In the original Pac-Man, the cherry bonus appears after Pac-Man eats 70 dots.
The cherry is the first bonus fruit in the game’s scoring sequence. It appears beneath the ghost house after the 70-dot threshold is reached and remains on screen for a limited time. Eating it awards 100 points, making it a useful early boost while Pac-Man is clearing the maze.
A second bonus item appears after 170 dots have been eaten. Although players often remember the two fruit appearances as a single event, the threshold is separate from the item’s position in the fruit sequence. The second item is a strawberry rather than another cherry, and later levels introduce increasingly valuable symbols such as oranges, apples, melons, bells, and keys.
Bonus fruit is separate from ordinary maze dots and power pellets. Dots advance the level’s clearing objective, while power pellets temporarily make ghosts vulnerable. The fruit is an optional scoring opportunity, so chasing it can be rewarding but risky if the ghosts are nearby.