Week 29: Percussion music arr. by Scott Director

Unlike the band music from two weeks ago, this arrangement of "Pac-Man Fever" is strictly a "percussion feature" for bells, xylophone, snare drum, timp-toms, bass drums, and cymbals. There's also 3 measures of agogo bells and tambourine.

I am sadly not aware of any recordings of this arrangement. as best I can tell, it consists of a brief percussion intro, the Pac-Man intro music, a single verse and chorus, then the Pac-Man intro again (played twice back-to-back), then a percussion ending.

The copy I have is the only one I've ever seen show up on eBay and it's obviously never been used. If anyone wants to take a crack at recording it, let me know. 

Wednesday cover: "Pac-Man Fever" by Worm Quartet & the Nick Atoms

Hopefully you know who/what Worm Quartet is by now. When he released his 2007 album, Mental Notes, he offered a bonus album, Unreleasable, to those that pre-ordered. One of the tracks on the latter was this performance of "Pac-Man Fever" from MarsCon 2005. The album is out of print and unavailable, but you can hear the song on MadMusic.com.

Off-Topic Tuesday: "Q*bert" by the great Luke Ski

In 2014, the great Luke Ski corrected the grievous oversight of their not being a song about this well-recognized arcade icon. You can see the video I made for it on YouTube or buy the track on Bandcamp.

Album certified gold on April 26, 1982

40 years ago today, the RIAA certified the Pac-Man Fever album as gold, indicating it had shipped over 500,000 copies!

From Radio & Records

From Radio & Records, July 2, 1982

On the charts April 24, 1982

40 years ago today, "Pac-Man Fever" was #35 (down 11) on the Billboard Hot 100 and holding at #14 (down 2) on Cash Box Top 100 Singles. In Canada, the single was #12 (down 3) on the RPM 50 Singles.

Meanwhile the album was #52 (up 6) on Billboard Top LPs & Tape and #32 (up 4) on Cash Box Top 200 Albums.

Week 28: Pac-Man stickers by Fleer

Pac-Man was everywhere, so of course there was something similar to trading cards. And it was pretty obvious that whoever came up with the sayings on these stickers was familiar with the lyrics of "Pac-Man Fever". Cases in point:

There's actually a few different versions of the stickers. On the actual stickers, the main difference is whether Pac-Man has red & blue highlights and eyes, as you can see from the second and third stickers above.

If you want more info about Pac-Man stickers (and also Ms. Pac-Man and Super Pac-Man ones), see The Pac-Star by Kevin Jay North. Also thanks to him for the images above.

Wednesday cover: "Pac-Man Fever" by Jenson Publications (arr. by Paul Jennings)

I'm breaking the pattern of moving back in time on Wednesday covers to let you hear what the marching band arrangement (as covered this week) sounds like. Jenson published an album each year with performances of their latest marching band arrangements. "Pac-Man Fever" appears on side 4 of the Marching Band '82 double record album.

Off-Topic Tuesday: "Arcade Gaming Shrine" by Palette-Swap Ninja

This song is an ode to just how one becomes a classic arcade game collector. There's a ton of arcade game call outs. How many games from the Pac-Man Fever album can you find, either in the lyrics or the video?

On Dr. Demento April 18, 1982

40 years ago today, "Pac-Man Fever" was #4 on the local (KMET, Los Angeles), live Dr. Demento Show Top Ten. Thanks to Jeff Morris and his site for the information!

On the charts April 17, 1982

40 years ago today, "Pac-Man Fever" was #24 (down 13) on the Billboard Hot 100 and holding at #12 on Cash Box Top 100 Singles. In Canada, the song peaked at #9 for a second week on the RPM 50 Singles.

Meanwhile the album was #58 (up 8) on Billboard Top LPs & Tape and #36 (up 9) on Cash Box Top 200 Albums.

Week 27: Band music by Jenson Publications

You got a Billboard top 10 hit in winter? We gotta have a marching band arrangement for the fall! And thus Paul Jennings arranged one. They also sold a Pac-Man sound effects tape that could be played during portions of the performance.

Wednesday cover: "Pac-Man Fever" by Stingray Music

This has been released under a few different company names. It exists in both a demonstration version (about 3:53, includes lead vocals) and a karaoke version (about 4:02).

The music sounds pretty close to the original. The lead singer on the demo version, however, does not sound much like Gary Garcia or even match his intonations. Both versions are on YouTube (demo, karaoke).

Off-topic Tuesday: "Video Games" by Open End

This song/video is from 1980, making it a pretty early entry in the "songs about video games" category. It was written by Rick E. Lewis.

Amazingly, a video for it survives and is on YouTube. However, if you want a cleaner version of the audio, you should check this one out.

When I first posted this to Twitter, I used information from a dissertation on video games and popular music coming together, which said the song was from 1978. That turned out to be incorrect.

