Week 3: The Album

As part of the record deal with Columbia, Buckner & Garcia had to provide an entire album quickly. They wanted to do a normal album, but Columbia insisted it all be more video game songs. Thus we got this pop culture masterpiece in January 1982.

Pac-Man Fever album sleeve

Week 2: Columbia 45

After great success in the Atlanta market, Columbia/CBS Records signed a deal with Buckner & Garcia for the "Pac-Man Fever" song. They released it nationwide on 45 in December 1981 using the same tracks as the BGO 45.

Pac-Man Fever Columbia 45, side 1

Pac-Man Fever Columbia 45, side 2

Week 1: BGO Single (Where it began!)

In October 1981, after Buie/Geller failed to get a major record label interested in Buckner & Garcia's new song about the video game craze, they published it on their own label. BG-1001 was "Pac-Man Fever" with the instrumental version on the B side. The 45 was only released in the Atlanta area. Despite this, copies are not overly hard to find today thanks to sites like eBay and Discogs.

"Pac-Man Fever" BGO single, side A

"Pac-Man Fever (Inst.)" BGO single, Side B

Introduction

Hi, I'm "Eclectic Lee" Seitz and apparently I'm the world's biggest Pac-Man Fever fan. That is, the song and album by Buckner and Garcia, not the entire phenomenon. (But I like Pac-Man just fine.) I've somewhat impromptu decided to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the song and album by stealing, er, borrowing an idea from Tim Lapetino. To celebrate the game's 40th anniversary, he did "365 of Pac", which was 365 days of Pac-Man. There's not quite as much specifically Pac-Man Fever memorabilia as Pac-Man, so I'm doing 52 Weeks of PMF!

A Bit of Background

I was fortunate to have a mother who was also into video games when I was a child back in the 1980s. In fact, she was the one who discovered a Pac-Man cocktail table in an out-of-the-way sandwich shop and took me to go see it. This was the first time we'd seen the game. There were many subsequent trips to go play it. It didn't take long, however, for you to find the game everywhere! Pac-Man Fever truly swept the nation.

I don't remember exactly when or how I became aware of the song "Pac-Man Fever", but I probably heard it on the radio. Nor am I exactly sure how I discovered there was an entire album of video game related songs by the same artist. You see, I'd not yet hit that age where you're all in to popular music. But I do vaguely remember making a trip to a record store to seek out this album. Mostly likely it was my mother who actually bought it.

What I do remember is copying it to cassette tape and taking it an a cassette player -- no, not a boom box, just a cassette recorder -- to elementary school to share with my friends. Sadly, I forget their reaction. But I wound up listening to that cassette a lot! And for many, many years. I could fit all the songs on one side, except one. So "Mousetrap", a song about a video game I had yet to see in any arcade, got consigned to the back side. (A local Putt-Putt Golf and Games did eventually get the game.)

Fast forward to about 1994. The World Wide Web is just taking off. I was already on the Internet with e-mail and Usenet and was part of a community that shared my passion for the video games of the '80s, both home and arcade. So "classic video games" became one of the first sections when I created my personal web page. I still had my album, so I decided that the full credits from the back of the Pac-Man Fever album is something unique I could share. (Remember, things like Discogs.com didn't exist back then.) Eventually I added more information about the song and album. Today that site still exists as "Pac-Man Fever Forever".

Genesis and What's to Come

So when Pac-Man celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2020, it made me realize that meant the song and album had that same anniversary looming. As mentioned above, Tim Lapetino started his 365 of Pac project and that got me thinking. I probably don't have nearly enough items to do 365 days, but I could do 52 weeks. But "Pac-Man Fever" wasn't release until October 1981, so I had plenty of time to think about it. But being the master procrastinator I am, I did not. Then I woke up this morning and realized it was October now and if I was going to do this, I better get to it!

So, what are you going to see as part of this project? Good question! I haven't completely figured that out myself. I'll be sharing photos of records -- including international releases -- and memorabilia and cover versions of the songs. We'll celebrate the 40th anniversary of various milestones on various record charts as they happen, because I have those dates! Beyond that, I my plan is to mostly cover things in chronological order as best I can. I'm using this as week zero to give myself a little time to come up with a more complete plan. Let's see if  I do or not. Regardless, I at least know where to start next week, so I'll see you then.