Press Your Luck

Press Your Luck was an American game show created by Bill Carruthers and Jan McCormick. The show only ran for three years in daytime, but achieved greater success in syndicated reruns and is now one of the most beloved games of all time.

Gameplay
Three contestants competed, usually a returning champion and two challengers. The host asked a general-knowledge trivia question. The first player who buzzed in gave an answer, which then became one of three possible multiple choice answers for the other two players. If they got the answer right, they earned "spins" for later in the game; the number of spins depended on how the contestant answered the question. If they buzzed in and gave the correct answer, they got three spins. If they selected the correct answer from the multiple choice list, they got one spin. In total, four questions were asked, and a total of 12 spins were possible for a player to earn.

Afterwards, the contestants literally turned to face the Bonus Board, nicknamed the "Big Board", which was an enormous square board with 18 spaces lined up around its edges. In each of these squares was a cash amount or prize, which changed once every second or so; there were three different items that each square cycled through in total. A light bounced around from square to square as the board was changing, in seemingly-random patterns. One at a time, each contestant got their shot at taking the spins they earned in the first question round and seeing how much money and prizes they could accumulate with them; once they exhausted their spins, the next contestant went ahead with theirs. The contestant with the least amount of spins usually went first (if there was a tie for least amount, the player to the host's left went first instead), followed by the one with the second-highest amount, then the one with the highest.

A board with only money and prizes does not make for a challenging game, however, and this game had its challenge in the form of one of the most infamous characters in game show history -- the Whammy, a furry red creature with a yellow mask, cape, and symbol on his chest with a white dollar sign inside. The Whammy was in various squares on the board, and if a player had the misfortune to land on one, he would come out and take away everything the player had won up to that point. In addition, a Whammy indicator would pop up in front of that contestant; if four popped up, their game was over.

At any time during a player's turn, if they had a fear of the Whammy or if they simply chose to no longer keep going, that player could pass their remaining spins to the player with the highest amount of money (or the second-highest amount, if the passing player was the one with the highest). The player with passed spins had to take all of them one after another, unless they hit a Whammy, in which case the remaining number of passed spins were moved to the earned column.

All told, there was a question round, a board round, a second question round, and a second board round. The player in the lead at the end of the first board round had the advantage of going last in the second, which also featured a significant increase in monetary values from the first. The player in the lead at the end of the game was the champion, and was the only one to keep all the prizes and money they'd won over the course of the game (that hadn't been stolen by the Whammy, of course).

General Info
Press Your Luck was a revival of the ABC daytime game show Second Chance, which had aired for a few months in 1977 and was also created by Bill Carruthers. Gameplay between the two was very similar, though it can be easily said that Press Your Luck was a drastically-improved version of Second Chance. A pilot was filmed for the series on May 18, 1983, with the illustrious Rod Roddy serving as announcer and Peter Tomarken as the host (coincidentally, the two had just come off of doing the same roles on the very short-lived Hit Man). CBS picked up the pilot and began airing the series on September 19, replacing the Goodson-Todman series Child's Play.

The Whammy quickly grew to become one of the most popular characters in game shows, and even managed to leave a lasting impact on pop culture. Whenever he was hit, a rather crudely-drawn animation would appear superimposed in front of the player, showing the Whammy stealing the player's money while crashing, being blown up, or otherwise having something humiliating happen to him. The Whammy was created and animated by future Disney Channel director "Savage Steve" Holland, and voiced by Bill Carruthers, whose high-pitched voice was perfectly suited for the Whammy (though he would lower the tone considerably as the series went on). Soon, the Whammy acquired a yellow attack dog, Fang, and even a girlfriend, Tammy Whammette (a country-singing Whammy who was an obvious riff on Tammy Wynette). Whammy animations tended to make fun of pop culture, with one in particular featuring four Whammies in a rock band dressed in suits and mop tops, as a take-off on the Beatles. Overall, 85 Whammy animations were used over the course of the series, with new ones being introduced each season.

Though the show was successful, CBS made the decision to move it to a new time slot on January 6, 1986, to make room for the then-upcoming revival of Card Sharks. Ratings took a huge nosedive as a result, and it finally ended its run on September 26.

