Toon Zone Talkback - E3 2010: Avi Arad Developing New "Pac-Man" TV Show

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ANCELMO

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This is the talkback thread for E3 2010: Avi Arad Developing New "Pac-Man" TV Show.

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Just figured I'd get this out of the way at the start.
 
So Avi Arad left Marvel for this? I'm not so sure about the 'high school' motif. (The ghosts are his 'friends' now?) Now if he based this show off of the 'Pac-Man World' games, maybe we've gotten something. :shrug:
 
What's with putting characters in high school, is it supposed to make them more appealing somehow? And why are the ghosts friendly, they're not Casper or Gus. Other than it being his 30th annivresary this year, Pac-Man isn't really that relevant at the moment so this series makes less and less sense the more I think about it.
 
On one hand, this definately feels like it could have an old school 80's Saturday Morning feel to it.

On the other hand, the premise sounds like an old school 80's Saturday Morning cartoon, and those apparently have no place among today's youth.
 
I have no idea why they can't just set it in "Pac-World" again like in the previous show. Maybe they made this a prequel because they think kids won't relate to Pac-Man if he's grown-up with a family, or something....
 
Y'know, that's *exactly* what I thought when I read the description. Though I suppose it hasn't been mentioned that Pac(*How* do we refer to him other than his full name?) is a journalism student.

Personally I can't get the image of the Pac Man Christmas Special I saw on CN a few years back on Christmas Eve outta my head now. The Pac people(Pacmen? Pacites? I don't know...) had no idea what a human being was...which I just found outright creepy as they had to take care of some kids during the thing.

I just hope they do a special on the perils power pellet addiction...or maybe if it went full out emo high school melodrama, if only to watch the train wreck...
 
I think it might been better to do a show on one of Namco's current game series. Not that it would necessarily be better content wise but it doesn't really make sense imo to make a show based on a dead franchise. Then again with Avi Arad involved, he's probably thinking of toylines and new games and merchandise.
 
Are there any better Namco games to develop as shows besides Pac-man? I got nothing agaisnt Pac-man but doing a new show to me is kinda outdated. I would personally like to see a animated film or even a tv series of Rayman, that has the art style of Rayman Origins.
 
Pac-Man's nickname in the 80s series was "Packy".

But yes, I'm not much on the premise either. "Friendly" ghosts and they're all teenagers? I gather the ghost monsters turn on Pac-Man once they're all grown up or something?

As for making them teenagers, one of my pet peeves of modern TV animation---that kids supposedly won't watch adult characters in action unless they're superheroes or on a Fox primetime show, so they *have* to be teens or kids, especially *human* teens/kids (preferably going to a school of some sort and engaging in the usual school hijinks), to appeal. Which I suspect might be one reason for the "revamps" of the PInk Panther and Looney Tunes we've recently seen, to make them seem "younger" to keep with this mantra... or a reason why we don't see Looney Tunes/other adult character cartoons (Flintstones, etc.) much anymore.

-B.
 
Wait a minute.

THIS is the re-birth of Pac-Man Namco was promising for us? The next step in his evolution?

Dear God, way to get everything absolutely wrong Namco. It's like even refusing to localize half the Tales games wasn't enough to alienate your fanbase.
 
Honestly, while the idea of Pac-Man and the ghosts being friends does sound kind of wacky, I don't have a real problem with it. Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde were always popular with fans, and since there's an even greater evil than them on this show, they probably figured Pac-Man needed some allies.

I'm more bugged about 2 other things:

1. The fact that Pac and the ghosts are in high school. The high school setting for cartoons has seriously fallen into redundancy. Do producers really think that the only way to make characters appealing is to make them teens and put them in high school? Maybe it's because I never really dug school as a kid, I never wanted to see a bunch of shows set there.

2. This is minor, but I hope that the ghost Pinky is made a female on this show. On nearly every form of Pac-Man merchandise, Pinky was usually portrayed as a girl, but on the H-B cartoon show, Pinky was a guy (voiced by Chuck McCann) and there was an added token female ghost named Sue (which was Clyde's name in the Ms. Pac-Man arcade game) who was purple. There were never 5 ghosts in the games, nor was there ever a purple ghost. Nitpicky? yes, but that mildly annoyed me as a kid.
 
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