Billy Mitchell (video game player)

Billy Mitchell
Date of birth (1965-07-17) July 17, 1965
Hometown Hollywood, Florida
Nationality American
Games Pac-Man
Donkey Kong (video game)

William James "Billy" Mitchell, Jr. (born July 17, 1965) is an American video-game player best known for recording high scores on classic games from the golden age of arcade video games. David Ramsey, writing for the Oxford American in 2006, called Mitchell "probably the greatest arcade-video-game player of all time."[1] Mitchell's signature achievement is earning the first perfect score of 3,333,360 points on the original Pac-Man arcade game in July 1999. He owns the Rickey's World Famous Restaurant chain based in Hollywood, Florida and sells a line of hot sauces known as Rickey's World Famous Sauces.[2]

Biography

Mitchell grew up in South Florida and began playing games at age 12. Already a dominant pinball player, he was at first uninterested in video games appearing in the early '80s until he noticed that "everyone was standing around the Donkey Kong machine and wanted attention".[1]

Mitchell attended Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School in 1983 and soon began work as a manager in the kitchen of his parents' restaurant, "Rickey's Restaurant". Mitchell assumed ownership of the Rickey's World Famous Hot Sauce in the mid-1980s, continuing to own and manage it as of 2009.

In 2015 Mitchell filed a lawsuit against Cartoon Network claiming that in Regular Show a character who cheats at video games called Garrett Bobby Ferguson (GBF) infringed on his likeness.[3][4] United States District Court for the District of New Jersey Judge Anne Elise Thompson threw out the lawsuit, saying that "the television character does not match the plaintiff in appearance".[5][6][7]

Personal life

Mitchell is known for his mullet haircut[8] and wearing neckties showing American patriotism during game competitions. The ties stem from his 1999 race to become the first person to achieve a perfect game of Pac-Man. One of his competitors, Rick Fothergill, wore a Canadian flag cape and called himself "Captain Canada". Mitchell began wearing his patriotic ties in response.[2]

Mitchell has three children. The oldest is his stepdaughter who is a 2010 graduate of Florida State University. His middle daughter is a 2015 graduate of American Heritage School in Plantation, Florida and the recipient of an academic scholarship to the University of Alabama. Mitchell's youngest child, William "Billy" Mitchell III, is ranked as a top football prospect among kickers in the high school class of 2017.[9]

Mitchell is also the brother of Karen Harrington, a South Florida Republican politician who has run two unsuccessful campaigns (2010 and 2012) to replace Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the United States House of Representatives.[10]

Video game career

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Billy Mitchell (center) with fans. December 19, 2007

The 2007 documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters tells the story of newcomer Steve Wiebe's attempt to surpass Billy Mitchell's high score at the game Donkey Kong, which Mitchell had set in 1982.

Mitchell never showed up to play the game in the film, though he states the importance of playing in public, saying, "To me, most important is to travel to a sanctioned location, like Funspot that makes it official; if tomorrow Tiger Woods golfs a 59, big deal. If he does it at Augusta, that's where it counts." However, throughout the film Wiebe traveled to various locations such as Funspot to play him publicly, and each time Mitchell refused. More controversy arose when at Funspot, Wiebe set the Donkey Kong live score record and was given official recognition, something he did not receive for sending in a tape in which he scored the first million point game on record. A few hours later, a tape submitted by Mitchell in which he scored over a million points was accepted, and Wiebe lost his record. The film records speculation that Mitchell's tape may have been fraudulent. In Mitchell's hometown later on, Wiebe waited for four days to play Mitchell, who showed up one day and refused to play against Wiebe. In the film, Wiebe, while playing the game says hello to Mitchell, who does not respond, and says to his wife, as he walks away, "There's certain people I don't want to spend too much time with." Mitchell offers no explanation for his behavior towards Wiebe but later explained that at the time of filming, he had not played video games for "more than a year", and that the filmmakers had not given him enough advance warning to train for a public record-breaking attempt.[11] Seth Gordon, the film's director, in referring to Mitchell's character says that Mitchell "is a true puppet-master", "a master of information-control" and that there was a lot of "stuff we couldn't include because of inter-state telephone rules."[12]

At the film's conclusion, Wiebe beats Mitchell's score to gain a new Donkey Kong record on tape to claim both the live and taped records.

After King of Kong

On July 26, 2007, on the 25th anniversary of Mitchell's first record-setting performance, Mitchell again played in public and retook the Donkey Kong record with a score of 1,050,200,[13] though that score was surpassed on February 26, 2010 by Hank Chien, who was temporarily the record holder at Donkey Kong.[14] However, Mitchell reclaimed his title once again on July 24, 2010.[15] On September 20, 2010, Steve Wiebe once again took the title with a score of 1,064,500.[16] As of February 27, 2011, Hank Chien re-took the record with a score of 1,090,400,[17] which he improved four times over the next two years, setting his final record at 1,138,600 in November 2012. On September 4, 2014, Robbie Lakeman broke Chien's result and set the new world record scoring 1,141,800.[18][19] In January 2016, Wes Copeland scored 1,190,000 points to take the record. [20]

Notable scores

Mitchell set numerous high score records, on a number of games, in the 1980s and 1990s. Decades after his 1982 setting of an initial highest score in Donkey Kong, and after a return to record-breaking achievements between 2004 and 2010, others have eventually matched or surpassed Mitchell's accomplishments.

