Namco Made Their Own Version of Jr Pac-Man. Here’s Why

[@kbramlett6877]

Every Saturday morning back in the 80s, we were blessed with cartoons. A portion of the cartoons featured video game characters. An animation studio known as "Ruby-Spears" was responsible for the production of almost all of the video game-related cartoons, and Pac-Man was one of them. In the cartoon, the ghosts did have a higher authority that would instruct them on various ways to eliminate Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Baby Pac-Man. Pac-man had a dog maned "Chomp-Chomp" and a cat. (I have forgotten his name) You might be able to find this cartoon here on YT.

[@jadstudiosofficial]

The cat is named "Sour Puss". and the show was made by Hanna Barbera, not Ruby Spears.

[@JoeUzzolino]

PAC-Man, Donkey Kong, Pitfall and Smurfs which was a game based on a cartoon

[@kbramlett6877]

@@JoeUzzolino You are wron g. They were cartoons based upon video games.

[@giggs-chan2004]

Ruby Spears made the Q-Bert cartoon

[@kbramlett6877]

@@giggs-chan2004 Ruby-Spears was responsible for a lot of cartoons back in the 80s, but their animation did not compare to that of Hannah-Barbara and Warner Bros.

[@Larry]

Well, we now know Pac-Man was cheating on Ms. Pac-Man and had a secret second family with Pac-Mom and Pac Jr. 🤣

[@superbros64deluxe]

Holy crap Guru Larry! Didn't expect someone as big of a channel as you would bump into this nieche channel I've been following (I'm a subscriber to both of you two haha)

[@Larry]

@@superbros64deluxe aw, bless you sir! :)

[@superbros64deluxe]

@Larry you too! glad to know you look at some of the smaller guys too, youtube is one hell of a great community 🫶

[@marieandtheghostmonkey7393]

Hello, you😂 good to see you

[@kekeke8988]

BUT HELLLOOOOOOO YOOOOUUUU!

[@BlueMSX.]

i think it's interesting how they tried to include jr pac man in the game but couldn't make it as good as it could have been due to the game being stuck in copyright purgatory. Great video as always Pojr!

[@kbramlett6877]

Jr. Pac-Man was developed by NAMCO, so there is no legal problems with him. Now, with no assistance from NAMCO, Midway, on their own, created a sequel to Pac-Man called Pac-Man Plus. There are some major differences. For example, when you eat a power pellet, not all the ghosts will be edible. Next, the maze could go black and all you see is Pac-Man and the ghosts. The ghosts also have no set pattern. Last, the prizes are different. I only remember is the first one, and that is a can of Coke. Now, it is Ms. Pac-Man who had all the legal issues. The story is too long to put here, but if you go to Wikipedia, what you read there is absolutely true. My English/Lit instructor in college, we were instructed to do a paper on cultural events. Well, being a gamer, I chose Classic Arcade Games. More specifically, the complete history and all the legal battles regarding Ms. Pac-Man. I received a solid "A" on the paper because my instructor told me that it is her favorite video game and was totally intrigued by all of my research,

[@BlueMSX.]

@@kbramlett6877 You're partially correct, but Jr. Pac-Man was developed by General Computer Corporation/Gencomp, not Namco. While Bally Midway developed Pac-Man Plus to compete with the other conversion kits for Pac-Man. Bally Midway got into a fair amount of trouble with Namco for making a lot of these Pac-Man games without Namco's approval. Being developed by Gencomp, is what lead to Jr. Pac-Man having the legal issues in regard to who owns what. Which is also why it got scrubbed from the Plug and Play releases in the early 2000s, despite it being showed off running on them during trade shows.

[@kbramlett6877]

@@BlueMSX. Ms. Pac-Man was created by GenComp. It was initially called Crazy Otto. When GemComp showed their work to NAMCO, they were impressed, but it was decided to make some changes and that is how Ms. Pac-Man was born. Now, as part of the contract, The GCC group agreed on October 29, 1981, to give the rights to Ms. Pac-Man to Midway in exchange for royalty payments for the game's sale. At the time, Midway held the license from Namco for distribution of Pac-Man games, advertising, and merchandise in North America. After the game became wildly successful, Midway and GCC undertook a legal battle concerning merchandise royalties before ultimately reaching a settlement in 1983. This settlement stated that GCC members would be paid royalties by Midway for usage of Ms. Pac-Man in commercial contexts. I saw an interview of GCC co-founder Doug Macrae. He said that he was with his family at a pizza parlor and took notice of Namco's Ms. Pacman/Galaga 20th Anniversary cabinet and was not happy because he was supposed to be getting royalties from everything that branded Ms. Pac-Man's name. He confronted NAMCO about this. NAMCO dug out the old contract and had to honor it. I do not know how much he received.

