Page 44 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #6

I I All the other items
f you're a child of the
were worth points,
'80s, you probably
which determined
bought at least a pack
or two of Pac-Man,
Donkey Kong, or some how well you did.
There were 28 differ-
other kind of video game ent rub-off games, so
stickers. Remember once you had an ex-
those? They came in wax ample of each, you
packs with a piece of pink were set to cheat
cardboard masquerading your way through the
as chewing gum, just like rest of your rub-off
baseball cards. While games.
there were later ones Apparently Pac-
based on characters like Man stickers were a
Super Mario Bros., for the success for Fleer,
sake of this article, we'll because in 1981 they
limit discussion to video released a set of Ms.
games’ "Golden Pac-Man stickers.
Age." (That is, the early Again, they generally
1980s.) featured one or two characters with word
Although there were two different compa- balloons or a rectangular sticker with a
nies making video game related stickers dur- saying. Looking at them now, from an
ing this time (Fleer and Topps), there are adult perspective, there was a strong un-
many similarities in the way they were sold. dercurrent of sexual innuendo. (“Ms. Pac-
All of them came 36 packs to a box. (Super Man does it faster.” Pac-Man saying, “I
Pac-Man was also available in boxes of 48 need it bad.”) Most stickers had a blue or
packs.) Each pack (except maybe Dragon’s pink background. The backs of the cards
Lair) contained three sticker cards, three rub- simply stated “Ms. Pac-Man Sticker No. Y
off game cards, and the previously mentioned of 54” in pink ink. The Ms. Pac-Man stick-
stick of “chewing gum.” The packs sold for 25 ers did not suffer from the variations that
to 30 cents each. the Pac-Man stickers did. On the fronts,
Fleer started the whole thing by releasing both Pac-People always had eyes. Pac-
Pac-Man stickers in 1980. Back then, Pac- Man had the red and blue highlights
Man was on everything from mugs to shoes to around the edges while Ms. Pac-Man did
bed sheets, so it’s only natural the trading card not.
industry would try to get in on the action. Since the Ms. Pac-Man arcade game
There were 54 stickers in the set. The front of had four different mazes, there were four
the stickers generally had black, yellow, or different mazes for the rub-off games. In
white backgrounds and featured either one or addition to the cherry, the Ms. Pac-Man
two Pac-Man characters with word balloons or games also had pretzels and bananas.
one or two rectangular stickers with sayings on The basic premise remained the same.
them. The text on several stickers was taken Sticker No. X of 54.” They also contained sug- The backs of the games came printed in
from the lyrics of “Pac-Man Fever” by Buckner gestions for holding contests using the rub-off either blue or black ink. I have never
and Garcia. (“Slide out the side door”/”I’m games. The interesting thing about the backs is seen a count of the unique game cards for
cookin’ now.”) Others were just plain silly. that there were a few variations. In my experi- any sticker series other than Pac-Man, so
(“Happiness is a hungry Pac-Man.”) This may ence, most have blue ink on the back, but you I do not know how many different Ms.
also have been where the words “Waka! can also find some that are black. In the upper Pac-Man games there were. The same
Waka!” were immortalized, as they appeared right corner is either the traditional circle-with-a- goes for all of the sets described below.
on several stickers. wedge-missing Pac-Man or the legged Pac-Man Fleer’s last set of Pac-Man stickers
The backs of the stickers were rather plain. from the side art of the coin-op. was Super Pac-Man in 1982. It was more
They had the Fleer logo and said “Pac-Man There were also two different styles of front: of the same on the front. Once again, the
those that had eyes and those that didn’t. That
is, you could find the same sticker, but one
would have eyes on the Pac-Man and another
wouldn’t. The Pac-Men with eyes also had blue
and red highlights around the edges. My obser-
vations show that the cards with the circular
Pac-Man on the back have a no-eyed Pac-Man
on the front, while the side art Pac-Man on the
back has a Pac-Man with eyes on the front. (If
you have examples that break this pattern,
please let me know.)
As for the rub-off games, they were a simpli-
fied version of the Pac-Man maze covered in
gold circles. You “moved” through the maze by
scratching off the gold circles that filled it, re-
vealing either a dot; blue monster; red, orange,
or pink monster; or a cherry. The object of the
game was to get through as much of the maze
as you could before revealing three non-blue
monsters, at which point your game was over.
Classic Gamer Magazine Spring 2001 44