Episodes Browse episodes. Photos 6. Top cast Edit. Jack Benza Contestant as Contestant …. Estelle Harris Self as Self.
Karen Grassle Self as Self. Mimi Kennedy Self as Self. Adelman Contestant as Contestant. Peter Tomarken Self as Self. Kevin Marshall Pinkney Contestant as Contestant. Kari Richards Self as Self. Pamela Hill Self as Self.
More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Three contestants competed in this three-round game. The first round was the Bonus Board, where contestants faced an space oval-shaped PYL board containing cash amounts, the names of prizes and Whammy spaces the latter explained later.
One at a time, the contestants stopped a randomly-flashing cursor by pressing their signaling device and usually the scream "STOP". The contestant wins whatever appears in the lit space.
If they hit a Whammy space, a humorous 3-D computer-animated sequence starring the Whammy, a hedgehog-like devil played and the contestant lost all their winnings up to that point. In both cases, control then passed to the next contestant. Here, host Newton asked a toss-up question; the first to ring in provided his answer. That answer, plus two other possible answers were shown and the other two contestants given a chance to select from the three.
A correct answer earned the first player three spins and the opponents one spin apiece; a wrong answer meant no spins for that player. Five such questions were played, with the players using their accumulated spins in the Final Bonus Board round. Like in the classic game, contestants could pass their earned spins to opponents usually the highest scoring opponent to that point if they feared landing on a Whammy; the opponent had to use those spins.
At times, contestants could land on a double Whammy, in which case the contestant usually was on the receiving end of the Whammy's tricks e. Any player landing on four whammies were eliminated from the game. The game with big bucks and whammies is back! Bigger, and better than ever! While watching, he noticed that the randomizer that moved the light indicator around the square 'Big Board' had only five patterns.
Larson began memorizing these patterns, increasingly confident he could predict when and where the randomizer would land. As he locked in the patterns, Larson began playing along with the 'Big Board' rounds to test his hypothesis, pausing his VHS tape at various intervals with the remote control. Moreover, Larson discovered that the fourth and eighth squares from 1 in the top left corner then clockwise around the board always contained cash and never a 'Whammy,' a bandit-like cartoon character that, when landed on, would result in the resetting of the player's score to zero, accompanied by an on-screen animation that showed the Whammy taking the player's earnings.
This proved crucial to Larson's theory, as he could retain control of the board in the second round as long as he wished if he kept following the patterns. Contestant supervisor Bobby Edwards was suspicious of Larson's motives when he interviewed Larson on May 19, and was unwilling to allow him on the show, but executive producer Bill Carruthers overruled him, a move he said he later regretted. While waiting in the green room, Larson met Ed Long, a Baptist minister from California booked for the third episode of the session.
They struck up a conversation. Long recalled that Larson asked how many times he had seen the show. When Long replied he had seen it only once, Larson responded by looking at him as though he 'were from another planet. As customary, the game began with the first of two rounds in which contestants answered questions to earn spins for the 'Big Board'; a correct buzz-in answer earned three spins, while a correct multiple-choice answer earned one spin. Larson's memorization of the patterns could not help him here, and he struggled early.
Roosevelt in your pocket or purse right now, because his likeness is on the head side Grant , after which Tomarken finished the question ' Larson earned a total of seven spins in the second question round. After the sailboat, Larson's pattern play became more accurate, as he hit his target squares each time he spun.
Tomarken was increasingly astounded that Larson was still spinning despite not having seen a Whammy for so long. He had by this time made 40 spins on the board without hitting a Whammy, in which 37 were for cash. Of those 37 cash spins he hit square 4 twenty times, including six in a row. He also managed to land on square 8 fifteen times, hitting it consecutively three in a row twice. After he announced he was passing his remaining four spins, Larson raised his arms in triumph and received a standing ovation from the audience.