[@BlueMSX.]

@@kbramlett6877 you're mostly correct but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here.

[@nahumgardner]

Pojr and Jeremy Parish is always a great Wednesday morning video game double feature.

[@Jac2Mac]

If Pac-Man 2 got a Sega CD version in 1995, then instead of Pac Jr. or Ms. Pac-Man it would have Super Pac-Man.

[@jackattackdx]

YOOOO thanks for shouting me out, you rule! This video's great. Touches on a couple things I missed in my video!

[@pojr]

Any time!!

[@SNARC15]

Pac-Man 2 wasn't the first time the ghosts "responded to a higher power." If you ever watched the ABC Saturday morning Pac-Man cartoon, the "ghost monsters" as they were called were under orders from a male wizard named Mezmeron. Also I agree about the Pac-Man 2 name. To me the true Pac-Man 2 ended up being Pac-Man Championship Edition. Could say that about Pac-Man Arrangement in the arcade as well.

[@yomama9390]

It's not exactly correct. It's not the first or the last sequel to contain different gameplay from the previous game in the series.

[@Vexelius]

I really enjoy this kind of stories that shed a light on little known facts or characters. And yes, I remember playing Pac-Man 2 only to feel extremely confused at the gameplay and everything! But anyways, it wasn't the first time a direct sequel doesn't look "direct" or plays like a "sequel".

[@luckylukev]

It may be related to the number of dots on the maze. Pac-man mazes are specific to a number of dots per maze. This might be the reason why this level is unsymmetrical at 9:50

[@pojr]

Never thought about that, you might be on to something

[@williammarshall1766]

Actually, Namco might have actually bought the copyright years later. In the game Pac Man World Rally, "Jr. Pac Man" is a playable character, and in the opening copyrights at the beginning of the game, they list the trademark for the original Jr. Pac Man 1983 game as being owned by Namco.

[@NegativeYoutube]

copyright and licensing are two different things, you people need to educate yourselves before spreading ignorance

[@ridethelapras]

I'm all for this being the official sequel to Pac-Man. What made Pac-Man great was that it was an original game idea. It makes sense that the sequel should also be an original game idea.

[@blademaster7879]

Great job on the research on this one. I love seeing younger folks taking interest in the games from my childhood.

[@Spellfork]

Lovely video, good job. You should look into Baby Pac-Man in the future, very interesting concept

[@pojr]

Thank you!

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

5:09 In fairness, the Hanna Barbera cartoon did this too.

[@conradojavier7547]

Also a Generation Later, they Legally Replace Ms. Pac-Man for Pac-Mom.

[@bland9876]

I'm sad we never got a full widescreen version of Pac-Man Jr where because the shape of the maze it would fit on a widescreen television without having to scroll.

[@VOAN]

While I was always aware that Namco own Pac-Man and a bit of Ms. Pac-Man, I never thought they that they never own Jr. Pac-Man considering how similar each games are. Just imagine if Nintendo own Donkey Kong but not Donkey Kong Country, oh will we ever get to see the games re-released on GBA & modern consoles.

[@pojr]

Right. It's weird to think about

[@BostonianJake]

It's a shame Jr. Pac-Man really only exists via emulation these days. There ARE arcade cabinets floating around that contain the game (I actually discovered Jr. Pac-Man on a multicade cabinet I used to play as a kid), but they're few and far between.

[@justinw6658]

JR. PAC-MAN is my most favorite video game of all time. Finding a JR. PAC-MAN arcade machine is rare.

[@justinw6658]

JR. PAC-MAN is my most favorite video game arcade of all time. Finding a JR. PAC-MAN arcade machine is very rare. The first time I saw a JR. PAC-MAN arcade machine was in 1983 in a drugstore in the Silver Spring area in Maryland. I thought that looks like a neat game to play. A week later I brought some quarters to play JR. PAC-MAN and noticed they had replaced the arcade machine with something else. Eleven years later after I had just turned 21 years old. I finally saw another JR. PAC-MAN arcade machine in the arcade room at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. I got to play the real JR. PAC-MAN for the first time and loved it. I even found a third JR. PAC-MAN arcade machine on the Cape May-Lewes Ferry. Then several years later I found the fourth JR. PAC-MAN arcade machine at the Ocean Pines Family Fun Center. I must have spent hundreds of dollars in quarters throughout time playing JR. PAC-MAN there.

