Buckner & Garcia

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.