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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so

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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our favorite

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Speaker 1: video game ghost super producer, mister Max Williams.

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Speaker 2: Walker walk a Max sorry teenage riot.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's a cut I wasn't expecting, but I love it.

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Speaker 1: That's Noel Brown. I'm ben bowling before we go.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll tell you all that. Yeah, I've decided on

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Speaker 3: the next tattoo already.

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Speaker 2: Oh good.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna be the third Empire symbol on the

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Speaker 3: inner bicep in.

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Speaker 2: The at arm. You know, you know, I don't. Is

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Speaker 2: it Star Trek related.

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Speaker 1: It's Claire obscure related, older scrolls, elder scrolls. That's right, okay,

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Speaker 1: you know all right, And thank you for not saying

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Speaker 1: inner thigh, which I thought you were about to describe.

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Speaker 2: Look.

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Speaker 1: Uh, we have a great research brief from our pal

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Speaker 1: friend of the show and north star Andrea, who I

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Speaker 1: don't think has a ridiculous street name yet.

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Speaker 2: No Andrea. The words the word carpenter, sharpentier.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I like a rhyme, you know, almost sucker for rhyme.

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Speaker 2: Nol. He had to, we had to do it to him,

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Speaker 2: or it might be pronounced sharpent a, in which case

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Speaker 2: she is the word carpenter.

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Speaker 1: All right. Uh, and Andrea, as we know, is one

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Speaker 1: of our go to correspondence for all things pop culture, novels.

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Speaker 2: Nerd culture, gaming comics. He's particularly a fan of and

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Speaker 2: I would argue that this is a great intersection of

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Speaker 2: those because we've got a lot of graphic art components

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Speaker 2: to some of these early video games that become iconic

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Speaker 2: and that really leave an imprint on art moving forward,

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Speaker 2: like the Space Invader guy you know that does all

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Speaker 2: the tags. Those are basically little blinky characters from the

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Speaker 2: pac Man games. Because they didn't have that much to

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Speaker 2: work with, they had to do a lot with a

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Speaker 2: little and make these things eye catching. M M.

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Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Yeah, And that's why a lot of

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Speaker 1: earlier video games are legendarily difficult because they couldn't make

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Speaker 1: the graphic super tasty, so don't had to make the

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Speaker 1: gameplay super difficult.

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Speaker 2: It's true, for sure. And then move a little later,

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Speaker 2: we started to see smovie tie in video games that

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Speaker 2: actually had a little bit more of a look that

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Speaker 2: matched the games because in the early days Atari and stuff.

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Speaker 2: You had to really use your imagination and stretch it

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Speaker 2: to its bounds to make the cover art match anything remotely,

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Speaker 2: you know what the gameplay was. The et MA is

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Speaker 2: a perfect example. But apparently the Lion King video game

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Speaker 2: for Sega Genesis is an example of a game that

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Speaker 2: was so punishingly difficult. It was designed to get kids

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Speaker 2: to continuously rent the game from Blockbuster Video.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we see another thing like, oh gosh,

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Speaker 1: what's a really difficult one? Captain Planet unfair because the

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Speaker 1: message was saving the world is hard, but they did it. Oh,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a much more simplistic game today. We're

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Speaker 1: talking about pac Man. Who hasn't played it, who doesn't

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Speaker 1: enjoy it. It's not a huge commitment unless you're very

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Speaker 1: good at it. And it turns out, as Andrea taught

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Speaker 1: us recently, that pac has quite a complicated backstory. And

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Speaker 1: get this, it is forty five years old as of

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Speaker 1: May this year.

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Speaker 2: Only forty five. I know, I thought it would be older.

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Speaker 2: I thought it would be older too. That's just a

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Speaker 2: couple of years older than us. And Andrea did a

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Speaker 2: great job setting the tone for this episode, and this

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Speaker 2: brief with some still frame images from the Wonderful movie

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Speaker 2: based on a graphic novel series, Scott Pilgrim versus the World,

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Speaker 2: and a lot of us who are familiar with this

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Speaker 2: might have gotten the most I guess relatively obscure. A

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Speaker 2: bit of backstory for pac Man from a scene with

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Speaker 2: Scott played by what's his face Michael Sarah where he's

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Speaker 2: trying to impress a girl and he asks her, did

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Speaker 2: you know that the original name for pac Man was

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Speaker 2: puck Mann.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you would think it was because he looks like

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Speaker 1: a hockey puck, but it actually comes from the Japanese

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Speaker 1: phrase pacu paku, which means to one's mouth open and closed.

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Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah blah.

