Press Your Luck - The War To End All Wars (Aug. 10, 1984) 

RIP Peter Tomarken

@@tyrese3745 It sucks that he paased...he would of made a great guest host of the new show. Just like Whammy!

How about Whammy! from GSN or the ABC Revival?

​or taking the microphone on the price is right.

2 of us

The Elizabeth Banks version is almost identical, except for a few modernizations. I thought the 80s gameshow was going the way of the 80s soap opera, but PYL is now in rare form.

​@@bitwizeTomorrow is going to be "Spin War 2023".

@@bitwize I think the new bonus round is very exciting as well. One of the few times they improved on an original.

Or be like someone on Wheel of Fortune who guessed an S on that same quote with $60K+

Ooooffff 31 thousand that's painful

@@kenyattasimpson8468 If you thought that was painful, then you should see how one player lost over $400K in the bonus game, and he was two spins away from a million. OOF!

I saw the clip of it I 💩💩💩💩 for him

@kenyattasimpson8468 Well if you think THAT'S tough, then you should see a clip of one player who made it all the way to the final round of the bonus game...and ended up with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!! I think his name was Mathew.

Up until the new version, there's been a lot of them

Agreed, because there’s more money lost but it doesn’t change the hurt we felt during this moment

$31,408 dollars worth of Heartbreak

Up until 2 weeks ago $466,000 whammy

@@willjarmon4418 man, that sucked! After he won his ultimate personalized prize too!

second to Larson winning $110,237

Yep. If only someone has this un-edited...

scripted and fixed.

@@GooglyMcDoubleface No it isn’t. What would be the point of doing that? Besides, the show had a bit of a scare when Michael Larson manipulated the board and won $110k. Why would they rig something just months later? They’d totally get called out on it and shut down.

@@0mathgaming exactly, it’s against a law to rig a game show since the 1950s quiz scandals.

Wow! Some conspiracy theorist was just BORN YESTERDAY!! Please report back to the PUMPKIN PATCH for more ripening... your *green* is showing!!! 😁 😝 😉

@@larkefedifero I agree. The studio behind the show wouldn't risk anymore scandals after *"MICHAEL FRIGGIN' 2-12-1-9-4 LARSON"* darn near cleaned em' out. That "Scripted and Fixed" was probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard anyone say on RU-vid. And I've been here quite awhile, so that's saying something.

That episode got way out of hand to where it took out Elizabeth Banks and an audience member.

Yeah, that’s what I heard. Hope that audience member is doing better now.

Only for Lori missing retiring the next game since she lost

But the most money lost was $35,000

At least for her it was better than nothing at all.

Me too. I could not see myself go through that

That is such a heart breaker. I would be crying if i lost that much on a game show like this. I would be so sad

That's why Press Your Luck was, and still is to this very day, Television's Most Competitive Game Show.

They should've had the fortune teller Whammy on that.

PYL: "Where you can win it all, or lose your shirt" -- Peter Tomarken.

It was done at CBS and CBS techs would edit but I would think the producers would provide input if needed

Considering this came right on the heels of the Michael Larson debacle, I bet the CBS execs were crapping their pants as they watched this unfold. "Oh no, not again!"

@@biruss She *DOES* like to squeal a lot... That could be fun... lol.

@@jmiller297 *Gross*

@@dannydougin3925 ...to whoop her @$$, bro.

That's like seeing a train derail badly.

A bummer like this didn’t happen again until 2003 when a guy named Skyler hit a whammy and lost almost $22,000 in cash and prizes

There's actually a bigger loss that hesn't been shown yet ;-)

The Larson episode was considered an “embarrassment” on their part, so for so long, Caruthers demanded that the episode never air again. That’s why the episode never aired on USA when they had it years back.

