Christmas Comes to Pac-land (1982)

Simply Perfect

Simply A Masterpiece

Memorable, crazy movie

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Looks like there really is a Christmas special on everything. This one here is connected to the uber-famous, very old computer game Pacman and we follow a family/village of Pac(wo)men during the holiday season. The first five minutes of this 30-minute short they collide with the creatures they fight against in the video game. And the Pacmen here can actually eat them as well. Bt to make it more child-friendly, the eyes of the villains survive (that sounds kinda bloody and wrong) and just move on. Rightly afterward, Santa crashes down with his sleigh and his reindeer, including Rudolph as well. Santa tells the gang that it is their task to save Christmas this time and so they do. They even get unexpected help during that mission and in the end, of course, they succeed and everybody gets presents. This one here is a spin-off from a Pacman television series I have never heard of and features also most of the voice actors from that show. Director Roy Patterson is a bit of a legend in the animation sector and Jeffrey Scott, the writer of this holiday special, was still pretty young when this was made, but not inexperienced either. Only criticism I have is that the animation really looks from almost 50 years earlier and not from the 1980s, maybe because Patterson had a career in the industry already long before his effort here. Then again, this gives a bit of a traditional vibe to the movie. All in all, a solid watch. Recommended.

The Pac-Man cartoon was, of course, based off of the mega-popular video game. This Christmas special is spun-off from that. It's about Pac-Man (who sounds like William Bendix) and friends helping Santa after he crashes. Santa comes across as kind of incompetent in this. He wasn't even aware that Pac-Land existed. I wonder how many other places he doesn't know about? Santa's a real mess here. He even breaks down in tears feeling sorry for himself at one point. Anyway, Pac-Man helps him get his butt in gear and delivering presents to all the places he bothered to remember.The animation is limited, as most television animation was at the time. The humor is mostly kiddy stuff, which is fine as that was the target audience. Now it seems mostly of interest to people who grew up in the 1980s. Still, little kids might like it. Full of bright colors and playful characters. Older kids will probably just wonder who Pac-Man is and if Santa is on medication.

Christmas Comes to PacLand (1982)*** (out of 4)Surprisenly good animated film has Santa Claus landing in PacLand where PacMan and his family are confused by who he is and what he does. Santa explains that he delivers presents to people on Christmas but his sack of toys have gone missing. PacMan must then go out to the Ghost Brothers to try and get them back. Christmas COMES TO PACLAND is a pretty entertaining little short that clocks in at 24-minutes and actually manages to be entertaining throughout. I never watched the television show so this here was the first time I had actually seen anything with the characters (outside the game of course) and I was surprised at how entertaining and likable they were. As you'd expect, the Christmas message is full of bright and the ending is also incredibly cute. The animation itself was also very impressive and I really liked the colors used for the scenery.

I never thought I'd be reviewing a Pac-Man Xmas Special. Up until a few days ago I didn't even know that there was a Pac-Man TV show.This cartoon has Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man and Pac-Baby enjoying the snow and winter season before Santa Claus ends up crash-landing in PacLand. Having never heard of PacLand the rounded Pac-People have never heard of Santa or Xmas either. The Pac-People help Santa on his way and end up experiencing their first ever Xmas in return.So what do you know...it's another one of those "Xmas is all about..." cartoons. But this time it's quite enjoyable and has nice wintry animation. It won't be a fondly-remembered special like Charlie Brown or Garfield's Xmas cartoons, but still worth watching.