[@KasumiKenshirou]

The Hanna-Barbera cartoon also changed Jr. Pac-Man to Pac-Junior, a.k.a., P.J.. This character is Pac-Man's nephew. And as others have mentioned, the ghosts had a boss in this cartoon called Mezmeron. The Pac-Man 2 villain seems like just a gender-swapped version of Mezmeron. The game Pac-Land was heavily inspired by this cartoon, using character designs and even the show's theme song, so Namco was certainly aware of it.

[@pojr]

Very true. Not too familiar with the TV show

[@josephfrye7342]

@@pojr wait you sure you're not familiar with the hanna barbera's/spumco tv show of pacman?

[@randycharlesjohnson6248]

I bought this game for the SNES years ago at KB Toys. I only bought it because I could play the Pac-Man arcade game on it. I've never been too crazy about Pac_Man 2 because I found it to be difficult. But it was nice to be able to play Pac_man and Ms. Pac-Man on it.

[@pojr]

Very true. The fact that there were extra games within a game was really cool

[@SylveonTrapito]

Pacman 2 was one of my favourite Genesis games. There was nothing like that on the console.

[@pojr]

Right, it was very unique, and part of the reason it got so much hate was because of how different it was

[@DoubleDguitar]

Would love to see you talk about 5 screw NES carts. Glad you are doing so well here, always click on your vids.

[@Pacmanfan-po9rn]

What

[@DoubleDguitar]

@@Pacmanfan-po9rn recently heard about this whole thing and I think he would do a good, in depth video. I had no idea. Local guy trying to sell a few for hundreds each, sent me down a wormhole.

[@pojr]

Might be a cool idea for a video. Not a lot of people know about the 5 screw NES games vs the 3 screw ones.

[@DoubleDguitar]

@@pojr and your deep dives would be great to educate us! Stoked for you, you will be at 10k by the end of the year. For sure. 🤘🏻

[@kbramlett6877]

The lawsuit POJR is referring to is that GCC developed ROM hacks for the game Missle Command. The hack was called "Super Missle Attack."

[@ClassicTVMan1981X]

Correct, and because of that lawsuit GCC could not develop future speed-up kits and supply them without the consent of the original manufacturer of the arcade game the speed-up kit was designed for. So the folks at GCC developed what was known early on as Crazy Otto, but the only manufacturer that showed any interest in it was Midway, who then used it to make Ms. Pac-Man. Midway then made its own speed-up kit for Pac-Man in the form of Pac-Man Plus, which was a graphics hack that featured a Coke can among one of the prizes. Midway and GCC together then went on to do Baby Pac-Man (the hybrid video arcade/pinball coin-op), Professor Pac-Man and finally Jr. Pac-Man, all of which ultimately got wind of NAMCO and led to the termination of its deal with Midway in 1984. GCC also earlier sued Midway for developmental royalties over Ms. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man, Professor Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man.

[@MrClawt]

I didn't know today was the day I got a POJR skit. My day is way more awesome now.

[@pojr]

Nice! Thank you!

[@breakfasthole]

The bonus games in Pac-Man 2 are all kinda unusual. It was rare to get entire extra games as bonus games back then. Thankfully, they can all be played without playing the main game at all on both SNES and Sega versions (with passwords or by downloading patches by rom hackers).

[@pojr]

Very true! It's cool that Pac-Man and Pac Jr (or Ms Pac-Man) were even included at all. Perhaps I should have elaborated on that in the video

[@billkeithchannel]

The 4 dots next to each other is a callback to a different chip version possibly a bootleg that had boards where the walls would disappear and you and 1 dot turns and curcular roundabouts.

[@MaxOakland]

Jr. Pac-Man is a VERY underrated version of Pac-Man! For some reason they had that machine at my local laundromat. It's SUPER hard but once you get used to it, it's really fun and hypnotic. The secret for Jr. Pac-Man is you have to constantly be turning corners and moving forward. You don't ever double back on yourself because the ghosts are too inescapable. You want to put as much distance between yourself and the ghosts as possible and constantly turning corners helps with this

[@justinw6658]

JR. PAC-MAN is the best video game I’ve ever played.

[@MaxOakland]

@@justinw6658 Finally someone else who loves it!

[@Grayfinity]

(1) "They didn't try to replicate that in this version." (2) "The rights to Jr. Pac-Man were never transferred over to Namco." What you said in (2) explains (1). If they didn't have the rights and it was too similar, it would leave them open to a copyright infringement lawsuit.

[@pojr]

This is true, but it could have been somewhat similar to Jr Pac-Man. It's not infringement if the two games are similar.

