Press Your Luck/YMMV

"Whammy: All I hear is "Big Bucks! Big Bucks!" — I've got your big buck! (deer walks on-screen) Heh, heh."
 * Adaptation Displacement: Press Your Luck was a revival of the 1977 ABC game Second Chance, also by Bill Carruthers. It doesn't help that only one episode of Second Chance (the third pilot) still exists on tape.
 * Critical Research Failure: The June 14, 1985 episode had a question regarding Looney Tunes and who said "Sufferin' Succotash!" Although all three contestants answered with Sylvester (who is commonly associated with it), Tomarken revealed that the answer was in fact Daffy Duck (who also uses the phrase, but very infrequently). This mistake prompted Mel Blanc (who voiced both) to call the show and explain the mistake. In his Sylvester voice. Here's the episode. After the call, Peter stated that the three contestants would be invited back.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: The prize cue music -- made even more awesome when a contestant wins enough to have it played in full. This Christmas, 1984, episode has the music played to nearly two full loops (starting 29 seconds in).
 * For that matter, the main theme.
 * Funny Moments:
 * Some of the Whammies, including one that lampshaded contestants' cries of "Big Bucks!" by bringing out a large deer.

"Peter Tomarken: Press Your Luck winner Mabel, now is the time when Rod Roddy tells you everything you've won! Rod?
 * April 3, 1984: Karen Martin asking for, and getting, a "pool table for Dan" [her husband].
 * October 22, 1984: Mabel won by default because the two other contestants hit four Whammies. Unfortunately, her score was $0, which caused Peter to stumble around a bit in total disbelief. When the show returned from break and he had composed himself:

Rod Roddy: Yes, Peter?

Peter: What'd she win?

Rod: Bupkis!"

"Host: Big Bucks! You win-You won a trip! A value of...$3,000!"
 * Iconic Character Forgotten Title: People tended to remember it as "the show with the Whammy" rather than by its proper title, so much so that the GSN revival was called Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck.
 * Moment of Awesome/Game Breaker: Michael Larson.
 * Padding: In one episode, the contestants acquired only five spins overall: three from the questions and two from landing on "+ One Spin" squares. As a result, Peter spent the rest of the round explaining the special squares on the board. To prevent this from happening again, the rules were later changed so, if contestants were struggling in the Question Round, A) Peter would be directed to use an easier stack of questions or B) the segment would simply be reshot with said easier stack.
 * The Problem With Licensed Games: Oy.
 * The Wii version drew massive input from the fans (as requested by a Ludia representative) and could easily draw reference from a fan website dedicated to the show's myriad board layouts...and Ludia still managed to screw the game up. Here's a fan review.
 * 1) Having the Big Board cycle between three static layouts — one with two Whammys, one with seven Whammys, and one with no Whammys (these are 4-5-0 in Round 2)...but as these trailers show, it could've been a lot worse.
 * 2) Forcing the game to end immediately if you Whammy-Out while facing off against the computer.
 * 3) Having AI opponents that lacked the "I", rarely getting more than two spins per round and pose very little challenge. Upon their turn, they will usually pass their spins immediately.
 * 4) Failing to support the Mii avatars. The in-game "Ludians" not only look dumb but have apparently never seen the show before (much like this game's developers), mashing the buzzer several times to ring in on a question or stop the board.
 * 5) Using no prizes except generic trips worth $3,000 in Round 1 and $4,000 in Round 2, which considerably breaks Move One Space and Pick-A-Corner by removing half their purpose. For example, the classic Round 1 choice of "$100/$200/$300 + One Spin vs. [nice prize of unknown value]" is now "$100/$200/$300 + One Spin vs. Generic Trip Arbitrarily Worth $3,000".
 * 6) Having Big Bucks always redirect to said generic trip in Round 1 instead of the big-money square ($1,000/$1,250/$1,500). This playthrough shows the absurdity of this at 4:21 and 4:49, as the player hits Advance Two Spaces in Square 10 (which wasn't there in the actual show) which leads to Big Bucks...

"Peter Tomarken ( To Troy Garrison in a January 1984 episode during Round 2, after Troy broke his buzzer, and putting it back together): "DON'T BREAK ANYTHING!""
 * Adding insult to injury was the Updated Rerelease for the PS3 — it contained the actual theme, a looping board sound, and actual prizes, not to mention a more faithful board layout.
 * Though to be fair, Fremantle apparently still couldn't find the master copy of the actual series theme, so they just went ahead and made their own version themselves. This quasi-Suspiciously Similar Song version is also heard in the official Face Book app.
 * The DS version -- though it also contained the looping board sound -- managed to be even worse. There's only a few Whammy animations (none of which you can skip), the Big Board doesn't even have its usual space structure, and your reward for clearing all the "episodes" is a credit roll you can already access from the Options menu!
 * Special Effects Failure: Slides occasionally went dark, dim, or otherwise glitched out. On August 23, 1985 a slide actually blew up, meaning that they had to stop taping and finish up that episode the next day.
 * In the first five months of the show, the buzzers that the contestants used to ring-in, when answering a question, or stopping the board, were supported by spring coils. They would break apart if they were slammed too hard, which happened on occasion (resulting in some editing to omit the scenes where the buzzers were being put back together). About 4 months in, they tried to fix this problem by changing the sticks that supported the buzzers. That, too, didn't work either, so it was decided to completely redesign them in February 1984.


 * They Changed It Now It Sucks: By early August 1985, the Big Board had settled into a respectable configuration for both rounds. During the final season, however, the Round 2 layout had various slides needlessly moved around while nearly the entire board was in flux, with values going up and down so often that the ultimate victim ended up being Pick-A-Corner — the day the slides went neon was when the once-"fixed" directional square began breaking, as the values in the other three corners never remained static for very long and consistently conflicted with each other (including three layouts where players chose between identical values); instead of correcting the problem, Pick-A-Corner was simply replaced on July 25, 1986 by a $1,000 + One Spin slide.
 * Vindicated By Cable: The show originally ran for only three years, but became immortalized through reruns on USA in The Nineties and Game Show Network in The Noughties, resulting in a brief 26-week revival and becoming one of the most beloved and well-known games that aren't currently being produced.
 * What an Idiot:
 * May 16, 1985: Linda, behind by over $7,000, thought a trip to Tokyo would give her the win rather than an additional spin. Her opponent Patrick, who won because the trip was just $2,900, looked and acted a whole lot like he was being played by Dan Aykroyd in a Game Show Appearance.
 * June 2, 1986: One guy took $500 + One Spin to try and win the game himself, rather than take $2,500 and end the game in a non-zero tie. Didn't work.
 * 2009: The Ludia game's AI opponents who don't know what 6 x 4 equals.