Rule Changes

 * Players could stay on the show for five shows or until defeated, or they had reached the winnings limit of $25,000 that CBS imposed on all of its game shows. On November 1, 1984, CBS increased the limit to $50,000; had the show managed to make it to 1988, the limit would've been increased to $75,000.

The Big Board
That famous 18-space beast of a board was a technological marvel in its day. Slide projectors were used for each of the squares to display three slides each, with each square changing to a different slide every second or so. Around the show's flashing logo, six squares were displayed on its top and bottom, with three sandwiched on either side. In each square, the multicolored slides that were shown belonged to three categories: The light bounced around only seemingly randomly, however. In reality, it moved from space to space in a set number of patterns, which increased in number significantly halfway through the series' run (see "Michael Larson" below as to why). In space #4, at the top of the board, sat the highest cash values for that particular round. In that space and in space #8 (on the board's right side) were only cash values, never any prizes or Whammies.
 * Cash values listed the number in a Franklin Gothic Medium Condensed font, usually with piles of coins painted behind the value.
 * Prize slides featured a drawing/outline of a the prize, with the name underneath in a bold Times New Roman font. Once a prize was hit, another prize replaced it.
 * The Whammy was situated against a yellow background, in a different pose per slide. In total, ten Whammy slides were used.

Special spaces
A number of special spaces were used throughout the show's run.
 * The most common special spaces were + One Spin spaces, which looked identical to the cash slides with a "+" sign and "ONE SPIN" underneath in Times New Roman font. When hit, they gave the player the money and an additional spin. Notably, these were found in space #4 (on the top row of the board) in the second round, home to the highest dollar values (in this case, $3,000, $4,000, and $5,000, all with a spin).
 * Directional spaces were also a common sight on the board.
 * Go Back Two Spaces and Advance Two Spaces did just that, sending the player either backwards or forwards two spaces.
 * Move One Space gave the player the choice of moving forwards or backwards one space.
 * Big Bucks, in square #12, took the player to square #4, which was where the highest cash values were.
 * Pick a Corner was introduced on February 28, 1984, and appeared only in the upper right-hand corner. As the name indicates, players who landed on the square had their choice of either of the other three corners. As the series wore on, the choices managed to get progressively worse and worse, until it was replaced by a $1,000 + One Spin space on July 25, 1986. This was only used in round two.
 * Across the Board debuted on February 24, 1986, and was seen only in the middle space on the left side (space #8). When hit, it took the player exactly where it said it would -- the corresponding space on the other side of the board. This was only used in round two.
 * Double Your $$ (referred to as Double Your Money) debuted on March 8, 1984, and did exactly what it said when hit. Once it was hit, it was replaced by a prize. This was only used in round two.
 * On April 12, 1984, this became Double Your $$ + One Spin; effectively, this did the same exact thing as before, only now it also awarded an extra spin, in the event that the contestant had no money to double (a surprisingly common problem with its predecessor). Sometime during the series' run, this square began only appearing in space #7. Double Your $$ briefly returned on December 14, 1985 and was gone the next episode. This space was not used during the episodes aired July 8-23, 1984, replaced with a "Daytime Emmys" prize slide (whoever hit the space won a trip to the 1985 Daytime Emmys, as well as having lunch with Tomarken).
 * $2,000 or Lose-1-Whammy first appeared on September 17, 1984; made its final appearance on June 16, 1986. When hit, the player had a choice of gaining $2,000 or losing a Whammy they'd hit up to that point; if the player hadn't hit any, they instantly won the $2,000. This was only used in round two.
 * Add-A-One debuted on September 5, 1985, and appeared in space #7. When hit, it added a "1" to the front of the player's score; this more often than not resulted in a player only having $10 in their bank. This was only used in round one.

Home Player Spins
The "Home Player Spins" were a special occasional feature introduced on May 14, 1984. In the second Big Board round, one spin was designated the Home Player Spin (e.g., if the spin happened to fall on spin #8, then the eighth overall spin would be the Home Player Spin). Whoever was spinning at that moment would also play for a participant at home, with whatever they landed on also going to the home player: The names of each contestant's respective home player were on postcards situated in front of that contestant. The player taking the Home Player Spin read the home player's name before they took the spin; the other two home player potentials were read by the other contestants at the end of the episode and received a t-shirt bearing the Whammy's likeness.
 * If the player hit a money space, the home player also received the money. If it was a + One Spin space, the home player received the money and the in-studio player received the money and the spin.
 * If the player hit a prize, the home player also received the prize.
 * If the player hit a Whammy, the home placer received $500, "courtesy of the Whammy."

