How About That Thing?

The 2010s were a mistake. Like, every last bit of the 2010s, from 2010, all the way to 2019, was a mistake. A mistake we are feeling the aftershock of throughout the 2020s. Everything from fidget spinners to the first Trump presidency, and everything in between, was just awful. The music sucked, fandoms became septic tanks, and for all the shit we talk about reboots and remakes here in the 2020s, we wouldn’t be dealing with that shit today if someone in the 2010s had just stood up and said no.

FUN FACT: If this current website hadn’t developed the following it developed, I was actually considering making a whole website where the weekly articles would be about an item from the 2010s and why it was a bad idea. Original? Probably not. But it would’ve been a fun little hobby for a few months.

Pacman and the Ghostly Adventures was definitely one of these mistakes. True, it wasn’t exactly on par with The Tea Party, or the radically far swing into political correctness, but it was definitely not a great, or even a good cartoon. And yet, I still find myself coming back to it.

I’ll admit, it’s clearly not intended for someone my age. Hell, even when it was new, I was probably a bit too old to be watching it. All I can really say for myself in my defense is that I really like Pacman.

Pacman has always been one of my favorite franchises throughout my life. My mom used to take me to a place that had a Pacman arcade cabinet, and She’d hold my little four-year-old self up while I moved the joystick around. I even managed to get the opportunity to put my initials in the third place spot on that cabinet’s high scores, as memory serves.

I also ended up borrowing my uncle’s old Atari, and playing the legendary Atari port of Pacman. You know, the one everybody hates and says wasn’t worth the effort. They’re not wrong… But little me didn’t know any better, and I still got some mileage out of it.

Believe me, Pacman and I go back a ways. I could probably write entire articles on some of the more obscure Pacman shit I’ve played with back in the day. Perhaps if enough people show interest, I might just do that.

So yeah, when I heard there was a new Pacman cartoon on Disney XD, I had to check it out. And… Well… I mean I definitely didn’t think it was great. Or even good. But considering I was in my twenties when this showed up, and this was airing on Disney XD of all places… Yeah, maybe I’m not the most qualified human being on Earth to have an opinion on this.

But if you’re one of those people who argue “Pacman is part of my nostalgia, therefore, I’m allowed to comment on it as if it were designed specifically for me” like so many of my friends were about that Thundercats Roar thing… It’s fine. Again, it’s not great. It’s definitely not revolutionizing the way I think of Pacman as a whole, but I’ve definitely seen worse. Hell, I’ve seen worse from the Pacman franchise as a whole, let alone in general.

But what exactly is the show? Well, let’s get into it, shall we?

Of course, we got to talk about Pacman himself. Well, technically, in this show, he’s Pacster. I guess calling him Pacman would be a bit silly, since EVERYBODY in this series is either a pac man or a pac woman.

Pacster is a kind-hearted chap with a bottomless pit for a stomach. He’s been known to devour the entire school’s supply of lunches in one meal, and still have room for dessert. This ability has something to do with him being a part of a nigh-extinct subspecies of pac. This subspecies, known creatively as “the yellow ones”, can eat anything. Including ghosts. Which makes them the heroes of Pac World.

Pacster has friends named Cylendria and Spiral (pink and red pacs), a school bully named Skeebo (a blue pac), and a cast of other characters. However, the only other pac that feels like it’s worth talking about is…

This is the president of Pac World. And man, I remember when presidential characters were respectable men and women like this. Barring that, I remember when they WEREN’T orange, irritating caricatures of that cheeto-flavored subhuman currently running this country into the pavement. Seriously, if I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: the only thing worse than Trump are the idiots who think they’re funny by way of making fun of him. It’s so exhausting now.

While this guy isn’t exactly what I’d call a rocket scientist, it’s still his job to look after Pac World, and all of its resources. Including…

This is The Tree of Life. It provides Pacster with pacberries: berries that, when eaten by a yellow one, can bestow temporary powers on top of their ability to eat any given all-you-can-eat buffet out of business. Such powers include flight, freeze rays, and the ability to become PacZilla (a hundred-story tall Pacman). They don’t last forever… Frankly, you’ll be lucky if the powers last longer than a couple minutes. But if you’re good at munching ghosts like Pacster eventually does, two or three minutes is really all you need.

And as long as we’re talking about familiar characters and familiar items of Pacman past being reinterpreted…

Naturally, you can’t have a Pacman related thing without including the ghosts. Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. They’re all there, and they’re all over the place.

Blinky is the leader, Pinky is the girl, Clyde is the hurr-durr, and Inky is… Uh… There as well. I guess. It’s also implied throughout the show that Pinky has a crush on Pacster. And suddenly, I can’t help but think fandom for this specific show is full of vore art and vore fiction.

Strangely, though, the ghosts AREN’T the bad guys. This guy is.

This is General Betrayis. No, seriously, that’s his name. No doubt he graduated from the Green lantern school of villainy. The school that gave us the likes of Sinistro, Attrocidis, and Awful B. Bad. Although that last one moved on to some clown cartoon, I’m led to understand.

Betrayis, despite his awful name, is kind of complicated to explain. He’s too malicious to be dismissed as a nuisance, but he’s too goofy to be taken seriously. He bounces all over the place, which made it a nightmare to try and get a screenshot of him for this article. He definitely as the stereotypical ambition to take over the world, but his personality is less like Lord Zedd, and more like Beetlejuice. From the Tim Burton movie, not the cartoon where he’s somehow friends with the underaged girl he tried to get married to in the movie. But I digress.

Honestly, Betrayis isn’t even the worst of the bad guys. In my opinion, it’s got to be this guy right here.

If you thought Betrayis was cringeworthy, then allow me to introduce you to Dr. H.A. Buttocks: General Betrayis’s resident scientist. I wish I was kidding about all this, but this is a legit character that found his way into a cartoon. And yet, it still aired on a Disney operated TV station at some point. Disney: the company that wouldn’t even let Pumba say the word “fart” back in 1994, allowed a character that is basically a sentient pair of buttcheeks appear on screen in 2013.

FUN FACT: He frequently gets eaten by Pacman as a result of the plan falling apart. So technically, you could say that Pacman frequently eats ass.

Ugh, lord, that was awful even by MY standards!

The show overall was pretty much Betrayis formulating a new plot that involved the same ghosts over and over again invading Pac World and sliming everybody until Pacman showed up, ate all of them, and eventually belched up their eye balls. Very much like other shows I’ve reviewed here where nobody wanted to create a monster of the day… Except considering Pacman and the Ghostly Adventures was a CGI cartoon, I can’t say I blame them.

Let’s face it: even if the show is relatively cheap, CGI is expensive. Imagine having to generate a new fully 3D monster every week, only to have it be thrown away and never used again. At least with the tokusatsu shows over in Japan, the monster suits get regularly recycled into new characters. At least in 2D animation, it’s all just drawings. But CGI? That’s an awful lot of work, and an awful lot of money to dump into generating models for monsters that’d only get used once.

So yeah, I guess I can forgive THIS show for using a lot of the same ghost soldiers to carry out plots.

The music ranges from dance mixes of the intermission song from the very first Pacman arcade game, to orchestral versions of the “GET READY” music. And plenty of other tracks in between to fill in the gaps. It’s… Okay, I guess.

Overall, the show is not without its shortcomings. I’ll say it again: it isn’t great, or even good. However, for reasons I just can’t explain… I can’t bring myself to hate it. While not the best ever, it’s not without its charm.

All and all, I’d say give it a look. It’s definitely a step up from that crappy 1980s cartoon, if nothing else.