April 5, 2012 scottcjones 0Comment

The telephone number belonged to a New Jersey-based company named Blossom Hills. An overly excited Blossom Hills representative named Florence explained to me over the phone that her company specialized in “making holiday magic.” It went about accomplishing this incredible feat by placing something called “Santa Squads” in every shopping mall in every State from Maryland to Maine. “A Santa Squad’s job is to bring joy to children of all ages wherever it goes,” Florence said. Each squad consisted of three members: Helper Elf, Photographer Elf, and Santa. Before Florence could even finish asking which Squad member I was interested in becoming, I’d involuntarily blurted out the words, “Santa. I feel that I’m a Santa.”

She instructed me to bring a current resume and two pieces of identification to the Shoppingtown Mall management office at 10 a.m. the next morning where a Blossom Hills representative would apparently determine if I was Santa Squad material or not.

The next morning I woke up early, combed my hair, put on a sweater, then proceeded to print out copies of my resume on my mother’s temperamental dot-matrix printer until I finally got one that was somewhat legible. Then I made the hour-long drive into East Syracuse.

The mall’s management office was located at the end of one of those shadow-filled side hallways in Shoppingtown that no one ever set foot in. I knew I was in the right place when I spotted a hand-written sign taped to the wall that said “BLOSSOM HILL CASTING CALL.” The words “casting call” filled me with dread. I had my moments now and then, but I was far from being what you’d call a natural performer.

I opened the door onto a small office which featured a desk and a waiting area which held around a half dozen chairs. A short, stocky woman in a business suit named Gerta introduced herself to me as the Blossom Hill representative. “And I’m the fun, exciting, dramatic Scott Jones,” I said, echoing the ad in the paper and immediately regretting the decision to do so. I already saw myself back out in the parking lot, starting up the car, making the long, lonely drive back home. To my surprise, Gerta instead gave me a warm, toothy smile. “You know,” she said, leaning in close and whispering, “I actually wrote that ad.”

“It’s a very good ad,” I whispered back. Then Gerta handed me some paperwork to fill out. “Find a seat and let me know when you’re finished,” she said. That’s when I noticed that every chair in the waiting room was not only occupied, but occupied entirely by elderly men with well-groomed, snow-white beards and plump, round bellies. I thought to myself, There is probably no place on earth right now with a higher concentration of Santa Clauses than this room.

It was clear to me that all of these men would have to die of heart attacks for me to have a remote chance at this job. I stared at the Santas for a few seconds, waiting to see if any of them actually would die. None did.

I informed Gerta that there were no more seats, and that I should probably be leaving anyway. There was no point in wasting anymore time here.

“Nonsense,” Gerta said. “We still have plenty of seats left in the conference room.” She led me around the corner and into the conference room where 10 more Santa Claus dopplegangers were gathered around a long, wooden table, along with an assortment of non-bearded, un-plump men and women who were obviously there for the Helper Elf and Photographer Elf positions. Recognizing where my true place was in this world, I took a seat among the Elves.

And now, it’s time for something completely different. With its brick backdrop, low lighting, and lengths of chains dangling from the ceiling (11 chains in total), stage 9-4 is either one of two things: one, Pinhead’s private residence; two, Donkey Kong’s secret S & M room. Fact: after 95 stages, this game can still surprise me. I like that. Let’s begin.

Notice those tiny squares with the key-shaped icons in their centers? There are six of those in total. What you must do is push those key squares upward along the chains and into the key-shaped slots at the very top. You accomplish this simply by climbing underneath them. Each key-square that reaches its destination at the top of the chain triggers one of the prison bars around the dancing, preening Donkey Kong Junior at the top of the screen. Getting all six key squares to their destinations at the top of the chains lowers all the bars, trapping D.K.J. inside.

Sounds simple enough, no? If this game was an informercial, this would be the “but wait, there’s more” part. One: D.K.J. is flinging magic mushrooms all over the place. They’re easy enough to avoid, but should you come into contact with one when you’re high off the ground, you’ll shrink to the size of a hamster, lose your grip on the chain, and plummet to your death (complete with a tiny, hamster-size you’re-dead halo above your tiny corpse).

Oh, and one more thing: there’s a bird’s nest on the lefthand side of the screen. Whenever Donkey Kong pulls the switch he’s standing next to, a bird pops out, squawks once, then begins flying horizontally across the screen. When the bird detects Mario in the vicinity, it pauses, hovers, then—ker-plop—drops a death-dealing egg in Mario’s direction.

Once the bird reaches the far right side of the screen, it will stop, turn around, lower itself a tick or two of its own volition, then make another horizontal pass across the screen. D.K. will then pull the switch a second time, triggering a second bird, which instantly doubles your bird headaches for this stage. Again, for the most part, step lively, keep your eyes open, and use your well-developed Donkey Kong instincts here. Keep on climbing—Pro Tip: grab two chains at the same time (one in your left hand, one in your right) for a remarkably quicker ascent—keep on pushing those keys up the chains and into their keyholes, and before you know it D.K.J. will be behind bars. Which is, I must say, a satisfying sight.

Once this is accomplished, Donkey Kong grabs Pauline, then climbs through the top of the screen, leaving his “friend” D.K.J. behind. Might this be the last time we see D.K.J.? Locked up inside his little cage?

Let’s run the numbers for this section:

Stage 9-1: 145 seconds

Stage 9-2: 172 seconds

Stage 9-3: 168 seconds

Stage 9-4: 149 seconds

Grand total: 634 seconds. Number of Marios in my Mario Reserves: 26.

The final gauntlet of stages is upon us, folks. If this were a road trip, we’d be driving by a billboard right now that says, “LAST CHANCE TO SAVE YOUR GAME FOR NEXT 500 MILES.”

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