The Home Player Spin ran three times total, during "sweeps" periods, from May 14-June 8, 1984, and from January 21-February 15 and October 21-November 22 of 1985. The first two sweepstakes ran for 20 episode; the final ran for 25. At the end of the final episode, a "Giant Home Player Sweepstakes Spin" was played, in which the board featured only cash values and the postcards of all 75 potential home players were mixed in a giant fishbowl. The winner of the episode drew a postcard from the bowl and handed it to Peter, who read the name of the home player aloud and announced that one final spin on the all-cash board would be taken. Whatever the player landed on would be multiplied by the number of spins earned in round two that episode (18 in this case). Jon Isean played for Ed Kolzak of Portage, Indiana, and landed on $2,000, leading to $36,000 for the lucky Kolzak, in addition to the customary Whammy t-shirt (as his card hadn't been picked that day during the main game). Once it was over, streamers and balloons fell from the ceiling.

Notable contestants
The show was home to some surprisingly notable contestants during its three years on air.

Michael Larson
Perhaps the most notable was Paul Michael Larson (going by his middle name), who appeared on the show on the episode dated June 8, 1984, the final day of the first Home Player Spin sweepstakes. A self-described unemployed ice cream truck driver, Larson had been studying the show for weeks on end, having realized the supposedly "random" light sequences of the Big Board weren't all that random. Larson memorized each light pattern in order to figure out which patterns led to spaces #4 and #8 (which, as mentioned before, were the only spaces that never contained a Whammy).

Larson successfully got on the show, playing against then-champion Ed Long and fellow challenger Janie Litras (now Janie Litras-Dakan). The episode was taped on May 19, 1984 and was slated for airing on June 8. He landed on a Whammy on his first spin, but quickly recovered and, over the course of two rounds, played for 45 consecutive spins to the shock of everyone in the studio, almost always landing in the aforementioned squares, until finally winning the game by a landslide with $110,237. To this day it remains the highest-ever single day total won on a game show with returning champions. Larson's reign of the board was so long his episode had to be split into two parts, with the second episode, airing June 11 (the following Monday), consisting solely of the remainder of the second Big Board round. At the episode's end, a stunned Tomarken half-jokingly asked Larson, "How does it feel to be the part owner of CBS?"

Producers and executives scrambled to figure out what to try to do in the aftermath, and CBS investigated Larson to figure out if any cheating or rigging had been done beforehand. In the end, it was decided that, no, Larson hadn't cheated or broken any rules -- he'd played the game perfectly legally, albeit by exposing one of the show's flaws in the process, and he was entitled to his money, which he received. Unfortunately for Larson, this prosperous period was not to last, as the vast majority of his money was stolen shortly after his appearance, and Larson blew the rest on bad investments and get-rich-quick schemes. Larson contacted CBS proposing a special "Tournament of Champions" to help alleviate some of his losses, but the network declined. (Sadly, Larson died of throat cancer in 1999.)

Citing them as an embarrassment to the network, CBS refused to allow the episodes featuring Larson to be rerun for nearly 20 years, until the Game Show Network (now GSN) produced a documentary on the whole ordeal in 2003. Titled Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal, the two-hour special was hosted by Tomarken himself and featured interviews with Larson's family members, members of the Press Your Luck production team, and Long and Litras-Dakan.

Other notable contestants

 * Randy West appeared on the show from September 29 to October 3, 1983, being the first-ever contestant to land on and win the famous car offered as a prize on the show. West later became a highly-respected game show announcer, even filling in for Press Your Luck announcer Rod Roddy on his later show, The Price Is Right, during Roddy's illness and after his death in 2003.
 * Sam Strangis appeared on May 28 and 29, 1984, and would later become the play-by-play announcer for the Dallas Stars ice hockey team.
 * Sam Schmidt appeared on January 2, 3, and 4, 1985. Schmidt would later become a world-famous Indy League racer before being paralyzed in a testing accident.
 * Jenny Jones appeared on the show on January 28, 29, and 30, 1985. Jones would later have her own successful syndicated talk show.
 * Steve Bryant, then a member of the Houston Oilers football team, appeared on July 12, 15 and 16, 1985.

