Pac-Man’s Forbidden Love

Who knew a 40-plus-year-old video game could turn into a soap opera? Even ghosts need love. Just ask Casper. Pac-Man started out as a yellow circle eating dots while four ghosts chased him around a maze. More than four decades later, we’re dealing with divorce, forbidden romance, jealousy and Q*bert stealing Ms. Pac-Man. Somewhere along the way, somebody forgot this was supposed to be an arcade game.

Shakespeare said all the world’s a stage and we’re merely players. He never mentioned Pac-Man, but I think he was onto something. Life is a stage, after all, and who knew you needed quarters to continue?

There are four ghosts in Pac-Man: Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde. Surely I can’t be the only person who spent years calling one of them Stinky. It just seemed like the right name. The ghosts are generally treated as male, while Pinky is usually considered female, although I suspect that assumption has more to do with her color than anything else. Either way, Pinky has always been the odd ghost out.

Now Dorkly has taken that tiny bit of character development and turned it into Pac-Man’s Forbidden Love, a newly released animated sketch about a secret romance between Pac-Man and Pinky. Apparently, spending your entire relationship trying to kill each other doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t chemistry.

Pac-Man finally notices Pinky, not just as another ghost trying to corner him, but as a woman. More specifically, he notices her hunting skills and tells her how impressed he is. And let’s be honest, nothing gets a woman’s attention quite like a man complimenting her professional abilities. You can see where this is going.

It is Romeo and Juliet, except Romeo is an insatiable yellow circle, Juliet is a pink ghost, and their idea of a romantic evening involves running through a maze while three other ghosts try to ruin everything. Shakespeare would have needed fewer sonnets and a lot more power pellets.

Pinky isn’t convinced this relationship has any future. She wonders whether a ghost and an “insatiable circle demon” can really make a relationship work. Pac-Man, however, has an answer that changes everything. He’s divorced.

Apparently, Ms. Pac-Man left him for Q*bert.

Yes, Q*bert. Let that sink in. Of all the characters in video game history, Ms. Pac-Man apparently looked at her husband and thought, “You know who I really want? The orange guy who jumps around platforms making strange noises.”

According to Dorkly’s increasingly ridiculous Pac-Man universe, this isn’t even new information. In an earlier short, Pac-Man’s Family Problems, Ms. Pac-Man explicitly asks Pac-Man for a divorce. So what we’re watching isn’t just a random romantic gag. Dorkly has slowly transformed Pac-Man into a daytime television drama, and somehow, I’m invested.

The ghosts aren’t exactly helping matters. They call Pac-Man a “circle jerk,” which is about as creative as you’d expect from three ghosts who have spent their entire existence chasing the same yellow circle around the same maze. After 40 years, I suppose you eventually run out of insults.

What makes the whole thing so funny is that the original Pac-Man barely had a story. Pac-Man eats dots. Ghosts chase Pac-Man. Pac-Man eats a power pellet and suddenly the tables turn. There are some fruits thrown in for good measure. That’s about it. Dorkly has taken that microscopic amount of lore and somehow built a dysfunctional family around it.

Now Pac-Man is divorced, Ms. Pac-Man has moved on with Q*bert, Pinky has developed feelings for the guy she used to hunt, and the other ghosts are apparently dealing with their own opinions about the whole mess. All we’re missing is someone sitting in a diner saying, “Pac-Man, we need to talk.”

And maybe that’s why the romance works. Pinky and Pac-Man actually seem to understand each other. He respects her ability to hunt, she knows exactly what he is, and both realize that falling for each other is probably a terrible idea. That’s forbidden love.

Romeo and Juliet had feuding families. Pac-Man and Pinky have a maze, three jealous ghosts and a lifetime of trying to eat each other. Frankly, they may have it worse.

The original game never needed a backstory. That was part of its charm. But watching Dorkly invent one is almost too much fun. We’ve gone from a yellow circle eating dots to a divorced man trying to find love with one of the ghosts who spent years trying to kill him.

Somewhere, Ms. Pac-Man is with Q*bert, Blinky is furious, Inky is confused, Clyde is doing whatever Clyde does, and Pinky has somehow fallen for the circle demon.

As for Pac-Man, he’s just hoping he has enough quarters left to give love another life.

Recommended Reading

Inside Sandbox World

• Fender x PAC-MAN Telecaster Turns Arcade Nostalgia Into Art — A perfect companion piece because it looks at PAC-MAN nostalgia through a very different pop-culture collaboration.
• Pokémon GO Turns 10: The Summer the World Went Outside — Another strong gaming nostalgia piece about how a video game became a massive cultural phenomenon.

More on the Web

• Dorkly: Pac-Man’s Forbidden Love — The animated sketch that inspired this article and gives Pac-Man a romantic life nobody asked for.
• Dorkly: Pac-Man’s Family Problems — The earlier short that established the divorce storyline and helps explain the increasingly ridiculous Pac-Man universe.

Tony M.

If this article made you think, brought back a memory, or made you see something differently, I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email at sandboxworld@gmail.com. I read every message personally and, with your permission, may feature your thoughts in a future article because the best stories are the ones we share.