  is an anthropomorphic mountain gorilla appearing in the donkey kong and mario video game franchises. a popular character, he has appeared in many video games. donkey kong was jumpman's first opponent in nintendo's popular 1981 arcade game, donkey kong. since then he has starred in his own series of games, starting with 1994's donkey kong country for the super nintendo entertainment system, and remains an important character in the spin-off games of the mario series. dk debuted at the same time as mario, and he still appears with mario on occasion, appearing as a playable character in the mario kart and super smash bros. series, and is the primary antagonist in the mario vs. donkey kong games. ==concept and creation== in 1981, nintendo was pursuing a license to make a game based on the popeye comic strip. when this fell through, nintendo decided that it would take the opportunity to create new characters that could then be marketed and used in later games. miyamoto came up with m
Animal_characters_in_video_games Anthropomorphic_characters_in_video_games Characters_created_by_Shigeru_Miyamoto Donkey_Kong Fictional_gorillas Male_characters_in_video_games Mario_characters Mario_enemies Nintendo_protagonists Super_Smash_Bros._fighters Video_game_characters_introduced_in_1981 Video_game_characters_with_superhuman_strength Video_game_mascots