Pac Man 30th Anniversary

By James Sheldon on May 21st, 2010

Happy anniversary, circle with a mouth!

Pac-Man. Harbinger of what the 80s would become, has turned 30. For those of us who were kids when Pac hit the scene, yeah, that means we can no longer lie about being 26. I’m really stoked to grab this headline, because I’ve still got one of those plug and play “old-school” throwbacks that my kids got me for Christmas about 5 years ago, and I think I may take the rest of the day and just play Pac-Man.

If you don’t have a plug and play, just head over to google, where you can seriously play Pac-Man on their homepage (just use the arrow keys). Oh, those folks at Google. I’m crushin’.

So. Let’s toss Pac-Man some props in a “remember when Pac-Man…”

-was introduced on the Atari 2600?
-on the Atari 5200?
-had his own song? Pac-Man Fever? My cousin and I would listen to that thing over and over on 45 vinyl–usually at 78 RPM. What a terrible song.
-had his own Saturday morning cartoon?
-had his own pasta?
-had his own cereal?
-introduced us to his sweet lady friend, Ms. Pac-Man? Yeah, she had a bow and a sexy mole. And she’s only 28. Hot.
-and of course, when he became Super Pac-Man? He could eat the super-pellets, then eat through walls, all swollen on Pac-Man steroids. Everyone who likes to argue about the rise of the performance enhancing drugs in sports? You best recognize. It started with Super Pac-Man.