@@PYLrulz1984 Some folks at Caruthers and CBS must have been on drugs. EVERY other game show would have LOVED something like that. The quiz show scandals of the '50s were all about making big winners of contestants, in order to draw in and hold viewers. If the producers had been thinking, they would have hired Larson to do a Jarod of Subway-type thing (I know) of promoting the show--"I beat the board on Press Your Luck. They say it can't be done again. Watch and find out if they're right." Also, they would have aired the episode out of order as an hour-long prime-time special. Folks who never watched daytime TV would see it and perhaps get drawn in. Farmers would interrupt their work outside to come in for a half hour for it. So much potential existed--and CBS blew it all over a big win that they and their sponsors were most assuredly insured against.

Lee T. Walker it was more for the fact that the board was more or less promoted as “random”, when Larson proved otherwise.

@@PYLrulz1984 No computer program is truly "random." In any case, I don't remember that as a factor, and if it had been, CBS and Carruthers would have had a '50s-type scandal on their hands. They were just being stupid.

Lee T. Walker that why I said more or less. They didn’t directly say it was random, but they sure didn’t let on there were only 5 patterns. And even with all that considered, there was nothing illegal going on that would have thrown S&P, CBS, and Carruthers into a tizzy other than the fact someone figured out the pattern. Now if there was a spin battle like this going on, someone racked up 50K, then hit DY$, I’m sure a different tune would be sung, especially if it wasn’t earned by learning a pattern.

Lori must've walked out of the studio in complete shame when they all left the studio after the show was over.

Wow! I need look up this episode. I just saw 188 episode with Michael Larson. I feel like I've seen Cathy on another episode. I've seen a lot off the episode 200s recently.

I was hoping for Lori to pass her last spin to Cathy. Just as a signal of good faith, for losing all that money. But I can see her rationale as well. Cathy lost so much money that if she were to land on another spin, she would pass to Lori as revenge. Whereas Randy was- not as pissed as Cathy.

​@@ShadowLinkxMaster Yes - but in all fairness, if Randy were to land on a spin, he'd almost certainly pass it back to Lori - 'cause winning, like, $1,000 or so is still better than nothing, right? Plus the right to come back the next show as the champ! 🙂 I think I did see a show where a woman had $0, but the other two players whammied-out, but she still got to return the next day. 👍

​@@larkefediferothere was one where a woman whammied on the last spin of the game causing a 3 way tie at $0. All 3 of them came back the next show.

Mike Check Cathy was also the defending champion with only $2k.

Lori had already vanquished Kathy. She hadn't yet put Randy down for the count.

Truly. I wonder if she'd picked up on patterns as Larson did, but more subconsciously. Perhaps she didn't realize what she was doing, and so couldn't work it as a science the way Larson did, but was doing it.

She didn’t the next episode. She lost

@@JoeyLamontagne Yup. To Beverlie.

I think it is rather like how people often gesture arbitrarily when they speak.

@@wet-read or else production instructed contestants to perform all the same rehearsed behaviors and spout all the same canned catchphrases during the audition process.. . i mean there would have been thousands of ppl on the show, the odds of all of them coincidentally possessing the exact same ticks seems like a longshot.

@@girliboi You are right. I am stupid for not figuring that out! I went to a taping of Letterman years ago (Bill O'Reilly was the big guest) and prior to letting us in, staff informed us we were to be very loud with laughter and clapping whenever Dave said a joke or when a guest came out, etc.

I think the "STOP!" was the important thing - if for some reason the buzzer malfunctioned, production could still use their call of "STOP!" to stop the board from the control room.

Little did Cathy know that she just kissed all her money goodbye. :)

@@biruss believe it or not, the Whammy always have a thing for beautiful women

I’m sure there is. When they had the Larson special on GSN years back, it included the stuff that didn’t air and was edited out.

Wouldn't I love to see that!

The "unaired footage" in the Larson documentary (primarily in part 2) is where the freeze-framed commercial announcements by peter (the comercial lead outs essentialy. Peter saying "he's got 3 spins left. We'll find out what he does with them right after this message) were inserted into the broadcast version of the episode. They don't really add anything to the eps. The only interesting reinserted footage was when Larson started a spin and they edited out him saying "oh! I'm scared". Everything else was the commercial lead outs.

