Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Rein-Toon-Ation: Pac-Man & the Ghostly Adventures (2013)

Pac-Man returned to action in 2013's Pac-Man & the Ghostly Adventures, currently airing as part of Sinclair Broadcasting's Kids Click package.

The series initially aired on DisneyXD here in the US, and concurrently in Japan, which got one extra season out of the series, in addition to some holiday themed episodes that didn't air here, although they could, since the series is also streaming on Netflix.

The biggest difference between this series and the game on which it's based is the premise that the ghosts are secretly pals with ol' Pac, including Pinky, a female ghost with a crush on Pac-Man. Instead of being on what seemed to be Earth in the 1982 ABC series, Pac-Man and pals are on their own world, far more surreal and bizarre thanks to CGI tech.

Let's just give you a tease with "All You Can Eat":



Ghostly Adventures was seemingly dropped by DisneyXD in 2015, but no formal announcement of cancellation was ever made. As noted, it's now on Kids Click, which is experiencing some growing pains in its first few days on the air.

Rating: B+.

4 comments:

Goldstar said...

Pac Man or just "Pac" as he's usually referred to here, is portrayed as an orphaned teenager rather than an adult husband (married to Ms. Pac Man) and father as he's typically portrayed in the games. Also, on this show, his being yellow is actually a plot point. According to the shows' mythos, only yellow Pac Worlders can eat ghosts, so the shows' big bad had all of yellow Pac citizens "eliminated", leaving Pac as one the very few "Yellow Ones" left.

I've seen several episodes of this series. It wasn't great, but the CG animation was impressive. Pac Man and the Ghostly Adventures was a very good looking show, at least. Too bad the writing wasn't quite up to snuff.

hobbyfan said...

And that's where I had a problem with what I'd seen. The writing was, well, all over the place.

Chris Sobieniak said...

Just seemed like they were trying to get another "Sonic" out of this guy.

hobbyfan said...

And it failed, or so it seems.