Retronauts - 581: Holiday Special 2023 - Pac-Man Christmas Album

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

The holidays are here once again, which means its time for all you listeners to take your thirteenth trip to Parts Unknown for yet another exploration of a Yuletide-related video game creation. And this time around, we're examining the Pac-Man Christmas Album: a collection of holiday songs and sketches that very little to do with Pac-Man, but everything to do with hurting. So remember who you are right now, because the following 90 minutes will change you as Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and Diamond Feit thoroughly pore over this musical atrocity. Apologies in advance for ruining Christmas. Retronauts is a completely fan-funded operation. To support the show, and get two full-length exclusive episodes every month, as well as access to 50+ previous bonus episodes, please visit the official Retronauts Patreon at patreon.com/retronauts.

Winter tide, winter tide, all the country now is white, steam comes out of nose and mouth, all the birds went to a night, all the country now is white, steam comes out of nose and mouth, all the birds went to a bird, Hello and welcome once again to another Retronaut's Holiday special recorded at our Patreon-supported cabin in parts unknown. It's hard to believe that it's the 13th time we've gathered together like this. And even harder to believe that to date, no visitor has brought me a gift outside of 90 minutes of free podcasting labor, which I treasure dearly.

But darn it, sometimes on Christmas you just want to tear the wrapping paper off a bot object and an absolute frenzy. So after the unpleasantness with regular Santa Claus last year, I've taken the liberty of writing a letter to Canadian Santa Claus. Yep, they've got their own customs and money and everything up here. It's pretty crazy if you think about it. And thanks to my new home country's many socialized bookhouses or libraries, I've thoroughly researched Canada's bizarre and freakish customs.

So I'm fully prepared for a visit from Old St. Gord. When he arrives in his Dodge Charger pulled by three moose and one elk, he'll be happy to see I've laid out all the expected Canadian Santa Claus treats. A six-pack of Labat Blue, gently cooling by the fire. His choice of ketchup chips or all-dressed chips, a chafing dish filled to the brim with low-sodium poutine. And if he wants to rest his weary old bones, I prepared a ceremonial beanbag chair and placed it in front of a TV playing a constant loop of the 1987 Canada Cup. That's hockey or stick puck, as it's known up here. Thanks to the gradual decline in social norms and the general state of world politics, I've been an especially good boy this year.

So I know that when Canadian Santa sees the friendly, hey there, bud, the message I spelled out. out in the snow with Timbits, he'll respond in kind and make all of my Christmas dreams come true. Ah, but before that, it's time to make a few Christmases much worse. You know, just to balance things out. I'm not proud of what I'm about to do, but it's all for the sake of holiday equilibrium. Oh, look who it is. Come on in, both of you.

Hello. Hi. Hello, yes, thank you for coming. Of course, shake yourselves off, shake the snow off, and please introduce yourselves. Who is the frequent visitor to the Retronauts Holiday Cabin? Who is in front of me right now in this cozy little abode? Hello, Bob. It's me, Henry Gilbert, a fan of holidays and video games, one and all.

And who else is here? First-time visitor to the cabin. Welcome here. Yes, Happy Hanuk, everybody. By the way, Bob, I wasn't sure. is three meters a big enough menorah for the cabin? How high the ceiling is here? The clearance is pretty high.

I add an extra foot every year just in case. So, you know, it's always been a holiday cabin, although this is the first time we're celebrating more than Christmas, so I'm glad I made it all inclusive. Yes. Well, I'm sure if you've got the space of it, then we can light all these candles and, you know, the spark shouldn't cause any flames. It won't be a fire hazard.

I've been drinking a lot, though, so there's a lot of fumes in the air. There's a reason I've been drinking, and I'll tell you all that soon. But yes, Diamond, thanks for coming out. I know it's a trip for both of you to make it all the way out here. Diamond, I know you had to catch a 13-hour flight. So the weather's terrible. You're going to be here for less than 90 minutes, per my rules.

So I really appreciate this. I know you have a family, and they probably miss you, but, you know, it's all for podcasts. We decided that this is our first family. Everything else comes afterwards. And that's the oath that we take. It don't work out. As long as I just bring home some souvenirs, maybe some putteen or something, it'll be fine. Yes, you can find just a freestanding Poutine deposits.

It just hit the ground hard enough. It'll come springing out. So that's just living in Canada. So, yeah, I want to kick things off here. We're doing another holiday episode, as usual. So this is our 13th gathering at the Retronauts Holiday Cabin in Parts Unknown. Wow. And at this point, I must confess that the barrel has been thoroughly scraped when it comes to generating Christmas-based video game content.

But I will say that today, I feel. found a real doozy. I'm not sure where we're going to go from here. I feel like this is a cry for help because I am kind of stumped on future topics but doing a cursory search I found one thing that I had never seen before in my life

and I know with Henry I have looked at similar things but the quality of this makes me ache for the seemingly mediocre quality of the other similar things and that is the Pac-Man Christmas album from 1982. That is the

subject matter for our podcast and now I wanted to surprise both of you with this had you ever heard of this before in your lives the name of the album is just Pac-Man Christmas album the V is not even there so that you can the amount of effort is apparent up front

no yeah I despite it being the same age as me and I am a big Pac-Man aficionado no I have never never heard of this Pac-Man album before even in all of my like hate listening to things in the past as a very ironically online teen or 20 something or even 30 something

who also had to write about video games before and make fun of things in all of those cases never had I heard of this album and how about you diamond any awareness of this Pac-Man album there are more popular Pac-Man albums or songs rather but this one is still fairly obscure yeah actually that's why I started looking it up because I'm one familiar with Pac-Man fever and I was curious if this came out earlier or later it sounds like this came out after that so maybe they decided oh well there's already been a precedent for Pac-Man music so we should just make more Pac-Man music except we won't make anything clever I'm assuming actually they're yeah I think they thought there's still some milk left in this

musical Pac-Man cow or whatever metaphor you want to use so yeah in the past Henry and I have done episodes about albums like Pokemon Christmas Bash one of my favorite Christmas specials that we did. Unexpectedly fun album. Also, other less fun Pokemon albums like To Be a Master and Totally Pokemon. Again, this episode should be no different. A musical tour of this album, although

the quality is very, very low, very amateurish. And, you know, in my curse research of who has written about this? I found maybe two articles because honestly, it's not worth looking at, and that's where I come in. I find these things and make an hour's worth of entertainment out of them.

And that's a service I do for the listener. So I want to know we're all old people in this, uh, in this room. We're all over 40, unfortunately. And I want to know from all of you, uh, how are you of the age to have experience records? And by that I mean little vinyl discs you put on a rotating platform, a needle is placed on that. And then somehow through witchcraft, I believe, music comes out of a speaker. And now I'm not talking about going down to your local, uh, I don't know, Best Buy and getting like the $60 Willco vinyl or the $60 Pixies remaster. I'm talking about

when that's all there was. Oh, absolutely not for me. Not one record in your life, Henry. No, well, as an adult now, I've actually purchased several records in the last five years, mainly for display purposes, collector's purposes. Like just recently, I flew down to Los Angeles

to see Rebecca Sugar had an art exhibition at a place called Gallery Nucleus where she was also selling her new EP and it was like oh it's a limited pressing of it I was like all right I'll buy this I may never ever play it because I have no device with which to play it but yeah also like my parents

my dad I don't think is ever recreationally listened to music ever and my and my mom only had cassette tapes but yeah my dad like doesn't give a shit about music like at all So no, nobody had had, I don't think there was a vinyl album in our home my entire life. I'm, I'm impressed and surprised.

Diamond, how about you? Did you grow up with records or were your record purchaser at any point in your life? I never bought the records myself, but absolutely, we had a lot of records around. Like, my boomer parents were big into the Beatles. We had a lot of Beatle albums. And I was, you know, I was already old enough to, like, want things in the early 80s. So, like, we had the, we had the Thriller album, of course. And, you know, a couple of years later, when Weird Al became big,

it's like, oh, I got a Weird Al album, that sounds harder to say than it should be. But, and I remember I had a, like, a child-sized, I don't, I'm not big on the lingo, but, like, I had a child-sized record player, which I think back in the 90s, already, like, 25 years ago, Smashing Pumpkins, like, recreated that with their, one of their CDs. They had, like, a little, like, box that it came in. It tried to look like an old, like, record, like a record player box or a record album box. So I had, like, a child-sized record player.

and we would occasionally get like child-sized records that would be like story books or audio from movies or just like little things like that. So I was definitely, yeah, my music listening and basically audio experience was only records for a few years and then tapes came around and tapes were like the big new thing. Like, oh, wow, now I can get, you know, a Walkman and go take music with me in the car

when we go on a long road trip. So I had a similar journey in that as a kid, Adults were listening to cassettes, but I had a little kid record player. I think even Big Bird was on it as a future. You opened it up. It was like a little suitcase. And I had the smaller records, I believe they're called 45s. And there were a lot of, you know, kids music.