Halfway Point

This week marks the halfway point of the "52 Weeks of Pac-Man Fever" project. It's hard to believe we're already halfway there, but we are. I honestly wasn't sure when I started if I'd actually be able to come up with 52 items. And at that point I had several items listed individually that I'm now starting to list as groups so I can squeeze them all in!

So where are we? Well, as of this time in 1982, we've seen the "Pac-Man Fever" single peak and start falling on all the American charts. On RPM's 50 Singles chart in Canada, the single has just hit its peak. The album is still climbing the American album charts. The single has also gone gold (shipped 1 million copies), but the album has not yet gone gold (shipped 500,000 copies).

Coming up, besides the album peaking on the charts, we'll look at some of the ways Jerry Buckner has kept the Pac-Man Fever flame burning in May. Then we have the release of the second single from the album, "Do the Donkey Kong", which we'll celebrate with Donkey Kong Month in June. Beyond that is the re-recording and re-release of the album in 1999, and the subsequent merchandise Buckner & Garcia created.

I do have a special plan to wrap up the end of this project, so just because the history starts winding down, don't think that it's over! In the meantime, please share the tweets or blog entries with any friends you think might be interested.

On the charts April 10, 1982

40 years ago today (1982), "Pac-Man Fever" was #12 (down 2) on Cash Box Top 100 Singles, #11 (down 2) on the Billboard Hot 100, and still #8 on Record World Singles. Over on RPM's 50 Singles chart in Canada, "Pac-Man Fever" peaked at #9 (up 6).

Meanwhile the album was #64 (up 6) on Billboard Top LPs & Tape, #45 (up 24) on Cash Box Top 200 Albums, and #22 (up 53!) on Record World Albums.

This was the final issue of Record World, so we'll not be seeing the single or album on those charts in the future.

Week 26: Pac-Man Fever song book

This book contains the words and music for all the songs on the album. Only the basic melodies and bass parts, though. As it says on the cover, it also includes a coloring page for each song. Most of these were art from the arcade companies.

Original cost of the book was $7.95. It's ISBN is 0-89898-148-4, but the only result that will get you is the Memorabilia page on my Pac-Man Fever Forever site.

Credits

Book design & illustration: Frank Milone
Editor: Audrey L. Kleiner
Production: Frank J. Hackinson
Printer: Central Litho (Miami)

Wednesday cover: "Pac Man Fever" by too many artists

This is the insane one. First, there are three versions of this cover: a straight one, one with Halloween sound effects, and a karaoke version. All clock in at 4:05 except for one karaoke one which is 4:00. Why Halloween sound effects? I have no idea! "Ghosts", I guess.

Second, it was released under seven different publishers. Third, it was released under 13 different band names. Fourth, it was released on 33 different digital albums, but one of those has two different versions of the cover art! You'll note a lot of these albums have "70's" in the title. I'll remind you that "Pac-Man Fever" was released in 1981.

I'm not going to list them all here. You can find the list at "Pac-Man Fever Forever" until I get it added to this entry.

All three are on YouTube: the regular one, the Halloween SFX one, and the karaoke one. You can also buy them on Amazon.

Off-topic Tuesday: The Pac-Man EP by Worm Quartet

Back in December I did a Wednesday cover about Worm Quartet's most recent version of "Pac-Man Fever". Now I'll cover the rest of the EP it comes from, as it's a nice follow-up to The Pac-Man Album.

The Pac-Man EP consists of 11 tracks.

1. "Pac-Man is Forty and So Should You", an update of a WQ original, "Pac-Man is Naked and So Should You."
2. The aforementioned cover of "Pac-Man Fever."
3. "Take the Fruit and Scoot", a cover of a song from a Kids Stuff Pac-Man record.
4. A cover of the Pac-Man TV show music.
5. to 7. Covers of the Pac-Man TV show intro/outro and a cover of a Pac-Man Cereal commercial.
8. to 9. Remixes of track 1.
10. A cover of Barnes & Barnes' "I Had Sex With Pac-Man."
11. "Pac-Man", a 2013 song by Sudden Death (a.k.a. Devo Spice) feat. Worm Quartet... with a small tweak.

You can buy the EP on CD, cassette, vinyl, or as a download at Bandcamp.

Spotify declared 11 tracks too many for an EP. It therefore became The Pac-Man Assemblage Assortment Thingy of Selections That Plays Extendedly. They also declared the artwork by TV's Kyle a possible trademark violation, so...

On the charts April 3, 1982

40 years ago today, "Pac-Man Fever" was #10 (down 3) on Cash Box Top 100 Singles, still peaking at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #8 on Record World Singles. In Canada, "Pac-Man Fever" was #15 (up 7) on RPM's 50 Singles chart.

Meanwhile the album was #75 on Record World Albums, #70 (up 10) on Billboard Top LPs & Tape, and #69 (up 18) on Cash Box Top 200 Albums.

Week 25: Mexican 12" single

In Mexico, there was a red vinyl 12" single  of "Pac-Man El Comelon". The music appears to be identical to the American 12", except the two sides are reversed. (Scans courtesy Discogs.com.) This concludes the look at international records.