Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Somebody handed Pac-Man a soda and rewired the whole game around it, and it actually works. This commercial ran in 1982 as part of 7Up's The Difference Is Clear campaign, and instead of just putting the character's face on a bottle, they built an entire parody of the arcade game to sell it.
Look closely and almost nothing matches the real thing. Pac-Man is colored red here instead of his usual yellow. He is not eating power pellets, he is drinking 7Up to eat the ghosts' costumes right off of them. The bonus fruit in the maze is gone too, swapped out for lemons, limes, ice cream cones, tacos, and pizza slices. The spot opens on a real arcade cabinet with a kid drinking 7Up before he even touches the joystick, and it closes with Pac-Man and all four ghosts sharing a bottle together right before that title card lands.
The timing is what makes this remarkable. 1982 was the absolute peak of Pac-Man mania. Pac-Man Fever hit number nine on the Billboard chart that March and sold over a million copies within the year. More than a hundred companies were licensing the character for everything from bedsheets to breakfast cereal, and Midway's own vice president was calling him the Mickey Mouse of the 1980s. Landing a slot in that machine meant 7Up borrowing the single biggest character on the planet just to sell soda.
Here's the detail worth sitting with. 7Up would not create a mascot of its own until 1987, five years after this ad ran. In 1982 they had nothing of their own yet, so they simply borrowed the biggest character that existed instead. Early 80s commercials really did have a vibe, and this is exactly why.
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#pacman #7up #thedifferenceisclear #pacmanfever #arcadegames #videogamecommercial #retrocommercial #80scommercials #pacmanmania #vintageadvertising #retrogaming #retrogames #1982 #classicgaming #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
Somebody handed Pac-Man a soda and rewired the whole game around it, and it actually works. This commercial ran in 1982 as part of 7Up's The Difference Is Clear campaign, and instead of just putting the character's face on a bottle, they built an entire parody of the arcade game to sell it.
Look closely and almost nothing matches the real thing. Pac-Man is colored red here instead of his usual yellow. He is not eating power pellets, he is drinking 7Up to eat the ghosts' costumes right off of them. The bonus fruit in the maze is gone too, swapped out for lemons, limes, ice cream cones, tacos, and pizza slices. The spot opens on a real arcade cabinet with a kid drinking 7Up before he even touches the joystick, and it closes with Pac-Man and all four ghosts sharing a bottle together right before that title card lands.
The timing is what makes this remarkable. 1982 was the absolute peak of Pac-Man mania. Pac-Man Fever hit number nine on the Billboard chart that March and sold over a million copies within the year. More than a hundred companies were licensing the character for everything from bedsheets to breakfast cereal, and Midway's own vice president was calling him the Mickey Mouse of the 1980s. Landing a slot in that machine meant 7Up borrowing the single biggest character on the planet just to sell soda.
Here's the detail worth sitting with. 7Up would not create a mascot of its own until 1987, five years after this ad ran. In 1982 they had nothing of their own yet, so they simply borrowed the biggest character that existed instead. Early 80s commercials really did have a vibe, and this is exactly why.
Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
H
#pacman #7up #thedifferenceisclear #pacmanfever #arcadegames #videogamecommercial #retrocommercial #80scommercials #pacmanmania #vintageadvertising #retrogaming #retrogames #1982 #classicgaming #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
