Press Your Luck

One of the most popular game shows of all time. People answer questions to earn spins on the Big Board for a chance to win some real Big Bucks! However, there are evil Whammies that if hit will take away all of your winnings.

Question Round
In the question rounds, host Tomarken asked four questions one at at time. On each question the first player to buzz-in had a chance to answer. The answer he/she gave became the first of three choices for his/her two opponents to answer from. A correct buzz-in answer was worth three spins while a correct multiple answer was worth one spin. In the event a contestant who buzzed in first ran out of time, that contestant had to sit out the rest of the question while the other two players played the multiple choice part of the question. But in the event that no contestant buzzed in when time ran out, all three contestants played the multiple choice part of the question. 20 spins were available in each question round, but the highest one contestant can earn was 12 spins (which was achieved in rare occasions). In the pilot, host Peter asked five questions meaning that 25 spins were up for grabs with the maximum total for a single player being 15 spins.

The Big Board
When the question round was over, the contestant island turned around for the contestants to see the big Press Your Luck game board.

The board consisted of 18 squares with the show's logo in the center. On the board were thousands of dollars in cash & prizes and Whammies. The contents of every square rotated every second.

In the first round the player with least amount of spins went first while the player most money (or the player with the most spins if all three players tied at the end of round one) playing last in round two. In either round in case of a (two way) tie, the player at far left went first.

The player in control of the board played as many of his/her spins as he/she liked. On each spin, lights around the game board's spaces flash around the board, and the contestant stopped the board by hitting his/her button and by yelling out "STOP". When the board stopped, if the contestant hit a dollar value it was added to his/her score, if he/she hit prize, it was credited to that player and its value was added to his/her score. If at anytime the contestant hit a Whammy, he/she lost all his/her money up to that point, and hitting four Whammies took that contestant out of the game. Upon hitting a Whammy, a short cartoon was presented in which the Whammy would mock the contestant and taking away his/her money in many ways possible; sometimes the cartoon would show the Whammy being crushed, flatten or hurt in different ways. After the cartoon, a Whammy card would pop up in front of the contestant.

In addition to the cash & prizes, some of the cash squares on the board were paired up with extra spins ($???/$?,??? + ONE SPIN). Each time any those kind of squares was hit, the player's spin total was frozen and the money attached to that spin square was added to his/her money total.

At some point during a contestant's turn, if that contestant fears that he/she is about to run into the Whammy on the next spin or is tired of pressing his her luck, that contestant would pass his/her spins to the player in the lead or if he/she is in the lead had to pass them to the second place player. The player with the passed spins must take all the spins until he/she hit a Whammy (at which point the remaining passed spins would be transferred to the earned spin column) or has ran out of those spins, and each time the passed contestant hit money plus a spin, the spin just played was transferred to the earned column.

Special Squares
In addition to the cash (with & without a spin), prizes, and whammies. There were other squares on the board that affected gameplay.


 * Big Bucks - The most important square on the board always seen in square #12 in which if landed on, it transferred that player to the highest amount on the board (always in square #4). This inspired the catchphrase, "Big Bucks, No Whammies".
 * Directional Spaces - Where the light around the square containing it would be moved to another square.
 * Go Back/Advance Two Spaces - Where the light moved two squares away from it/them.
 * Move One Space - The contestant had a choice between the two squares touching it.
 * Pick A Corner - Always appeared in square #6 in round two. It worked like Move One Space except (true to its name) that the contestant had a choice between the contents of one of the three corners of the board.
 * Across the Board - Premiered in 1986, that space sent the light directly across from that square.
 * Double Your $$ (Money) + ONE SPIN - Which is just what it sounds like. For whenever it was landed upon, the contestant's score at that time would be doubled. When it first premiered in March 1984, it did not have an extra spin until April of the same year. It acted as a prize space, for once it was hit, it was replaced with a regular prize.
 * Add A One - So called because if it was hit, a one was added next to the dollar sign in that player's total (ex: $0 - $10, $2,000 - $12,000). This premiered in the fall of 1985 and was only shown in round one. Like Double Your $$ (+ ONE SPIN), it acted as a prize space, for once it was hit, it was replaced with a regular prize.
 * $2,000 Or Lose One Whammy - First appeared on September 17, 1984. It was a possibly important square added to the board. So called because whenever it was hit, the contestant had choice to either add $2,000 to his/her money total or drop one of his/her Whammies. The latter choice was completely important; a godsend for contestants when they were in danger of being whammied out of the game. Upon losing a Whammy, the appropriate Whammy card dropped back down into the contestant's desk. If the contestant did not have any Whammies when this was hit, the $2,000 must be taken.