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Speaker 2: It is funny because it's one of those chicken or

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Speaker 2: the egg things where it's like, if they had called

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Speaker 2: him puck Man, would history have just reflected that and

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Speaker 2: just we would just that would be what we would

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Speaker 2: think of puck Man? Or your immediate thought is no,

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Speaker 2: that's just wrong. That would have been bad and it

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Speaker 2: would have been a failure. I don't know if that's

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Speaker 2: true or not, but it is interesting pac Man. Something

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Speaker 2: about it just does have a little bit more of

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Speaker 2: a ring to it, and I love that it's associated

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Speaker 2: with that automnopeia of the sound of flapping one's mouth

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Speaker 2: open and closed, which in Japan certainly would have resonated.

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Speaker 1: And it also brings us to an excellent segue into

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Speaker 1: the fan theory origin stories about the provenance of pac Man.

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Speaker 1: It turns out there's a lot of mythology surrounding the game,

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Speaker 1: the backstory of the man himself, the pac himself, and

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Speaker 1: other aspects of the world they build there. One of

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Speaker 1: our favorites is that both mister and Missus pac Man

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Speaker 1: are serial killers. This comes to us from The Daily

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Speaker 1: Show writer Dan McCoy.

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Speaker 2: That's true. Well are they killers though, or are they

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Speaker 2: ghost hunters?

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Speaker 1: So this is what Dan is pitching. While back he

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Speaker 1: went on Twitter, back when it was called Twitter, and

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Speaker 1: he said, guys, here's what I think. The pac Man

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Speaker 1: couple are serial killers, and they've been hiding their victims

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Speaker 1: under a maze, and the ghosts that are chasing them

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Speaker 1: are actually the spirits of their earlier victims, haunting them.

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Speaker 2: I appreciate what he's doing here. I appreciate the commitment

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Speaker 2: to the bit. I would argue that he is inserting

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Speaker 2: information that does not exist. I would say more likely

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Speaker 2: that pac Man and Miss pac Man are Ghostbuster type figures.

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Speaker 2: They're there to hoover up these spooky ghosts that are

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Speaker 2: out haunting the maze, which is, I guess, the world

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Speaker 2: in which they occupy. I do love this next point

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Speaker 2: that he makes though, which has always occurred to me

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Speaker 2: about this game and also Doctor Mario, where he's just

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Speaker 2: literally homeboys just chucking pills into the you know, the

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Speaker 2: puzzle window of the game. But yeah, we know pac

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Speaker 2: Man loves gobbling up these little pellets that a little

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Speaker 2: pill like themselves, aren't they.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this one is uh, this one is more Internet

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Speaker 1: ephemera and we can't specifically trace it to Dan McCoy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The idea is that, like you said, no, old pac

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Speaker 1: Man is eating too many pellets aka drugs, and he's hallucinating,

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Speaker 1: so he's seen ghost because he's a party too hard.

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Speaker 1: And the other one, the other related theory is that

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Speaker 1: pac Man is in a club having too good of

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Speaker 1: a time and then he bumps into a ghost.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Or another theory too, is that the creator of

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Speaker 2: pac Man, who has some addiction struggles himself, used this

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Speaker 2: as an elaborate metaphor of his time spent in rehab

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Speaker 2: being haunted by the ghosts of his addiction. I think

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Speaker 2: that's beautiful. I think it's a little unlikely, but you know,

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Speaker 2: maybe so man. Maybe it is like a total work

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Speaker 2: of art that is mirroring his struggle with pill addiction.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe it's fan fiction and there's nothing wrong with that.

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Speaker 1: We also want to shout out a Reddit user gm

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Speaker 1: Caros who does a little bit of multiversal world building.

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Speaker 1: It says that we all know the game Pong Pong

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Speaker 1: came out in nineteen seventy two, eight years before pac

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Speaker 1: Man came out in nineteen eighty, and gm Caro says,

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Speaker 1: what if some balls from Pong fell off the sides

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Speaker 1: of the.

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Speaker 2: Board, which they do if you miss deflecting them, where

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Speaker 2: do they go?

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Speaker 1: Where do they go? Maybe they go on the pac

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Speaker 1: Man maze below, And maybe pac Man is our video

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Speaker 1: game Sissyphis and he just has to eat up these

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Speaker 1: lost balls forever.

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Speaker 2: Is he Sissyphis or is he the minota of the maize?

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Speaker 2: You know it? And he does have one eye? Does

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Speaker 2: he even have an eye?

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Speaker 1: Well, we are not the people to answer that question,

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Speaker 1: but it's also you know, it's a two D game,

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Speaker 1: right that doesn't have an eye in the original game.

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Speaker 2: He's just a yellow cheese wheel with one section removed. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's just a cheese pizza with one slice taken. And

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Speaker 2: now we go to sid Lexia, writing in February of

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Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, who gets a bit nihilistically philosophical

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Speaker 2: about pac Man. Sorry, I'm playing a web based version

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Speaker 2: of pac Man real quick right now, just to remind myself. So,

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Speaker 2: the ghosts are sort of like held in the middle

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Speaker 2: until they're released, and then you have to turn when

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Speaker 2: they're blue. You can eat them only when they turn blue,

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Speaker 2: and all the while you're gobbling up pills, and then

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Speaker 2: you also want to get the little bright shiny pills.