By rule, Larson's spins went to Litras as she had the next highest money total. However, since she was the leader after the first round, she had to wait to play until Long, who earned two spins in the second round of questions, completed his turn. On the first of his two spins, a bewildered Long hit a Whammy and lost the money he earned in the first round, leading Tomarken to wonder aloud if Larson 'knew that the Whammy was coming. Litras then took her turn, starting with the first of the four spins Larson had passed that she was required to take by rule.
On that spin, she hit a Whammy and lost her first round total. However, since she had Whammied, the remaining passed spins were moved into the earned column and added to the three spins Litras earned in the second question round, giving her a total of six spins.
Nonetheless, Larson picked up where he had left off, following his patterns, and hit his marks with his first two spins. Larson passed them to Litras, who failed to earn any additional spins with them, ending the game. At the end of the episode, Tomarken asked Larson why he decided not to pass his remaining spins before he did, considering the lead he rapidly gained over Litras and Long. Side-stepping revealing how he had won the game, Larson responded with, 'Two things: one, it felt right, and second, I still had seven spins and if I passed them, somebody could've done what I did.
Each episode of Press Your Luck was thirty minutes in length, and prior to Larson's appearance, the series had never needed to straddle games or stop during play as a match would always be completed within the allotted time frame. While the entire episode was recorded in one shot, the production staff decided that it would need to be split up for airing.
Once back from the commercial, Tomarken informed the viewers that because of the extraordinary circumstances, the match could not be completed on the June 8 episode and would instead be finished on the next scheduled airing on Monday, June He then signed off with the words 'To be continued When Press Your Luck returned after the weekend break, the episode started with the same freeze frame image. Tomarken again chroma keyed over the image then brought the viewers up to speed on what Friday's episode entailed, first by introducing Larson's opponents and then introducing Larson and explaining what he had done so far, before the game resumed.
While Larson was running up the score, the show's producers contacted Michael Brockman, then head of CBS's daytime programming department. Here was this guy from nowhere, and he was hitting the bonus box every time.
It was bedlam, I can tell you, and we couldn't stop this guy. He kept going around the board and hitting that box. The program's producers and Brockman met to review the videotape. They noticed that Larson would immediately celebrate after many of his spins instead of waiting the fraction of a second it would take for a contestant to see and respond to the space he or she had stopped on, effectively showing he knew he was going to get something good.
It was also noticed that Larson had an unusual reaction to his early prize of a Kauai trip, which was out of his pattern — he initially looked puzzled and upset, but then recovered and celebrated after a pause. At first, CBS refused to pay Larson, considering him a cheater. However, Brockman and the producers could not find a clause in the game's rules with which to disqualify him largely because the board had been constructed with these patterns from the beginning of the series , and the network complied.
The five original light patterns on the 'Big Board' were replaced with five new ones for about a month, and those were replaced with a different set of five new patterns for another month. A further reprogramming of the board with 32 patterns was completed in August , effectively ensuring that no one could duplicate Larson's trick; all subsequent versions employ this method.
The documentary was produced by and aired on GSN in association with Lionsgate and RTL Group, the latter of which now owns the Press Your Luck franchise , and broke all previous viewership records for the network. As part of the commemoration, Larson's opponents from were invited back to be contestants on Whammy! Despite the fact that the board was now fully random host Todd Newton called it 'Larson-proof' , [8] and there was no way the same trick could have been performed, Long and Litras who had remarried and taken the surname Litras-Dakan still lost.
When James hit the 'Big Bank' space on his first spin of the first round, Long proceeded to joke with Newton that he had 'seen this before'. Both of Larson's episodes were edited together into one video and uploaded onto the Buzzr YouTube channel on July 17, He also ran a promotions and marketing company, Group Dynamics Downline, out of his Lebanon home.
The producers declined. In , the release of the film Quiz Show renewed discussion about game show scandals, and Larson was interviewed on Good Morning America. By this time, he had been diagnosed with throat cancer, and his voice was noticeably weakened.
A biographical feature film was planned in in which Bill Murray would portray Larson, [12] but was never produced.
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