And, you know, when there was nothing on TV because there were three channels and the internet didn't exist, you could say, oh, I can make everyone sing faster. And that'll kill three minutes because you had like the little dial that could turn up the speed on the record. So that's just what we did in the past. but actually my experience with records connects with what's going on here because this album comes from the label Kid Stuff Records and because this came from an era in which records were huge so of course records for kids were going to be part of that and Kid Stuff existed from roughly 1977 and 1987 and I had quite a number of these

because by the time my mom was buying these for me it was after the company was defunct. And as a single working mother, these were less than a dollar, I have to assume. Just, you know, in clearance bins and just easy entertainment for the kids. Man, I think the closest I had to, the actual, like, musical tape, probably Weird Al was the first, like, cassette I had. But the things I got as a little kid were the, the Disney read-along storybook type things. But again, those were on cassette. We never had any record. If you want to count how the things like how a talking elf toy talks when you'd pull on the string,

that might have had an LP inside of it, vinyl technology for him to talk. So if that counts, then I had that on final elf talking. If Toy Story 4 is to be believed, that's how they work. So yes, Kid Stuff Records, located in Hollywood, Florida. They license popular properties and produce full-length original LPs, as well as shorter read-along records that were meant to accompany a picture book and the latter is what I was familiar with as a kid

because kid stuff, they scooped up a lot of licenses for their dirty deeds which includes things like Care Bears My Little Pony, Star Wars, Barbie, Strawberry Shortcake, Donkey Kong and dozens more and that includes Pac-Man and I definitely had a few of these like I said because by the time I was getting them and they were all in clearance

and I definitely had a few of the Pac-Man ones including Pac-Man Run for Fun and Pac-Man Picnic because if you go online, some amazing people have, I don't know what the terminology is, recorded these records or found a way to get them online and it's a great resource to see what this world was like because they're all very cheesy,

they're all very silly, and they're all very amateurish because the companies licensing these properties were not paying attention yet. Well, I mean, I would guess with, well, you might get in this, but back then, like this, with a Japanese game like this, you're licensing

it from the American company that licensed the Japanese game. And so it's like three levels of nobody caring about any kind of brand consistency. Yeah, I mean, they cared as much about like Pac-Man bubble gum as they did about

these records. Like, is the product killing anyone? No, we don't care. just give us the money give us like 30% of what you earn and that's fine we're not we're not considering uh the brand consistency the lore uh the story bible we just want you to sell a record with pacman on it or gum or a board game or underwear it doesn't matter this is what's going on at this point in merchandising and again please look up these records online on youtube they're just so fun and uh the ones that are the read-along storybook ones are usually about nine minutes long so you don't have

suffer through a lot of it if you're curious as to what is the retelling of the empire strikes back in about 20 pages they'll let you know so unfortunately despite how prolific this company was they've been gone for about 35 years and because of that no one has bothered

following up on them and there's not much information about them outside of a Wikipedia article which thankfully at least list all of the releases I think that they've done there could be more but it's a fairly comprehensive Wikipedia article but this is been very hard to find

because nobody values this stuff it was pretty ubiquitous in terms of like you know junkie kids music and nobody really wanted to know how it was made and now all of these men are either in their 90s or dead the people behind these records

and no and I mean well it's been a hot topic this last month or so too about how you know lots of stuff online is not as well researched anyway Yes, unfortunately, I couldn't find an existing YouTube video and just recite what they said word for word. You've got the lighting valve, though.

You're all set. All he needs a turtleneck. Yes, I have red lighting. I need blue lighting on one side. And, yes, the turtleneck would help as well as unflattering glasses. That'd be nice, too. If you add the blue to it, though, you'd be co-opting bisexual lighting as a straight man. And I wouldn't appreciate that.

That's true. That's true. I would be stealing valor. And I do not do that. So I was looking into at least who are these people behind Kid Stuff Records? just to provide some sort of historical context about what this was, where it came from. So the main guy behind kid stuff is a guy named Bob McAllister. He was a children's entertainer.

He was the host of a syndicated kid show called Wonderrama way before our time. And he passed away somewhat young in 1998. So he is the main force behind kid stuff. And then the second guy, his name is Artie Kaplan. He seems to be alive. He's almost 90. he was a very prolific session musician of his era, which is where you'll find a lot of the people that do that kind of work,

do this kind of work as well. And the third guy, Dick Mullen, is nowhere to be found, mostly because he shares the name with a disco-elisium character, which just sucks up all of the search results. So that's where I am with Dick Mullen. Don't know who he is, don't know where he came from. But these are the three guys behind Kid Stuff. That's interesting.

A session musician, I mean, that's the type of guy who's going to get, if you need to maximize the use of your studio time and pump out some stuff quick, like, I would bet all these were like one-take albums of kids' music. Well, the fact that they make mistakes and mispronounce words lets me know there were no other takes. Oh, no. Okay. So that's how it's a one-take album. You said carbirds instead of cupboards? Should we do it again? No, no, keep going.

We rented the studio for an hour That's all we're getting You'll see, you'll see So I was looking it up So discogs thankfully If what they say is true These are the people behind it So before we get to discogs

You look at the back of this album And it says all songs copyright 1982 Gabriel Amanda Music in Audio Illusions Publishing And I'm guessing Gabriel Amanda music was just One of several You know musical production houses

that Kid Stuff contracted to create their records. And according to Discogs, Gabriel Amanda only existed for a few years and only for the sake of making Kid Stuff albums. So maybe it was just some people formed an LLC or something and then they sold some songs to Kid Stuff and that was that. I don't know the story behind them because, again, these are very hard truths to find. And I could not find anything about Audio Illusions Publishing

except for their connections to this kind of stuff. If I were to make a wild guess that I wonder if that has something to do with how registering songs for copyright have to be done by some other group and they created an LLC that has to register to copyright a song for songwriting right purposes through that company instead of another one. Maybe that's the... Yeah, I mean, this could be a phantom company. You're correct. But this all comes from discogs and I trust them and the people. at that site because they're all crazy and they know what they're talking about. So digging deeper, we see

two credited musicians on this album. We have Dana Walden and Patrick McBride. So Dana Walden at least seems to have some musical claim to fame as the keyboard player for the band Champagne, not the drink but the city in Illinois.

That's the name of the bands. Wait, what? Yes. And when I play a clip of one of their songs, you will recognize it. I think if you've heard enough 70s music, you might know what this is. So, uh, their hit, 1981 song was called, How About Us? And if you look up the video on YouTube, I believe you can see Dana Walden somewhere in there. But here's a little clip of that song. It'll be very familiar to you if you're used to what I are now considered oldies. Some people are made for each other. Some people can love one another for life.

How about us? There you go. So I can just see your mom and dad slow dancing to this, not mine, but your mom and dad. To me, that's very strong, like, you know, instant coffee commercial energy, you know? Yes. Like, let's sit down. Let's make something and read the paper and just relax. That's the kind of music my dad heard and then turned off the radio and said, let's sit in silence.

Love. So, yeah, that's Dana Walden. And, again, keyboard player for the band Champagne. How about us was their big hit? They were around up until, I believe, the early 90s. And I think he had a real, like, dusting and polishing mixing boards portion of his career because Dana Walden also was a producer on a lot of things, a lot of various non-performing roles on different albums throughout the 1980s.

So it was more than just champagne for Dana Walden, but I don't know, alive or dead, not sure. You let me know. And another person on this album is Patrick McBride, and almost all of his credits are on Kid Stuff, Pac-Man albums. and I kind of get the feeling he's the one doing almost all the voices on here I'm not sure it could be Dana but it really is just one guy even doing the voice of a woman

and a baby I see man is this I wonder I'm waiting to hear this guy is he just a local kids entertainer that they found who's like you can play all the guys in this I don't think entertainer was anywhere near his resume

that word once you hear what's going on here. I don't know where they found this guy. There was no bar to clear in terms of quality. I mean, if you look at Pokemon Christmas Bash, it's very silly, it's very low effort, but these are seasoned voice actors who had just done a lot of TV. They knew what they were doing. Not the case

here. The voices you'll hear on this album are voices that we can all do ourselves, and we'll probably be doing them throughout the podcast. It's that easy. I think, you know, you can really, in the different than time, the The Gen Xers who end up making the cheap cash-ins, I feel like they at least remember hearing something crappy when they were a kid and they think to themselves, I may not be getting paid well, but I can do a little better than that. Or also maybe more people know how to record albums. So there's at least a little wider range of choices you have than just like the one studio in the state that can record your thing. Yeah, I mean, I feel a complete disdain for the source material here more than anything we've covered before

To the point where they almost ignore it completely and Pac-Man is just the guy with a weird voice And yeah, there's no real Pac-Man elements I mean, we'll get to it, but I'm just astounded by the lack of Pac-Man content There's very little meat on this gym mat for this Christmas special And I apologize in advance So we're going to get into the album now. I have a lot of clubs as usual So to start things off, I want to say half this album has what I would call unfinished demo

energy to me. So I don't feel like Kid Stuff was looking for quality, but the idea in my head is these two songwriters handed over their demos. Kid Stuff was like, great, we love it. Here's your check for $200 and they were like sure, and they kind of quietly high-five each other and move on to their next job.

But those songs feel like they were mailed in. Please hire real singers to do these songs. Please add some real instruments. Kid Stuff just ran with the demos. The other half of the album has a real songs we couldn't sell to anyone else energy to them meaning these are not songs sung by

Pac-Man characters and they're not about them they could be just given to any band for their cashed-in Christmas album so we have a mix of both of these worlds here which I find really fascinating because it's a very inconsistent album I don't really like any of these songs but it really

is just peaks and valleys when it comes to quality and I guess they spaced out the peaks and valleys so maybe they knew what they were working with. Interesting, man. Yeah, I mean, I look at the cover art for this. And, yeah, it also feels very first drafty to me, too. The cover art is the best stuff.

It's on model, and it depicts the PAC people as they should be. When you listen to how they're living, what they're doing here, if I get this album to someone who didn't know what Pac-Man was, they just assume he was a normal guy with a weird name. And that he happens to know ghosts, I guess. So I want to get into the album And we start off this album And we hear the sound of jingle bells

So we're getting into the Christmas spirit here We hear some Christmassy synths rather And we see We hear an actual child say May We Christmas Because somebody knew a kid They dragged them in And you'll see the album will end the same way as well So this kid says May we Christmas

The giggles go on for a very long time And then we hear our humble narrator who explains to us the meaning of Christmas in our very first clip here. Christmas is that most special of times. The lazy fun of summer has long faded and been replaced by the crisp excitement of snowball fights, ice skating, and sleigh rides.

