Something New: 52 Weeks of Pac-Man Fever

I've started a new project to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pac-Man Fever: 52 Weeks of PMF. Although it's primarily a Twitter project (@52ofPMF), I've also started a separate blog for it as well. I hope you'll consider joining me on this journey through all the Pac-Man Fever I can find.

Catching Up With Buckner and Garcia (originally for Classic Gamer Magazine)

[Classic Gamer Magazine introduction. This article originally appeared in CGM #2 (winter 1999–2000). This is the article as I submitted it and may not exactly match what was published.]

"I've got a pocket full of quarters and I'm headed to the arcade."

Do those words sound familiar? If you're a child of the '80s, they should. They're the opening of Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia's hit song, "Pac-Man Fever," from the album of the same name. The "Pac-Man Fever" single went platinum (about 1,700,000 copies sold), while the album went gold (roughly 900,000 sold). Both were released in early 1982 and quickly rose up the charts. The single peaked at #9 on the Billboard chart and #3 on the Record World chart. Not bad for two radio jingle writers in Atlanta who wrote the song in about an hour.

Now, 17 years later, Buckner and Garcia have re-recorded and re-released the album on compact disc. Shortly after the re-release, Classic Gamer Magazine got Buckner and Garcia to take a little time for an exclusive e-mail interview.

The CD

Classic Gamer Magazine: Let's start with the most obvious question: Why re-release Pac-Man Fever on CD 17 years after the original album's release?

Buckner & Garcia: The demand and desire we have been receiving showed us a lot of people wanted a CD version.

CGM: This project seemed to be on-again/off-again for over a year. What finally prompted you to actually do it?

B&G: It took awhile to get all our ducks in a row to make the release possible.

CGM: Did you have to renegotiate certain rights with the arcade manufacturers of each game?

B&G: We still have and maintain all the rights we had on the 1982 release.

CGM: What was involved in re-recording the songs? Did you still have your lyric and music sheets from when you originally recorded the album?

B&G: The original lyric sheets and music were gone, so we went on memory and the lyrics [Lee Seitz] had printed on [his] website.

The Record

CGM: Who sang what on both the album and CD?

Garcia: The vocals are done by me.

CGM: I know you were going to do a tour in Europe when the album was released there? Did it actually happen? Did you do any touring in North America?

B&G: There was never a European tour, but we did a lot of touring for promotion in the U.S.

CGM: In an interview in Video Games magazine, you said a man named Edgel Groves had recorded a country and western version of Pac-Man Fever. Did it ever see commercial release?

B&G: The country version of the song was never released.

CGM: Besides singing "Puck-Man" instead of "Pac-Man," were there any other differences in the Japanese version of Pac-Man Fever ?

B&G: "Puc-Man" was the only change in the version for Japan.

CGM: I've seen a reference to a German version of Pac-Man Fever (called Pac-Man Feiber ) sung by Gerald Mann. Did you or anyone else do any other versions in different languages?

Garcia: I have not heard about the German or any other different language versions.

Back to Today

CGM: So just what have you been up to since Pac-Man Fever slid off the charts?

B&G: We still are writing, recording, and producing music and advertising jingles.

CGM: What were your favorite video games in the '80s? Do you still play video games? (If so, which ones?)

Garcia: [My] favorite game was, is, and always will be Pac-Man.

You can order your own copy of the Pac-Man Fever CD for $15.99 plus $3.50 shipping and handling at www.bucknergarcia.com. [OFFER NO LONGER VALID.]

Postscript (June 2013)

As you may have guessed, the title is a bit misleading. This was not an interview with Buckner and Garcia, but just Gary Garcia. How it came about is probably a blog post in itself, but essentially their recording engineer turned to me for some minor help while they were re-recording it because I had one of the few Web pages dedicated to the album at the time. You can find a bit more at my Pac-Man Fever Forever pages.

I was a bit disappointed in the final result of the interview due to Mr. Garcia's curt answers. But in his defense, it was an e-mail interview and I don't know how his typing skills were. Perhaps I should have done it on the phone. Also, I'd hoped to get some answers from Jerry Buckner as well, but he didn't respond.

If you didn't know, I'm a bit of a Pac-Man Fever aficionado, so several of these questions might have been a bit obscure, but after reading the vintage interview in Video Games, they were what I was wondering about. I suspect the county version of "Pac-Man Fever" is what the duo later released as "Pac-Man Fever Unplugged." I've forgotten whether that was released before or after I asked the question about it.

Hardly a brag [Mattel Football I handheld, 5200 joysticks, Pac-Man Fever 45]

[Originally posted to rec.games.video.classic.]

When yard sale/rummage sale hopping on Saturday. The only video game items I saw at all were a Virtual Boy w/1 game($15; I passed), a Mattel Football handheld w/o battery cover ($0.25; I took), and a pair of 5200 controllers ($1; I took). The Mattel Football replaces my older unit which I've been unable to repair. (I don't have a screwdriver bit in the shape of a little triangle. Damn you, Mattel Electronics!) The 5200 controllers I haven't tested yet, but I only got them for spare parts. Someone's messed with them before because the two fire buttons are missing from one side of one and the flex circuit for the Start/Pause/Reset buttons has been incorrectly reinserted.

Finally, the minor brag. On a lark, I flipped through the 45s at one yard sale. About the third one in was the Pac-Man Fever single. One dime later, it was mine! This prompted me to finally hook up the turntable I bought at a yard sale last year. Now I've finally heard the instrumental version of Pac-Man Fever. I just need the Donkey Kong single now.

[I've since bought the Donkey Kong single on eBay. I still could use that stupid triangle-shaped bit, though! — 18 June 2010]