100: Universal Sues Nintendo (Part 2)

An Old Timey Podcast

True Crime, Comedy, History

4.9 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2026

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nintendo couldn’t believe their luck. Their latest arcade game, Donkey Kong, had become a surprise hit. But then Universal, one of the largest media companies in the world, came knocking. They claimed that Donkey Kong infringed on their King Kong trademark. Even worse? They were ready to go to war.

Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Norm pulled from:

Audureau, William. The History of Mario. Pix’n Love, 2014.

Internet Archive. “Universal v. Nintendo Court Documents.” 2026. https://archive.org/details/universal-v-nintendo-court-documents.

Sheff, David. Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children. Random House, Inc., 1993.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Norman Caruso.
0:06.0	And I'm Kristen Caruso. And on this episode, I'll be talking about the time Universal sued Nintendo.
0:12.0	Woo! Woo! I'm excited!
0:16.0	Are you excited because this is episode 100, Kristen?
0:19.0	Well, um, yes to that, but also I love a lawsuit.
0:22.8	I love conflict.
0:24.0	I love drama.
0:24.9	Also, no one dies in this story.
0:26.7	It's kind of the perfect thing.
0:28.0	Right, right.
0:29.4	Nobody dies.
0:30.8	Kind of low stakes in the grand scheme of things.
0:33.1	No, the highest stakes.
0:34.4	Come on, build this episode up.
0:36.2	It's fun.
0:37.1	It's fun. It's fun.
0:37.8	And you are going to be so mad, so mad at certain people.
0:43.2	I love judging.
0:44.6	So I guess I'll do it.
0:47.0	Speaking of judging, folks, I'm doing the bonus episode on Patreon this month.
0:52.6	Do I have anything written down?
0:54.7	Have I done any research yet?
	...

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