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In 1982, Fleer joined the Pac-Man craze by coming up with some cool bubble gum card packs. Each pack sold for a suggested retail price of 30 cents, and it contained three stickers, three rub-off maze games, and one stick of traditional Fleer bubble gum. The cards were so popular that they reprinted them later that year, and they enhanced the appearence of the stickers when they did (see differences).
Next, they issued Ms. Pac-Man Stickers and Ruboffs (a few months later, I believe). They must have printed those at least twice, too, because there are at least two subtly different versions in existence. Finally, they released Super Pac-Man Stickers and Ruboffs, and later (1984?) they released Dragon's Lair Stickers and Ruboffs. The video craze had died down by then, however, and so had the "stickers and rub-offs" concept, so these later cards are quite rare.
The Topps company also cashed in on the craze, first by offering Donkey Kong Stickers and Ruboffs, then later Video City Stickers and Ruboffs, which featured four games: Donkey Kong Jr., Frogger, Turbo, and Zaxxon. With the exception of the Dragon's Lair Stickers, neither Fleer nor Topps indicated the release date on their stickers (only the copyright date of the original video game), and no one seems to know for sure the exact release dates. Here's what I know:
Video Game Name | Year Video Game Released | Bubble Gum Card Manufacturer | Year Bubble Gum Card Released | Year I Discovered in Stores |
Pac-Man | 1980 | Fleer | 1982? | 1982 |
Ms. Pac-Man | 1981 | Fleer | 1982? | 1982 |
Super Pac-Man | 1982 | Fleer | 1983? | -- |
Dragon's Lair | 1983 | Fleer | 1984 | 1984 |
Donkey Kong | 1980 | Topps | 1982? | 1984 |
Video City | various | Topps | 1983? | -- |
Each of the Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man sticker sets had a total of 54 stickers that you could collect. I don't know how many are in the Super Pac-Man set because the wrapper and all the sticker backs say "Design-Your-Own Pac-Man Poster Contest" instead. It's not necessarily 54, though, because there are 63 Dragon's Lair stickers.
That's about all I need to say for now... the stickers basically speak for themselves! Click on a set below to enjoy. Eventually I'd like to have each complete set represented, but for now I have a representative sample of each.