Even the Bank of Canada can’t resist the Konami code

Konami’s infamous cheat code has lived a long life in video games and the internet at large. It first appeared in the 1986 NES game Gradius to help the developers beat their own game; it’s since grown beyond a cheat in later Konami games to a general pop culture joke.

It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate use for a cheat code than a bank, and it seems that the Bank of Canada agrees. If you enter the code correctly (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A) on its page celebrating the new $10 bank note, it showers your screen in bills and plays Canada’s national anthem. The goof was spotted by CTV News, which reports that the banks web team “thought the Konami code was a fun way to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation.”

Of course, the Bank of Canada is hardly the only one to feature a Konami Code Easter egg — sites like ESPN and Facebook have hidden it on their sites before. May I also recommend a visit to our sister site Polygon?