Children all over the world are especially good during this time because they know that Santa Claus is watching them very, very closely. And the children in Packville are no different. As a matter of fact, I can think, of nowhere else where the celebrations are so elaborate, the decorations so colorful, and the people so happy as they are

in Pac-ville. So there's our narrator. Did he say Pac-U-Lan? What? Is he like Dracula? No, I thought I heard Pac-Lan, but I thought he said the Children of Pac-U-Lan. Like, where are we? I don't know.

Oh, I thought you were trying to take a stab at his accent because, like, the children of Pac-Land are no different. It's just it's a weird I think he's trying to do a British accent But it's not quite right So it kind of sounds like a more stately Peter Griffin Yeah there's the

It definitely seems like a guy who like watched a local Performance of a of a Christmas carol And that's this is kind of like the setting the scene But it's also like text is is faux Dickensian And just I mean yeah that And to set the time for Packville I mean this is before the video game at Pac-Lac came out, so maybe they didn't have

the word yet, but he said Packville at the end, but you're right, I was I guess he said Pac-Land, but it also sounded like Pac-Eulahs or something. Yeah, yeah. No, no. He said, guys, I listen to this a lot before this recording. He says, and the children of Pac-Land are no different. So, he's

talking about the children of Pac-Land. So, like with Pokemon Christmas Bash, a lot of this is, we have about 200 Christmas words. We're going to use all of them. And we have to remind you, you're into Christmas, you bought a Christmas doll, but here's why Christmas is special. We kind of know it. You don't need to get us on board immediately.

But what you need to know about this world so far is that Christmas exists and that Packville is doing it better than us. And also, Packville is a city within Pac-Land where Pac-Man lives, I assume. So the cartoon did exist at this point. We have that. We have the lore behind that. It's all ignored. None of the voice actors appear here. this is coming off of that very successful run.

I think it's ending around this time because this is the same year that Christmas comes to Pac-land will air on television. And we covered that I dare say like eight years ago, something like that on retro-30s. Yes. That's how I mark the time it's passing.

Just which Christmas special have I covered? Yeah, actually, this the description of Packaville being so colorful and in love with Christmas is in stark contrast to them not even knowing who Santa Claus is when he crash lands in Pac-Land

in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Yes, they had to be taught about the miracle of Christmas, but without all the religion stuff. Yes. You know what, Henry, maybe it's a prime directive kind of situation where Santa shows up and all of a sudden they've imitated the visitors' culture and now PAC people can't

get enough Christmas. They're hungry for it. So this is the year after that where Christmas fever is really attacked to the is replaced Pac-Man fever with Christmas fever. And he goes on to say that oh, all the department stores are

stuffed with toys of every kind from bikes to trains to electronic video games. And yes, he's dropping in references to the things you would rather have for Christmas instead of this. I wonder if any kids got this. Mom gives it over saying, I know

you like Pac-Man and I think you'll like this. And it's not the 2,600 version of Pac-Man. It's not anything of a similar quality it's this album which also who wants to get a Christmas album on December 25th like it's like but it's over I don't want to listen to songs about Christmas anymore

we have we have 12 hours get to listening you can listen to this album like 26 times in that time frame and I suggest you do that so we get this this intro out of the way and there's a brief pause and then what sounds like the intro to the next song but instead of actually singing

the narrator is just kind of doing this Jack Skellington talks singing. Thankfully, he's not the singer, but he's like, the smell of fresh-baked cookies mixes with the fragrance of Christmas trees to produce a holiday perfume. And then he explains how this is all part of the Magic

of Christmas, and this leads into our very first song of the album, The Magic of Christmas. The Magic of Christmas is you and me. There's mistled fall holly and Christmas trees. Swimming and raining and silver bells.

I love Beasance, greetings, and holiday singing, but a magic of Christmas is you and me. So, no Pac-Man content so far, but you get a gist of how all of these songs go, and I kind of will use the same joke over and over, because it's just pulling from the Christmas word bank because the singer's like,

I love presents and snowmen and sleds and cookies and ribbons and angels. Just every, just pull them all down. We have 500 more words to go But you don't know anything about Pac-Man yet And that's the important thing Yeah There's a hint of something clever With the you and me bit

Which I think maybe that can go somewhere You can build it something else But otherwise it's just yeah Let's just list off things that we know That might be around us right now Maybe even in the studios They're recording it Like it's really

It's going nowhere It's got nothing There's no puns And I even like making pack puns Like there's not even No puns Like give me at least a pun No?

There's not Pac-Man, so Pac-Man is not said once in this song, in the full song, Bob. Yeah, and there's nothing about, like, Christmas is a maze we must navigate, and the dots are our friends or something. It is just, this is one of the songs they couldn't sell to anyone else songs. This feels like a very half-ass attempt at a new Christmas standard. I mean, it feels like something you'd hear on one of those, like, podcasts for improvised singing, and it really is just a list of, like, the, things you see in front of you or you're just and you're lucky that tree rhymes with me so you can say

is you and me and it's also like such wannabe carpenters like it's very very very very bad imitation of carpenters I don't know who the singer is but we get what I think is a verse here so the singer it's basically a list because she goes

icicle shining skating and sliding candy canes and toy trains and it just again it's just more of the Christmas vocabulary and then we just go back to the refrain again these songs are very very repetitive which is why I've clipped like two clips per song and then with verse two

it's just another list of Christmas thing so this is just a very very low effort Christmas vocabulary list but I have a bit more of the magic of Christmas here for both of you Red and green stockings

Christmas tree flockies popcorn balls and deck the halls there's nothing more fun but the magic of Christmas is me and you wow yes see she started with you and me but she ended with me and you that's as creative as things get here there it is there's a twist I also love that like I really thought okay there's got to be something else here just like something to do just silence for like a whole like line of a music sheet and then but it's me and you the end that line just said figure out later and later never came i feel like they could have at least said like fall la la la la la la and then something like filled the void with something yeah any kind of nonsense word a diamond sorry

i don't want to express too much ignorance here of christmas culture but has anyone in this virtual room ever like made a popcorn ball like that's seems like something you would make like that's like a that's like a 1950s icon to me like I don't know like you know like the toy trains like yeah I had some toy trains when I was a kid but they were already like you know a past kind of a past concept you know I definitely have threaded popcorn once or twice but that really was like a not a family tradition but more of like hey this is the thing you see in old movies why don't we try that but an actual like a popcorn ball that you then like lacquer with with caramel or whatever. never know. I've never done that. Never experienced that. We had real candy by the time I had teeth. And also, I did, I did do this popcorn string. And I think it was because my grandma born in 1928 had done that at some point in her life. And, you know, forgive me. I know, I know we're overthinking this thing that was clearly churned out in like an afternoon. But it's like, you're going to say popcorn ball. You're going to, you're going to invoke a round imagery and not go with any of the round objects, including Pacman himself or the things that he eats. It's like, come on. Yeah, no mention of the fruit or the pretzel or the key or anything like that. And, you know, I was like, I'm this deep in the song upon doing research and I immediately regret picking this album because we get what I feel is a very long outro.

We all know how songs used to have very long outos for the sake of, you know, radio play, the DJ can talk over them. The DJ can turn it down whenever they want. I think that's what's happening. But at the end of like a very long 30 second outro, in quotes, it picks up again with a repeated verse. So, again, very little meat on this gym. and we're in for a lot of trouble here on this podcast. So get ready to set sail because there's about eight more songs left. Oh, sorry, seven.

Holy shit, man. And I mean, maybe it's like it has to be a certain amount of time to fit onto the wax or the vital. I don't know. But boy, to just have just like, well, also this musically is not a good song either. So why would you want to luxuriate in the music than hear just like, you know, more of like, rhyming of like Frosty the Snowman with me and you or like Noel some other thing

you see you know what they're better writers than me I cannot think of something to rhyme Frosty the Snowman with there Pac-Man I mean a lot Yeah Pac-Man yeah I mean At some point on this album they rhyme giving With Thanksgiving so that's that's a little of the same level

But a lot of these songs I find odd because I feel like this is a children's album and a lot of these songs are romantic Christmas songs where it's a woman saying Our Love Together is what makes Christmas magical And a lot of these songs are about you know Giving kisses and you know Celebrating special times with with a specific loved one Not appropriate for this kid's album

And I'll only say this once but The Great Podcast We Hate Movies calls this variety of song We Might be fucking on Christmas The Pokemon album did that too With Misty and Ash and I didn't like that Oh, yeah, even they had one of those I forgot about that. So yes, a lot of time has been killed.

Pac-Man, nowhere to be found. Please help. So we get our outro finally and then we get some welcome Pac-Man content. So we hear a bunch of kids saying, Merry Christmas, Pac-Man, and finally, our character speaks, and he doesn't just speak, he rhymes.

