Syndication Files 07.01.09: Press Your Luck
Posted by Porfirio Diaz on 07.01.2009
One of the paramount of game shows is here! Press Your Luck is a game show where contestants played on an 18-space game board full of cash, prizes, and Whammies. Clips of the show plus the infamous Michael Larson episode are all here on the Whammy-filled edition of the Syndication Files.
What, you didn't think I would do game shows as well, do you? They count.
Point blank, this next installment is about one of the greatest game shows ever. It'll be hard to top game shows like Match Game and Jeopardy but I think arguably its right up there with them.
But enough chit-chat. Read on and find out why I love this game show so much.
Syndication Files # 3
Press Your Luck
One of many Press Your Luck openings
Big bucks! No whammy, no whammy…stop!! Sweet, sweet memories.
Press Your Luck premiered on September 19, 1983 on CBS. The show's history actually dated back to a 1977 ABC game show called Second Chance, which is the precursor to the more successful Press Your Luck show. Peter Tomarken was the show's host while Rod Roddy, one of the greatest off-scene television announcers ever, became the main announcer for the show. It's sad to think that both are gone from this world now.
This game show consisted of three contestants playing the game in four rounds. The first and third round of each game is called the "Question Round". Each question round included four questions that was read to the contestants, where they would try to answer correctly in order of them to win "spins". A contestant that buzzes in with the correct answer would win three spins. A contestant that answers a multiple-choice answer correctly would win one spin.
Keith = Smartass
Those spins would be used on the 18-space game board during the second and fourth round called the "Big Board Round". While there are two Big Board rounds, the second board round contains larger cash amounts and prizes (the first board holds no more than $2,000 while the second holds up to $5,000 and more). Contestants are able to use their spins to win money and prizes. They would take turns with their spins until they use up all of their spins or they play it safe and pass their remaining spins to the person currently with the next highest amount. The game board is designed to change at random (or is it…more on that later) until the contestant hits their little red button in front of them to stop the rotation. For some reason, contestants yell stop when they hit the red button, thinking that it's an added requirement needed to stop the rotation. But it had evolved into a natural reaction that many people accepted it as part of the show.
So is all of this confusing you? I think it would be better just to show you than try to explain this concept with its many rules.
The final and most exciting round of the show
So perhaps people remember this show by the large amount of money you can win or how contestants would just act insane. Sometimes hitting that "$5000+One Spin" block would cause contestants to spaz out of their mind!
You tell me, dear readers, does this contestant (name: Gene Snyder) act normal to you?!
I say a mixture of crazy and excitement, and no, you cannot win $80,000 on one spin
But really, you can't blame them. I know I would jump up for joy if I was the one with the largest amount of money left by the end of the game. Also watching someone like Gene act so crazy brings out a special feeling to the audience. Other than The Price Is Right, I don't normally see people acting like this during game shows. But it does put a smile on my face and it makes me feel good for them.
But people will most likely remember the show of one thing.
Whammy!
No, not "Champ" Kind's catchphrase. It's the little red creatures with the cape.
Stolen from Jeff Small. Eh, he won't mind
Hmm...I wonder if that is any inspiration on Nibbler getting a similar looking cape.
If a contestant hits a Whammy, the audience would be entertained by a Whammy animation that would be more than happy to take your money away (see: ex-wife). Everything would be lost: money and prizes, leaving the contestants in a wallow of heartbreak and sadness while hilarity ensues. Hitting four Whammies at any time would eliminate you from the game.
Wow, Sandy is hot!
So that's pretty much what this game is all about. Press Your Luck features a good deal of luck and strategy. There are two spins left and you're up by $4,000. Press your luck or pass? Man, I love moments like those and I was hooking during the show's syndicated run on the USA Network. I never watched the initial run of the show since I was still less than five years old but I never did figure out that the version I watched were reruns.
There were a lot of notable contestants during the show's run but not as infamous as the mighty Michael Larson.
Oh we'll be seeing that a lot
Not familiar with him? Well then read on.
Michael Larson was an unemployed ice cream truck driver. During the time watching his favorite game show, he noticed something peculiar about the presumed random patterns of the board. With the use of a VCR with stop-motion technology (hey, it was high-tech back then), he was able to figure out that the board wasn't really random at all. There were 6 repeated sequences that the board went with and during the next few weeks, Larson memorized those sequences (If you're still confused about the pattern, here's a link to a Wikipedia page that would help explain it better).
Now it was possible to go on the show, watch the sequences on the board, and stop wherever Larson wanted to.
Using whatever money he had left, he arrived in Hollywood from Ohio for a contestant tryout. Suspicions rose about him but nothing that would keep him from going onto the real show.
