The Great Ape Escape

Saturday Supercade episode
"The Great Ape Escape"
Segment	Donkey Kong
Season	1
Episode	9
Airdate	November 12, 1983[?]
Writer(s)	Rick Merwin
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"The Great Ape Escape" is the ninth episode of the first season of Saturday Supercade's Donkey Kong segment. The title is a reference to the Stalag Luft III escape, a World War II mass escape from the German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III, better known as the "Great Escape".

Plot synopsis

Mario and Pauline are chasing Donkey Kong. As he jumps onto a prison wall, Mario begins to devise a plan to capture him by hiding in a fake banana while being launched from a catapult. He succeeds in reaching Donkey Kong, but when he uses sleeping gas, Donkey Kong simply blows it back, sending Mario into a coma and allowing Donkey Kong to escape to the other side of the wall. He falls into a prison, where two prisoners are discussing their escape plans in the middle of work. Donkey Kong steals their hammers and completes their work in seconds, causing both prisoners to realize that Donkey Kong is the key to their plan.

The prisoners outfit Donkey Kong in a prison jumpsuit to practice American football with him. Though Donkey Kong swallows the ball on the first pass, the prisoners still manage to show him the ropes. They then proceed to explain their escape plan, while Mario and Pauline watch from a cloud-shaped float.

Just as Donkey Kong catches the ball from a long pass, Mario manages to throw down a banana ladder. Donkey Kong falls for the bait, but manages to spit out the bananas onto Mario and drop back down to the prison, bursting the float with a pin.

In the cafeteria, Donkey Kong cannot wait to be fed; Mario and Pauline, disguised as chefs, overload him with food and send him on a cart, intending to trap him in a stew pot. Donkey Kong, however, is able to realize what is happening, and uses a pillar to turn around, ramming Mario instead. Mario gives chase, even managing to catch the plates that Donkey Kong throws, but then Donkey Kong throws a turkey, directly knocking Mario into the stew pot.

At the football game, Donkey Kong's team is beating the other team 67-0. He manages to grab the ball after another hike. Mario attempts to lasso him, but Donkey Kong manages to drag him along. Even Pauline's assistance does not stop Donkey Kong from escaping along with the two escapees. They use the goal post as a catapult to fling themselves up and over the wall.

Later, Donkey Kong and the two escaping prisoners hide on the top floor of a building, attempting to avoid spotlights. They are eventually caught and told to surrender, but the escapees refuse, so long as they have Donkey Kong with them. Mario and Pauline manage to convince Donkey Kong that they are prisoners, not health instructors, as he had previously believed. Angry that they had lied to him, Donkey Kong chases them to a ladder, then pulls out the ladder and bends it into a dual cage. He then throws it into the prison van.

Mario then shouts, "Two down and a gorilla to go!" Donkey Kong hears this, and takes out a football to fill it with enough air to escape, as a shocked Mario tries to contemplate how Donkey Kong "outscored them again." The episode ends with a floating Donkey Kong playfully shouting "Touchdown!"

Gallery

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  Title card

Animation and continuity errors

• When Doug's Health Club explains their escape plan, the chubby prisoner extends his right hand, but in the next shot, the slim prisoner's left hand is extended.
• Donkey Kong hammers the stones into powder, but when Doug's Health Club introduces themselves, the stones reappear.