And this is what they decide Pac-Man should sound like for an entire album. You know, Miss Pac-Man, I just love this time of the year. Everyone is so happy and cheerful And outside it's so pretty and peaceful The springtime has flowers and soft falling rain Summer has sunny days for swimming and playing games

The autumn means back to school and meeting new friends But the winter means snowflakes and frozen lakes And Christmas once again And that's all we hear before we start hearing snowflakes and frozen lakes but that is the Pac-Man voice And I can tell he's doing all the pack characters Because they're not doing a lot of audio editing on this And this guy seems like a heavy smoker

Not as much as the voice of Pac-Man from the cartoon But when I'm listening to this all here is That's right, Miss Pac-Man We're going to have a fun Christmas You can just hear the desperate gasps of air That vocal effect That is the That is like the little alien

the Starship Enterprise when they land on a new planet they find some little kid and that's when the kid talks to them and like all in meanwhile the viewer at home was like get away from that thing I don't want to talk to that thing

what the hell is this way to just saccharin and weirdly Midwestern because I hear this character talking and he goes Pac-Man that's what I hear

so the Pac-Man it's Pac-Man it's Pac-Man I again I must I get more respect for Hannah Barbera their version around the same time

because they just did the Hanna-Barbera thing I'm saying like, look, he's Fred Flintstone. We'll just do Fred Flintstone again, except it's that. He's like, I got to go eat some ghosts. Exactly. Yeah. But meanwhile, this, and hey, at least, well, seemingly, this avoids the accidental slur that the Hanna-Barbera-Pak Man cartoon had.

Yeah, it is very weird to hear Ms. Pac-Man, rather, call Pac-Man. man by that name. It really takes you out of things 40 years later. It's a diamond seems confused by this. Well, if you were to call Pac-Man an affectionate term with a Y at the end of it.

Yeah, yeah, I'm doing the math of my head. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah. I guess that's more of a British slang, but still, yeah, I'm not, okay. It's still, it's still very odd. Yeah. So yes, that is what Pac-Man sounds like, and then we get our new song, Snowflakes and Frozen Lakes. It's very

hard to make out this female singer, but I think it's supposed to be Ms. Pac-Man. I'll let you decide. Here's a bit of this song. And the dream comes true Yeah, this is what I call one of the unfinished demo songs Where this was sent in, they're thinking You'll get some real people to sing this, right?

And that was not on the agenda. This is hard to make out some of the lyrics, especially It's supposed to be a female voice, but it is just the pitched up Pac-Man singer. And again, a very loving and romantic song Ms. Pac-Man is thinking about getting a kiss from Pac-Man. I know. Did she say fire?

She said, fire, right? She said, like, light of fire. Yes. Yeah, well, okay, so, but they did call something pack cakes, right? So that was something to describe something in a pack style, right? Maybe you heard that. Maybe it's what they said. This song is almost unintelligible.

Okay. I mean, I still, I can't stand to that they started the song with him. The first song already said, well, you know what times aren't. like Christmas. Summer, spring, fall. But now it's time to talk about the winter. And this time again, he starts with like, you know, the other times of the year, this is like, we know what times this isn't. Yes. Yeah, exactly. The narrator's like, summer is for the playing of baseball. And then later, Pac-Man says, you know, Miss Pac-Man,

summer is for baseball and spring is for picnics. And it goes on and on. Not a lot of ideas here at the table. but no that song though like literally i can't tell what is being sung in parts of it it's like yeah nothing it feels also weirdly educational where if anyone said hey why is this song so lazy they could be like we're trying to teach kids about seasons here okay we have an honorable purpose um so that that's my justification if i was blamed for writing this there is like sometimes the the bar is so low and you're just so worn down by this album that sometimes there are good and interesting parts in it

compared to the rest. I like this weird calypso part of this song. Let me know if you agree. It's a silver-dustid moon that leads you through the world as you're gazing out a frosted window hang.

It's a clear delight this starry night, this Christmas scene. Yes, even Ebenezer will undergo with you. Yeah, I do like, I guess, the three-part harmonies, and it's weird, the things that get into your head.

Since I started doing research on this and listening to this a bunch of times, I have had the lyric, even Ebenezer will undergo a change in my head. And I was almost done with that book. Thanks a lot, guys. He's got a cocoon waiting for him. now I you know yeah maybe it's that everything before this has been so crummy but that actually at the very least that ripped off yacht rock of the era nice enough like you're like oh that this has a nice little tune to it it reminds me of the pinia collata song yes thank you I was searching for the term but it is yacht rock it just pleasant and lilting and empty but you know up until that point where it's just the sort of diddling synthesizers in the background you know you hit on it earlier bob I feel like this is the kind of music that you're could go behind like a three two one contact special about like you know uh you know the life the life uh coming to coming together and like a do of a drop of water somewhere like this is a little

do do do like let's let's talk about cells let's talk about you know uh paramecium or whatever but then yeah then he gets some harmonies oh this is actually building into a song okay it's a it was it was harsh and dirge like and then these singers kind of come in to rescue us these are the real singers they hired so yeah this song keeps continuing as you would expect. There's a bit of like an interlude where Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man kind of flirt with each other

and then the singers sing and Pac-Man says something like, who threw that snowball? And at the end, Pac-Man, I've been working on my Pac-Man, by the way. I hope you all enjoy it. At the end, Pac-Man, and he's wholesome to the point of being creepy.

The song ends with him saying, And it's all thanks to Snowflakes and Frozen Lakes and you. And I think he's talking to his, wife. But now we're not the you in the story here. He's not. Yeah, I think we're being left out of it. We're the voyeurs, if anything. So the cover of this album, they've got the baby in there. So I'm hoping it comes in later, but like, oh, we're going to slam right into Pack Baby's song. Okay. Well, these, so this is a married couple on like date night then here. I think so, but the baby's here. The baby is present. And I don't know, like, in the. the um in the cartoon i think it was pack baby in the cartoon but there's also there's pac man junior there's baby pac man and there's also pack baby it's uh again yes pacman junior was a game yeah baby pacman was a game that's the pinball slash arcade game yeah and then pack baby is the hannah barbara character that i think they're running with here a voice by russie taylor by

the way in one of her earliest rules that's right yeah the though this thing yeah the the the Pack, the confused world of Pac-Man families, and also has only become more confused in the years since because Namco doesn't own all of them. And so Miss Pac-Man doesn't appear in things these days. We have like Pac-Man and what, Pac-Girlfriend now or something? I think it's Pac-Mama or something. Yeah. Pack-partner. Pack-partner.

So, yes, you asked if, you asked if Pac-Baby is here, and he really dominates the middle of this album. Here is Pac Baby Pac-Man, just look at Pac-Baby Where cutie keeps staring at the Christmas tree Probably daydreaming about all the presents That Santa will bring on Christmas morning Sorry, I thought Pac-Baby would talk in that. Sorry, I thought Pac-Baby would talk in that

they're going for like a little drummer boy thing but I this this song is so dirge like it's just a very down tempo dirge with this man singing in a baby's voice we'll hear that soon but just the it's almost like a video game song of the era so so okay so after well this is like an actual story

these are not clipped out songs that could be heard in any order these are done in order so they just had their their dream about like ice skating together eating and drinking cider or whatever they're like oh and also our baby must be dreaming of presence right now you can't see this but our baby is here

our baby's here and it won't stop staring at the tree I wonder what that baby's thinking well we don't have to ask that question because the baby just tells us in this next song oh boy morning comes quickly slipper slipper shon sneaking around Mama and Daddy Still asleep

Don't make a sound I want to see What's under the tree Do you remember That Christmas wishes you wrote on your list I really hope that everyone's there Not one is missed I want to see

What's under my tree Extra long clip You should see the faces of Henry and Diamond Everybody Sheer horror and pain And yes The lyric I wrote It's a baby

You can see what's under the tree You're the baby It's the best part of the tree You can see is the bottom What's going on? I'm angry It's more like What's in the presence

But my lyric I wrote Where he's like Not One is missed My fall-up lyric would have been i would be pissed that's the lyric i wrote see i should be doing this nobody's hiring me to write these uh albums from 40 years ago also i'm going by what's on the cover of the album and again this is

traditional like bay pack baby baby pac man like it or pack baby is this it's a tiny baby like it's one like it doesn't know who santa even is and can't list presence like and you're not waking up early to you can't leave your crib like he can't leave it if he woke up at 3 a.m. as probably most babies do, he can't actually go down and check the tree anyway. This is a free-range baby that has full capacity of the human language. I guess this was 19-802.

Yeah. Yeah, kids weren't even in car seats in 1982 yet. Yes, yeah. They were just not to crawl around open fires. Sorry, go ahead. The thing I was thinking about with Miss Pac-Man was in Pac-Man world repack, it's Pac-Mom. That is the character who has replaced Miss Pac-Man.

man in the game a pack mom see uh miz pacman was supposed to be a feminist statement now she's just defined by her uh you know status as a as a parent and as a as a wife yeah i know i think it's a big downgrade no i see they've uh damco's gone very traditionalist family values these days she became a trad wife and we are not for that so um yes this is an adult man singing in a baby voice i assume they thought like i'll just do this for the demo and you'll probably like hire a kid or a woman to, no, not going to happen. This is just put on wax forever and then upload it

to YouTube. So now we get a different chuck of this song and it really made me ask, is this a joke? But the important thing is Baby Pac-Man is really trying to kiss Santa's butt with this world peace idea. So here is like the bridge of Under the Tree

which I think you'll both enjoy. Last year I yet for toys. This year it's different. I have one single wish That Santa Claus Could fill the world With love

And with kisses There you go So He wants So instead of toys Baby Pack baby Want Santa Claus to fill the world

With love and with kisses And if you pay attention To the rhyming scheme Different is rhymed with kisses Oh yeah You're right Something different with love and kisses.

Wow. Well, perhaps this is in the... It definitely wants to be a, you know, all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth kind of thing or a hippopotamus for Christmas. Like, fun kid Christmas songs. Obviously, this is horrible, like the worst song we've heard so far. Sorry, I was just thinking of the, like,

Nobody don't like Christmas. The Mouth song from the Christmas Bash. Now that's a good song. Yes, that song rules, and I think about it every year. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's supposed to, everything is just very wholesome. And I guess he's trying to appeal to Santa's non-toy qualities, but I feel like he still wants something out of this Pack Baby. So Pack Baby, Pac Baby talks and has object permanence and knows all these things with the world, but also the people of Pac-Land, I guess, know about other cultures. Is there a Middle East in Pac-land that's currently in crisis in the early 80s?

