3342. Pac Man

Pac-Man (Japanese: パックマン Pakkuman) is the main protagonist in the majority of the games in the Pac-Man series. His Japanese name is "Pakku Man". He was created by Toru Iwatani. He is Namco's mascot. Pac-Man nowadays is a common rival to Mario, the official mascot of Nintendo.
The Knickerbocker Toy Company was founded around 1850 in Albany, New York and started out manufacturing educational toys, like alphabet blocks. The unusual name 'Knickerbocker' derived from the nickname for the citizens of New York. The name is a reference to the baggy trousers the original Dutch settlers wore.

As many know, like some other video games, Pac-Man was developed in Japan. It was wildly popular, however, it is more commonly shown in the United States of America.

Pac-Man was created by Namco employee Toru Iwatani when he ordered a pizza. When the first quarter of the pizza was cut out, it looked similar to a head with it's mouth open, this is what inspired him to create the character that was originally Puck-Man. However, Puck-Man couldn't be used due to American kids defacing an arcade machine making it as an obscenity. Thus, Pac-Man became the American name and eventually the official name.

In 1981 the game company Atari released a new Pac-Man video game, however, it was only the Atari's different version of Pac-Man. It was criticized for its flickering ghosts and slow moving character, however, it was the first Pac-Man game that can be put on a game system.

Pac-Man reached practically unlimited fame by the 1990's. Figures and games were constantly being released. Namco later decided to create a game that today's players would understand and be more likely to play. That's when Pac-Man World was released. The game features a three-dimensional Pac-Man fighting three-dimensional enemies. Pac-Man reached fame once this game was released in the United States.

In the 1980's, the popular American television show, Pac-Man was released. The show resembles the game Pac-Land or Pac-Man 2. Pac-Man is seen in the show taking care of his family, going to work, or defeating ghosts when he needs to. The ghosts have a leader in this show, named Mezmarone who wants to destroy Pac-Man for some unknown reason.

Pac-Man's first adventure canonically began in Pac 'n Roll. In his youth Pac-Man trained under the mighty Pac-Master during his summer vacation. He taught Pac-Man all about fighting and power pellets, so he could help in defending Pac-Land from the many Ghosts that plagued it. During his training he grew close to Pac-Master's family, he especially grew close to Pac-Master's beautiful daughter who would one day become his future sweetheart, Ms. Pac-Man. Sadly the joy would not last for long as a young group of Ghosts (Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde) were planning to summon a powerful Ghost named Golvis, (who had been banished to the far reaches of space long ago), to defeat Pac-Master and destroy the power pellet harvest. On the day of the Power Pellet Harvest Festival Golvis and the Ghosts began their assault, and Pac-Master attempted to confront Golvis but sadly the large Ghost was almost immune to the affects of power pellets as only his tail turned blue, and with him having the advantage he used his magic guitar Jack to turn every Pac-Person into limbless orbs thus making them unable to move, he then used Jack to blow them all away, luckily the guardian spirit of Pac-Land Krystal temporarily defeated Golvis, however she was only capable of saving the young Pac-Man. She then convinces Pac-Man to help her save Pac-Land as he is the only one left. After traveling throughout all of Pac-Land they finally reach Golvis' home base where, with their combined forces finally defeat Golvis, thus restoring the bodies of all the Pac-People and saving Pac-Master and his family.

The first bears ascribed to Knickerbocker are from around 1925, when the company started to use permanent labels. The company was proud to produce high quality toy animals and called them 'Animals of Distinction'. The Knickerbocker bears were by far the best American bears from that period, but still quite affordable.
In the 1960's, the company won the license to manufacture 'Smokey Bear', until 1977 en became reasonably famous with it. Even a talking version was made, with a build-in tape that told the children about preventing forest fires.

In 1968 the company moved to Middlesex, New Jersey. There, they imported the different parts from Korea, sown and all. At the end of the 1980's the company was closed down.