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Speaker 2: That's what turns them blue. Sorry, y'all, just reminding everyone

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Speaker 2: of how pac Man works. It's a pretty complex mechanic

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Speaker 2: if you think about how simple the game is. And

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Speaker 2: I've never gotten past like, you know, three or four stages.

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Speaker 2: It's not easy for sure.

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Speaker 1: Again, if you can't make it pretty, you can't make

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Speaker 1: it easy. So going back to sid Lexia, who says

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Speaker 1: the following quote, thus far the twenty first century has

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Speaker 1: been a sort of an odd time for video games.

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Speaker 1: We've seem drastic increases in graphical presentation, and it's becoming

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Speaker 1: increasingly probable that video games will offer up environments that

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Speaker 1: are visually indistinguishable from the real world within my lifetime.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're still not quite there, but we're getting there.

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Speaker 1: Prescient and and sid Lexi points out the games are

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Speaker 1: becoming more realistic in other areas to using special controls

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Speaker 1: that get you know what it reminds me of. No,

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Speaker 1: Sid here is referencing we Sports and Guitar Hero, but

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Speaker 1: it reminds me of especially of things like Microsoft Simulator

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Speaker 1: Flight Simulator, which I, as you know, in a continuing

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Speaker 1: weird side mission, I play that simulator a lot.

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Speaker 2: I know it's super cool man, and that's I mean

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Speaker 2: similar controls to the way you know, flight flighted vehicles

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Speaker 2: might operate to within other games Star Fucks and stuff

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Speaker 2: like that, right, m.

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Speaker 1: And then we go into an earlier conversation we had

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Speaker 1: on stuff they don't want you to know about the

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Speaker 1: genre of things God.

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Speaker 2: God, Yeah, fascinating, which would include technically things like the

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Speaker 2: sims where you're sort of this you know, all knowing

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Speaker 2: unseen hand sort of moving the inhabitants of this world

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Speaker 2: that you've created through the paces of their day to

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Speaker 2: day lives. These games don't really require super super, super

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Speaker 2: super intense in depth, you know, high level graphics, because

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Speaker 2: it's more about the interface they've designed, uh and the

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Speaker 2: largeness the scale of the world. You know. Another good

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Speaker 2: example of that would be something like Minecraft, which is

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Speaker 2: a modern example of you know, using limitations to your benefit.

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Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, well said. We also see that, sid Lexia.

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Speaker 1: After pointing out these breakthroughs and the studying escalation and

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Speaker 1: sophistication of video game technology, Sid finds that only one

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Speaker 1: game has ever managed to really address the authentic simulation

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Speaker 1: of the real world, by which this writer means the

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Speaker 1: quote complete futility of human existence in the Western line.

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Speaker 1: We told you it would be nihilistic that game, says

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Speaker 1: Sid Is pac Man, and our author here goes into depth,

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Speaker 1: but I think we go with the recap and let's

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Speaker 1: just put on our philosophy hats and maybe round robin

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Speaker 1: this one.

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Speaker 2: Your individual life on this planet is completely insignificant, and

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Speaker 2: it is largely characterized by the grim capitalist system that

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Speaker 2: you were born into. You are doomed to a miserable existence,

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Speaker 2: which will be spent endlessly collecting brightly colored consumer oriented products.

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Speaker 2: You can attempt to alleviate your sorrow with needles or pills,

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Speaker 2: but such efforts will inevitably fail. Furthermore, you are predestined

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Speaker 2: to die, and you will probably not accomplish anything of

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Speaker 2: merit before this occurs. So I guess technically, games like

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Speaker 2: pac Man are what you would call today roguelike games,

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Speaker 2: where the deal is that you will inevitably die. There

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Speaker 2: is a you know, you want to push it as

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Speaker 2: far as you can go, you know, rack up as

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Speaker 2: many points, but the nature of the game is that

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Speaker 2: you are predestined for expiration.

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Speaker 1: For failure again Sisaphian.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, correct, just jump in here. Roguelike traditionally being that

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Speaker 3: it will always reset, you don't haveesothetically die. So for example,

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Speaker 3: like Blue Prince, which is a new puzzle rogue leg game,

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Speaker 3: you could win, but you can't just keep playing it.

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Speaker 3: We'll restart.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so it's no wait a minute, aren't there? But

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Speaker 2: aren't there? So you know what I mean? Technically, You

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Speaker 2: know a pac Man involves a dungeon. That pac Man

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Speaker 2: is a dungeon and crawl is it not? It kind

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Speaker 2: of very much, is yeah.