Honors and legacy

On January 14, 1984, he was selected as one of the 1983 "Video Game Players of the Year" by Twin Galaxies and the U.S. National Video Game Team.[28]

On September 17, 1999, he was proclaimed the "Video Game Player of the Century" while at the 1999 Tokyo Game Show. In a ceremony on the Namco stage, company founder Masaya Nakamura presented Mitchell with an award commemorating the first "perfect" game on Pac-Man.[1]

On November 24, 1999, he offered $100,000 to the first person who could get through Pac-Man's "split-screen level".[29] The prize was never claimed before the January 1, 2000 deadline.

On June 21, 2006, MTV selected Mitchell one of "The 10 Most Influential Video Gamers of All Time." He was also nominated as leader of the Nerd Herd.[30] Mitchell had been featured previously in the True Life episode "I'm A Gamer" in 2003.

Mitchell placed eighth in the Microsoft Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championships on June 4, 2007.[31]

In 2008, Mitchell became the first video game player to be honored with a Topps Allen & Ginter trading card.[32]

In the 2015 feature film Pixels, Peter Dinklage plays former video game champion "Eddie", with physical appearance and personality styled after Mitchell.[33]

A character similar to Mitchell who cheats at video games called Garrett Bobby Ferguson (GBF) appears in Regular Show. Mitchell, however, took offense at the portrayal and filed a lawsuit, which was thrown out by the judge.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Oxford American (Issue 53, Spring 2006): "The Perfect Man: How Billy Mitchell became a video-game superstar and achieved Pac-Man bliss", by David Ramsey
  2. 1 2 Modell, Josh (February 7, 2008). "The King Of Kong, continued: Donkey Kong champ Billy Mitchell calls The A.V. Club out of the blue". The A.V. Club.
  3. ↑ O'Connor, Brendan (2015-11-23). "Judge Throws Out Former Donkey Kong Record Holder's Lawsuit Against Cartoon Network". Gawker. Retrieved 2015-11-29.
  4. ↑ Phillips, Tom (November 24, 2015). "Donkey Kong diva denied in Cartoon Network depiction lawsuit". Retrieved November 27, 2015.
  5. ↑ Vanderbilt, Mike (November 24, 2015). "Billy Mitchell loses Regular Show lawsuit, doesn’t care as long as he’s trending". The AV Club. Retrieved November 27, 2015.
  6. ↑ Associated Press (November 23, 2015). "Former 'Donkey Kong' record holder's cartoon lawsuit tossed". Retrieved November 27, 2015.
  7. ↑ "Former 'Donkey Kong' record holder's cartoon lawsuit tossed". Associated Press. 2015-11-23. Retrieved 2015-11-29.
  8. ↑ Drew (January 29, 2008). "Billy Mitchell: The man behind the mullet". The Tanooki.
  9. ↑ http://chrissailerkicking.com/player-rankings/?year=2017
  10. ↑ Mooney, Michael J. (2010-10-07). "Karen Harrington Says Debbie Wasserman Schultz Is "Within Striking Distance" | New Times Broward-Palm Beach". Blogs.browardpalmbeach.com. Retrieved 2014-05-27.
  11. ↑ "Killing Bill: King of Kong's Nemesis Talks Back"
  12. ↑ Interview with Seth Gordon
  13. ↑ "Man Shatters Donkey Kong World Record Exactly 25 Years After First Setting It in 1982"
  14. ↑ "Salute Your New King of Kong"
  15. ↑ "Billy Mitchell reclaims world record". Twin Galaxies.
  16. ↑ "Steve Wiebe regains Donkey Kong World Record from Billy Mitchell"
  17. ↑ http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.it/2011/11/official-top-20-donkey-kong-scores.html Donkey Kong Blog.
  18. ↑ "The World Record For Highest Score In Donkey Kong Has Been Beaten". Gameinformer.
  19. ↑ "A New World Record Ends Hank Chien's Reign As Donkey Kong Champion". Kotaku.
  20. ↑ "New Donkey Kong world record set, and there's not much room left for another". Polygon.
  21. ↑ "Ms. Pac-Man points records". Twin Galaxies.
  22. ↑ "July 3, 1999: Gobbling Up a 'Pac-Man' Record". Wired. July 3, 2008.
  23. ↑ "Pac-Man points records". Twin Galaxies.
  24. 1 2 3 4 "Billy L Mitchell (profile)". Twin Galaxies International. Retrieved 2010-08-07.
  25. ↑
  26. ↑ "bryan wagner burgertime world record". spyhunter007.com. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
  27. ↑ Matthew Bradford (2010-08-07). "BILLY MITCHELL TAKES BACK DONKEY KONG RECORDS". Twin Galaxies International. Retrieved 2010-08-07.
  28. ↑ "Twin Galaxies' Coronation Day Crowns Video's Best of '83"
  29. ↑ Billy Mitchell Offers $100,000 for solving Pac-Man "Split-Screen"
  30. ↑ "MTV selects Billy Mitchell one of "The 10 Most Influential Video Gamers Of All Time"
  31. ↑ Joystiq.com (June 7, 2007): "Chasing pellets: Pac-Man tries to make history again". by James Ransom-Wiley
  32. ↑ "Billy Mitchell Appears on TOPPS Gum Card". Twin Galaxies.
  33. ↑ "New Pixels Promo Arrives Online | Movie News | Empire". Empire. May 19, 2015. Retrieved 2015-07-07.

Further reading

External links

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