Like, what? Is there a Ron Rock War? As far as I know, they're exactly like us, except they celebrate Christmas better. And I guess there is strife in the pack worlds. And then Pack Baby is saying no more. And I would guess you would have included it if it was there, Bob. But even in the other parts, there's no PAC specifics of any kind with Baby Pack. a pack baby right absolutely not

absolutely not so yeah more time killing with the bap ba ba pa pa that goes on for a while and I know both of you you really wanted to hear more a pack baby after under the tree

I know I did so up next we have an interlude that features both pack baby and his parents and they're certainly not being voiced by the same person let's hear it right now we've forgotten to do an extra special good deed

for Christmas Why, Pac Baby, what a wonderful thought. He's right, Pac-Man, we really should do something special for someone. You're both right. Christmas is a time of giving and goodwill. But what should we do? Hey, why don't we invite Speedy, Dashful, Shadow, and Pokey to celebrate Christmas with us? But, Pac-Baby, they do nothing but chase us and our friends every chance they get.

Well, Pac-Man, maybe this is the chance we've needed to win the course over as friends. So there you have it. Referencing actual gameplay elements, finally. There was not a mention of a power pellet or anything, a maze. But now we have the antagonists in what they like to do. Okay, so you've got one person doing three characters the same time. At no point did I ever guess right which voice it was actually doing. Yeah, I guess the baby pack, sorry, Pac baby voice we heard during the song.

is different than the Pack Baby voice we hear during the sketch. Yeah, but also it's pitched up, but pitched up almost exactly the same as Miss Pac-Man. That's why, I mean, I'll give them this, that they know that you can't tell who they are, or maybe they think five-year-olds listening to this won't follow along. So that's why every character says, that's right, Pac-Man, maybe we should do this. Look, Pac-Baby's doing this. like they're letting you know who just spoke or who's about to speak

yes and I feel like if you think we're being too hard on this all of us as kids and this is why we're podcasters if something violated canon if something wasn't like the thing it was based on we would get upset and I have to imagine the kid the gen Xers who got this were furious

about the lack of pack content maybe just maybe if I stare at the cover long enough it's like I'm playing the game no yeah I think they got used to like you know the I feel like the Pac-Man cereal, which I did have that as a kid, that had much more close devotion to the lore than this album does. Yeah, even the picture books that are part of the same line,

they include Pac-Man-style music. There are basically mazes that you do in the picture book while Pac-Man-style music plays. So they're a little more on brand. Not this one, though, a diamond. I'll give them credit. By invoking the name of the ghosts, they're at least promising me something.

Oh, wait, we're actually going to talk about, how the Pacmen, pack people and the ghosts interact like on a day-to-day level because apparently this is like they have an ongoing feud so are they going to try to make up or they're going to call like a Christmas truce

like I'm invested now and it does feel though a banditory like they were told make sure you mention every character name here they are you can really sense the registered trademark symbol after them saying you know speedy bashful pokey and whatever you can really sense

this was an edict not like let's invite the ghosts over, all four of them. And then moving on, they really had to work in all the names. So I want everyone to hear. I assume this was the part where the album went to the other side, but no, this is what finishes

out the album. I wanted everyone to hear just how abrupt this transition is before the end of the album. Now we can really enjoy the spirit of Christmas. There, the holes with boughs of Ali. La La La La La La. just slams right into that. So, yes, they do some public domain stuff on this album.

We have Duck the Halls and something else. But in the tradition of this album, it is just the most joyless dirge like, deck the halls. And you just start thump, thump, thump in the background. Wow. And, well, you know, I don't know who these people are. I don't know who's singing. It just feels like they just drove their rig down to an elementary school and said,

hey, your fourth grade busy, bring them in. Absolutely. Yeah, I would, I totally. believe that they're like uh you make the kids but also they're like but this is august or this september they with you wanted the kids to sing christmas songs now like yeah we got to print this tomorrow we got a box of pacman cereal you can all split it uh so yeah that so i thought like the transition between the sketch and the song was uh you know the album's ending time to flip it over no it slams into we wish you merry christmas and then you turn the album over for the rest of it

We're only halfway through. Oh. And we are rescued a bit because as far as songs go on this album, this one is my favorite. And it is the Pac-Man-Free Old-Fashion Christmas. And this has what I call a real cigarette floating in a beer-can energy to it. Let's hear a bit of old-fashioned Christmas. Give me an old-fashioned Christmas. Just like Grandma used to give.

Give me an old-fashioned Christmas and I'll give you an old-fashioned kiss. The workplaces. Oh. Remember the bread that she baked all day. Remember the words that she used to say. This day is made for love and little girls and boys. Remember the ride in the horse drawn sled The warm fires on the quilted bits

So yeah Old Fashion Christmas again like you said Hennergy I'm sorry Yacht Rock Energy I'm reading your Twitter name out loud But now So to get things started here I just want to say I like this song Because just a different flavor compared to the rest

I love the jug band bass And can you believe the Oak Ridge Boys Said no to this song exactly no yes this absolutely feels like a song dusted off of the shelf that this song could have been written in any time 20 years before the release of this album and reused but also like the i mean it still falls into the thing of the other songs which is just a listing of christmas things like these have notes do you remember this thing and this thing too and also this yeah yeah and oh go ahead diamond i'm also I'm really put off by this. Maybe I'm misreading it. But I feel like they open with this thing. They're like, oh, remember old time Christmas?

Like, grandma used to give. Like, okay. But then we're talking about boys and girls and kisses. And like, wait, wait. So who's, what kind of love? Are we talking about platonic love? We talk about, like, let's get it all in love. Like, I feel like there's way too many loves coming together.

Like, I don't want to. It feels, sorry, it feels hastily rewritten. It felt like it was originally a Christmas love song. Yeah. But then it comes out. like give me an old-fashioned Christmas just like grandma used to give and I'll give you an old-fashioned kiss

so number one you're telling your partner act like my grandma maybe I'll kiss you yeah and then in the bridge or whatever it's like these days were made for love and then it's like oh shit and little girls and boys they just had to remind themselves like oh this is also

for kids so it's made for love but also the kids can be part of this I guess it's pretty broad you don't want to cross those wires is in your mistletoe song and just like and also the happiness of children's faces in between kissing under mistle but I yeah I also

to get extra pedantic like I that's not like you don't give a Christmas like grandma doesn't give a Christmas that's not how the sentence would work that bug me too that bug me too like give me a old fashioned Christmas like that's a general sort of statement like oh give me you know

give me a thick dame over these waves you know like you're just talking into like the universe but that's like no like grandma used to give what is that that makes no sense yeah it did i mean it does fit in with modern slang like when you like if you watch a lot of drag race you could walk into a room look at a christmas tree and be like that is giving christmas yes yes yeah grandma is totally in that outfit grandma is totally giving us christmas today man she's serving christmas yeah not going to say anything else slaying i guess Slaying.

Oh, hey, that's good. You're more clever than the writers of this album. We started off at that level. We've risen far above it. So, yeah, I like this song, by the way, but no Pac-Man content. We go back to the refrain. And, you know, credit, where credit is due. You can listen to this for yourself.

But there is a very nice instrumental solo that incorporates a lot of Christmas carols. Although, when they start quoting White Christmas, they quickly back out of it knowing, oh, no, we have to pay for this if we play more than a few notes. So I do enjoy that part. It's very pleasant. And I can see, like, again, the Oak Ridge Boys doing this or some sort of chicken fried, bearded country band of the era doing this song.

Like you said, Bob, it's giving VFW Hall energy. Yes, it really is. And, yeah, there's no pack grandma at this point. I will say that the kiss noise is revolting. Oh, yeah. I don't like hearing that. So, yeah, that is old-fashioned Christmas. One more thing on old-fashioned Christmas, too.

Sorry, that this song could be on any album anywhere. But what is insane to me is that they put it on like the, this is one for children and two based on one of the newest things around a video game. So it's like, why are you bringing in the idea of old-fashioned Christmas in this newfangled cutting-edge video game? album. Yeah, you want the kids at home playing the bad port of Pac-Man on their TVs. You don't want anything old-fashioned, sleigh-rides, any of that stuff. You're interfering with potential profits for the Pac-Man brand. So, yes, enough about that. The narrative picks up again what

little there is, and we see the return of a very important character on this album. As you know, Pac-Man and his family have decided to invite the gang of ghosts, speedy, bashful, shadow and pokey to their Christmas dinner. But from the sounds of the ghosts huddled in their horrible hideout, it doesn't seem as if they care for Christmas one little

bit. I miss this guy. It doesn't seem that they miss Christmas. So narrator returns. Just some Pac-Man facts. I have to be educational too for the sake of this being a retronauts episode. So speedy, bashful, shadow, and pokey are the names here.