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Speaker 1: And this is where they continue and say, so, now

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Speaker 1: that you know your life is pointless, you might as

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Speaker 1: well do what pac Man does. Go cry in the corner.

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Speaker 2: Ouch. Ouch. Shit. He does sort of cry at the end,

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Speaker 2: doesn't he. He's got little tears that squirt on out.

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Speaker 2: So when down the stown there. So, now that we've

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Speaker 2: wrapped our heads around what type of game this is

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Speaker 2: and sort of what came from it, it's true endless

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Speaker 2: cry in the Yes, it's this endless loop, right, That

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Speaker 2: is the nature of the pac Man game. It is

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Speaker 2: the Sisyphian struggle. So he's crying in the corner after

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Speaker 2: he you know, needs a little break from this endless

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Speaker 2: cycle of you know, absolutely defeated by life. So there

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Speaker 2: is a little trick, however, that he can employ when

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Speaker 2: a new level starts. Going back to the text, move

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Speaker 2: pac Man one space to the right and three spaces up,

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Speaker 2: then stop. The ghosts will leave him alone for about

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Speaker 2: fifteen minutes or so. It's true. This is wow. It's

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Speaker 2: a credit Nobo.

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Speaker 1: So say continues when your feeling like life is completely

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Speaker 1: hopeless and it is, disagree with it, find yourself a

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Speaker 1: cozy little corner to cry in. I can't guarantee that

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Speaker 1: your demons will leave you alone for at least fifteen minutes,

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Speaker 1: but you'll feel a lot better regardless. So now we're

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Speaker 1: going past philosophy into literature. Right at this point, this

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Speaker 1: is a weird meditation on pac Man.

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Speaker 2: I think this is fantastic and i'd see and I

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Speaker 2: see all of these parallels, whether there are intentional or not,

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Speaker 2: it absolutely holds, and I think it works beautifully.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it squares with the reality of the game. And

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Speaker 1: before Lexia comes along, there's a publication called Trigger Happy

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Speaker 1: by Stephen Poole. It's a book entirely about video games,

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Speaker 1: and here pull kind of dovetails with the concepts later

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Speaker 1: proposed by Lexia. Because Poole says pac Man again, I

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Speaker 1: keep I introduced, and I keep using word Sisipian. But

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Speaker 1: pac Man is on this endless quest to become whole,

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Speaker 1: consumed by consumerism and therefore never achieving true satisfaction. Interesting.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's mega interesting, Ben, And I mean also

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Speaker 2: considering the uh particulars of the Japanese rat race, you

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Speaker 2: know what I mean? Like it is, I can see

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Speaker 2: how this maybe even would have hit home on a

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Speaker 2: cultural line, you know over there, right, because I mean,

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Speaker 2: like we talk about salarymen literally passing out in subways

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Speaker 2: because they've had to drink their bosses under the table

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Speaker 2: as part of the sort of social contract of you know,

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Speaker 2: business life. These things are non negotiable, right.

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we jumped in so quickly to the

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Speaker 1: fan theories. We've got to just say it plainly. We

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Speaker 1: mentioned pac Man, originally called puck Man, was made in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty. It was made by Namco, and it was

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Speaker 1: made in Japan. As you said, Nol, here's what's happening.

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Speaker 1: If you've never played pac Man. You control a guy

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Speaker 1: called pac Man who looks like an incomplete pizza pie.

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Speaker 1: You have to eat all these dots inside this maze,

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Speaker 1: and you have to avoid four differently colored ghosts. There

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Speaker 1: are larger flashing dots called power pellets, which caused the

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Speaker 1: ghost to be called vulnerable to pac Man's insatiable appetite.

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Speaker 1: At some point, turn blue, turn blue. Yeah, just so,

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Speaker 1: And now we go back to fan theories. I had

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Speaker 1: not heard this one. There's the idea that pac Man

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Speaker 1: is supposed to be an oyster taking back lost pearls

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Speaker 1: and that the ghost or jellyfish interesting. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: can see it. The art somewhat ambiguous.

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Speaker 2: I can see it too, But nah, I think they're

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Speaker 2: definitely ghosts.

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Speaker 1: I think they're supposed to be ghost I think the

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Speaker 1: creators would have said they were supposed to be jellyfish.

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Speaker 2: If that was the case. There's no other nautical themes

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Speaker 2: to it, and they could have accomplished that with the

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Speaker 2: resources they had in terms of the coding of it all,

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Speaker 2: but there's nothing else implying that. I think the absurdness

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Speaker 2: of it, the ridiculousness, if you will, is part and

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Speaker 2: parcel with the whole concept of pac Man. It's like,

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Speaker 2: what is this weird little round dude doing chasing around ghosts?

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Speaker 2: If it's not a metaphor for, you know, the futility

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Speaker 2: of the capitalist existence. I love the absurdity of it.

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Speaker 1: I think the futility argument is probably the best so far.