But cathy had more than her

I would still take the spin anyway.

@@trevorpanno5371 There's a little something called "making your opponents whammy" which was her goal. A risky one, but it paid off beautifully. When the game is on the line, one whammy is usually enough to end your opponent's whole career. That and it's also supremely satisfying to watch your opponent go all the way down to 0 after getting so high 😉

That's why Press Your Luck: The Original CBS Series was deemed as "America's most competitive game show in Daytime television". Contestants must take risks, big risks, to win it all.

@@tyrese3745 And there was a nighttime version as well that aired in 1984-'85.

Really? How do you know?

@@tyrese3745 I used to watch the nighttime version, which aired in syndication.

What station?

That's what I thought! "Did I do that? Oopsies!" 😎😏

sha11235 this was before Larson

@@DenOfTimbsllc No it wasn't. This was 3 months after. The patterns weren't the same as his game if you notice.

@@ajk correct Larson was on May 18th 84

@@DenOfTimbsllc after Larson. Also the speed of the lights are synced with the sound pattern.

I wonder if she'd picked up on patterns as Larson did, but more subconsciously. Perhaps she didn't realize what she was doing, and so couldn't work it as a science the way Larson did, but was doing it.

@@TommygunNG Possible, but they had made a lot of changes just from Larson's appearance.

Based on how he was stopping the board, I think Randy picked up on a couple bits of the board pattern

One more bounce, Cathy would have been on safe square 2 with no spin. She was starting her 5th pattern, which goes 9-3-11-5-2-...-6-15-7-4-...-17-8.

I'm curious now if this was the Wammy's biggest payday ever.

Didn't watch the show, our CBS affiliate didn't even carry it!! >:( But if it's not, it has to be pretty close!

OK, the reasons I had to ask were first, the phenomenal amount of money lost, even back then. Second, we didn't even get PYL! Our CBS affiliate (KIRO-TV Seattle) did not carry it. And FWIW, I was in school, so couldn't really watch even if I want to. -_-

$47,907 (almost 48 grand) to be exact.

@@tyrese3745 $48,207 is the final total from the game, counting an additional $300 from Round 1 not shown here.

Hey, it was *1984!* 🤣🤣🤣🤪🤪🤪

Which, at the time of this great PYL episode, was CBS' winning limit of $25,000. It increased to $50,000 by around October 1984, and then to $75,000 by the start of the network's 1986-87 season. Too bad PYL ended its run by early September 1986 for the limit to be implemented.

@@tyrese3745 well there was a winnings cap after Larson of $75,000 so anything you won over that amount went to charity.

They hit that bottom left corner quite a lot in this clip, but Double your $$ + One Spin was never active in the cell. Interesting it never once came up.

bigloudnoise the whammy just made the list!

Whammy done made himself a grand total of $47,907 in cash and prizes. Nice job, Whammy. Way to ruin both Randy and Cathy's day. Thanks a lot.

9:37, he barely did as well.

She was simply lucky.

Good eye!

It was the same gamble Lori made passing a spin to Cathy. You want to force the leader to take the risk of hitting a whammy so they go down to 0 and give you a chance to win. Especially when they have many more thousands of dollars in cash and prizes than you do.

ABC has it now

And they kept it like the original

Yes.

Yes but still before CBS upped its winnings limit to 50,000 because of the incident.

@@thechadmosher Even being post-Larson, I wonder if Lori had picked up on patterns as Larson did, but more subconsciously. Perhaps she didn't realize what she was doing, and so couldn't work it as a science the way Larson did, but was doing it.

If Lori whammied and ended with $0, it would've been a three-way tie and all three of them would've returned for the next show. When you're that far behind, the scorched earth strategy is all you've really got left.