1980-1981: The Birth of a Legend

1980-1981: The Birth of a Legend
System: Arcade
Developer: Namco of Japan
Publisher: Namco of Japan

1980. The Cold War was starting to thaw. Long-haired musicians were everywhere. Materialism swept North America. Coke was huge (and I don't mean Pepsi's rival). Arcade games were starting to get off the ground. But small blips of dots and bleeping sounds weren't enough to kick-start what would become a multibillion dollar industry. Mario, Link, Sonic, Cloud, Lara Croft, and Duke Nukem were all years away. Vids needed a mascot, a face - someone who could stand for the entire quarter-sucking industry....

One evening a young Namco game designer named Tohru Iwatani went out for pizza with some friends. After the usual chatting and sipping of drinks, their large pizza arrived. Tohru removed the first slice and brought it to his watering mouth. He causally glanced at the shape of the pizza that was left. Cells in his brain fired. His mind raced. What if?

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Believe it or not, it's true. Pac-Man is based on a pizza with a slice missing.

Namco of Japan originally called him Puck-Man but wisely decided to change his name before release - the American penchant for graffiti wouldn't have helped the company's advertising any. Before long, Pac-Man was as ubiquitous as the swastika in Nazi Germany. You couldn't enter a shopping mall without seeing Pac-Man games, T-shirts, bedspreads, and lunch boxes - or an arcade, either.

The attached pictures come from the first Pac-Man title created (Namco's Puck-Man, not the one licensed by Midway) - naturally, the characters' names are different from the US version. Pac's mortal enemies were called Akabei, Pinky, Aosuke, and Guzuta (the American ones were Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde). The gameplay was so basic even a five-year-old could master it: Eat dots until you die. The power pellets allowed the hunted to become the hunter, letting kids of all sizes go on murderous rampages, temporarily vanquishing their foes.

Namco and Midway quickly realized they had a hit on their hands and began a string of sequels that even the Friday the 13th series couldn't compete with.

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1981: Pac-Man

System: Atari 2600/Intellivision
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

The Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man was, simply put, awful. The music was bad, the graphics were horrible, and the levels were beyond repetitive. Little charms like the Pac-Man death melody and the cute cherries were replaced with garish counterparts. In a nutshell, the brilliance that was arcade Pac-Man was lost and never to be found. Some game historians have compared this bomb of a title to the monstrosity that was E.T: The Game. Though there are gamers out there who love nostalgia and would love to play old 2600 games just for the fun of it, they would probably not play this title.

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On the popular culture side of things, though, Pac-Man's (almost) round disc never shined brighter. Pac-Man was licensed to several food companies and starred in General Mills' Pac-Man cereal as well as Chef Boyardee's Pac-Man Pasta. In the fall of 1981, musicians Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia spoofed Ted Nugent's song Cat Scratch Fever with a song of their own: Pac-Man Fever. Despite the bizarre lyrics, Pac-Man Fever climbed to number nine in the US.