17 Smashing Behind-The-Scenes Facts About 'Mortal Kombat'
![17 Smashing Behind-The-Scenes Facts About 'Mortal Kombat'](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/4/789834_320x180.jpg)
Midway Games enlisted the help of developer Ed Boon, once 27, as well as comic book writer John Tobias, still 22, in 1991 to come up with a combat arcade machine that would have been available in ten months. Artist John Vogel, as well as production designer Dan Forden, completed Boon and Tobias' team.
Mortal Kombat has become a videogame icon years well after its multi-system introduction. Mortal Kombat has been one of Nintendo's most famous titles, with over a dozen games, multiple theater movies, and an unlimited extended world of comic book fiction. Just how do you know about the history and facts of the greatest tournament in combat games?
If you were a kid or a teen in the early 1990s, you probably recall the first time you saw Mortal Kombat and exclaimed, "Whoa!" Mortal Kombat came along after Street Fighter made fighting games a thing, grabbed us, and uppercut into us a vision of what the genre could be. Do you want to learn more about the origins of this historic game? Well, better start reading these wild examples:
![MORTAL KOMBAT COULD HAVE BEEN A VAN DAMME CAME. Midway's head Ed Boon liked the pitch for a martial arts game - as long as ean-Claude Van Damme was involved, to give the game star power. But Van Damme said no, so Midway reluctantly went with the unprofitable (in their opinion) original option.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/3/789843.jpg)
Sources, MEL Magazine, Mortal Kombat Online
![SOME FIGHTERS WERE INSPIRED BY MARVEL CHARACTERS. Before Van Damme's name was attached, Johnny Cage was based on Iron Fist (and Jax Briggs came from Iron Fist's crime-fighting buddy, Power Man). Also, Reptile was partly influenced by Spider-Man's foe The Lizard.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/5/789845.jpg)
Source: MEL Magazine
![Kano’s fatality came straight from Indiana Jones. Kano ripping off someone’s still-beating heart doesn’t just look like Mola Ram’s thing in Indiana Jones and the Temple Doom -- that was the direct inspiration, as Kano actor Richard Divizio was a fan of the Indiana Jones movies.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/5/1/789851.gif)
Source: MEL Magazine
![REPTILE WAS A SECRET TO EVERYONE. Not even the development team knew the game included a secret, unlockable character. Ed Boon programmed Reptile in at the last minute, by swapping the color of Scorpion/Sub-Zero's sprite.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/0/789840.jpg)
Source: MEL Magazine
![VANILLA ICE IS CONNECTED TO MORTAI KOMBAT (THROUGH THE NINJA TURTLES). Richard Divizio and Daniel Pesina, who portrayed several of the fighters, were also Foot Clan soldiers in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. Yup, that movie infamous for randomly featuring Vanilla Ice and his Ninja Rap.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/5/789835.jpg)
Sources: MEL Magazine, IMDb
![THE NINTENDO VERSION WAS NOTORIOUSLY BLOODLESS. Removing the gore from Mortal Kombat is like removing talking animals from Disney, yet that's what Nintendo demanded for the SNES port. The Sega version allowed the blood to be turned back on with a cheat code, which was one of the reasons it widely outsold the SNES version.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/1/789841.jpg)
Source: BBC
![MORTAL KOMBAT WAS CREATED BY A BUNCH OF BUDDIES After Street Fighter II carved a niche for fighting games, Midway artist John Tobias (left) wanted to make one of those. So he brought together a few old friends who were into martial arts and creative stuff, to help him with that.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/7/789847.jpg)
Source: MEL Magazine
![The moves were shot in a broom closet. Midway didn’t expect the game to be a hit. That meant no undue interference from higher-ups, but also no resources. The characters’ moves were filmed with a camcorder, using makeshift equipment.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/5/0/789850.gif)
Sources: MEL Magazine, Arquivo Mortal Kombat on YouTube
![SCORPION AND SUB-ZERO WERE ORIGINALLY BROTHERS In the backstory as John Tobias initially conceived it, the two ninjas were brothers who became enemies. That was later scrapped.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/9/789849.jpg)
Source: MEL Magazine
![THE MORTAL KOMBAT DRAGON CAME FROM A DESK ORNAMENT. A small dragon on the desk of a Midway exec was digitized and used in the game's backgrounds. John Tobias used that as a reference for drawing the dragon on the coin-op arcade - and then the iconic logo.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/6/789846.jpg)
Source: Mortal Kombat Online
![THE FIGHTS HAD TO END WITH A BANG. Ed Boon didn't like that in games like Street Fighter, the bouts just ended. Something should happen! he said. Somehow you gotta finish this guy off! The team took Boon's words to heart, and had the game challenge the player to do exactly that.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/2/789842.jpg)
Source: MEL Magazine
![MORTAL KOMBAT IS SPELLED WITH A K FOR TRADEMARK REASONS. Dragon Attack and Ultimate Kumite were among the titles considered, until they went with Mortal Combat except that it was spelled Mortal Kombat, as that was easier to trademark.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/6/789836.jpg)
Source: Mortal Kombat Online
![GORO WAS A FOOT-TALL DUMMY. There aren't many four-armed giants around, so the half-human, half-dragon boss was a motion puppet. It was made by sculptor Curt Chiarelli, a former college mate of Richard Divizio. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/4/789844.jpg)
Source: MEL Magazine
![SCORPION WAS GOING TO USE A LASSO. Daniel Pesina didn't like the idea, thinking it was a Wonder Woman thing, so he brought a rope dart he had at home (these guys were really into martial arts). Richard Divizio came up with the GET OVER HERE! move when he saw it.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/7/789837.jpg)
Source: MEL Magazine
![THE GAME WAS AN UNEXPECTED SUCCESS. Midway didn't expect to produce more than 200 arcade cabinets of Mortal Kombat. One year later, when the game was released on home consoles, they were talking about millions of cartridges sold.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/5/2/789852.jpg)
Source: MEL Magazine
![THE CREATORS OF MORTAL KOMBAT DIDN'T SEE A CENT. While Midway was raking it in, the small team that actually made the game was left out of the windfall. As per their contracts, they were paid for their work and that was it now Midway owned even their likenesses. That's why some of them refused to reprise their characters in the sequels.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/4/8/789848.jpg)
Source: MEL Magazine
![THEY WEREN'T TRYING TO MAKE AN ULTRA-VIOLENT GAME. That just happened as a part of development, said John Tobias. They did want to add a bit of blood, bruises, and that kind of stuff, but the technological limitations of the time didn't allow for such a subtle, grounded approach.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/8/3/9/789839.jpg)
Sources: MEL Magazine, Mortal Kombat Online