Pac-Man Fever – Buckner & Garcia (1982)

In a time when most video game composers weren’t even credited for their work, this rock n’ roll infused number transformed Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia into game music luminaries.

Riding the popularity of game arcades in the United States, ‘Pac-Man Fever’ peaked at #9 on the Hot 100 in March 1982. By the end of the month it had been certified Gold by the RIAA, indicating that it had shipped over 1 million records to retailers. To date it has sold over 2.5 million copies and, according to my research, this makes it the highest selling video game themed song of all-time.

Their début album containing the track was also named ‘Pac-Man Fever’ and exclusively featured numbers based on games such as Donkey Kong and Frogger. It was also certified Gold and sold 900,000 copies in 1982, undoubtedly having sold a lot more as of today.

Buckner & Garcia maintained their connection to the games industry up to and even beyond their break-up. In September 2011 they created the song ‘Found Me The Bomb’ for gaming website Giant Bomb. Though Gary Garcia sadly passed away in late 2011, in a fitting collaboration Buckner went on to create the song ‘Wreck It, Wreck-It Ralph!’ under the B & C name for Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph film which pays tribute to multiple classic arcade games including Pac-Man.