Marty Ingels

Promotional shot of Ingels with a Pac-Man cutout.

Martin Ingerman (March 9, 1936 - October 21, 2015), known professionally as Marty Ingels, was an American actor, talent agent and comedian. He was born on March 9, 1936 in Brooklyn, New York. Besides providing the voice of Pac-Man in the Pac-Man animated series, Ingels is best known for starring in the 1960s sitcom I'm Dickens, He's Fenster and for marrying actress Shirley Jones.

Ingels landed the role of Pac-Man by complete accident; he was looking for a role with Universal Studios for one of his clients, actor Robert Culp, and accidentally dialed the number for Hanna-Barbera instead. He got in touch with Hanna-Barbera casting director Gordon Hunt, who told him the studio had gotten the rights to Pac-Man, and were looking for a voice for Pac-Man himself. Ingels, who did not know what Pac-Man was, suggested Culp, but Hunt thought that Ingels would be better fit for the role, and to Ingels' surprise, he was chosen for the role. Ingels described voicing Pac-Man as a "dream job", saying that he could go to Hanna-Barbera in his pajamas and record three weeks 'worth of voice acting in an afternoon, and that he was paid more for the role than he was doing live-action work.

Ingels had anxiety disorder however, and working on Pac-Man ended up causes him to have anxiety attacks. Ingles wanted Pac-Man to have a catchphrase like “PacapacaWowie!”. This would cause the executives, presumably at ABC, to debate amongst themselves on what it should be, with most of them proposing phrases that were only slight variations on Ingels' idea like "Pacapacaweewee” or “Pacapacawoowoo”. An executive in New York ended up nixing the whole idea, and the situation caused Ingels so much stress that he began hyperventilating while driving home.

Ingels died on October 21, 2015 from a massive stroke at Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, California, at age 79.

Trivia

• The day after Ingels landed the role as Pac-Man, Hanna-Barbera gifted him a Pac-Man arcade cabinet, with his high score reportedly being 29,000 points.
• Although Ingels stated he did not voice any characters other than Pac-Man in the show, his voice was used for the Pac-Astronaut's yell in the episode "The Pac-Man in the Moon."