Song:Pac-Man Fever
Album:Pac-Man Fever
I'm pretty sure that video game fans will fondly remember this 1982 top ten novelty hit. It turned out to be a one hit wonder though the guys behind it are still around. Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia are from Akron, OH. Their band Wild Butter had a deal with United Artists. After some regional success, the duo moved to Atlanta to write jingles for an ad company. But they still wanted to do music. So in 1980 they recorded the novelty song Merry Christmas in the NFL featuring Howard Cosell as Santa Claus. They called themselves Willis The Guard & Vigorish. The song was going up the charts but Cosell didn't like it and radio stations stopped playing it. Video games were just becoming popular at the time and Pac-Man was one of the most popular games at the time. So they recorded the single and it became a hit locally in Atlanta. Columbia Records came calling and Buckner & Garcia got a record deal. Pac-Man Fever reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982. Columbia wanted an album of video game songs. Buckner & Garcia didn't want to be known for novelty songs but they recorded and album of them anyway. The second single Do The Donkey Kong did not do nearly as well as Pac-Man Fever. So then they recorded the song E.T. I Love You endorsed by Steven Speilberg. But Columbia didn't like it. They shelved it and dropped Buckner & Garcia. They returned to jingle work and still do that today. The album Pac-Man Fever was never released on CD. In 1999, the guys wanted to release it but Sony refused to let them have access to the original masters. So Buckner & Garcia were forced to re-record the album and the CD is available from Fuel 2000. The CD includes the first release of E.T. I Love You. Sony won't even license the original version of Pac-Man Fever for various artists comps. That's very odd. Buckner & Garcia still want to release the original album and are working with Ozone Entertainment towards doing that. This video of Pac-Man Fever features Ozone's Rock Band Network video game.
LOL. I had this record when I was a kid. Everything except "Pac-Man Fever" was absolutely terrible. It's not surprising that B&G apparently wrote the rest of the album just to satisfy the record company.
ReplyDeleteI've got a box of old LPs that I never listen to-I should see if I still have this and stick it on Ebay.
I understand the album was recorded in a week. Usually when I'm doing a top ten one hit wonder, the song will be on dozens of various artists CDs on labels like Rhino, Varese etc. So I was very surprised that Sony has never licensed this song to anyone. It obviously has value in licensing fees. I guess they have their reasons but I've never seen that with a big hit like this.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there's an issue with the fact that "Pac-Man Fever" and the other songs all used sound effects from the video games that is keeping Sony from re-releasing this album.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, my copy of the vinyl LP seems to have been lost. My Mom saved my KISS records, but apparently not Buckner & Garcia. Everyone else's mother must have made the same choice, thus the rarity of this record.
Nope. Buckner & Garcia's problem with Columbia was because of ET I Love You. It looks like they were annoyed that the guys went directly to Speilberg for song approval. They were dropped and then Columbia released Neil Diamond's Heartlight and had to pay Universal $25K for the ET inspiration. They rerecorded the album and no one sued them.
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