Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck
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| Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck | |
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| Format | Game show |
| Created by | Bill Carruthers |
| Presented by | Todd Newton |
| Narrated by | Gary Kroeger |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 130 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 22–24 minutes |
| Production company(s) | FremantleMedia |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | GSN |
| Original run | April 15, 2002 – December 5, 2003 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Second Chance (1977) Press Your Luck (1983-1986) |
Whammy! (subtitled The All-New Press Your Luck for its first season) is an updated version of the American television game show Press Your Luck. Taped at Tribune Studios, the FremantleMedia production aired on Game Show Network from April 15, 2002 to December 5, 2003 with repeats that continue to air. Todd Newton hosted the series, with Gary Kroeger announcing.
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[edit] Gameplay
Gameplay remained largely the same as Press Your Luck, with the Whammy still taking away the winnings of any contestant who landed on it. However, there were some differences between the two shows.
Whammy! took away the first question round on Press Your Luck and went straight to the first "Big Board" round, with a few modifications. Each contestant was given $1,000 to start the show ($0 in the first two taped episodes of the run), and took turns taking one spin at a time, until each contestant had either landed on a Whammy (which eliminated them from the rest of the round), or chose to stop by "freezing". Play started with four Whammies on the Big Board and after each of the first four rounds through the contestants, up to four more were added.
The show then had the Question Round and the final "Big Board" round the original show had with a few tweaks. A series of five questions were asked, and contestants had the opportunity to buzz in with an answer. The host would then add two other answers (three if no one buzzed in or if a contestant buzzed in and did not answer within the five-second time limit) and allow the other contestants to guess from those answers (the contestant who buzzed in and did not answer was not allowed to do so in the multiple-choice format). A correct buzz-in answer earned 3 spins while a correct multiple-choice answer earned one spin, so that up to 25 spins could be earned by all three contestants together. In addition to the original Whammies, Double Whammies added a physical element to the animated Whammy character; for example, if the animated Whammy ran over some dollar-sign hedges with a lawn mower, a pile of grass clippings was dumped onto the contestant. In the final Big Board round, contestants can pass their remaining spins to the opponent with the higher score (or their choice of opponent if both scores are tied) if they so desire. Contestants who receive spins passed to them must play those spins, unless they land on a Whammy, at which point the remaining passed spins are combined with that contestant's total of earned spins (if any remain).
The largest cash amounts remained $1,500 in Round 1 and $5,000 + One Spin in Round 2. The board still featured a "BIG BUCKS" square which advanced the contestant to the biggest cash square on the board.
Unlike the original series (and Second Chance before it), there were no returning champions. If any contestants won the game with $0 and less than four Whammies, they were allowed to participate again in a future show, although only one contestant actually did so.
The second "Big Board" round played like the classic series, but if two or all three contestants tied in terms of money totals, the contestant with the fewest spins played first; like the classic series, contestants tied in terms of money and spins resulted in the contestant to the furthest left playing first. During the second round, the dollar amounts and prizes shown on the squares were rotated in a much different fashion. Rather than changing all of the squares' contents at the same time, they changed six squares at a time in one-third of the cycle time, thereby making the second round a bit harder by providing the illusion that the board was moving faster than it actually was (each individual square actually changed at the same rate as in Round 1), something that the classic series never did (except in the case of a minor malfunction). Unlike the classic series, Whammy! generated random prizes, Whammies, and light patterns for each space on the Big Board using a personal computer, running at a speed of 200 MHz, as well as a very large number of patterns for game play, to prevent memorization of patterns.
In line with technological changes, the Whammies were animated in 3-D, created by computer animation studio WIT Animation, instead of being hand-drawn as on the original series. Animations continued to feature humorous antics or spoofs of then-relevant pop culture (e.g., Harry Potter, N'Sync, Britney Spears, etc.).
[edit] Special spaces
Like Press Your Luck, Whammy! had its own special spaces. Some were similar to those on the original, while some were completely new. For instance, since the board was no longer in a strictly square shape, "Pick-A-Corner" was now "Pick-A-Prize". When "Pick-A-Prize" was hit, all prizes on the board when the space was landed on lit up simultaneously, and the contestant had their choice of any one of them.
