Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck

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Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck

Logo of Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck with "Whammy" on the right side.
Format Game show
Starring Todd Newton (host)
Gary Kroeger (announcer)
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of episodes 130
Production
Running time 30 minutes per episode
Broadcast
Original channel Game Show Network
Original run April 15, 2002 – December 5, 2003 (can currently be seen as reruns)

Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck (also known as Whammy!) was an updated version of the American television game show Press Your Luck. The show had initially aired on the Game Show Network from April 15, 2002 to December 5, 2003, and the network currently airs reruns of the show. Todd Newton had hosted the show, with Gary Kroeger announcing.

Contents

[edit] Other Hosts

The April Fool's Day episode of the series had featured Graham Elwood of Cram as host. Newton did, however, make an appearance as a "Double Whammy-in-training," and his face was featured on Whammy-like "Newton" spaces, which, when it was landed on, was told of a "prize" the contestant had just "won." Original Press Your Luck host Peter Tomarken made a special appearance hosting the question round of a special episode featuring a rematch from the 1984 Michael Larson episode.

[edit] Gameplay

Gameplay had remained largely the same, and the Whammy took 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. Contestants had started at the game board. Play had passed repeatedly down the line of contestants, each taking one spin, for an unlimited number of rounds. This went on until each contestant had either landed on a Whammy (which eliminated them from the rest of the round), or chosen to stop by "freezing". Each contestant was given $1,000 to start the show (in the first two taped episodes of the first season, they started at $0). Play started with four Whammies on the board and after each round through the contestants, four more were added (although only one Whammy was added in the first 2 episodes).

The show then had the question and final rounds the original show had with a few tweaks. A series of five questions were asked, and the maximum number of spins a contestant could earn was 15 as opposed to 12 in the original. In addition to the original Whammies, there were Double Whammies which simply added a physical element to the animated Whammy character. (For example of a Double Whammy, if the Whammy shoots silly string in the air, the contestant gets hit by the silly string.)

The largest cash amounts had remained $1,500 in Round 1 and $5,000 + a spin in Round 2. The board had still featured a BIG BUCKS square which had advanced the player to the biggest cash square on the board.

Unlike the original series, champions did not get to return for another show. However, if one, two or all three contestants ended the show with $0 and less than four Whammies, they might have participated again in a future show. Only one contestant did.

In line with technological changes, The Whammies were animated in 3-D, and the physical Whammy indicators that popped up in front of the contestants were also 3-D. The Whammy was created by computer animation studio WIT Animation, giving it a more futuristic CGI-like feel.

During the second round, the dollar amounts and prizes shown on the squares were rotated in a much different fashion. Rather than all of the squares' contents at the same time, they had 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 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 original Press Your Luck, Whammy! had 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.

[edit] Special Spaces on the New Big Board

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 square shape, "Pick-A-Corner" was now "Pick-A-Prize." When Pick A Prize was hit, all of the squares containing prizes had lit up simultaneously, and the contestant had the choice of any of them.

The "+ ONE SPIN" spaces (minus "Double Your $$ + One Spin") had remained, and they were then accompanied by "or SPIN AGAIN" spaces; when it was hit, the contestant chose to take either the money or another spin on the board without using up one of their "earned" spins. The first season had featured "$1,000 or Spin Again", while the second season had featured "$555 or Spin Again."

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 also 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 (where the two special spaces had showed the front and the back halves of a car key).

A new feature called the "Big Bank" was added for the show's second season in 2003. The "Big Bank" had always began with $3,000 (as each player was started with $1,000 in the beginning), and the cash and prizes that the contestants had lost after a Whammy was hit were added into the bank. If a player had hit the "Big Bank" square, the host had asked a general-knowledge trivia question to the contestant, who had collected the money in the bank if the question was answered correctly (referred to by Newton as "whammying the Whammy"). The addition of the "Big Bank" had the side effect of making special prizes slightly easier to win, since if a contestant collected one or both 'halves' of the prize and then Whammied, the special prize pieces collected had went into the Big Bank, and they were retrieved by a player who had hit the "Big Bank" square and had answered the question correctly. Producers had said the "Big Bank" feature was just a way to add more questions into the game; albeit these questions were significantly harder than the ones in the "normal" question round, and the majority of them had not been answered correctly.

[edit] Tournament of Losers/Tournament of Champions

On July 21, 2003, the series had held a week long tournament. Monday was the Tournament of Losers, featuring three of the past players who lost in amazing fashions. The winner of that day won a trip to Maui in addition to their winnings. The rest of that week was the actual Tournament of Champions, in which nine of the biggest winners in the show's history had returned. The three winners for each day had returned on Friday, facing a board with increased prizes (the largest cash amount in Round 1 was increased to $2,000). The winner of that show had earned a Suzuki Aerio SX as a bonus prize.

[edit] The Pilot

The pilot had featured minor differences. The board was in an even more irregular "scattered motif" frame, with several spaces being in unusual places (the "Big Bucks" square was to the bottom-left of the top dollar amount square instead of being right under it), and each monitor was slightly smaller and had actual photographs instead of "prize icons" as seen on the actual show. Instead of 3-D Whammy indicators popping up in front of the contestants, a vertical row of four white lights was located next to the player's bank; starting from the bottom, one light had lit when a Whammy was hit. The center circle on the board had a rear-projection screen which showed the prize/cash the player had won, instead of the actual show, in which the prize slide was super-imposed over a static Whammy image. (If the player had hit a Whammy, the Whammy animation was also seen in the center circle, a change from both the actual series and the original Press Your Luck, in which in the studio, the Whammy was only heard.) There was also a special "G" space on the first round board and an "M" space in the second round; if a player had hit both and won the game, they won a Chevrolet Camaro ("GM" standing for "General Motors"). This was a prototype of the "GEM"-"CAR" situation to be seen in later episodes. Also, the first round had started each player off with three spins instead of the $1,000, making gameplay more similar to the original series. In the question round, there were only four questions, and if a player managed to accumulate all 12 spins, they had won a special "Whammy Guard" that negated the next Whammy that player hit (when the Whammy was hit, the "Guard" became null and void).

There were two pilots, both made in early 2002. The first was hosted by original Press Your Luck host Peter Tomarken and the second was hosted by Newton. The network chose the Newton-hosted pilot over the Tomarken-hosted one; it had been rumored this decision was made because Newton was younger.

The Pilot was taped at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City California, home to Wheel Of Fortune and Jeopardy!

While the game was in development, its codename was "Project NPYL" (also called "Project Nipple").[1]

[edit] Notable Contestants

  • Skyler Stone, the host of Con on Comedy Central, was a contestant on the first episode to air on April 15, 2002. Although he lost, Stone was later invited back for a special "tournament of losers" episode that originally aired on July 21, 2003. Skyler was also a contestant (and Top Dog) on Dog Eat Dog in 2002.
  • Sandy Fox, now a voice actress, won a grand total of $11,337 on one episode. She later returned for, but did not win, the Tournament of Champions at the end of the series as she Double Whammied 4 times!
  • Comedian Harmon Leon appeared on the show during its second season, posing as "Hank," an overexcited contestant who won $11,373. [2]
  • Author of So You Wannabe on Reality TV Jack Benza first appeared on the show in its first season, he later won the Tournament of Champions with a grand total of $50,111.

[edit] Origination

Whammy! was a FremantleMedia production and was taped at Tribune Studios.

[edit] External Links

[edit] Game Downloads