[@Grayfinity]

@@pojr True. I'd imagine, though, that they just didn't want to take that risk. Obviously the best option they could've take would've been to buy the rights from GCC Technologies outright.

[@robbiewalker2831]

@@pojr That doesn't explain why Ms. Pac-Man was in the SNES version of "Hello! Pac-Man", regarding the copyright issue. What baffles me the most about it would be that in Pac-Man World Re-Pac, Pac-Jr. and Proffessor Pac are the only Pac-People to not be taken down by copyright conspiracies, but Pac-Baby and Ms. Pac-Man ends up being replaced. Talk about misogynistic double standards.

[@BIGMIKE360AMUSEMENTS]

Pac-Man has mental anguish

[@WilliamPorygon]

Agreed about Pac-Man 2 being underrated, I rented the SNES version a few times back in the day and completed it. I can understand why it tends to be disliked though, it's a bit on the short side, not terribly intuitive as to what you do at times and the animations/jokes get kind of old after you've seen them enough times. Funny you specifically mentioned the statue outside the restaurant, I always think of that as my favorite bit from the game (that and Gizmo the Attack Cat).

[@conradojavier7547]

They might make a Pac-Mom Game.

[@MCastleberry1980]

Pac Jr has big Pac-Mom energy

[@nightgates9603]

Can you review Werewolf: The Last Warrior or Altered Beast for October? Thanks.

[@pojr]

I actually did make a review of Werewolf back in 2015. Wouldn't mind revisiting the game though

[@billkeithchannel]

Thankfully Jr. Pac-Man is available on the MAME32 Emulator. I spent many hours in the arcade playing it when it came out and yet again once the emulator got around.

[@GreekRetroGeek]

You deserve more subs sir!

[@mightyfilm]

You have to give Namco and Midway for embracing the Hanna Barbera cartoon series. Between this game and Pac-Land (which even used the show's theme song as background music), the influence is obvious. Even had a localization of Pac & Pal that replaced the "pal" with Chomp-Chomp. I guess HB still owned the copyright on Mesmeron's character to replace him with an ersatz version of him. But this game would have been better off as a cartoon series.

[@B33FY2011]

Does anyone know what the soundtrack is at 11:10

[@ThriftLife]

Loved that Pacman game on Genesis

[@pojr]

Indeed

[@jeenkzk5919]

Aside from Ms. Pac-Man, I think Junior Pac-Man is probably the best Pac-Man game during its original run! I’ve always wondered why it was never included in any Pac-Man or Namco collections. Though I have been playing it on Mame. I suppose that’s all I need for now. Aside from an arcade controller for my PC.

[@pojr]

I'm on the fence about which one I like more. Jr Pac-Man has some cool innovations like scrolling and more levels, but the scrolling is both a benefit and a hindrance at the same time.

[@justinw6658]

JR. PAC-MAN is the best. If Arcade 1UP is allowed to release it I would probably buy it.

[@billkeithchannel]

Pac-Man 2 looks more like a sequel to Pac-Land which the Saturday Morning cartoon world was based on. 7650!

[@SweetStevieAaron]

I had Pac-Man 2 on the SNES so I had no clue whatsoever. I really wish Namco would sort this situation out. It’s been too long.

[@pojr]

Yeah it would be cool if the game were not being held hostage. There's too many collections where Ms Pac-Man would have been a great addition, but of course, we don't get it

[@NumberSixAtTheVillage]

Have you or will you ever review any Pacman clones? (such as CD-Man)

[@AirZonkWorldChamp]

Great video but its a shame we'll probably never see a re-release of the real Jr. Pac-Man again.

[@pojr]

True. It's a shame because it's great game

[@apr2499]

I was hoping to see more of the GCC pac man 2 game as a comparison.

[@jadstudiosofficial]

I wish Namco secured the rights to Jr. Pac-Man, but hey, i still count the game as canon to the Pac-Man Headcanon in my opinion.

[@fazares]

very good video, thanks

[@pojr]

Thank you!

[@ritaandrunt5767]

I actually own Pac-Man 2 the new adventures on the Sega Genesis fairly recently as it along with Scooby-Doo Mystery are The most recent additions to my ever growing collection of Sega Genesis game's however both of them didn't come in there respective cases or have the instruction manuals that came with them either so they were just the loose cartridges only but that's okay and I'm happy that I now finally own both of them in my collection anways though Pac-Jr is definitely an interesting game and the fact that it is just Ms Pac-Man but slightly modified I didn't realize or notice it untill after the fact so now I'll keep that in mind for future playthroughs of that game if I ever attempt at making more progress on it then I did when I first started playing it

[@Lapis_raccoon]

So what company made ms pac man

[@paxhumana2015]

The sides that are in the dispute need to quit arguing! The games are over four decades old at this point! The sides need to realize that the CUSTOMERS are the ones that are the reasons why BOTH sides even HAD jobs in the first place!

