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 Pac-Man

In 1982, at the peak of Pac-Man
Fever, Coleco expanded its lines of Pac toys to include a half dozen
bendable PVC figures based on the game. The characters included Pac-Man, Ms.
Pac-Man, Blinky the ghost, Mr. Pac-Man, Mrs. Pac-Man, and - perhaps oddest of
all - "Pac-Angel."

Coleco had, by this time, already released a nice tabletop LED version of
Pac-Man, featuring the original game, a head-to-head version, a variation
called Eat & Run, and a demo mode. Not long afterward, this was
followed by a similar tabletop version of Ms. Pac-Man.
Coleco was far from the only company to have a license to produce
Pac-Man-related toys and other items, however. Everything from plush
versions of the character to hand puppets to bedsheets to metal TV trays were
made, with someone, somewhere, snatching up the license for everything in
between: breakfast cereal, puffy stickers, board games, card games, and even
records.
Kid Stuff's collection of Pac-Man records were aimed squarely at kids
- and, by the sound of things, rather young ones at that. The Adventures of
Pac-Man and a "limited edition Pac-Man picture disc" were
among the titles, which also included several book-and-record sets such as
Baby Pac-Man Goes To The Market.
It's interesting to note that, unlike most licensed properties today, there
was almost no coordination among the various Pac-Man licensees in the
early 1980s. The Pac-Man toys had nothing to do with the Pac-Man
records or the Pac-Man cartoon, and
the appearance of the characters often changed wildly from one manufacturer to
the next. Very seldom did any of the Pac-Man products bear any
resemblance whatsoever to the characters as originally depicted on the arcade
game's cabinet, either.


Though Pac-Man made a lot of money for its various licensees, the
marketability of the game faded quickly. Less-than-spectacular video game
spinoffs (such as the nightmarish video-pinball hybrid Baby Pac-Man and
Atari's amazingly disappointing home
version of the game), and the decline of the video game industry in general,
made the window for profiting off of the Pac properties very slim indeed.
The front and back of a typical Pac-Man blister card

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