. For one, Jumpman himself IS explicitly shown to be Mario in the very second game, Donkey Kong Junior, where he's called Mario by name in the game itself (first time he ever had that name), and is pretty clearly implied to be the same person in later titles too. And even without that everything else in the Mario franchise afterwards still ends up being a contradictory mess with continuum issues anyway. Ignoring basic language comprehension like how "Lady" isn't a name, just a title to refer to a woman, and was clearly only used because the unnamed lady didn't have a name yet similar to how Mario didn't have his name yet until the sequel, isn't going to fix that.
It's actually quite fun to discuss... In the first Donkey Kong game, we see a young Cranky Kong and I guess a young Mario... Then in the series Mario didn't age, and Donkey Kong already has grandchildren... And I have a couple of theories: first, there are different time zones in Mario's world. The presence of magic in the world allows such a theory to be! As we know, Donkey Kong 1 and his family escaped from Brooklyn and are now living... where they live... But what if time goes differently in this place?.. Remember that different worlds have different times... and if it ends: Time Up - minus life. This is a game convention of many super Mario games... The timer after which the life ends. And what if it's something real? What if time really goes differently and at different speeds in different places?
(I forgot to add this part) uncle Kong might be donkey Kong Jr's brother and dk's uncle, I hate it when some people always get the DK Family Tree wrong.
Funky has lighter hair so maybe funky is actually the son of pinkly? There's a way that he doesn't have to be donkey Kong's brother but he can still be crankys grand son
It could be that she is also Dixie’s and Tiny‘s Cousin or maybe their half sister which would explain why Tiny has that mutated gene to grown fast and human like proportions because we know that in the Mushroom World Time runs extremely slow compared to the Human World or Earth whatever. Maybe Fedora Kong is shrouded in mystery because he left his original wife or girlfriend from where he gave birth to Candy and with a new Wife/Girlfriend then to Dixie and Tiny who knows.
The main problem, I would say, would be Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi’s Island’s different origins of Donkey Kong. Mario is a middle-aged man, around 24, and Cranky is stated to be the OG DK (in his younger years). Since IRL gorillas age faster and have a shorter life-span than humans, it would make sense for Mario to look about the same age by the time DK III is an adult. Everything would be all fine and dandy…except…Yoshi’s Island contradicts this. Yoshi’s Island DS introduces the Star Children. Ones that are destined for greatness. This game also shows Baby Mario alongside Baby DK, who is implied to be Donkey Kong III (the dude can punch the Moon out of its orbit, it just makes sense). This would mean that both Cranky and Junior are older than Mario, which doesn’t really feel right. And if you go by IRL gorilla aging, Cranky Kong would be super old by the time of Donkey Kong (1981), if not dead! The Mario vs. Donkey Kong series doesn’t really help much, stating that DK’s “up to his old tricks again,” which implies he’s the original DK. It just wouldn’t make sense as this would be DK III’s first time meeting Pauline. Unless, he’s not even DK III. He could just be DK Jr. all grown up. Ah, yes…the classic debate about whether DK is Junior’s son, or Junior’s adult-self. It seemed that Donkey Kong Country has shown modern DK was Cranky’s grandson, but the Rare devs, Donkey Kong 64, and even The Super Mario Bros. Movie seem to say otherwise. This whole debacle is complicated, kongfusing, mess! There would be three possible ways for this to be fixed. 1) Donkey Kong’s family tree would follow the “grown-up DK Jr.” path, now revived by The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and Baby DK is Junior. 2) The Baby DK in Yoshi’s Island would be a young Cranky Kong, and the whole Star Child thing would be a generational situation, and would be passed down from Cranky, to Junior, to DK. 3) One of the theories in this video. Time travel shenanigans lead to Donkey Kong being taken from the past as a baby, and substituted as the son Junior never had, making Cranky Kong and Donkey Kong being the same person biologically. The song “I’m my own grandpa” by Ray Stevens would really fit here.
I think you're onto something with the "Cranky is DK pulled back in time" theory. In Donkey Kong Country, Cranky constantly tells you about how he's beaten all the levels and found all the secrets. This actually makes zero sense, except in light of your time-travel theory.
I always assumed that Donkey Kong Jr. grew up to be DK, and after watching this, I still see no reason why that couldn't be the case. It could fix the timeline up a bit and make pinkly a contender as one of Diddy's parents.
If I remember right, Tiny Kong at one point grows older than her older sister somehow. In the Mario universe video when you talked about time traveling shenanigans with the donkey kong family tree, I thought that's what you were talking about.
Regardless of statements that disprove it, i prefer the theory that jumpman is the father of mario, then yoshi's island happens where he ends up in the same world as the mushroom kingdom, comes back to live in the same world as his parents with luigi for the mario brothers arcade game then return to the mushroom world to stop the koopa troop from invading. Also gorillas have shorter lifespans than humans and jumpman appears torturing dk sr in various games with dk jr so id say its natural to have 3-4 generations of kongs with just 2 generations of mario
personally i always thought that the mario from dk arcade games was mario's ancestor since his name was jumpman and also a carpenter. would explain why him and present dk are friendly (mostly)
When you showed ''Uncle Kong'' before you even told the name i just saw the mustache and thought it was Bluster Kong from the 90's Donkey Kong Country cgi tv show
Unknown Fedora Kong would fit as Diddy's dad and Donkey Kong III's brother, as Donkey took Diddy Kong in, so maybe he's looking out for Diddy because he knows how much of a deadbeat his brother is. It also makes sense to have Swanky as the father and his money chasing ways are so large that nobody even tells Diddy that Swanky is his father.
how about Swanky Kong being related to Donkey and Funky? since he didn’t appear in DKC (1) they might not talk to each other, like it’s not said they are bros 😅 but i could imagine
Not a bad video. Candy kong isn’t Dixie’s and Tiny’s sister. Though that would be interesting. I heard a theory that fedora Kong could actually be Jr grown up. Apes take less time to reach adult hood compared to humans which would help explain how Mario could interact with both Adult version. Of cranky and DK. Though that being said. I always figured baby donkey song with just a baby cranky.