Directional spaces could now move the light up to four spaces. In addition, "Move One Space" could have three choices to pick from.
"$2,000 or Lose-A-Whammy" also remained on the board in Round 2.
The "+ ONE SPIN" spaces (except for "Double Your $$ + One Spin") were used only in the final round, and they were also accompanied by "or SPIN AGAIN" spaces; when one was hit, the contestant chose to take either the stated cash amount or another spin on the board without using up one of their "earned" spins. The first season featured $1,000 as the cash amount, while the second season used $555.
The new "Double Whammy" space worked like a regular Whammy with an additional physical prank (e.g., one Double Whammy animation featured the Whammy wrestling with an out-of-control water hose; after the animation finished, a hidden nozzle rose from the contestant's podium and squirted the contestant with water).
On most episodes of the first season, a GEM Car was available as a prize. However, it was extremely difficult to win, as a contestant had to hit a special "GEM" space in Round 1, then hit a special "CAR" space in Round 2 (the "spin again" decision was given on these spaces), then win the game, all without hitting a Whammy. In the second season, the same two-space mechanic was used for a Suzuki Aerio SX, where the two special spaces showed the front and the back halves of a car key. These halves were lost if the contestant hit a Whammy, but added to the Big Bank.
A new feature called "Big Bank" was added for the second season. The Big Bank on each episode began with $3,000, and any cash and prizes that the contestants lost after a Whammy was hit were added into the bank. Additionally, if a player was holding one or both halves of the car key and subsequently hit a Whammy, the key halves was also added to the bank. If a contestant hit a Big Bank square, the host asked an open-ended general-knowledge trivia question to the contestant, who collected the money and prizes in the bank if the question was answered correctly. Once the Big Bank was claimed by a contestant it was re-staked with $3,000. There were two Big Bank squares in Round 1 and one in Round 2.
[edit] Notable contestants
- Jack Benza—Author of So You Wannabe on Reality TV; first appeared on June 7, 2002 and later won the Tournament of Champions (July 25, 2003) with an all-time grand total of $50,111 (including a Suzuki Aerio SX). He later appeared as America's team captain on Trivial Pursuit: America Plays in 2008 and appeared on both The Price Is Right and Baggage in 2010.
- Sandy Fox—Now a voice actress, she won a grand total of $11,337 on May 2, 2002. She later returned for the Tournament of Champions (July 23, 2003), but Whammied out in the finals.
- Lex Lang—Anime voice actor and husband of Sandy Fox; he appeared on June 26, 2002 (under the name "Alexis" Lang), but did not win his game.
- Skyler Stone—Host of Con on Comedy Central, he lost his appearance on the first aired episode (April 15, 2002). Stone was invited back for the special "Tournament of Losers" (July 21, 2003) but lost again – this time losing a near-record $21,989 to the Whammy in his next-to-last spin. Stone was also a contestant (and Top Dog) on Dog Eat Dog later that year.
[edit] Broadcast history
New episodes aired from April 15, 2002 to December 5, 2003, and repeats have continued to air on GSN since production ended.
[edit] Special episodes
The April 1, 2003 episode featured Graham Elwood of Cram guest-hosting, and Newton made an appearance as a "Double Whammy-in-training," with his face featured on Whammy-like "Newton" spaces – which, when landed on, told of the "prize" the contestant had just "won".
Janie Litras and Ed Long appeared on a special episode coinciding with GSN's documentary Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal. Litras and Long originally appeared on the episodes airing June 8 and 11, 1984, competing against Michael Larson, who had memorized the light pattern and went on to win $110,237. Larson's brother, James, competed in the 2003 episode against Litras and Long as Michael had died of throat cancer in 1999. Original Press Your Luck host Peter Tomarken made a special appearance hosting the question round of this episode.
July 21, 2003 featured a "Tournament of Losers" episode with three past contestants who had lost their game. The episode's winner also received a trip to Maui in addition to their winnings. July 22–25 of that same week featured a Tournament of Champions, with nine of the biggest winners to that point competing for additional cash and prizes. The winners on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday episodes returned to compete against each other on the Friday episode in the finale of the tournament. Friday's episode featured higher-valued spaces in both rounds, and the eventual winner also received a Suzuki Aerio SX as a bonus prize in addition to their grand total winnings.
