Here we have the Willis Donkey Kong UR CPO.  Now we know how litigious Nintendo Corporation can be, and I imagine they protected their intellectual property back in the 1980’s just as hard. Which explains why this replacement overlay is trying real hard not to look like the original. There is a gorilla, a damsel in apparent distress, and a handy man.  The instruction card refers to jumpman.  The overlay is clearly marked “© WILLIS INDUSTRIES 1982”, with part number PN 26-3177.  The part number likely means it was available in the WICO catalog, at least until the lawsuit happened.  The overlay is not rigid, they screened it on 3M materials, but the production quality is good.  Just can’t get past the girl picking her nose!

From the original Tokens Only post…

Here we have the famous, or infamous, Willis Donkey Kong cpo. I think this one went a long way towards creating the bad reputation Willis developed with arcade collectors and its easy to see why.

The original control panel overlay was reverse printed on a thick piece of plexi which made it quite durable but prone to scratching or graffiti. The reproduction was made in the same way Willis made all their products, reverse printed on lexan material with 3M adhesive.
Quality production, with part number and copyright info, but too far removed from the feel of the original cpo. Another problem is the nose picking girl. I can’t imagine that when this piece of artwork was reviewed before production, no one caught that slight little problem? I mean it looks like she’s about to dig for gold. Add the hokey overall appearance of all the artwork combined and you get one dog of an overlay. Unfortunately this was a popular game and the reproduction overlay was likely made in mass quantity, spreading the horror over the greater collecting community. It will be added to the artwork archive, preserving the history one piece at a time.

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Check out the nice reproduction of the original shown above, thanks to Phoenix Arcade. The Willis Donkey Kong UR CPO is a fairly common overlay.  If you’re looking to add one to your Willis collection, you should be able to scoop one up for a reasonable price.