The player with the most money at the end of the game wins the game and kept all their cash & prizes won. If the game ended in a tie, the players who were tied won the game and kept their winnings. A player would also win the game if two contestants Whammied out, and if the last player standing has not taken his/her spins, that player would play against the house by taking as many of his/her spins as he/she liked and stopped whenever he/she wanted. Championship players stayed on the show until they were defeated or exceeded the CBS winnings limit of $25,000 (all winnings over $25,000 were kept). In later shows starting in November 1984, champs retired after winning five shows or reached the new winnings limit of $50,000.

Trivia
Michael Larson is the highest winner on the show. After watching the show so many times, he noticed that the lights bounced in a predictable pattern. This strategy allowed him to amass $110,237 over the course of two episodes.

On two shows, three contestants were tied at zero causing all of them to return to play the next day.

Gameplay (Whammy!)
The game was played exactly the same as the original Press Your Luck but with an altered format.

Differences to this show and the original
There were other differences to this version and the original too.


 * The Big Board - While the board still had 18 squares, they were arranged differently inside a giant oval. The original board had slides, but this board had the slides replaced with monitors (There was an extra monitor in the center in the pilot, but it was replaced by a picture of the Whammy.) For it was run by a 200 MHz computer, carrying digitized graphics and made the board super random so that no one would ever memorized the board patterns again. Plus, light bulbs were replaced by neon lights, the safe squares were lit up in blue, while the Whammy squares were lit up in red. In the final round, instead of changing altogether, a few squares changed in groups.
 * The Whammies - The Whammy had a whole new look, for it had toes, a deeper voice, a hairy face, and a "W" on his chest replacing a "$" (dollar sign). The new Whammy was animated in 3-D by WIT Animation. The Whammy indicators in the pilot were in circled lights, but in the series they appeared as statuettes. But even with the changes he still can take away the contestant's money when hit, and if a contestant hits four Whammies, he/she was knocked out of the game.
 * Contestant Scoreboards - The contestant scoreboards were now monitors (replacing eggcrate displays). When hitting a Whammy, the contestant's current score would either fade away or fall down. In season two upon hitting a fourth Whammy, the contestant's scoreboard displayed the Whammy.
 * Big Bank - In season 2, all money & prizes stolen by the Whammy were placed into his own Big Bank which started off every day at $3,000. To win the Big Bank, a contestant must hit the Big Bank square on the board, and answer one special question correctly. This is all classified as "Whammying the Whammy".

Round 1
In the first round all three players were given $1,000 to start. Each player in turn spun the board. As before, contestants stopped the board by hitting their buzzer and yelling out "STOP!". Whatever they landed on, was added to their score. After each go round (all three players or less have taken their turns), more Whammies were added to the board increasing the danger of losing the money. If at anytime a contestant hit a Whammy, that contestant was out of the round; but to prevent this from happening, before each spin each player was given the option to freeze on their current scores.

Also in this round, there was a square marked "Pick A Prize" which when hit would give the player in control a choice of any prize currently showing on the board.

There was also a square that would give a player half a chance to win a car or another big prize. In the pilot, the car was a Chevrolet Camaro from GM; to get a chance at the Camaro, a play must hit the letter "G" in round 1, then the letter "M" in round 3. In the first season, the car was a GEM Car; to get a chance at the GEM, a play must hit the GEM or Spin Again square in round 1, then the CAR or Spin Again square in round 3. And in season 2 the car was a Suzuki Aerio SX; to get a chance at that car, a player must hit both halves of the car key (the top half in round 1, and the bottom half in round 3). On a special Halloween episode in the first season, a trip to Transylvania was offered; to get a chance at the trip, a play must hit the Trick or Spin Again square in round 1, then the Treat or Spin Again square in round 3.

On the April Fool's show, there was another space called a "Newton" which had a picture of Todd making a wierd face and an "uh-oh!" sound when hit. Upon hitting it, the player is told they won something really great and unusual like a million dollars. After a few seconds, "April Fools!" was heard reminding them it was a joke and the player got to spin again.

