Static Zombie

Big Bucks

I'll confess-- I loved Press Your Luck. It was one of the most mindless game shows on television, but it was by far the most exciting. That big board with the flashing whammies was damned compelling, and I watched it in its initial run and in USA reruns whenever I got the chance. But I missed one of the most famous moments in game show history, and finally got to see it tonight when Game Show Network aired the misleadingly titled documentary Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal.

The thing of it was, the big board wasn't random. The lights flashed in five different sequences of eighteen cells each. And Michael Larson noticed it. Armed with a VCR, he memorized those patterns and capitalized on an even bigger weakness in the system-- some of the cells never, ever held a whammy. After whammying on his first spin, before he got his reaction time nailed down, he went on to earn over $100,000 in dozens of consecutive spins-- the highest single day total in game show history at the time. The show had to be split across two episodes. The episodes were never rerun-- CBS didn't even want them to air the first time.

The documentary includes both episodes in their entirety, and they're fascinating to watch. Larson's two opponents are clearly flabbergasted by what transpires, and host Peter Tomarken has no idea that the man has cracked the system despite the fact that he keeps landing on the same two squares on the board. Far less effective is the padding material, including absurd frame-by-frame analysis in which viewers are instructed to watch Larson's crinkled, inscrutable eyes for insight into his "trance-like" focus.

The writing continually insinuates that Larson was somehow in the wrong, beginning with the loaded use of "scandal" in the title. But there was no scandal. Everything Larson did was perfectly legal. Tomarken says as much at the end, even congratulating the man for earning his $100,000 through keen observation and determination. That should have been the editorial angle from the get-go, celebrating an enterprising man's achievement while examining the production decisions which created the flawed system that made it possible. Instead, the subtext of the program is that Larson was some kind of con man who scammed the network, instead of beating them at their own game.

If you'd like to see for yourself, Game Show Network will be running the show again at 9PM Monday and next Sunday, and midnight Tuesday (that's Tuesday morning).