Released December 1981 Genre Pop, pop rock | Recorded 1981 | |
B-side "Pac-Man Fever" (Instrumental) Length 3:43
5:51 (extended 12-inch version) Label Columbia/CBS Records
18-02673 (7-inch single)
44-02762 (12-inch single) | ||
"Pac-Man Fever" is a hit single by Buckner & Garcia. Capitalizing on the video game craze of the early 1980s, the song, about the classic video game Pac-Man, peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in March 1982.
That same month, it was certified Gold by the RIAA for over 1,000,000 units shipped to retailers; the single sold 1.2 million copies by the end of 1982, and 2.5 million copies in total as of 2008. VH1 ranked it at #98 on their list of 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s.
A follow-up release in May 1982, "Do the Donkey Kong", just missed the Billboard chart, ranking #103.
Re-release
In 1998, the duo was asked to record an unplugged version of "Pac-Man Fever" exclusively for the syndicated radio show Retro Rewind. In 1999, a re-recorded version of the album was released independently by Buckner and Garcia, which was released commercially through K-Tel in 2002. The re-release was anxiously awaited by fans of the original album. However, Buckner and Garcia could not obtain the original master recordings from Sony Music Entertainment, so the duo was forced to record new performances of the songs and recreate a lot of the sound effects either digitally or musically.
In honor of the release of the 2015 film Pixels, Jerry Buckner, and Danny Jones with Jace Hall, took the vocals from Gary Garcia's master recording, and created a new version called "Pac-Man Fever Eat Em' Up".