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Speaker 1: We can move past some of the maritime stuff. We

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Speaker 1: can go even deeper and look at YouTubers Loxton and

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Speaker 1: Noggan in particular, they said, what about this, What if

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Speaker 1: the game pac Man is occurring on a microscopic level

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Speaker 1: inside the human body? What if pac Man is a

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Speaker 1: white blood cell that's trying to destroy germs aka the

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Speaker 1: pellets and protect the host against viruses the ghost see.

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Speaker 2: Now that would I'd be down with that if it

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Speaker 2: wasn't accomplished so well, no, maybe it's the inspiration because

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Speaker 2: Doctor Mario would have been much later. But that is

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Speaker 2: literally what Doctor Mario is about. You are throwing these

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Speaker 2: pills in and and you know, matching them up in

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Speaker 2: order to destroy these germs that stack up as the

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Speaker 2: you know, the tetrasy kind of puzzled window fills up

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Speaker 2: with pieces. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And then these YouTubers also say, well, the ghosts

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Speaker 1: do vanish when pac Man clears a level, which could

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Speaker 1: mean the cell is cleared of all germs and the

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Speaker 1: box in the middle maybe ground zero for the infection,

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Speaker 1: which is why these viruses the ghosts come back to

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Speaker 1: the source after pac Man eats them. I don't know

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Speaker 1: it's internally consistent. Let's say that because a lot of

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Speaker 1: these metaphors or these deeper analogies do explain everything that

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Speaker 1: happens in the game, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I mean, at least we're talking about

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Speaker 2: the mechanics of it all. I would not say that.

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Speaker 2: I mean, aren't are there cut scenes in between clearing stages?

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Speaker 1: You get a little dopamine hit for sure?

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Speaker 2: Fair enough. I guess what I'm saying is, I don't

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Speaker 2: think they're going out of their way, at least in

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Speaker 2: the early iterations of pac Man to impart any like

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Speaker 2: particular lore from.

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Speaker 1: The right exactly, not to go too dark. But it's

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Speaker 1: not as though you complete a level and then it

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Speaker 1: cuts to a pixelated picture of someone in a hospital

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Speaker 1: getting better.

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Speaker 2: You know, that would be funny though, or yeah, dark,

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Speaker 2: maybe funny is the wrong word. They're getting better, they're

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Speaker 2: getting dark at all, Yeah Smith, let's talk about dark. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean it's amazing, No, not not not to be

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Speaker 2: a child, it's a it's it's the name that he

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Speaker 2: was blessed with, and I'm sure he wears it proudly.

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Speaker 2: Saturday Morning Breakfast cereals as well. Right, this was a

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Speaker 2: Gagga Day webcomic s NBC that started in two and

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Speaker 2: continues on to this day. Reimagine pac Man as a

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Speaker 2: horror story, much like There's an Incredible Weather Garfield. Garfield

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Speaker 2: as a Lovecraftian monster monstrosity, you know, absolutely terrorizing what's

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Speaker 2: his buddy's name, John Ody John. Yeah, I require Lasagna

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Speaker 2: John exactly. So they're doing something similar here with pac Man,

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Speaker 2: imagining it as a horror story. I mean, he is relentless.

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Speaker 2: I could see him instead of having the mouth flapping,

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Speaker 2: having like a knife and right, you know, so I

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Speaker 2: can see where they're going with this, where people in

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Speaker 2: this world exist only as giant mouth, which is a

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Speaker 2: bit love crafty and able to do nothing but consume

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Speaker 2: while being attacked by jealous mouthless ghosts who can no

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Speaker 2: longer eat their hungry ghosts.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love that reference, and technically it would

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Speaker 1: be envious, but we're fun at parties, so let's keep going. Tarker,

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00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 1: there's an awesome graphic novel called Nameless that God that Speaks.

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00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:39,119
Speaker 2: This is unpleasant read, but very good.

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Speaker 1: Hey, what do you think happens at the end of Nameless?

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Speaker 1: Nol We haven't talked about this.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if I need to reread it, but

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Speaker 2: I just remember it's definitely like seriously fed up, like

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Speaker 2: event Horizon level stuff in that particular book, like a

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Speaker 2: you know, space as portal to Hell again.

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Speaker 1: A rollicking buddy comedy appropriate for all ages. Real swashbuckler,

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Speaker 1: A real swash buckler.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of a rom com.

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Speaker 1: We are lying, do not give that to your children

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Speaker 1: unless they are edgy teenagers. But we were bringing these up,

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Speaker 1: these references because there is another darker analog inspired by

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Speaker 1: pac Man. An artist named Travis Pitt had this just

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Speaker 1: fantastic artistic subversion of pac Man, depicting the entire lore

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Speaker 1: as a crew of astronauts sent to a research facility

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Speaker 1: where every one of them except for one guy, the

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Speaker 1: yellow suited guy, gets murdered, and our surviving astronaut, pac Man,

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Speaker 1: is then chased through the byzantine halls of the laboratory

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Speaker 1: of the spaceship and is being chased by the ghost

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Speaker 1: of his former fellow astronauts.

