Franchise: Pac-Man

Pac-Man Championship Edition is the last game in the Pac-Man series to involve series creator Toru Iwatani before his retirement, of which was announced at the Pac-Man World Championship in New York City on June 5, 2007, and was preceded with this statement:

In 2019, AtGames, a company specializing in replica microconsoles containing compilations of retro or retro-styled games, acquired a portion of the rights to Ms. Pac-Man from General Computer Corporation, the company that made the original Ms. Pac-Man game for Midway and Namco - this led to a lawsuit over the IP, with an undisclosed turnout. After this, Ms. Pac-Man would begin to disappear from Pac-Man games, implying that AtGames won the case, with Ms. Pac being replaced by a character named Pac-Mom, who has a visual design resembling Ms. Pac-Man's mother from Pac 'N Roll.

Pac-Mom first appeared in the Arcade Archives release of Pac-Land through graphical modification to the original ROM, and would then be named for the first time in Pac-Man Museum+ alongside modifications to other games that originally featured Ms. Pac-Man such as Pac-in-Time, and would appear again in Pac-Man World: Re-Pac in place of Ms. Pac-Man.

Ms. Pac-Man's final appearance in an original title would be on the Pac-Land stage in 2018's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

"ZIP, CARTOON - FIJIT REWIND 02", a common cartoon sound effect originating from the Hanna-Barbera sound library, is a sped up and reversed version of the Pac-Man cartoon theme song, better known as the theme song to Pac-Land.

In a 1986 interview published in the out-of-print book "Programmers at Work" by Susan M. Lammers, series creator Toru Iwatami explained the kind of character he intended Pac-Man to be:

In a 2020 interview with IGN, series creator Toru Iwatani revealed that the ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde, were inspired by the Japanese manga "Little Ghost Q-Taro" and the American cartoon character "Casper the Friendly Ghost". He also revealed that the ghosts were conceived to always be ghosts, meaning that they never died to become ghosts, and are more akin to Yōkai in Japanese culture as "ethereal beings and concepts that reside among nature that were simply 'there' from the very beginning."

In 2004, Namco contacted Don Bluth (known for Dragon's Lair and Space Ace) to do designs for a new Pac-Man game, under the working title "Pac Man Adventures". Bluth did concept drawings for the game, but it was ultimately cancelled for unknown reasons. Some of the ideas for the game were later used in Pac-Man World 3.

During an interview with Namco Bandai's Mike Chang, it was confirmed that the Pac-Man in the Ghostly Adventures series is actually the son of the original Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man.

Pac-Man appears during a scene in the 1982 movie Tron. On the bridge of Sark's battle cruiser there is a schematic diagram showing corridors full of dots. Off to one side there is a little Pac-Man. You can also here the iconic "Wacka Wacka" noise in the background.

Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatami has regularly told interviewers a recurring story about the inspiration for Pac-Man's character design, claiming he took out a fan-shaped slice from a whole pizza at lunch and saw Pac-Man's mouth in what was left. Over the years, Iwatami has given wildly conflicting versions of the story that put its veracity into question, often switching between it being true and taking place at the chain restaurant Shakey's Pizza, to saying it was "half true" and that it also came from him rounding out the Japanese character for mouth (kuchi, "口") and noticing it looked like a pizza, to saying that he was actually researching "keywords" for eating and found a picture of a pizza with a slice taken out, to saying that he couldn't remember if he even had pizza for lunch on that day.

Xevious and The Tower of Druaga creator Masanobu Endo claimed in a 2017 interview that the design actually came about from technical limitations. He claimed that a yellow circle was the largest and most prescient object that could be put on an arcade cabinet screen at the time, and that the animation of Pac-Man eating looked similar to a pizza with a slice missing. He claimed that this similarity caused it to be inflated into the pizza story and perpetuated by media outlets "in terms of lip service", because it made for an interesting story, despite the story actually first originating from and being spread by Iwatami himself. Iwatami eventually came to accept the story's mythical status in the character's creation without being certain anymore of if it was true, saying in 2000:

When asked by Kotaku what ghosts taste like in the Pac-Man universe, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 director Kunito Komori answered:


He would then pause, possibly realizing that if the ghosts tasted bad then Pac-Man would be more hesistant to eat them, and changed his answer:

The first appearance of a yellow, spherical character named "Puck-Man" with a ravenous appetite was a 1974 bank toy by Tomy, which came in a variety of colors including yellow. It is unknown if the video game character was plagiarized or Pac-Man's design similarities are all a bizarre coincidence, with game creator Toru Iwatani claiming in an unrelated court hearing to have not heard of the toy until after the release of the game. No legal action was taken by Tomy, and the 1970's Tomy Puck-Man toys would be rebranded with Namco's Pac-Man after the success of the game.