1980: Pac-Man Arrives
On this day in 1980, the legendary arcade game, Pac-Man was released by Namco and made his debut in Japan. He made his way over to the states by October of the same year. As you may remember, the game was hugely popular with tons of tie-in merchandise, Hanna-Barbera created a TV cartoon show and Pac-Man even had a top ten hit.
At the time of his arrival, arcades were full of shooting games which mainly appealed to males, but Pac-Man appealed to both genders. It is one of the highest-grossing video games of all time having generated over $2.5 billion in quarters by the 1990’s!
Today, over 30 official “spin-offs” of the game have been produced. Pac-Man also has the highest “brand-awareness” of all video game characters among Americans, being recognized by 94 percent of them. He’s sort of the “golden arches” of games.
Movies Released
- 1992: Alien 3
- 1992: Encino Man
- 1996: Mission: Impossible
- 1998: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- 2002: About Schmidt
- 2008: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
- 2009: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
- 2015: Poltergeist
- 2015: Tomorrowland
- 2020: Survive the Night
- 2020: The Lovebirds
TV Series Debuts
- 2014: Return to Amish
- 2016: Preacher
- 2018: Our Wild Life
- 2020: The Big Fib
Famous Birthdays
- 1970: Naomi Campbell (model)
- 1974: Sean Gunn (actor)
- 1978: Ginnifer Goodwin (actress)
- 1979: Maggie Q. (actress)
- 1982: Apolo Ohno (Olympic speed skater)
- 2001: Judah Lewis (actor)
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