Video games were becoming all the rage in the early 80's. Not just the ones you could play at home, mind you, but the arcade games, too. Hanna-Barbera thought they saw a possible hit series in adapting Midway Games' Pac-Man into an animated cartoon for ABC in 1982. What they got was a colossal flop.
Following is the intro:
Actor Marty Ingels, by this point now working mostly as an agent, voiced the title character, 13 years after working on the Motormouse & Autocat feature of Cattanooga Cats, and as far as I know, it was his last voice-over job. Ingels also took part in ABC's sneak preview special that season, where he taught the kids to verbalize the sound effect made by Pac-Man in the video game (wocka, wocka). The novelty single, "Pac-Man Fever", a huge hit for Buckner & Garcia earlier in the year, was far more popular than this show, even though there was a merchandising tie-in with Chef Boy-ar-dee, and a Christmas special that served as a sort-of 14th episode to the series. Pac-Man was cancelled after 2 seasons, but the video game endures nearly 30 years later.
Rating: C--.
No comments:
Post a Comment