Mouth or moustache? The mystery deepens

This guy's face has been a center of controversy for more than 20 years.

Believe it or not, fighting games did exist prior to Street Fighter II. In fact, the original Street Fighter, though beautiful to look at when it debuted, was mechanically terrible.

One of the more popular early fighting games was Karate Champ, born at the arcade and later ported to the NES. Hand-to-hand combat was simple, choppy and not all that great, but there wasn't anything better, really. You had two identical guys fighting each other, one clad in white and the other in red (I've read Ken and Ryu were based on these guys). But despite the game's simplicity, one complex dilemma remains: What is that on the sensei/referee's face?

If he's frowning, he's a Richard Marx wannabe; if it's a moustache, he's Gene Shalat. Either way, I'm not sure anyone knows what's going on with this guy.

The argument for it being a frown: It would look pretty funny to have a guy looking face-on to the camera with huge eyebrows, eyes and no nose. I mean, it worked for The Blank in Dick Tracy, why not this guy? And while we're at it, why is this guy doing the peepee dance?

The moustache argument: Take a look at the two fighters. They both have abnormally huge noses and no mouths. So what makes this guy so special he gets a mouth? (Note the Ken and Ryu resemblance between them) Also, if his frown is that big, then he has a humongous mouth! I mean this guy can swallow cantaloupes without having to bite them. Joey Chestnut would be proud.

So what is the deal with this guy? Does anyone really know what that is on his face? I mean, big hair and a huge moustache may have been all the rage in the 1980s, and maybe perhaps the video game gods were just going with the times.