[@brycehippensteel928]

😃✨So are you going to review the 6 Namco Arrangement Arcade games from 1995 and 1996 soon?

[@pojr]

This might make a good video

[@FeralInferno]

There was one other sort of Pac Jr title. There was the arcade/pinball hybrid, Baby Pac-Man. The Pac-Man game elements are kind of bland, but it was an interesting machine.

[@yiffytimes]

Currently Jr Pac-Man is owned by AT Games, last I heard Namco is trying to make arrangements to buy the rights from them.

[@pojr]

Really? I know they own Ms Pac-Man, I never realized they owned Jr Pac-Man as well

[@giggs-chan2004]

Hopefully we get Namco Museum Ultimate.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

Here's Tod Frye back in 1997 explaining why his Atari 2600 Pac-Man came out the way it did. It wasn't rushed as is commonly believed (he worked on it for six months which is about average for an Atari 2600 game back in the day), but there were other reasons it ended up the way it did: kzbin.info/www/bejne/i4WnhnWVfM6HgaMsi=4SB-NU_gXmXZPvj_&t=692

[@backwoodsbillycreeks2174]

Just a crazy suggestion you can maybe put an ad in the paper or something and get a cute girl to go through the intros or certain parts of the video games

[@nickynj454]

POJR's videos are up and down. A few times he is off in his "history" but this video was good. Never knew there was a hidden game in pacman2 or that Namco owns nothing in regards to jr, I thought it was the same deal as Ms Pac.

[@Riz2336]

Well thankfully we got emulation that way we can preserve these games that get lost in time

[@laz7354]

Po JR then isn't the third in the PAC JR / JR PacMan series?!?

[@UltimatePerfection]

Whatever the reason, the remake looks way better and it's plays really well, so good on Namco for doing that. Speaking of Namco though, anyone knows why in some of their games they're credited as NAMCOT? Always bugged me.

[@trip2themoon]

I think the Namcot thing was so they could release more NES games. Nintendo limited how many games a company could release per year so some companies created second companies and released them under those . Konami used to do this under the name Palcom.

[@edgardeitz5746]

*Namcot* is most likely the home console division of Namco.

[@nickynj454]

There is a boss of the ghosts in the pacman cartoon. That's where they got the idea from. It doesn't resemble the cartoon because that was a Hanna Barbera property.

[@anactualmotherbear]

Pac-Man 2 aka Hello! Pac-Man is one of my favorite games. The SNES/Super Fami version is far better. The graphics are a bit more colorful and the sound effects are more appealing. The only reason to play the Genesis/Mega version is for the weird novelty of a Ms Pac-Man reskin.

[@kurosurintomasu]

i love pac man

[@Parodia-j1zGame]

it was a good video yeah 80s

[@doordashdriver]

how much longer do you have to wear braces?

[@mitch_sorenstein]

pojr

[@ErdrickHero]

A summary of the whole video at the end is a clear copout to stall the video for watch time. Shame on you. If your viewers are paying attention, they don't need a recap. If they're not paying attention, the content wasn't worth it.

[@NegativeYoutube]

You really need to learn the difference between copyright and licensing, your terminology throughout the video is wrong, making every statement incorrect and useless.

[@x7heDeviLx]

Perhaps you could enlighten us so we can get the right info unless you don’t really care about getting the correct info out there, and you just want to be snide and useless. Is this how you feel right now 6:43 ?

[@NegativeYoutube]

@@x7heDeviLx or you could just not pretend to understand something you have no grasp of... google is a great start but you have to read and comprehend. i doubt that's a thing for you.

[@yomama9390]

People don't treat Pac Man 2 like it's supposed to be treated. If you're playing just to complete the objectives, that's playing wrong. It's billed as an interactive cartoon, and so really, your real gameplay is exploring and trying things, wanting to find out what will happen when you hit certain objects or how to make pac man interact in different ways with the world. If you play to win, you'll be frustrated and lose sight of the "cartoon" aspect. It seems the people who hate that game are people trying to swiftly complete the game and being annoyed at "failure" when you should just be having fun and looking for surprises.

[@pojr]

I think you're absolutely right. A lot of people didn't get this game a chance, because it's so different from the normal games