Buckner & Garcia

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Buckner & Garcia are the duo of Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia. In 1982 they released the novelty album Pac-Man Fever, consisting entirely of songs about arcade video games. The title track became a #8 hit in the United States. Other songs include the novelty tune, "Merry Christmas in the NFL", about Howard Cosell as Santa Claus. This reached #82, despite limited airplay after Cosell found the song offensive. In 1980, they charted a sentimental country song called "Footprints in the Sand".

Garcia provided lead and background vocals, cowbell, string polyensemble, and "Jason's space gun", while Buckner provided keyboards, string polyensemble, and background vocals.

The rest of their band consisted of Ginny Whitaker (drums), Larry McDonald (bass guitar), Chris Bowman (lead and rhythm guitar), Rick Hinkle (lead and rhythm guitar on "Pac-Man Fever", "Mousetrap" and "Goin' Berserk"), Mike Stewart (Moog synthesizer on "Mousetrap", and "Goin' Berserk"), and David "Cozy" Cole (syndrum). Steve Carlisle and Sharon Scott provided background vocals on "Pac-Man Fever".

Their major follow-up to "Pac-Man Fever" was "ET, I Love You", which, despite permission from Steven Spielberg, was shelved by the label in favor of Neil Diamond's unauthorized "Heartlight", which brought on a lawsuit.

When they re-formed the band in 2001, Stewart became the group's drummer, Whitaker having died in the interim. Danny Jones was added as bassist, as none of the other band members returned. CBS would not allow the release of the original recordings, so the entire Pac-Man Fever album was re-recorded, which they then followed with a brief album released through mp3.com that included four new songs (none based on video games, but one based on Pogs), plus a new recording of "ET, I Love You", karaoke versions of both it and "Pac-Man Fever", and an acoustic recording of the latter.

1 Other songs, and the games they're based on
- 1.1 Now & Then
2 Trivia
3 External links

[edit] Other songs, and the games they're based on

"Froggy's Lament" (Frogger)
"Ode to a Centipede" (Centipede)
"Do the Donkey Kong" (Donkey Kong)
"Hyperspace" (Asteroids)
"The Defender" (Defender)
"Mousetrap" (Mouse Trap)
"Goin' Berzerk" (Berzerk)

[edit] Now & Then

Do the Funky Broadway
Pogwild
It's Allright
Hostage
ET, I Love You
ET, I Love You Karaoke
Pac Man Fever Karaoke
Pac Man Fever Unplugged

[edit] Trivia

When the Pac-Man Fever album was re-released on CD in 2001, Buckner and Garcia were not allowed access to their original recordings from 1982. The CD re-release instead contains modern sound-alike re-recordings of all their songs.
Furthermore, since they were unable to find a Mousetrap machine (or any of the home versions) to record game sounds from, the re-recording of the relevant track instead features sounds from real dogs, cats, and pigeons instead of game sounds.