I'm not sure if anyone else has found this before but I found a new way to make pac run past the cat and the hot dog vendor. On the farm screen, hit the bees and make pac turn and look asap. He is set to run a certain distance and will eventually turn around. If you make him look at the bees sooner, he will turn around sooner. When he turns around, he will be responsive to the look command. If you make him turn right before he hits the next screen, the bees will attack and he will do a little left and right run. This will load him into the next screen and he will run past the cat and hotdog vendor. He will run all the way to the arcade and there he will respond to look commands. I haven't timed it properly myself but there may be a time save there.

do you have some form of video evidence? i'd like to see this in action

Two things should be noted.

1. I haven't tried this in Genesis version

2. This will not work if he is angry. He takes too long to turn around. However when it's time to go after ghost witch and he's angry, you can make him look up and shoot the hole in his house. This will make him happy and the trick will then work at that point in the game.

i’ve shared this to the pac-man speedrunning discord.