, seen here on the set of the May 1983 pilot, was the original host of
Press Your Luck.|alt=A black-and-white picture of game show host Peter Tomarken.
Press Your Luck is a revival of an earlier game show format created by producer
Bill Carruthers, known as
Second Chance. This show was hosted by
Jim Peck and aired on
ABC in 1977. Like
Press Your Luck, it also featured contestants answering trivia questions to assume control of a board with cash and prizes. This game board also featured spaces labeled with a devil, who would take away all cash and prizes if the contestant landed on one. Carruthers and Jan McCormack began developing
Press Your Luck in 1983.
Peter Tomarken, prior to working in television, was an editor for ''
Women's Wear Daily magazine. Press Your Luck
began both tapings and airings in September 1983. The show premiered on September 19, 1983, on CBS at 10:30a.m. ET (9:30 CT/MT/PT), replacing Child's Play. Serving as announcer on the show was Rod Roddy, also the announcer on Hit Man
and later known for announcing The Price Is Right''.
John Harlan and
Charlie O'Donnell filled in on a few episodes when Roddy was unavailable. thus making
Press Your Luck one of the first game shows to use computer-designed graphics. The last episode of the CBS version aired on September 26, 1986. The final tapings took place in August of that same year, when its cancellation was first announced. Following the cancellation, Tomarken went on to host other game shows including the
syndicated show
Wipeout in 1988-89, as well as a number of
infomercials. He and his wife both died in 2006 when a private plane he was piloting crashed in
Santa Monica Bay. On the single game in which he appeared, an initially tentative Larson spun a Whammy on his very first turn, but then went 45 consecutive spins without hitting another one. After an investigation, CBS executives concluded that Larson's memorization of the board patterns did not constitute cheating and allowed him to keep his winnings. The board was then reprogrammed with over 30 new patterns to prevent subsequent contestants from duplicating his feat. In 1994,
TV Guide magazine interviewed Larson and revealed the background of this episode including his decision to pass his remaining spins after he lost concentration and missed his target squares. The story was featured in a two-hour documentary on
Game Show Network titled
Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal in March 2003, which Tomarken hosted. His story was also featured on the first episode of Game Show Network's documentary series
Cover Story in 2018.
Paul Walter Hauser played Larson in the 2024 film
The Luckiest Man in America.
Rebroadcasts, syndication, and digital television networks In early 1987, 130 episodes of the show were packaged by
Republic Pictures for off-network syndication to a handful of local stations. These episodes originally aired on CBS from February 25 to August 23, 1985, and were also the first to be shown on
USA Network from September 14, 1987 to December 30, 1988.
Press Your Luck remained on its schedule until October 13, 1995, when USA dropped its game show block altogether.
Game Show Network aired the show from September 2001 to March 2009, airing episodes from February 1984 to November 1985. Game Show Network resumed airing the show in 2012, airing episodes from the September 1983 premiere to February 1984. From 2014 to 2016, Game Show Network aired episodes 561 to 696, which originally ran from November 1985 to May 1986; after this, Game Show Network aired episodes from 1984 to February 1985 until the show was removed from Game Show Network's schedule again in May 2017. From December 2017 to February 2018, Game Show Network aired episodes from 1984 as part of a Saturday night game show block. On July 2, 2018, reruns of
Press Your Luck started airing on
GameTV in Canada. Reruns of Press Your Luck are currently airing in the U.S. on Buzzr.
Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck On April 15, 2002, Game Show Network debuted a revival titled
Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck (sometimes abbreviated to just
Whammy!), with
Todd Newton as host and
Gary Kroeger as announcer, although Tomarken hosted a
pilot episode. This incarnation of the show featured similar gameplay to the original, and was described by Game Show Network executives as being a modern incarnation of the show. One feature unique to this revival was the addition of a "Double Whammy", which would not only remove all cash and prizes accumulated by the contestant, but also subject the contestant to a physical stunt such as having objects drop from the ceiling.
Whammy! aired in first-run from April 2002 to December 2003.
ABC confirmed in early 2019 that the network was partnering with Fremantle to reboot the series, with pre-production on new hour-long episodes of
Press Your Luck and
Card Sharks already underway and taping slated to begin sometime in the first portion of the year. John Quinn (a producer on
Celebrity Name Game) is the executive producer. Actress
Elizabeth Banks was selected to host.
Neil Ross was the announcer and the voice of the Whammy for the first four seasons of the ABC version, with Chris Ahearn (also known as the "Money Fairy" on the current version of ''
Let's Make a Deal'') assuming both roles beginning in season five, while the Whammy animations featuring Ross continue to be used. The series premiered on June 12, 2019 following an early premiere the day before. The first season featured eight weekly hour-long episodes. ABC confirmed in mid-2023 that, despite the
2023 Writers Guild of America strike, the show's fifth season would premiere in late 2023 as intended. A sixth season was announced in May 2024, which premiered on July 18. On April 30, 2025, it was announced that new episodes from the sixth season would premiere on July 10, 2025. On March 4, 2026, it was announced through a casting call that the series was renewed for a seventh season. ==International versions==