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Speaker 2: People are really wanted. They're digging deep some of these,

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Speaker 2: That's all I'm saying.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, I think I think Travis here is not

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Speaker 1: saying that's what happened.

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Speaker 2: It said, another fun interpretation for sure. Yeah, there's definitely

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Speaker 2: different ways to slice it. I like it. I like

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Speaker 2: after the fact because that's the beauty of like open

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00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 2: ended art or art that allows you to insert your

408
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 2: own narrative into it and isn't so I mean, because

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Speaker 2: you know, let's be real, pac Man is a work

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Speaker 2: of art. It's really cool, the design of it, the

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Speaker 2: iconic ghost images, the color palettes, you know. I mean,

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Speaker 2: that's all there in that first game, in that simple design,

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Speaker 2: and it's like that alone. There hasn't really been there.

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Speaker 2: Certainly have been spinoffs of pac Man, and you can

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Speaker 2: play as pac Man in like Super Smash Brothers, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: there have been cartoons and all of that, but when

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Speaker 2: we think of pac Man, largely we think of this one.

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Speaker 2: We think of the old school, eating the pills, chasing

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Speaker 2: the ghosts. You know, original.

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Speaker 1: Speak of subversion. We subverted the order of the story

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Speaker 1: here because we're giving you the cool, deep, sometimes disturbing

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00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:17,719
Speaker 1: philosophical interpretations. But we were telling you the truth at

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Speaker 1: the beginning, folks, as we reference Scott Pilgrim versus the World. Yes,

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Speaker 1: there is a true story about pac Man, who was

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Speaker 1: originally called puck Man, and it did come from the

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Speaker 1: name pacopacu or the phrase.

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00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:33,920
Speaker 2: Meaning to gobble things up. And we thankfully saved this

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Speaker 2: for the end here there's another detail that led them

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Speaker 2: to calling it pac Man instead of puck Man. Think

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Speaker 2: about it, Think about some little naughty little scamps going

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Speaker 2: around with their sharpies and at the arcade, defacing the

432
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 2: side of these giant machines. It would be a very

433
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 2: simple maneuver to change that puck to you another a

434
00:25:57,600 --> 00:25:58,120
Speaker 2: naughty word.

435
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not calling it puck fan, just so you know.

436
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 1: So that was that was the concern, and they change

437
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: it to pac Man because it sounded close to the

438
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: original Japanese name Pakuman, and the design, as we mentioned,

439
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 1: was conceptualized initially by Toru Iwatani. Tou Iwatani led the

440
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:24,920
Speaker 1: team in nineteen seventy nine to create the game, and

441
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:30,400
Speaker 1: Iwatani wanted it to have universal appeal to women and men,

442
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: and at the time that they were working on pac

443
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:38,240
Speaker 1: Man or Pakuman, they were they saw a market opportunity

444
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: because a lot of contemporary games were based on war

445
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:48,680
Speaker 1: or sports, which they saw as traditionally male interest.

446
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 2: And I'm not trying to necessarily, you know, psychoanalyte that

447
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 2: was going on here, but it does occur to me

448
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 2: that those types of games that you're talking about, like

449
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 2: war games and drive games and more masculine games, because

450
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:06,480
Speaker 2: of the technology of the time, they didn't look particularly immersive.

451
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:09,160
Speaker 2: They it was a sort of like a video game

452
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 2: version of battleship. We're dealing with like a grid or

453
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:14,199
Speaker 2: these tiny little icons and things that are sort of

454
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 2: representative of these sporting events or war. But a game

455
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 2: like this that purely creates its own world and sort

456
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 2: of defines the terms of what it's showing you, it's

457
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:28,360
Speaker 2: a lot easier to become immersive, and I think that's

458
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 2: why the original design has stood the test of time. Originally,

459
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 2: this idea of a world occupied by these like moving mouths.

460
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 2: He saw a pizza pie Iwatanievic originally with a slice missing,

461
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:46,920
Speaker 2: and that to him resembled an open mouth. And thinking

462
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:49,439
Speaker 2: along the lines of like, what would be a simple,

463
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:54,920
Speaker 2: easily communicatable, iconic image that could be communicated with the

464
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 2: limitations of this early video game, you know, programming in

465
00:27:59,160 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 2: pixel count.

466
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fancy word for that is peridolia.

467
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,359
Speaker 2: Paradolia, Yeah, where you see faces in weird such like

468
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 2: the backs of trucks, and you know, the hooks on

469
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 2: the wall look like a little drunken fighting squid.