The player with the most money at the end of the round earned the advantage of playing last in the final round.

Round 2 (Question Round)
The Question Round was exactly the same as the original except that host Newton asked five questions instead of four (just like in the Press Your Luck pilot).

On each question the first player to buzz-in had a chance to answer. The answer he/she gave became the first of three choices for his/her two opponents to answer from. A correct buzz-in answer was worth three spins while a correct multiple answer was worth one spin. In the event a contestant who buzzed in first ran out of time, that contestant had to sit out the rest of the question while the other two players played the multiple choice part of the question. But in the event that no contestant buzzed in when time ran out, all three contestants played the multiple choice part of the question. 25 spins were available in each question round, but the highest one contestant can earn was 15 spins.

In the pilot, host Newton asked four questions instead of five (just like the original series) meaning that 20 spins were up for grabs with the maximum total for a single player being 12 spins. Also the player to earn the 12 spins by answering all four buzz-in parts also earned a Whammy Guard protecting him/her from hitting another Whammy.

Note: If all three players ended the first round in a tie, the player with the most number of spins went last in the final round.

Round 3 (Final Round)
In the final round, the players used their spins earned in the question round to play the board. The player to start was the player with the least amount of money or the player with the least amount of spins in case of a tie or in the event of a tie for spins & correct buzz-in answers, the player at far left went first. Each player can take as many of their spins as they wished, but if they feared that they're going fly in the face of the dreaded Whammy, they can pass their spins to the player out in front or the player in second if they're out in front. As before, players with passed spins had to take those spins until they ran out of them or hit a Whammy (at which point the remaining spins in the passed column would be transferred to the earned column), and each time the passed contestant hit money plus a spin, the spin just played was transferred to the earned column.

As Todd would put it, as if the Whammies were not enough, the big board also featured a new element to the show, the "Double Whammies". When a Double Whammy was hit, not only a player would lose all his/her money to the Whammy but stuff would drop on the player's head according to the Whammy cartoon presented. On Whammy cartoons involving water, that player would be sprayed with water from the player's podium. At one time, there was one cartoon which caused a live Whammy to come out a dump confetti on the player's head.

Also in this round one square would give a player a choice of taking the money or spin again. In the first season it was $1,000, but in the second season it was reduced to $555 making it easier to take another spin.

Should any player be half way to winning the car, the square needed to make the chance at the car complete was also placed on the board.

The player with the most money at the end of this round won the game and kept all of his/her winnings. There were no returning champions in this version but with this one exception: players who won the game with zero get to come back and play a future game.

Gameplay (Gameshow Marathon)
Played exactly the same as the CBS run, but with much higher money values. The highest amount ont he board was now $10,000 + One Spin.

Music
Pilot (long) - "Flash (a)" by Keith Mansfield

Pilot (short) - "Flash (b)" by Keith Mansfield

1983 - Robert Israel & Lee Ringuette

2002 - Alan Ett & Scott Liggett

2006 - Score Productions

Inventor
Bill Carruthers

Spin-Offs
Second Chance - The predecessor to Press Your Luck aired on ABC in 1977

Gameshow Marathon - Press Your Luck was the fourth show of this series

Merchandise
Games for the PC and Commodore were released in the mid 80's. The gameplay in the games was far different from the show, including "Lose a Turn" spaces.

A DVD game was released in 2005

In 2009, UbiSoft released a video game called Press Your Luck 2010 Edition for PC, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS.

Taglines
"Until next time, remember that the Whammy is actually a cute little guy, as long as he shows up when someone else is spinning. (and other Whammy poems) This is Peter Tomarken saying so long for Press Your Luck." (early 1983)

"Until next time (when we see (insert winner),) this is Peter Tomarken saying so long for Press Your Luck, buh-bye."(1983-mid 1984)

"Until next time this is Peter Tomarken saying thanks for Pressing Your Luck, buh-bye." (mid 1984-1986)

Links
Press Your Luck Homepage

PressYourLuck.tv

Xanfan's Old Press Your Luck Page

Xanfan's New Press Your Luck Page

Xanfan's Whammy Page

Got Whammy?

[http://members.fortunecity.com/gswarehouse/whammy.htm Download the Whammy! Game Control]