V.I.D.E.O.S.: The King Of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

This week in V.I.D.E.O.S., we will talk about a truly nerd-centric documentary that really mixes adult, competition, and video games into one giant epic.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters!


Meet Steve Weebe and Billy Mitchell.  Both are grown American men and they both love to do the same thing: play classic Arcade games.

Billy Mitchell is a businessman and a video gamer.  He looks like a Ben Stiller-bad guy with his mullet and mustache.

Told you!  No, but this is legitimately him.  His business is the Ricky's World Famous Restaurant chain of South Florida as well as the sauces of the same name.  Throughout the 1980's he was the kid in the video arcade that was standing in front of one machine for hours and hours crushing the scores on Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., BurgerTime, Pac-Man, and Centipede.  He is probably the most famous gamer in the world.  He is Nerd Elvis in the video game world.  He was awarded a plaque in by Namco for scoring a "Perfect Score" in Pac-Man (seen below).

Mitchell is famous for his gaming, has influenced many others on gaming, and is overall, a very successful person.

Enter Steve Wiebe (pronounced WEE-BEE).

Steve Wiebe is an engineer.  He graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree.  He played sports in high school, and even played drums for jazz band.  He also worked for Boeing.  In essence, he is NOT BILLY MITCHELL.  Wiebe is the challenger to Mitchell's crown of high scores in Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.  Two men enter.  Only one will claim he is the champion.

Within the documentary we learn about the history of Twin Galaxies, Walter Day (official keeper of the scores for Twin Galaxies seen below), the history and culture of the Arcade as it pertains to Americans, AND we learn about some things about the games that you would not suspect would be involved in video games.  We also meet some other video gamers from the same era.  It's pretty fascinating to see that even before the Internet age, there was a strong network of gamers that just loved to compete.

It's a journey across several states, through several arcades, and will no doubt entertain everyone, whether you are into video games or not.  Prepare for a dramatic race to the top of the Leaderboard!