Pac-Man Pop Culture History (May 22)

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

1980: Pac-Man Arrives

A world-wide phenomenon began on May 22, 1980, known as Pac-Man. How could such a simple video game, where the main character doesn’t say anything more than “waka-waka”, take over the world?

Pac Man eating a line of dots — *(Pixabay)*

Today is Pac Man’s birthday. Originally called Puck Man, the legendary arcade game, Pac-Man was released in Japan by Namco on this day in 1980. He was so popular that he made his way over to the states with the help of Midway Manufacturing that October.

At the time of his arrival, arcades were full of shooting games which mainly appealed to males, but Pac-Man appealed to everyone. It is one of the highest-grossing video games of all time having generated over $2.5 billion in quarters by the 1990’s!

He’s Just So Hungry…

The simple game to play but difficult to master maze game became a pop culture icon seemingly overnight. Pac-Man has dominated pop culture in many ways:

By 1982, around 100 licensees were selling Pac-Man merchandise including jewelry, t-shirts, stickers and even a breakfast cereal made by General Mills.

At least 47 arcade spinoff games have been made including Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Land, Pac-Man World, Pac-Man All-Stars and 2025’s Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac.

Hanna-Barbera created a cartoon TV show based on the yellow fella in 1982. Another one, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures, aired on Disney XD in 2013.

Pac-Man has been popular with music too. Buckner & Garcia’s 1981 song, “Pac-Man Fever” went to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. In 1982, Weird Al Yankovic created a parody a Beatles song changing “Taxman” to “Pac-Man”. Ten years later, British musician Aphex Twin released an album that was filled with a ton of music samples from the game.

Actor Denis Akiyama portrayed the Pac-Man creator, Toru Iwatani in the 2015 movie Pixels. Pac-Man makes a huge cameo in it too. He and the ghosts appear in Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph and Ralph Breaks the Internet movies. Plus, a number of movies centering on Pac-Man have been in the works and then canceled over the years too with one canceled as recently as 2025. (He’s not exactly the best actor. He might be a diva too.)

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.

1992: Johnny

After 30 years hosting The Tonight Show on NBC, Johnny Carson finally signs off.

1926: Gene

An early “crooner” of his day, Gene Austin’s song, “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue” hits #1.

1985: Bond

Graphic image from the movie poster for "A View to a Kill" — *(TVDB)*

Roger’s Moore’s 14th and last James Bond film, A View to a Kill, premieres in San Francisco.

1849: Abe Lincoln, the Inventor

Abraham and drawings of his invention — *(Wikipedia)*

Twelve years before Abraham Lincoln earned the impressive title of President of the United States, he took on a different title: inventor. On this day in 1849, Lincoln received patent No. 6,469 for his device that could be used for “Buoying Vessels Over Shoals”. The device would help lift boats over obstructions.

This is how Lincoln’s idea came about: While working on a flatboat that transported merchandise down the Sangamon River to New Orleans, two different boats became stuck, and it took a lot of work to get them unstuck. His invention was inspired by these incidents. The invention was a system of inflatable bellows that would inflate with air when a boat would run aground.

Although the device was never manufactured, Lincoln remains as the only president to have obtained a patent.