The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 65

TAMPA BAY Dec. 15 through Dec. 21 Pac-Man meets Santa Claus "Christmas Comes to Pacland," a half-hour animated special, airs Thursday, 8 p.m., on WTSP, Channel 10. By WALT BELCHER Tribune Staff Writer ABC has Pac-Man fever. That little, round, yellow cartoon munchkin has become the first character to successfuly jump from the video arcade screen to the television screen.

Last year, the Pac-Man video game gobbled up millions of quarters as the arcade attraction in America. This year, ABC has been gobbling up the Saturday morning ratings with a cartoon series based on the Pac-Man character. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac and Pac-Baby have managed to unseat NBC's blue Smurfs as the most popular Saturday morning cartoon among children viewers. Thursday night, Pac-Man and his family move into prime time with an animated Christmas special in which they meet Santa and his reindeer.

"When we were able to acquire the rights to Pac-Man (from Bally Manufacturing), we knew we had something hot," says Squire D. Rushnell, vice president, children's and early morning programming at ABC. "It was unique for a video game because it appealed to girls as well as boys," he said. "Girls, who were turned off by games like Space Invaders found Pac-Man cute." ABC was in need of a boost on Saturday mornings because last season. NBC's Smurf series put the peacock network into first place on Saturdays for the first time in six years.

"We acquired the rights back in April, and the trick was to come up with a series around a character that was basically a little round blob," said Rushnell. If you've played the Pac-Man video game, you know that on the electronic screen he has very little personality. In Pac-Man, the object of the game is to steer Pac-Man through a maze without getting eaten by four little electronic ghosts Shadow, Pinky, Bashful and Pokey. As PacMan speeds along, he gobbles up little white dots energy pellets which score points. How do you make a cartoon series out of that? "We decided that Pac-Man and the wee ghosts would have to live in a fanciful place that would be peculiar to them, like the they'd have their own gadgets, their own little world," Rushnell said.

Thus, Joe Barbera created Pacland where energy pellets grow on trees and the ghosts are bad-guy baffoons. They're out to get Pac-Man and his family, but unlike the video game, they never "eat" him. He never eats them. But ocassionally he fends them off by biting them, after which their clothes disappear and they have to run back to a cave to get redressed. This may sound ridiculous, but 5-year-olds find it totally plausible.

During the show, Santa, a folk hero whose origins date back to the Old World, will be rescued by Pac-Man, a folk hero whose origins date back to the computer chip. It boggles the mind. TV.