470
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:16,239
Speaker 1: The reason cars have two headlights largely a face on

471
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: mars so on Iwatani is also saying, hey, this reminds

472
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 1: me of a word in Japanese language, or a character kuchi,

473
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: which means mouth. Ku Chi, we would spell it here

474
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: and says, look, the original Japanese character that means mouth

475
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: has a square shape, so why don't I just round

476
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: it out. And then to our earlier question about eyes,

477
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 1: he said, look, we could have put eyes on it,

478
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: but eventually we decided to keep it simple. And he

479
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: talks about this. He says, one lunchtime, I was quite

480
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 1: hungry and I ordered a whole pizza epic iwatani nice one,

481
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: and he says, I helped myself to a wedge and

482
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: what was left was the idea for the pac Man's shape.

483
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: So he steers away from sports themes or shooter games,

484
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: and he says, I want something non violent. I want

485
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: colorful characters with cheerful music. I want couples and families

486
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 1: to play games at the arcade together. This makes more money. Also,

487
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: I got a point out. I don't know about you guys,

488
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: but being an entity that can be given to anxiety,

489
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: I do find pac Man stressful, especially as you get

490
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: further in right and the ghosts get faster.

491
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 3: All these games are so stressful. Mario Man I mean,

492
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 3: I guess Donkey Kong, but like all the old games,

493
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 3: the quarters eads are just so stressful quarter eaders.

494
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 2: Yeah.

495
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 1: But the good news is this works for Iwatani and

496
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: the team, so much so that in nineteen eighty two,

497
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: just two years later, they create Miss pac Man as

498
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: a specific explain said thank you to female gamers for

499
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 1: their enthusiasm about pac Man, and they changed her name too.

500
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 1: She was going to be called pac Woman.

501
00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 2: Mm, but instead she's miss right, isn't she miss or

502
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 2: she misses?

503
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 1: Well, she's yeah, she's Miss pac Man.

504
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 2: If you're nasty, oh fair enough. But is it the

505
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 2: implication that they're a couple.

506
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah uh they they they originally

507
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: wanted to call her Miss pac Man, but they had

508
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: included a baby pac Man because why not, And so

509
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: they they didn't want to apply that she gave birth

510
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: out of wedlock, so they called her ms pac Man,

511
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: which I guess made it sound like they were married.

512
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: But here miss and Ms dot are the same thing,

513
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: so it'd have to be missus pac Man for us anyway,

514
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: lost to history. Originally, Miss pac Man was going to

515
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 1: be a redhead, but the guy who was in charge

516
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 1: of Namco at the time, Masaka Nakamura said, Nope, don't

517
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: make her a redhead. Give her a bow and give

518
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: her a Cindy Crawford esque beauty mark or Marilyn Monroe

519
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,720
Speaker 1: esque beauty mark, whatever you wish, and so we said.

520
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 1: The work on this started in nineteen seventy nine. It

521
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: took a year and five months to make it. At

522
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: this point, this was the longest development time for a

523
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:32,240
Speaker 1: video game ever. Butthesda, looking at you, where is the

524
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: Next Elder scrolls?

525
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 3: Probably five to ten years.

526
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 2: Jesus, some people, it's in.

527
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 3: They have confirmed it's in. When they released the Oblivion

528
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 3: Remastered they confirmed that it's in production, which is I

529
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 3: guess new because it had been We don't even know

530
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 3: where it's set at technically yet.

531
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 1: Right, there are rumors, but also we're we're roasting with

532
00:31:56,800 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 1: a light roast and a lot of affections alike, roast

533
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: good things take time, right, uh so apparently the lighter

534
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 1: the roast, the more caffeine and the bean. That is correct, Yes, yes, yes,

535
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:11,520
Speaker 1: here's the other idea.

536
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 2: I didn't mean for that to rhyme, but I'm here

537
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 2: for him. I love it.

538
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: I love a rhyme. So Awatani is honest about his inspirations.

539
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: He says the idea of pac Man consuming energy pellets

540
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: came to him from the video game based on Popeye

541
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: the Sailor Man. We get a boost after eating his

542
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: little pellet, his can spinach and spinach pellets.

543
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 2: He fights to the finish, but he only ate you

544
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 2: only ever ate can spinach, right, which's weird because he

545
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 2: had he squeezed it out of the can and then

546
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 2: it just shot up in the air.

547
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, Karkar Kherkar exactly. So the ghost, he further says,

548
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: came from his own personal admiration of Casper the friendly ghost.

549
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: And those fruit bonuses that get you more points were

550
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: surprise inspired by slot machines.

551
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 2: Slot machines, huh okay, Yeah, yeah, he's a man who's

552
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 2: lived a life, that's right. But also, like we know

553
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 2: that slot machines are so inherently designed to elicit those

554
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 2: dopamine hits. They're sort of the first to market with

555
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, so it definitely makes sense. Also,

556
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 2: the cherries and the bells and all the little icons

557
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 2: the slot machines show on those little revolving what do

558
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 2: you call them cylinders? I guess that was something that

559
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 2: also was able to be kind of co opted a

560
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 2: little bit.

