The game that gobbled America

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next: The WORLD History Book.

Over forty-five years ago, a new video game captured the hearts of kids around the world. And not just little boys. This game didn’t focus on shooting aliens, or racing cars, or playing sports.

REICHARD: No, it didn’t. The cute characters, colorful screens, and simple rules appealed to just as many girls as guys. 

WORLD’s Jenny Rough reports.

AUDIO: [Pac-Man arcade music]

ROUGH: Step inside the “45 Years of Pac-Man” exhibit at the Paley Center for Media in New York City, and it’s as if you’re living inside the iconic video game.

TERESA BRADY: When we walk in it feels like you’re going through the Pac-Man maze.

Paley center spokesperson Teresa Brady says the exhibit celebrates the game that debuted in Japan on May 22, 1980.

RON SIMON: Pac-Man was invented by a Japanese game designer in his mid-20s.

That’s Ron Simon, head curator for the Paley Center.

SIMON: His name was Tōru Iwatani. And he wanted to create a game that everyone could play. 

Iwatani came up with the idea of Pac-Man after he saw a pizza with a single slice missing from the pie. That image inspired the main character: a yellow disk with an open mouth.

SIMON: He developed the game on one concept, and that was eating. That Pac-Man, to keep living, had to keep on eating these pellets and escape the ghosts.

Iwatani originally named his video game Puck-Man. A play on the Japanese word paku-paku which means flapping one’s mouth open and closed quickly, like when eating fast. But Puck-Man was not going to fly in America due to the fear teenagers would alter the word to something less innocent.

The game is simple. Players move Pac-Man through a maze where he gobbles up the pellets, a bunch of small white dots. Pac-Man must avoid four ghosts nicknamed Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. If a ghost catches Pac-Man—

AUDIO: [Ghost killing Pac-Man]

—he shrinks and dies. 

Iwatani wanted the ghosts to be cheery, not scary. And he gave each one an individual personality and movement.

RIGGS: One of them will kind of play it safe...

John Riggs runs a YouTube channel on retro video games.

RIGGS: ...but if you get closer to where they are, then they'll kind of creep in on you.

AUDIO: [Pac-Man eating power pellet and ghost]

For Riggs and many other American kids of the 80s, their first experience with Pac-Man was through the at-home Atari console. Riggs was four years old the day his dad came home with one. 

RIGGS: And I remember thinking to myself, "oh, so do I have to put quarters into it to play it at home?"

AUDIO: [Atari Pac-Man]

RIGGS: The Atari version, it was like microwaving leftovers to play the at-home version of these great arcade games. They still had the four ghosts and it’s still the same premise where you’re running around the maze to eat all these, I think the Atari called them wafers because they were flat.

Still, the best-seller. 

Another secret of Pac-Man’s appeal: no need to use buttons or tracker balls. Just a flexible wrist.

RIGGS: Here’s this cute, fun, lovable approachable character in Pac-Man that you can play a very fun game and it just uses one joystick, there’s no other buttons involved.

Pac-Man expanded into a bunch of variations. At the Paley Center exhibit, Brady encourages visitors to experience the game of their choice hands-on.

BRADY: Come over here. So you can scroll down.

Like Ms. Pac-Man.

ROUGH: Oh, Ms. Pac-Man. I love Ms. Pac-Man!

SOUND: [Ms. Pac Man intro music]

Though it’s been awhile since I played.

ROUGH: Oh, shoot.

AUDIO: [Ms. Pac-Man caught by a ghost]

ROUGH: Alright, we can move on.

Brady also liked Ms. PacMan when she was young.

BRADY: You know what it is? It's, I liked the opening music better.

AUDIO: [Ms. Pac-Man opening music]

BRADY: I think it was more charming, and of course, you know, I was a girl, and she was a girl.

Ms. Pac-Man has a bow on her head and starts the game in a pink-colored maze, instead of the original blue. A group of college dropouts created the unauthorized spinoff, and Pac-Man’s original publisher, Namco, acquired some of the rights in a complicated legal battle.

Pac-Man turned into a cultural phenomenon.

AUDIO: [Opening of Hanna Barbera’s Pac-Man]

The animation studio Hanna-Barbera had a huge hit in 1982 with its series Pac-Man. In the cartoon, Pac-Man had a wife, a baby, and even a dog named Chomp-Chomp. 

Paley Center curator Simon again:

SIMON: And that sort gave the possibility of Pac-Man having a family and traveling and not just locked in a maze like Pac-Man originally was in 1980.

Once Pac-Man burst out of that maze, he took off. The variety of games include Super Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man, and even the little known Professor Pac-Man.

AUDIO: [Professor Pac-Man]

Pac-Man merchandise ranged from metal lunch boxes to packets of trading cards complete with a stick of pink bubble gum. It inspired cereal, board games, and a hit song.

LYRICS: I got a pocket full of quarters and I’m heading to the arcade. Cuz I got Pac Man fever. It’s driving me crazy.

“Pac Man Fever” by the musical duo Buckner & Garcia sold over two and a half million copies.

Some say Pac-Man carries a hidden message, like a warning against the dangers of consumerism. Riggs again:

RIGGS: Yeah, you have to eat all the dots. I’ve heard all the stories where—I think people find something even as innocent as Pac-Man, however innocent that can be, you can twist it any way you want. I don’t believe in any of those things.

Neither does Simon.

SIMON: Well, I think it’s just a fun game where you just have to continue to eat to stay alive. It’s almost very much like what it means to be a human. Any person, young, old, you just have to eat and continue to move, watch out for the obstacles, and then you thrive for another day. At its core, I mean, it does have something very human about this video game.

Pac-Man just may be one of the more fun reminders that everyone needs their daily bread.

AUDIO: [Pac-Man gameplay]

That’s this week’s History Book. I’m Jenny Rough.

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