Now it's game time. If you haven't seen Larson and all of his glory, I found the full episode on that faithful day and I highly recommend watching it not just for its historical nature but for the study of psychology as well. Notice the behavior of Larson during the first board round and the second board round, as well as his nervousness near the end of the game (especially on his last two spins). See if you can find the patterns.
Credit Sashinator0 for posting these gems.
If you're not in a watching mood, then here's the gist of it. The first "Big Board round" was normal enough. Larson played nothing out of the ordinary. He hit a Whammy on his first spin and ended in third place with $2,500. Little did everyone know that he was actually concentrating on the repeated patterns. After that Whammy, he went on a historic roll.
Executive producer, Bill Carruthers, said that, "The odds of hitting a whammy were about 1 in 6." So imagine his and everyone's surprise when Larson proceeded to go 45 spins with hitting a Whammy. However due to being drained by the experience, he miscalculated on his last spin and landed on a space that had a 1/3 chance of hitting a Whammy. Luckily (in the biggest sense) he won a trip to the Bahamas instead. Everyone backstage was panicking and rightfully so. Someone has beaten the system. Larson out-whammied the Whammy. Larson won the game with a total of $110,237, which $104,950 of it was cash.
CBS initially didn't want to pay Larson as they considered him a cheater. But the producers couldn't find anything that could justify that claim. What Larson did wasn't cheating since he wasn't doing anything illegal. There was no rule that said a contestant couldn't memorize the board pattern. Sure it took the fun out of the game when someone had special knowledge of the game's hidden development, but it didn't amount to any cheating whatsoever. Larson collected his money and morphed into the biggest game show contestant in game show history. His $110,237 total winnings held the record for most money won by a contestant in a single appearance on a network game show until 2006 when Vickyann Chrobak-Sadowski won $147,517 on The Price is Right.
After that little incident, the board was recalibrated to include 20 more sequences into the mix. The producers also imposed a winning maximum cap of $75,000.
What did Larson do with his money? After paying $35,000 in taxes, he invested most of his winnings in a real-estate deal to build homes back in his hometown in Lebanon. Sadly for him, it didn't work out and lost everything. He issued a challenge at the producers saying he could beat them again, even with the newly added patterns. The producers declined.
The entire episode (actually split into two episodes due to length) was only showed once during its initial run and was never to be aired again. Then in 2003, the Game Show Network produced a two-hour documentary called Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal. The documentary featured the entire Michael Larson episode, as well as interviews from producers, Larson's family, and the two contestants who lost to Larson that day. It's a very well done documentary and I also recommend tracking it down.
After 757 episodes, Press Your Luck ended on September 26, 1986. I don't know why the network decided to end the show but probably had something to do with ratings. The entire series was repeated by the USA Network and later on GSN. But the series did get an update revival on GNS in 2002 titled Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck. I never got into it. You just can't replace the original but at least they tried. That revival ended in 2003. There is even going to be a Wii game based on the show called Press Your Luck 2010 that's set to release in October 2009. That has the potential to be something awesome.
I sure did have fun remembering what a great game show Press Your Luck was. The clips here are just a small taste. There's a crap load more on Youtube, even with complete episodes. Go find them!
Alright, just one more. I'll leave you with one more clip: The greatest spin battle ever! Enjoy.
Like ping pong, only with money involved…ok, more like beer ping pong
Commercial Break
Oh schick!
Is it me or does that dryer look huge? You could easily mistake it for a blue X-Box 360 AC adapter. But the product is not the thing I wanted to bring your attention to, it's the people. Well, person actually: the lovely Farrah Fawcett. She is just looks and sounds too cute to ignore.
The "Megan Fox" of the 1970s. Actually, that's an insult to Farrah. She was her own woman and continued to rise as the hottest girl on the planet. But nothing else in her career will ever top her role on Charlie Angels or this poster.
RIP, Farrah Fawcett.
Tweet or Ban!
While you're here, check out our 411mania.com Twitter and Facebook feeds. Still need to get on that Tweeter thingamajigger. I will eventually…maybe…
That concludes another portion of the Syndication Files. It's just so much fun getting to review and re-watch some of the shows I remember so fondly back then. I hope it has been fun for you to.
But that's not all. You will get more of me very soon as I'm almost done with my Bash diary from Sunday night. Look for that in a few days.
For now, this is Porfirio Diaz saying thanks for pressing your luck. Good bye.
And with that, I'm out of time. Out like Michael Jackson!
Posted By: Guest#9364 (Guest) on July 01, 2009 at 10:30 AM
Greatest game show ever. I remember one summer my brother and I followed the same schedule every day with our babysitter: lunch, swimming, Press Your Luck.
Posted By: neverAcquiesce (Guest) on July 01, 2009 at 05:17 PM