But we know them best as Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde, but both names are represented on the Pac-Man track screen. For whatever reason, this album uses their Christian names instead of their nicknames. I don't know why. Interesting. Yeah, and this album does not use the original character Sue,

which was added to the Pac-Man cartoon because all of the ghosts were guys. And they're like, we need like a cigarettey smurfette type to really spice things up here. And that's where Sue came from. Yes, exactly. Wow, I forgot that. Yeah, so this is a dude patrol.

of ghosties here Yeah, and I was looking more into Thank you to the Pac-Man Wiki for this because I didn't know a lot about the history of the ghosts, but Pinky would flip genders pretty regularly until the 2000s when Pinky was identified as a female ghost. So, and they all have different names in Japanese that reflect their colors

except for the orange one, which is like stupid or slow poke or dim wit or whatever you want to call it, but inky, blinky, pinky, and Clyde are also the nickname in Japanese, I believe. It's like, I think every character has a name, but they also have a descriptor. Yes, yes. It's like, Speedy is the descriptor, but, yeah, it's a mess here. It's very strange to have the narrator describe them, yeah, describe their habits when they should just be calling them their names.

Like, I was waiting for him to say Clyde, say Clyde. He didn't say Clyde. Wait, there's no Clyde? What's going on here? But also, while we're talking about the narrator, yeah, the narrator has to make sure, oh, the ghosts, these horrible ghosts because they hate Christmas. Like, oh God, okay.

And yeah, and I guess in the in the cartoon they have a boss as well. They work for a thing and that's not present here. We don't know, we don't know what their hideout is. I guess maybe they're trying to talk about the little box in the middle of the screen. Yeah, I guess that would be their hideout. Yeah. Yeah.

So yes, we're going to hear the ghost plot next and I have to assure everybody this is real and I did not record these voices myself. So these are all the Ghost from Pac-Man. Boy, I hate Christmas time. All the pet people are home snug in their houses with their families. There's no one around for us to chase.

Yeah, what a drag! It's so boring! I hate Christmas, too, Bashful! Who is it? What do you want, then? Go away! Sing and telegram for the ghost. Oh, God. Christmas Day is still. Tomorrow, no need to spend it alone.

Use four ghosts are invited to spend Christmas at our home. Signed, uh, the Pac-Man. Hey, what a break. Once we get into Pac-Man's house, pow, the chase is on. Guys, for once, we might have an interesting Christmas. So there they are. And I have to, like, as I found myself alone during the holidays,

I have started saying, Hey, I hate Christmas. It's really bad. It's an awful voice, and it sounds just maybe like 15% horny. Yes, yeah. Well, I couldn't believe a singing telegram shows up in the middle of that. It's like, this already is stretching this guy's acting ability quite far with four different ghosts in here.

It's like, oh, also a singing telegram shows up, too, to give them this message. Was that supposed to be four ghost voices? I only heard two real voices. It was two ghosts in a mail-in-minute because it's like, I'm a ghost. I'm a ghost, too. And I'm a telegram guy. See, it's that easy.

You could do it all yourself. So, yeah, via research for this album, I found out that there is a very small group of devoted fans of the song, Take the Fruit and Scoot, which is performed by Bashful, who is the funniest voice on this album, unintentionally so. So this song was on the Kid Stuff record.

The Amazing Adventures of Pac-Man, and I think we should hear it to just hear more of Bashful in his beautiful voice. You mean all the fruit? Yeah, on the fruit. Take all the cherries from the Packville stores. We'll take all the strawberries, apples, and course. Take all the strawberries, apples, and course.

We'll take the fruit, we'll take the fruit and scoot. We'll take all the fruit. Peaches, the plums and the pears We'll take them all till the Carper's our bear We'll take the bananas and even the grape All Pac-Man's got to be in bad shape

We'll take the fruit We'll take the fruit We'll take the fruit We'll take the fruit We'll take the fruit and scoot There you have it And again I have found myself going It takes the bananas

Like just walking around Singing like Bashful It's great. And even the grapes. Yes. I, okay, I hate, okay, I hate part of this because I hate the energy that's being channeled here. But I also like, I'm laughing, so I can't, you know what I mean? Like, I can't say mad at it because it is, it is making me laugh.

I can't deny that. Yeah. But also like it is, it is objectively hideous. And it feels like they went to the grocery store. It's like, okay, just go down the, go to the line. because obviously not all those fruits are in the pack i don't have the list of farming but not all those fruits are in the packman game but there's like let's get some fruit and like yeah they came with one rhyme take the fruit and scoot and then that's it we take the fruit take the fruit take the fruit

take the fruit take the fruit take the fruit and scoot in grapes and a pretzel and a key but and yet so at with all the other stuff on you're comparing to that this at least takes the idea of that these guys don't like Pac-Man and that Fruit is part of a Pac-Man stage. And so by incorporating those two things, that song is

much more respectful of Pac-Man Canon than the Christmas album. Yeah, it's you know, it's inaccurate in terms of what it's trying to say about how fruit works in the Pac-Man world, but it's at least referencing the fruit. Like, Pac-Man

doesn't need the fruit. It's a bonus. It gets you more points. Oh, and the fruit just go right by a ghost like they don't care yeah it's not in a store yeah and uh this is i mean this is one of the songs that has the them like the character says something wrong because uh bash was like take them into the carbirds are bare it's like no it's it's it's cupboards or a cupboards not carbirds that's true yes i yeah that uh you'd warned me that that that guy would be mispronouncing that And I'm totally, I even still, I'm like, how do you say it wrong like that? You know what's happened here?

I think, I think what's happened here. They're actually making an effort in the song to make the song about Pac-Man things. But their effort is so haphazard and lazy. It's like, you know, I'm using my whole ass. You know what I mean? Like, it's, no, this is, I appreciate they're actually, they actually spent a few minutes on this. But what they came up with sucks. So I'm, I'm like, I'm almost irked.

But I'm still laughing. Like, you know, like, that's why I'm, that's why I'm so moved by this one because, like, I can, I can feel them pushing this and they, they camp with crap. Well, along with walking around the house, you're like, me, I'm also been walking around saying, take the fruit and scoot. It's just, that's in my head as well. And I hope it is in your head, too, this Christmas season. So, after, okay, take the fruit and scoot, not on this album. I just wanted to highlight it briefly. So the ghosts, they're, they're plotting.

They're coming up with this terrifying plot to chase Pac-Man around his house. house, and then Bashful goes on to say, you know, I don't know the big deal about Christmas Day. It's just like any other day. And then this is when we roll into the Unforgettable Christmas song, some days are more important, which reminds me a lot of what I mentioned before. Nobody Don't Like Christmas from the Pokemon Christmas Bash album, except this song is not as good. That song rules, but regardless, both songs are about the sheer supremacy of Christmas compared to all other holidays. Let's hear a bit of some days are more important. There is the hunted Easter for the eggs. There is the turkey at Thanksgiving. But there is nothing like that December day that shines because of giving.

Boo. Some days like Christmas with all of its adornment for little boys and little girls some days. are more important some days are more important I know how Henry booed at the beginning but it really is the third time they're like summer is for this

and spring is for this and birthdays are for the presents that are unwrapped I mean or not or what are they they're ornaments

they said ornaments adornments? Adornments is right. Adornments It rhymes with important Which is also like That's not as bad as giving and Thanksgiving But it also feels very poor Yeah and it's like

We talked about it earlier But the fact that there's a third iteration of Here is how the holidays are different It's just like you didn't go back and check your work You wrote this album as you were going And just immediately recorded it They didn't care but still There's the third iteration

It's like I know that summer is different I'm 20 minutes into this album, please. No, I know. It's like, it's like filler upon filler because let me make a comparison here in the, in the Twas the night before Christmas, Frank and Bass special, which has eight billion times more effort into it than this. It does, though, still have a song of like, here's all the other holidays, but it, no, they can't compare.

And it's like you're watching like, here's Easter or St. Patrick's Day, all these things, but Christmas is the best. they'd only do that once they know it's a filler but you can only get away with it once but this one three times now already and this album is not over

and it's just about Christmas supremacy too like just about like I also don't like this the general feeling of oh do you not even believe in Christmas well you are wrong mister screw you to those who don't celebrate I've already lost the plot here

So this is a ghost song? Are they seen to the ghosts? Yeah, the narrator, because Bashel's like, I think every day sucks. And the narrator's like, summer is for baseball and football. No, it falls for football. Excuse me.

I have to collect my notes here. So the narrator is, the narrator is basically explaining to the ghosts and therefore us why Christmas is good. Because, yeah, I, now I want to know. We're learning a lesson on behalf of the ghosts, I think, Diamond. But like, now I want to know, do the ghosts hate other holidays? Are they evil because they hate all holidays? Or they just hate Christmas?

Are they? A bashful, I mean, you can check the record, but Bashwell's like, every day is the same day. And then the narrator says, shut up, ghost, here's another song. These ghosts, they've been on the other side, so they know this is a crock. They know all this. I died 30 years ago. I want to see my family. Every day's awful.

No. It's getting dark. Yeah, Bashel's going to become a Retronaut's character. So, yes, like a lot of these songs, they find the refrain and they really hammer it home because we get the repetitive like, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, and then the woman singing some days are more important over and over and over. I think 85% of this song is that. But let's pick it up at the end where the narrator simply repeats an earlier verse from this song.

Blinkety, blink sing the twinkling lights. Ah, there'll be Christmas dreams tonight. For little boys and little girls, this day is most important. Some days are more important. There you have it. Yes, we understand Christmas is good. It's the fifth song in the album that's telling us that. Blinkety Blink's the twink, no, no, no.

Blinkety blink sing the twinkling lights. No. Yeah. Yeah. It actually happened. That's so bad. Again, it's like, when I see this cover, I think of just, it's the Pac-Man characters at home singing Christmas songs. Like, that's all they have to do.

