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Many people know and love Press Your Luck. And some know that a show just
like Press Your Luck (called Second Chance) was on in the mid 1970s. However
what some people many not know is that there was a pilot recorded for PYL
that was never aired! Peter Tomarken and Rod Roddy took part in the taping,
not really knowing if the show would make it, or be a hit. Little did they
know that it would be that pilot that would become a show that would be known
for a long time. I have a copy of the pilot, if you would like to see it
for yourself. I don't want to spoil the entire show by doing a step by step
listing of what happened. I DO want to tell you about it. Please read on, and
if you can, load all the pictures.They're not many differences between the pilot episode and the actual program that ended up on television. The first noticable difference was (as you can tell from the picture) was the logo wasn't yet made, so just an ugly stamped out logo was there. After all, it was a PILOT. Changes could be made. The only major difference from the outcome of the actual show was that on the pilot, 5 questions were asked in a question round. This made the maximum number of spins possible by one player 15, 25 maximum total. (That would have been a LOT if that ever happened).
Two of the contestants in the pilot were no stranger to Carruthers. Jack Campion
and Maggie Brown were both featured on the pilot episode of "Second Chance",
which was the first time the Press Your Luck concept was on TV. Jack was a lawyer
and Maggie "made things that klank and klunk". The other contestant was Matt. He
was a screenwriter who had just sold his first screenplay. That is a picture of
Maggie on the right...Doesn't she just look, um, naturally herself? (For those
not familular, Maggie Brown was a nervous wreck the entire pilot of Second Chance,
as well as the pilot to PYL, as WELL as an actual episode of Press Your Luck.
(Lets face it: Mr. Carruthers must have just LOVED her! And so did we. ;-)
Another thing that we have to take into consideration as we watch the pilot.
Because it was unsure if the show was going to be a hit, they didn't bother to
make all of the animated whammies yet. However, as a beta test, they made one
whammy. Everytime a Whammy was hit (which you really were not able to tell right
away because the infamous "Whammy Buzz" hadn't existed yet), they played the same
animation. The Whammy with the hammer. (That is it on your left). I suppose they
figured, if the show gets on the air, THEN we will make more animations. But why
waste the time and money if the show didn't get off the ground? (And doesn't Jack
look so happy that he hit a Whammy in that picture?)