561
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Yeah, And there's a funny anecdote about

562
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 1: Iwatani sitting together with the team that was doing sound

563
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: design and this guy, this absolute legend, sits down with

564
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 1: the sound designers and he has fruit with them and

565
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,719
Speaker 1: he says, here's the sound pac Man should make. And

566
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: he noisily eats I think crutches, gurgles, and he's like, this.

567
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 2: Is this is This guy didn't have misophonius, I know, right,

568
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 2: got it.

569
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the last things I want to mention

570
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: here as we're wrapping up, is that the concept of

571
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:17,759
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence plays a big role in pac Man. The

572
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 1: ghosts are not steered by other players. Their movements are

573
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: described by their names exactly.

574
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:29,320
Speaker 2: I've been itching to get to this. We've got a

575
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 2: shadow Blinky, who always chases pac Man. We've got Speedy

576
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 2: aka Pinky, who tries to get ahead of him. Each

577
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 2: of them have their own kind of like football players,

578
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 2: sort of flanking maneuvers, right, they're doing like plays, they're

579
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 2: sort of like trying to Yeah. I never really thought

580
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:47,359
Speaker 2: about that, but it's true. They all do have their

581
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 2: own kind of set of moves. That's fascinating. We've got

582
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 2: bashful or Inky, who uses a more complicated strategy to

583
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:57,839
Speaker 2: really hone in. Then we have Pokey or Clyde who

584
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 2: alternates between chasing him and running away. Yeah.

585
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the Japanese names translate to chase, ambush, thickle

586
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:10,080
Speaker 1: and playing dumb. Pretty cool stuff.

587
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 2: Super cool. I it never even occurred to me that

588
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 2: they all do different things, but they very much do. No,

589
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 2: it's immediately apparent now that I'm thinking about it.

590
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 1: Oh, and we do have to mention to the thing

591
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 1: about cutscenes. There are intermissions between levels. Now, they're not

592
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 1: that I.

593
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 2: Remember, Yeah, little bits, certainly not on the level of

594
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 2: what we think of today, but sort of like occupying

595
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,360
Speaker 2: a similar space, creating a little bit of transition, maybe

596
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 2: a little bit of lore as to the interaction between

597
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 2: these characters.

598
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:41,800
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah, And this is one of the first

599
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: games to deploy that strategy. All of the stuff we're

600
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 1: describing worked. Pac Man soon became a huge household name

601
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 1: on the level of Mickey Mouse. Like we said earlier,

602
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: he got his own Saturday Morning cartoon merchandise out the wazoo,

603
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: and we're PG thirteen show. But Pacman also got a

604
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: cover spread and a hustler Pacman Fox just saying there

605
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: was a cookbook released just this year, The Pacman The

606
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: Official Cookbook featuring amazing choppable recipes.

607
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:26,319
Speaker 2: Heck yeah. And by the way, I found like a

608
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 2: sort of a collection on Pacman dot fandom dot com

609
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 2: of all of the cut scenes, and there are a ton,

610
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 2: and they all have our little skits basically between you know,

611
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:41,359
Speaker 2: you start getting into the meet cute of Pacman and

612
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 2: Miss Pacman in Miss Pacman, of course, but you have

613
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:49,359
Speaker 2: little funny interactions between the ghosts and uh and then

614
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:52,359
Speaker 2: Pacman and Misspacman. And if you go to they're called

615
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 2: coffee breaks actually, so if you go to Pacman dot

616
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 2: fandom dot com slash wikislash Coffee Underscore break, you can

617
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:01,359
Speaker 2: see a breakdown of what happens in each one of these.

618
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 2: And I would argue they are absolutely proto cutscenes.

619
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, world building. We love to see it. We love

620
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:11,760
Speaker 1: to see it here and everywhere else. We also can't

621
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 1: thank you enough for joining us today, folks, but here

622
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 1: we go. Thank you, thank you, yeah, thank you. Thanks

623
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:21,320
Speaker 1: also to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Our research

624
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,359
Speaker 1: associate for this. Andrea and who.

625
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,440
Speaker 2: Else who else who wilse oh geez, Christopherracios. Name is

626
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 2: Jeff Coats here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland, the Quizzler, AJ Mohamas,

627
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:32,840
Speaker 2: Jacobs the Puzzler.

628
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: Doctor Rachel Big Spinach, Lance the world's number one authority

629
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:39,520
Speaker 1: on underwater explosions, and Noel.

630
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 2: Thanks to you, Ron, you as well, Buddy. We'll see

631
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 2: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit

632
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:54,799
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

633
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:55,760
Speaker 2: your favorite shows,