May 18 (pilot)-November 4, 1983

 * The lights behind the Big Board flash in their synchronized pattern, with the multicolored slides around the board all blank, and the lights around them all lit. Superimposed over the Press Your Luck logo in the middle is a full-shot of the three contestants, turned to face the board. Rod Roddy says:
 * May 18, 1983 pilot: "These three players have been especially selected today to play television's richest game."
 * September 19-October 4: "These three contestants are about to play the most exciting game of their lives, which only one of them can win."
 * October 4-November 4: "These three contestants are about to play the most exciting game of their lives!"
 * Roddy introduces each of the three players, from left to right, while saying a comment about each of them. As he speaks about each individual player, a close-up of that player appears in the shot.
 * Full-shot of the contestants again, as Roddy says:
 * May 18, 1983 pilot: "But only one of them can play and win today, as they play television's most exciting and challenging new game, Press Your Luck!"
 * September 19-November 4: "From Television City in Hollywood, it's time to Press Your Luck!"
 * The squares all around the board have a slide appear in each of them one by one, cascading around the board in a sort-of "domino effect". As Roddy says the show's name, the superimposed shot zooms out to reveal the flashing logo. The contestant desk rotates 180 degrees, with the contestants now turning to face the audience, as Roddy says, "And now, here's your host, the star of Press Your Luck, Peter Tomarken!"

November 7, 1983-September 26, 1986

 * A contestant montage of players taking a spin on the Big Board is seen. Some are winning big (and the game in some cases), some hit a Whammy.
 * After about 30 seconds of this, we see the same full-shot of the contestants, as Roddy says, "Today, these contestants are after hiiigh stakes! But they'll have to avoid the Whammy, as they play the most exciting game of their lives!" Then the slides appear on the board in the same manner as before.
 * Sometime during the run, "hiiigh stakes" was swapped out for "biiiig bucks" in the first sentence of the spiel.
 * Later still, once Roddy mentioned the Whammy, one of his animations played over the shot.

Theme

 * May 18, 1983 pilot: A flashy, synth-driven piece of stock music named "Flash", composed by Keith Mansfield.
 * 1983-1986: A new theme based on the above with more synths and more of a melody, written by ex-Score Productions composer Lee Ringuette.

Availability

 * After the series ended, Republic Pictures packaged 130 episodes of the show, originally airing from February 25-August 23, 1985, for syndicated markets. These episodes were the first to be aired by USA Network, which began airing them as part of its game show block on September 14, 1987; these episodes aired until March 11, 1988. All episodes save for the show's first two weeks, the Michael Larson episodes, and various others late in the show's run were aired on USA until October 13, 1995.
 * The Game Show Network (now GSN) began airing the series on September 1, 2001, via a lease that allowed them to air the episodes from February 21, 1984 to November 15, 1985 (day 20 of the final Home Player Spin sweepstakes). Only two episodes -- from May 31, 1984 and October 4, 1985 -- were skipped due to tape glitches. The series proved to be one of the most popular on the network, leading them to commission their own revival, Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck, in 2002. Due to the expiration of their contract with FremantleMedia, current rights holders of the series, the network ceased airing them in early 2009.
 * GSN reacquired the rights to the series in 2012, with the very first episode airing on October 15 (it along with the remainder of PYL's first two weeks had not been seen since their initial broadcast). Initially only the show's first ten weeks were aired during this run, yet 57 more episodes from the 1983-84 season were added to the lease on April 1. On September 29, 2014, GSN began airing a new batch of episodes, beginning from where its first lease left off with day 21 of the final Home Player Spin sweepstakes (November 18, 1985) and running all the way until May 28, 1986. Episodes from this run currently air on GSN; check the schedule for times.
 * On June 1, 2015, the new digital subchannel Buzzr began airing this series as part of its own game show lineup. Check your local listings.