Saturday, November 27, 2021

Week 7: 8-Track

 The third and final format the album was originally released on was 8-track. For reasons I've yet to discover, the font used for the title was different than that on LP or cassette, although the photo of game play was the same. (Photos courtesy Tim Peters.)




Saturday, November 20, 2021

Week 6: Cassette

Naturally, the Pac-Man Fever album wasn't only released on vinyl. This week we look at the cassette version. There's two variations: one with songs on the J-card and one without. Neither seems rarer than the other. (Scans courtesy discogs.com.)

This, however, is a rarity. An unopened PMF cassette in a spaghetti box. I've only ever seen one come up on eBay in the past 25ish years and that was earlier this year.




Saturday, November 13, 2021

Week 5: Publicity Photo


Week 5: Publicity photo

If you've got a hot song on the air, your band needs a publicity photo, right? Well, this is what Buckner & Garcia wound up with. Jerry Buckner (center) is still known to sometimes sell autographed copies of it to this day.

Here's an autographed photo I bought last year. Mr. Buckner was kind enough to personalize it.


(I'm only a "long time friend" in the sense that he knows about my PMF website and answers my e-mails, which I try to keep infrequent.)

Saturday, November 6, 2021

Week 4: Album sleeve

Something unique to the Pac-Man Fever album are the Pac-Man patterns on both sides of the album sleeves. They even advertised them with a sticker on the shrink wrap! 

Photo courtesy Discogs.com

Here are the patterns in 4K-ish glory (courtesy Rodney Siddall). 


In case you're... younger than me, the ghost monsters in the Pac-Man arcade game reacted in predictable manners to Pac-Man's movements. Therefore, there was practically an industry devoted to publishing patterns players could memorize to excel at the game. The patterns here are credited to Edgel and Chuck Groves. We'll be seeing Edgel Groves' name again a little later.

Last play on American Top 40

Forty years ago today, "Pac-Man Fever" was played for the last time on American Top 40. It was a "Long Distance Dedication...