The King of Kong (2007)

Nora's Nite
(Stuart flaked!)

AV Club interviews Billy Mitchell:

The story didn't end with the movie, though: Billy Mitchell, a successful restaurant owner and hot-sauce mogul in Florida, unsurprisingly took umbrage at the way he was portrayed. Though the beginning of the film paints him as a hard-working businessman who bettered himself via the same principles that made him good at gaming, it quickly casts him as a man who a) may have sent minions to examine his rival's game console, b) won't face a worthy opponent in a live match, c) may have cheated to keep his title, and d) is generally self-absorbed and awful. To what degree those things are true is a matter of debate. While Mitchell claims to this day that he hasn't seen the movie, he insists (in the few interviews he's given) that he was portrayed unfairly, and that the film is inaccurate. That's where The A.V. Club was willing to leave things—with an excellent documentary that, like all documentaries, can't possibly paint a completely accurate picture. Until about a week before the DVD release of The King Of Kong, when Billy Mitchell called our office.

He was ostensibly just thanking us for ordering some of his hot sauce—and looking for our suite number for the shipment—but after I'd chatted with him for about 10 minutes, I asked if he'd like to continue our conversation, and make it an official interview. He agreed, and an hour of sometimes-pointed, sometimes-rambling conversation followed. To his credit, Mitchell is well aware that a Donkey Kong score isn't the most important thing on earth, or even in his life. But he's at least slightly bitter—and heartily determined to get his side of the story across. He comes across as friendly but almost amazingly self-centered, and a good deal more charming than Kong lets on. (Some of the DVD's bonus footage offers a better glimpse into what may be the "real" Billy.) He had plenty to say about specific points the movie raises—for instance, he says that in one key scene, the filmmakers edited out several seconds to make it look like he snubbed his nice-guy rival. In the interest of fairness, The A.V. Club tracked down Ed Cunningham and Seth Gordon to respond to some of the allegations. And the saga continues. What follows is two separate conversations that took place about a week apart, the first with Mitchell, and the second with Cunningham and Gordon. They're edited together for the purposes of clarity and flow.

Billy Mitchell: You see me in the movie, and I'm wearing different types of patriotic ties. You saw the movie. What impression did the movie give you? And then I'll tell you the real truth.

The A.V. Club: Well, the movie clearly makes you out to be the bad guy. Or do you mean specifically about the ties?

BM: Did I come across like a staunch Republican, or like a NRA guy or a 9/11 guy, or something like that? The truth is, I started wearing those ties to competitions in 1999, because in the race for a perfect game of Pac-Man, there was another guy, a counterpart from Canada who's really good, and we were in our race, in our quest for a perfect game. He called himself Captain Canada, and he actually wore a Canadian cape, a flag. I just wasn't gonna be that goofy. The American flag tie's about as goofy as I would go. Sometimes interviews take a funny angle like that. Sometimes they want real serious questions about truth and lies and deception. And sometimes they just want the humor, the funny stories, and that's fine, too. And whatever you wanna do is fine.

AVC: Let me ask you about a specific scene in the movie…

BM: Okay, I'm ready. You're gonna ask me about the scene where I walk behind Steve.

AVC: Yeah.

BM: Do you believe that I actually told you the question you were gonna ask me? So find humor in that, and go ahead and put it in your review.

AVC: I'd guess this is a question you're getting a lot.

BM: Either that, or I can read your mind, and you should hang up the phone quickly. Recall the scene in your mind. I'm walking with my wife—my trophy wife, which we'll talk about later. Um, what part of the country are you in? Chicago? Is that where you were born? Or where you grew up?

AVC: I grew up in Milwaukee.

BM: Very good. That plays a point later… We're on the record here so, I'm gonna watch what I wanna tell you. Are we on the record?

AVC: Yes.

BM: After spending a night out with my family, and dropping off one of the people who was participating in the contest there, I went to drive away, and my wife said, "You don't wanna go inside?" And so we walked in, and Ed Cunningham put the microphone on me. I didn't have any objection to that. I wouldn't—I mean, I don't have anything negative, period. Walking into the arcade, I went game to game, and at each game, I reminded my wife who the person was that was playing. One of the very first games—I don't know that it was the first, but it was one of the first—was Steve playin' Donkey Kong. And as I walked past him… Now you've got the movie in your mind, the camera is looking at me from behind or from the front? As I'm walking toward him.

AVC: I don't recall.

BM: You've gotta watch this movie, man! I'm givin' you these test questions! Okay, so the camera's watchin' us, and as we walk past him, this guy in the movie [Sarcastically.] who I've never met and I've never even said hello to, because I'm so nasty and arrogant… As I was just about behind him, he turned and he said, "Hi, Billy." Okay. You don't really—somebody you've never met—would you just say "Hi, Billy," that casually? Then it cuts from a perfectly good camera angle that's following us to the opposite side, where me and my wife continue walking, and I say something to the effect of, "Some people, I don't wanna spend too much time talking to." Is that what you're talking about?

AVC: Yes.

BM: Okay. Now this is what you do for a living? I'm only being funny here to drive a point home. I don't want you to put across that I was mean to you, because I'm not, I'm happy here. But let's think of this: This is what you do for a living? Now I'm gonna say it again, and you tell me what this means: "Some people, I don't wanna spend too much time talking to." You don't hear somethin' in that?

AVC: I'm not getting it. You'll have to let me know what I'm missing.

BM: I obviously stood there and talked to him. "Some people, I don't wanna spend too much time talking to." That's why they cut one camera angle to the other, 'cause when I stood behind him, and I waited for the precise moment, knowing Donkey Kong… You know where the monkey falls down on its head? You've got like, maybe 10 seconds of little rhetoric that you can, whatever, without disturbing somebody? And I reminded my wife, "This is Steve, remember we met him? He's the guy from Seattle. He's the other Donkey Kong guy." She goes, "Oh, yeah." I go, "How they treatin' ya?" That—my line to him is, "How they treatin' you," or "How is it treatin' you?" And he said, "Not good." And I go, "No?" He goes, "No, I just can't get it together," and he didn't get a good score that weekend. And I said, "All right, well, hang in there." And I walked away.

AVC: And you're saying they cut that out, right? None of that's actually in the movie.

BM: Right. So what they did was, he says, "Hi, Billy," cut! And then it's: "Some people, I don't wanna spend too much time talking to." If I stood there and talked to him and his guy died, [people would say] "Look at this: He can't even let the guy play in peace." You can see that angle, right? I didn't wanna stand there, I didn't want him to feel intimidated, I didn't want anyone to think that I was stealin' his secrets.