Christmas Comes to Pac-Land (1982)

 

Not a standalone movie, but rather the Christmas episode of the Saturday Morning Cartoon "Pac-Man," within the first 5 minutes of "Christmas comes to Pac-Land", the four ghosts are chasing Pac-Man, then he's cornered, then he eats power pellets and then the tables are completely turned and he chases down the ghosts to eat them. This may be the most faithful video game adaptation of all-time. It doesn't matter that it makes no sense, that's the way the game is so we're just literally going to play out the things that happen in the game!

Pac-Man has a wife, Mrs. Pepper Pac-Man who is Ms. Pac-Man but they don't call her that. Together they have Pac-Baby and a dog and cat. The Pac-World version of a dog seems to have been created in a lab by scientists tasked with achieving maximum cuteness. The dog is my favorite character:

The Pac-Family lives in a world with no Christmas, so the title checks out, and this episode sees Santa coming to this other planet/land to introduce the Holiday. My only question is why. If they don't celebrate Christmas, why go to the bother of delivering presents to every house? And where was this idea last year? This special is in direct conflict with the many Christmas specials that make it absolutely clear that YOU MUST BELIEVE IN SANTA or he won't come.

But anyways, Santa is there for some reason and crashes his sleigh, so it's up to Pac-Man to repair his sleigh and re-acquire the presents lost in the crash. Unfortunately, the ghosts are working to stop him from accomplishing his mission. But the meaning behind the Pac-Man vs. Ghosts eternal struggle is another question mark. When Pac-Man eats the ghosts, they become sets of eyes and go somewhere else to regroup. When the ghosts eat Pac-Man he just becomes really tired. So what's the point of any of it? What are the stakes, why do anything at all? Somehow the absolute worst fate that can befall Pac-Man is that he becomes like me? Ouch.

So, yeah, it's clear that Pac-Man needs to save Christmas and he is opposed by the ghosts trying to stop him. Except in the climax of the film, he explains the concept of Christmas to them and why it's important that they not oppose him in this and so they agree to call a truce and go peacefully on their separate ways. It is quite a subversion of cartoon expectations, I don't remember any other cartoon conflict that was resolved by just calmly explaining things to the villains.

But even without ghostly opposition, Santa is still in trouble because he's run out of time somehow. He can go to billions of houses in one night but he can still run short on time. But fortunately, Pac-Man takes him to the Power Pellet Forest and gives power pellets to Santa and the reindeer and that's the answer. There's that old standup bit about how Pac-Man caused an entire generation to do drugs and here we have the moral of the Christmas special: if you need increased performance, just take some pills.

This is a strange concept for a Christmas special (obviously) but in execution it's just you're average Saturday Morning Cartoon episode. Nothing great, nothing terrible. Except there is a part where Pac-Man gives a surprise gift to all of his ghost enemies and I kind of choked up a little. It's very touching.