It's Christmas is, it's Christmas at home with the Pac-Man family. But even, it's like, okay, we're going to hear about the ghosts. This is a perfect time for a ghost song. Instead, it's like they cut away from the ghost to just sing about how nice Christmas is again. I mean, we heard Take the Fruit and Scoot. It could have been the best song on the album If all the ghosts joined in If they just put this song on there a second time

But called it Take the Christmas Fruit in Scoot And just adds the word Christmas to it I would be fine It would be better than this Yeah They missed their chance 40 years ago

So that song ends And then finally the narrative Pickbacks It picks back up again rather And the ghosts arrive At Pac-Man's place It's us The ghost

Here to spend a wonderful Christmas with you. Well, come in. Come in. Wow, look at all that yummy food. Hey, hey, yeah, come here, come here, Shadow Bashful, Poki. What do you say, we start chasing them now, huh? Oh, well, I don't know. Why don't we wait until after we eat, huh, Speedy? Yeah, all right, yeah, good idea, good idea.

Let's eat first, all right, uh-huh. Ghosts, before we enjoy our Christmas dinner, we have a few little presents for you. So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like we're not hearing one of the ghosts. I might have misspoken, but I feel like the ghost with the funniest voice is bashful. So I know we're hearing Speedy and maybe Shadow. I'm not sure. I think that was Shadow in the first time we heard him.

Yeah, I think so. But, well, so, okay, so Miss Pac-Man invited them over so they'd stop chasing them, I guess. Which, again, it doesn't seem like if somebody chases you all the time, don't invite them to your home. I'm going to say that. It's all about like there is no follow through here. It's just like the ghost want to chase. And I was reading about the Pac-Man cartoon where I think with the second season, they cut out more of the chomping because it was just considered too violent and maybe kids were biting their little brothers or sisters or vice versa. Imitatable act.

Yeah. It really is. Though, you know, yeah, it's actually, again, in the much better Hannah-Barbara special, which is hardly like high art. But in that one, Pac-Man actually does, like, get almost killed by the ghosts. The ghosts are like, oh, Pac-Man, you're pretty weak right now. And they all just, like, bite him until he's, like, half dead in the snow. Yeah, there were stakes here. Here, it just, I mean, I like how what a push-over Pac-Man is earlier, because Pac-Baby's like, I'm not going to do the voice, but Pac-baby's like, hey, Dad.

Why don't we invite the ghosts over? And he's like, They always try to kill us. I don't know. And then Ms. Pac-Man just jumps in. It's like, we'll do it. So not thought through at all. Yes, exactly.

Whip-crack noise. I'm not going to invite my murderers over just because you make a sound. But though, Speedy is not very good at being in charge either. He's like, okay, hey, they just opened the door. Let's chase him. I'm like, well, we should eat first. Yeah, I think all of these ghosts are basically slimer-style creatures

Because they're all obsessed with food You know, Bastro gets to make the rules there, though He's like, we should eat first And everybody agrees with him And then take a break before chasing him So I'm getting stuck here again So the ghosts clearly, they know about food And they obviously desire food, which is they're hungry

But they just want to chase them for what? Are they like, what's the ghost goal here why do they chase pack people do they want to eat them too but they don't say eat they just say chase I think they envy the living they have hunger but it can never be

sated that's what's happening here they want their body they want their meat their meat mix yes yes it's just like the guy the ghost would just he would eat a pie and just say I eat and I eat I feel nothing

they are the ghosts of condemn murderers though that's part of the pack man more The Land of Hunger Ghosts. Yes, exactly. Oh, God. So, yes, let's hear a bit more of the narrative as the ghosts learn a lesson about Christmas through capitalism. Let's hear it.

Bashful, here's a pair of peek-a-boo pajamas. Shucks. Speedy. For you, we have a brand-new pair of high-speed sniggers. Nice. Poki, here's something you might be able to use. A scooter so that you can keep up with the other ghost. In Shadow, for you, a collection of Alfred Hitchpac's favorite ghost stories.

Gosh, no one ever gave us any presents before. You pack people are really pretty nice. All we ever really wanted ghosts is to be friends again. So I think we're not hearing from Shadow and Pokey. I think Bashful and Speedy are the only ones. Yeah. And it is weird where, where I... I'm detecting, uh, there's some implied, uh, hatred where he's like, you people are nice.

Yeah. Friends again. Friends again. Something happened. I guess, I guess there is, uh, they're building a backstory here that was never in place. But I really want a Pac-Man to be like, hey, listen, we have names. Yeah. You pack people aren't so bad. Yeah.

Oh, God. Uh, but it's also, uh, it's also, Ms. Pac-Man saying, uh, I got you things that will help you kill my husband's faster. Yeah. Though, yeah, I also have to say, okay, Alfred Hitchpac's favorite ghost stories, like, Albert Hitchcock, I mean, you know, he hosted, he hosted dark stories of like,

more like true crime stories. They were not, I mean, ghost stories weren't really there. And he wasn't known for like ghost stories in the films he directed Alfred Hitchcock. If we are to imagine that Alfred Hitchpack is their version of Alfred Hitchcock. Okay.

things. First of all, Hitchcock, like, I think just died a couple of years earlier. So obviously they, like, Hitchcock might be amongst the ghosts themselves by now. But also, why would you do Hitch Pack instead of Edgar Allan Pack? That's right there, man. Oh, I do like that. I mean, yeah, I guess because they were, they were still thinking about how that, how that large man just died, he was fresh in their minds. Also, I feel really bad because, you know, maybe 20, 30 minutes ago, I said, oh, you couldn't go, you couldn't give us one pun. And here, here's the pun, and they gave it to me, and it fucking sucks. It's got to be

the worst pun. Yeah. So, yeah, when Pac-Man's like, I ever wanted it was to be friends again, that's when we slam. Slam right into Friends again. Let's hear a bit of this song. Friends again. Do you remember when

we used to play all day and we would always say we'd be forever friends? Oh Wooo-hoo Let's be friends again No

Friends again First summer turns to fall No No That's when I'm looking back To my old friends We get a lesson about the seasons with that song. It's like, first there is January, and then comes February, and then it's March.

Really, really, I guess, so the fourth time on this album that we are, and I apologize for singing, the fourth time on this album that we are getting a lesson about the seasons, I'm surprised the narrator didn't jump in and say, he's right, you know, first there is summer with grass so green, then there is fall with the chance. trees and the leaves also yes okay so in the friends again song i also thought they might wouldn't even mention christmas once but okay so they do mention christmas by like the four like 40 seconds and like when christmas comes we're friends again yeah and it does it does feel like a lot of the albums sorry a lot of the music on this album where it was a love song that was hastily rewritten it's like when we used to play used to be like when we used to kiss or like we would always say I don't know

it just feels like there's like this this like kind of sexy vibe happening here that I'm not like oh Billy stole my fire truck and I'm going to play this song for him so we can get over it together it just feels like it feels like lovers

reconcile The vibe of this is not Pac-Man trying to like be a pal of bashful again like if if I offered this to a friend I would think they would think like okay wait you want us to be more than friends clearly with the spirit of this saw. You know, sometimes people get upset at us for talking too much about things that are made for children

and we're thinking too hard or we're looking at this too closely. But if I was a parent, if I was, you know, a boomer parent in the early 80s and I gave this to my kid and I had to hear this song, these songs more than once, I would just drop kick the goddamn record player out the window. I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean. This is a nightmare. This is a pure nightmare.

you're correct diamond i mean i had the thought of this being put on uh christmas day christmas morning perhaps grandpa's there he fought in the battle of the bald he's in his armchair with uh you know a big whiskey sour he's sitting there he's gritting his teeth when baby pacman song comes on he pulls out his revolver from his leg holster and he shoots the record player and that's when grandpa the keys get taken away he doesn't get to live by himself anymore this is ruined families this album i yeah i again i listen to albums that were released around the same time as a kid and you know this the the the puppets with john denver even the the sesame street ones like they had so much more pride in just even if it was just we didn't write a new song we're

singing the 12 days of christmas at least they're having fun with it like each of the muppets has a define i guess that's what hurts this compared to like a muppet or sesame street thing these characters have no character so if you already hear them sing the 12 days of Christmas or silver bells or all the other public domain stuff it can't be expressed through their

character they're nobody yeah there's nothing there barely there in the Hannah-Rabara show as well a diamond but yeah Henry it's what you're saying there is nothing there which should be the freedom to do whatever they want and instead they're just okay I guess we got a we'll do a voice like I'll do a voice but there is

also voices they can't sing There's a void for them to fill And they're filling it with nothing They're filling it with the absolute Least amount of Of effort and time And just I guess we'll sing a song Friends again

So yes I do like to call out When some effort is made on this album So I do feel like there was some effort Put into at least this part of Friends again There's no better time Than Christmas time When the snow is far This is the time to forget the back

This is the day That's calling Us to be fed again You know Sorry, when a song on this album has like normal song content The thing you expect to hear in a song You're like, oh my God, I remember songs Yeah, you know what?

Actually that rising keys up. I was like, whoa, somebody actually wrote, but that actually then made me crash even more in it when they're like, calling to be Friends again. I was like, oh no, we're back.

Do, do, do, do, do, do. Yeah, so that's Friends Again. It peters out with a very long instrumental outro. I feel like if you cut those out, this album's like three minutes, no, five minutes shorter. Yeah, I mean, these

songs are not going on the radio, but at least with the outro here, we get the ghost learning a lesson over the final notes of friends again. Hey, hey, something's here for them. I feel funny. Why me too?

I feel good. Well, what's a tipping ghost? You guys have caught on Christmas spirit. Wow! We feel wonderful. What a Christmas. Yes.

This really has been a special Christmas. There you have it. So all the ghosts became joker-fied with just the most mild Christmas gifts. And they're all freaking out. And I say, get the baby out of the room. It's time to ask them to leave. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Those ghosts are fully erect under their sheets right now. There's no hiding there. There's no hiding there. That laughter is not innocent. No. No, especially on bashful. Like, he's the ending. Yeah.

