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David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

  • TheKaz1969

    gee, yeah, at the time, everyone was going nuts over the game of Pacman, but I can’t figure out where they came up with the idea, either, Mr. Clark…

    that being said, I listened to this 45 over and over again as a kid. When I wasn’t listening to Convoy, or Billy Crystal’s “You Look Mahvelous”

  • anon0mouse

    Don’t need the reissue.  I have a copy of the original…worth 40 bucks, eh? EXCELLENT!

    • EH

      FWIW, I’d say that’s Amazon pricing. I just saw it in an actual record store this past weekend for $20.

      Elsewhere on the internet, it can be had for as low as US$1.00+shipping:

      http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=121796&ev=mb

      • Boundegar

        And worth every penny.  (shudder)

  • SomeGuyNamedMark

    Dr Demento flashback

    • http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

      There are those who criticize Dr. Demento, but I feel I owe him for so much: National Lampoon’s “Deteriorata”, Camper Van Beethoven’s “Take The Skinheads Bowling”, Allan Lieberman’s “Thank God I’m A Jewish Boy”, Larry Groce’s “Junk Food Junkie”…

      I also appreciate him filling in some of the background information on Barnes & Barnes’s “Fish Heads”, although I’d already been introduced to it a few years earlier, thanks to Nickelodeon’s “Turkey TV”.

      • EH

        Who criticizes Dr. Demento?

        • http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

          People who really need to lighten up.

          • EH

            You know what I mean.

      • SomeGuyNamedMark

        Yup, I admit it.  I saw “Fish Heads” on a vinyl 45 many years ago and had to pick it up.

  • Jorpho

    And let’s not forget the tragically neglected “Mouse Trap”.  Wikipedia reports that when they rerecorded the album in 1999, they were unable to find a machine and used sounds from nature, instead.  Oddly, while Exidy’s founder generously released many of its old ROMs for non-commercial use with the MAME emulator a few years ago, Mouse Trap was not among them.

  • franko

    OOF. here’s a track i was happier forgetting.

  • http://jonathan-peterson.com/ Jonathan Peterson

    I found that and ripped it a while back and spun it in a Turntable FM 80s room.  The result was… gratifying.  Not quite as good as Paco – Puttin on the Ritz.

  • http://twitter.com/ricjoh Ric Johnson

    Um, David? The Dick Clark Show? Try “American Bandstand” Thus the giant “AB” on the back wall…

    • David Pescovitz

      Um, thanks.

  • emg72

    Was just thinking of this song, as the kids and I watched Wreck-It-Ralph, and if you wait through the credits, there’s a “Wreck It Ralph” theme song that sounded vaguely familiar. My 12-year-old, being 12, said “that’s cheezy”, and I said, “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s just a parody of Pac-Man Fever, which was a song when I was a kid…”

    One little Google later, and lo and behold, “Wreck It Ralph” was written and sung by Buckner/Garcia!

    Genius move. For a film already packed with videogame refs, that one’s the pixelated cherry on top. 

  • http://twitter.com/dhparlee dhparlee

    I had no idea that Steve Wozniak also had a music career.  Also, his lip syncing and fake guitar playing suck.

  • http://twitter.com/OhMeadhbh Meadhbh Octopodidae

    i see your pac man fever and raise you one “space invaders” by uncle vic: http://youtu.be/kgtbcWAO_Cg

  • kringlebertfistyebuns

    Heads up – when sharing on Facebook, the headline comes up as just “Buckner and Garcia’s.”  Dunno if that’s something you have control over.  Just a small oddity.

  • http://www.facebook.com/dpease Dave Pease

    $40?  Holy smokes, add my record collection to stuff I wish I still had from when I was a kid.

  • fredges

    Dr. Demento still rules. I thought this was Barnes & Barnes, now I know it was Buckner & Garcia. Thanks!

  • echolocate chocolate

    Speaking of Pac-Man, a decade later, Aphex Twin made an early rave track under the pseudonym Power Pill. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnURWFxwmk0

  • dculberson

    Did anyone else notice that neither of the keyboards are plugged in?

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Live noise would kind of kill the lip-sync, wouldn’t it?

  • http://repeaterband.com skeletoncityrepeater

    This record is UNLISTENABLE. If you pay more than $10 novelty value for the LP you are really wasting money. There is a more novel 45 rpm single for Pac-Man Fever on square vinyl. This is generally worth more as it is really cool to display. There are a few of them for sale at Caveman Vintage in Chinatown in LA. Seriously, the music of Buckner & Garcia is about as bad as you can get.  It’s my childhood, I was a huge Dementoid and still love novelty music, and synths, and odd things. On this record, they just don’t get it.

  • Mister44

    I’ve listened to hours of Dr Demento as a youngster and this is the first time I’ve heard this song.

  • IronEdithKidd

    Just reading the headline was enough to plant this song firmly in my head.  I don’t think I’ve heard it since I was 9.  It was all over the place in 1982, regular radio play, not just Dr. Demento (that came later).  I was also just hit with a flood of memories of being a young girl in that era.  Good stuff.