Name: Chomp-Chomp
Debut: Pac-Man: The Animated Series
I’m glad Pac-Man has a dog. He is the kind of guy who should have a dog. He’s a “family guy”! He has his family, and they have their dog. His entire family is held ransom due to legal disputes, his dog is still there for him. He gets a fresh new state-of-the-art family, and his trusty dog is still there, same as always, a welcome constant in his life! That’s the great thing about dogs, that they are immortal! But where do such creatures possibly come from?
They come from Hanna-Barbera cartoons, of course! When Hanna and Barbera give you a dog, that’s when you know you’ve made it. I do not have much to say about the cartoon itself, but if you’re the DOG of a famous character who debuted in a licensed cartoon and went on to become a mainstay of the franchise, that’s when you know you’ve REALLY made it!
The Hanna-Barbera cartoon had weirdly a lot of influence on the game series, serving as a source of inspiration for Pac-Land, which even uses a version the main theme song as its dang music! And look who’s there, it’s our pal Bluish-Gray Chomp-Chomp. Mere years before his first metamorphosis.
I have talked about Pac & Pal here before, but it is important to Chomp-Chomp’s history, so I will go over it briefly again here! Pac & Pal is a Pac-Man followup featuring Miru, a friendly yet mischievous character who helps collect fruit in the maze, at the cost of some points for the player. When (unsuccessfully) testing the game in the west, it was renamed to Pac-Man and Chomp-Chomp, replacing Miru with the cartoon dog! I love Miru to death, but look how cute Chomp-Chomp is in these sprites! I’m not sure why he was redesigned, but it’s definitely my favorite design for him, and I wish the game was popular enough to properly release, so we could have both versions. And like I said in the Miru post, I think a dog actually fits better in this context, as a character who you know is a friend, but who you might not want to get away with your stuff!
And then, Chomp-Chomp just sort of kept appearing in things! Long after the cartoon was even relevant, here he was in Pac-Man World, for example, where he has clearly pupated between games, since he now has developed a whole new body plan! He also talks in this game, which is very funny, because he sometimes says dog phrases like “good boy”, as if he’s mimicking what his owners have said to him.
I’ve always been a bit torn on this design. It’s very cute! But I just feel like a Pac-Dog SHOULD be spherical. What if he was spherical?
Oh no! Oh god! This is wretched! Why would you do this, Pac-Man World 2? This is not a dog! This is just a Pac-Person with floppy ears! This is not how you make a spherical dog!
Ah... thank you so much, Pac’n Roll. I really needed that. Thank you for reminding me that a Pac-Dog can be spherical without looking like the equivalent of Pac-Man’s severed head. He is just named Pac-Dog here, but we all assume this is Chomp-Chomp.
The most recent Chomp-Chomp development... well, you may be aware of the Legal Hell that Ms. Pac-Man has been in, and you may be aware that Pac-Man’s entire family has now been retconned into new characters, with new names and new designs. But what of our dear Chomp-Chomp? Must he be replaced, as well? Are we in for the most drastic redesign yet?