And also, again, for this ending there, having Pac-Man just be like, that's right. Like, it's just like, just some energy. You're Pac-Man. You're the star. Yeah. Oh. I think maybe I'll go to a maze or maybe not. I don't know.

Oh, God, man. Yeah, it's rough. I mean, we're at the end of the album, thankfully. So, yes, to give this album some credit, at the end of it, it actually, this last song includes the voice of Pac-Man, but it's an a cappella version of this song that includes no Pac-Man at all. Sorry, it includes no instruments at all. But I do want to play the final moments of this record, just so you can all hear it. Christmas

That's the final bits of the album So we go from friends again Right into we wish you Merry Christmas Pac-Man is singing You hear him with the kids And then we end with the same little girl Who opens the record As George Lucas would say

It's like poetry, it rhymes So some thought was put into this At least to that extent or like somebody's kid was in the studio like bring her in, have her say Merry Christmas. Yeah, we need oral history. We need to find that child because they're our age at this point, you know. So let's get them in there.

I'd say, yeah, this 48-year-old woman who giggled on one Pac-Man album, where is she? So, yeah, that is the album. And I'm going to send you guys off into the wilderness very, very soon. But before that, I want to hear your final thoughts on this creation. And I want to know your favorite and least favorite songs on the the album. And to remind you all, I know you probably have already wiped it all from your memory, but

the songs are, uh, the magic of Christmas, snow flakes and frozen lakes under the tree, an old-fashioned Christmas, some days are more important, and friends again. And the dark horse pick will be, I'll let you guys choose this one, uh, take the fruit and scoots will be

included. Oh, well, all right. I'm going to have to say old-fashioned Christmas that at least, you know, it feels the most like an actual song that at the very least is about Christmas. I wanted to be in the Christmas spirit. I had hoped that this album would at least have like, okay, there has to be one song on this that has to be the reason it exists that will be like called Pac-Man Christmas fever or, you know, the Pac-Man's fever for

Christmas, just like something that at least is about Pac-Man and Christmas that feels like it was meant to be a pop song. None of these feel that. So the one that feels closest to at the very least feeling like a song you would hear on the radio during Christmas time then I have to go with old-fashioned Christmas. The kind that grandma used to give. She gave it.

And Henry, what about a least favorite song? I mean, I think I think it really is the the one that the ghosts introduced, no, the baby, the baby, pack baby song. Under the tree. Yes, the tree one. That's the worst.

And Diamond, how about you? Highlights, low lights, general thoughts on this? I mean, it's really hard to quantify how I feel about these songs in so much. It's that I wish all of them could just be, you know, thrown into a dark pit and forgotten. Like, you know, I know we get returts. We talk about preserving media and history and how even bad games should be remembered. But holy shit, I never want to hear this again. Again, the fruit and scoot song, I have to respect it because they actually thought about what, what do these people actually do?

There's ghosts and this fruit. Okay, let's have the ghost talk about stealing fruit, even though the ghost don't actually steal the fruit. So I guess I have to get that some level of credit, but I also, I made me laugh, so I guess that wins, but also like the voices were awful. But I guess that's not as bad as the baby voice. So, yeah, the baby voice is actually the worst ever, so. Yeah, we're all unanimous. I also least favorite song Under the Tree Favorite song Old Fashion Christmas

Tied with Take the Fruit and Scoot And I will say, yeah, under the tree I never want to hear an adult man singing a baby voice Except if it's Baby Sinclair singing I'm the baby gotta love me I'm on board That's the sole exclusion to that role though

I had one last thing I didn't want I meant to add too is that like The cover art I've seen I see that it's been like Released a couple times with slightly different art but they all look horrible. But like the cover art to it to me, it just reminded me one of my favorite things that I did

when I went to Portland Retro Gaming Expo at Bob's Invite, which was I got to meet Paul E. Niemeyer, who was the, he designed the original logo for Mortal Kombat, but also the logo for Super Pac-Man. And he was talking about when he designed Super Pac-Man, he said that there literally were no instructions on how to draw Pac-Man. And he's like, well, I guess I'll just use this arcade design as a starting point and go with that.

I guess I'll do that. Like, how long's his nose? They're like, we don't know. Put a cape on a circle. We don't care. I guess a Pac-Man is just a Worshack test. See whatever you want into this. Visually, musically, psychologically, it doesn't matter.

It's whatever you want him to be. So thanks to Henry Gilbert and Diamond fights. I'm going to kick both of you out very soon because Canadian Santa Claus is, nearly here. And I can't wait for him to show up. But before both of you leave, please plug all of the great things you're a part of. Let's start with Henry. How about you? You can follow me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. And yes, I always love doing Retronauts. Thank you for having me, and especially for the holiday tradition

that we have done so many times together. So thank you. And if you guys like when me and Bob do things together, you should check out all the cool things we do on the Talking Simpsons Network of Podcast. We do our chronological exploration of every episode of The Simpsons. We are deep into seasons 14 and 4, and we've covered many a Christmas episode there.

as well that you should check out and we also do the what a cartoon talking futurama and what a cartoon movie and talking in the hill so many extras including many that are exclusive to patreon at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and especially if you're in the holiday spirit check out the one we just did five hours about the muppet christmas carol which has many better songs about christmas and diamond how about you my my name is diamond fight thank you uh first Well, thank you very much for inviting me to your holiday cab, and I'm very honored to have this invitation. You know, in case my joke at the top of the show didn't cue people in, I am Jewish. And, you know, from time to time, people share with me, you know, Christmas celebrations and holiday spirit.

And I sort of get a sense of, oh, this is what it's like. That's why people do make all these albums about how Christmas is wonderful. And maybe I've been a little too harsh about the capitalism and just the overwhelming sort of push of Christmas against me. that makes me feel, you know, so disgruntled. But then again, hearing this Christmas album is convinced me that I'm right. The Christmas fucking sucks. So, yeah, thank you very much. If you want to follow me on the internet, look up Fight Club, F-E-I-T, that's my last name, C-L-U-B.

That is the object I would use to crush this record, so no one ever plays it again. You can get Minora Bob them out. I would suggest that unlike so many of the great old Christmas songs, this album lacked any of the amazing Jewish songwriters who wrote all the best Christmas carols of them. Yes. Well, we'll have to come back when there's the Pac-Man Hanuk album. But until

then, I'm Bob Mackey, your host for this one. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo and Blue Sky as well. And also, you can find Retronauts on Twitter and Blue Sky as Retronauts. And by the way, we are fan-supported and we'd really appreciate your support if you want to give us a little bit of money and get a lot of podcasts on top of that.

Head on over to patreon.com slash retronauts and sign up for five bucks a month. And if you do, you'll get these podcasts one week ahead of time and ad-free. And also, you'll get two full-length bonus episodes every month. And we've been doing that since the very beginning of 2020, which means if you like hearing us and you're not a patron, there are over 100 bonus podcasts that you haven't heard yet. And that $5 a month level also gets you a weekly column and podcast by Dime and Fight here.

So if you enjoy what we're doing on Retronauts and you want to support the show, we've got a little something for you in exchange. But that has been this episode of Retronauts for the holidays. Thanks for coming back. Now, please get the hell out. Well, there you have it. Another Retronaut's holiday special in the books. Now, like with all Retronauts episodes,

I only need to encode it on a series of golden discs and shoot it into space. But that can wait until the new year. Now, there's just the matter of turning around for a long night of staring at the other wall of the cabin, and oh my God! The six-pack of Labat Blue! 5.5 of them have been drunk in his trademark fashion. Catchup and all dressed chips eaten in equal amounts? Yes, yes.

Low sodium putine sampled politely and abandoned. And the beanbag chair. It's clearly been sad in. No doubt to watch at least five minutes of John Muckler's expert coaching. Could it be? He came. He really came. And it looks like there's something for me under the maple tree.

Oh boy. wonder what it could be. Okay, only three more layers to go. Wow, this is thoroughly wrapped. Okay, I think I'm about to breach the gift. Wow, my very own copy of the 1983 Rick Moranus Comedy Strange Brew on DVD, and it's pre-owned! That means it's already received a lot of love.

And check out these extras. Animated menus, actor biographies, trailer. I know it all be filling every corner of my. My 4K TV with this holiday season. This is great. You know, it's pretty silly. In my letter to Canadian Santa Claus, my one Canadian Christmas wish was to meet a celebrity.

But, you know, it's not like he can do anything like that. Uh, come in? I honestly can't believe what I'm seeing. Could this actually be? That's right. It's me. Pac-Man. And what makes Christmas special is Candy Cane?

and Frozen Lanes and you. Wow, Pac-Man here, celebrating the holidays with me. But what about your family? Well, Miss Pac-Man decided to spend this Christmas and most of the past three years' Christmases with her friend Jeff, so I'm here for joy and cheer and laughter. Well, Pac-Man, I'm about to settle in

and watch this new pre-owned copy of Strange Brew. Should I whip you up an extra stormy, darken stormy? Oh, Pac-Man can't drink anymore. And whenever I'm tempted, I distract myself by teaching others about the seasons. Winter is for drinks of rump so red, while spring is for IPAs that go to your head. Summer brings ales both bright and bold, while fall gives us pumpkin beer until that gets old. Okay, Pac-Man, I'm just going to put on some music. Why don't you face the other way and just listen quietly?

Sure thing, pal. Anything to take my mind off family course. Listen, this whole meeting a celebrity thing is kind of backfired on me, so I'm just going to order him an Uber dog sled. As for you, have a happy whatever, and a joyous whatever the next year is. We're going to be. We're going to be.