No Whammies…Ever: Michael Larson

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En Elizabeth, Are you yeah? I'm doing all right?

Listen here? Do you know what's ridiculous I do?

Elizabeth?

Please share?

I found some word I think you may not know.

Okay, yeah, I know you're.

Like what, I know a lot of words that's not true at all.

Like here, I'll give you an example.

Do you know the word at the end of your shoelace is what that's called?

Right, We've talked about.

This before, dangle or something.

You actually told me.

This, so I know you know it at one point, right. Or the way it smells after it rains is one of my favorite words is petrocore. Yeah, these are just like random words, right, But here's the one that I think you may.

Know or who knows.

The armhole enclose where the sleeves are.

What's that call? What's that whole called? It's called the arm sky, the arm sky.

It's like arms eye, but it's s okay, c y e armsig armside Okay.

Yeah.

And so then it's one of the ones where people actually did it backwards. They thought it was like a printing air. And that's why people call it armsky because these letters got pushed together. It turns out no, we had reversed it and said, oh, it's arms eye because of it's armsky, and we just prefer that it makes more sense to say arms eye. So for a while older printers would say arms eye. Then they went back to it's actually arms sky. Anyway, the whole of a shirt,

Do you know what that's called?

Isn't that something that.

It's on the tip of your tongue. I can see it right there, just spin it out.

I can see it.

It's right there, Elizabeth, there's the tarot bang you said bang first? Then yeah, yeah, so there that is. It's not ridiculous. We have all these little words, you know.

I love those little hidden secret words that don't really ever come out to play.

Yeah, they do.

Exactly, and then you find it and then you know, some of us often sound pedantic wreck Actually that's an entro bag.

But this is just you and me right now? Is that fun?

It's beautiful and it's ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

I am horror for it.

No whammies ever. What this is a ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous caper's heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free. And guess what, one hundred percent ridiculous.

Damn right.

We were just talking about game shows the other day. You and I we both love Jeopardy.

Yes, big time favorite.

That's about the only game show I like. Really, I liked rock and Roll Jeopardy on V one.

Back all day.

I had a friend who won that really yeah, he indact, he bought like a mini.

Cooper with the I killed.

If I'd have gone on there, I'd still be winning, the show.

Would still be on. He'd be that shows Ken.

Jennings, Yeah, I should have been on the show.

You should have.

You really do kill it that.

I'm so good tell me this long.

Time about that era. We were talking the other day about how his kids we knew people who were stoked to stay home sick and watch game shows, and I never really got into that.

My sister was a Price is Right girl. She was really into that. So she said home. I had to stay home because she was my younger sister. Mom's like, you stay home too and take care of her. I'm like, all right, single mom rules, okay. So then yeah, she love the prizes right well.

Like so, back in the eighties, there was a game show called Press Your Luck.

She loved that one too.

It was contestants answered trivia questions in order to earn spins on a game board, and like the board would sort of randomly shuffle the spaces on itself, and the spaces were for stuff like prizes or cash or extra spins, or the space could have like a little scruffy cartoon qtie gremlin thing called the Whammy. Yeah yeah, And if you landed on the Whammy you lost everything. You'd one up to that point, and the Whammy would do like

Yeah meets the Sandman from the Apollo Yes.

Exactly, So Press your Luck. It was a CBS show and it ran from nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty six. The host was Peter Tamarkin.

Rod Roddy was the Great Voice Rody.

And Bill Carruthers was both the director and the voice of the Whammy Oh. There were three contestants on each episode, competing against each other, and the game had four rounds. There were two question rounds and then two big board rounds, so it would go like question, big board, Question, bigboard, and the big board round. Contestants used all the spins that they had gathered up to try and win cash and prizes, and the game board it had eighteen spaces

Dude. My old roommates still love the show.

And he used to say, like in things, just in life, right, like we were going up and we were waiting in line and there's like two different lines. He's like, no way, I mean, mammy, like, we're going to get the shorter line. I mean, he's it all the time.

It's part of the culture. So I've established that. Now we understand press your.

Luck total, We're all for the most part.

With that established, Let's talk about a guy, Michael Larson. He was born in nineteen forty nine in Lebanon, Ohio, and he had three older brothers.

He's just like little classic baby boomer born in the Middlewest brother troll Baby. He's got older brothers. This is a big boomer energy.

They said that his first scam was in middle school when he would buy candy bars and sell them to other students at an inflated price. During pe class.

Sat capitalis it's not a.

Scam, that's capitalism. Like I'm like, okay, Well, you know, after high school he elevated his scam game beyond snickers the scam.

They weren't really candy bars, Now that was a scam.

He had this thing going where he would open and close bank accounts because at the time, some banks would offer money for you customer new toe also, she could get as much as like five hundred bucks for opening the bank account. Those days are long gone. Yeah yeah, but back then, Larson would open account, get the cash, close the account, lather, rinse, repeat.

Well this is before they deregulated the banks and near fighting over customers exactly.

So one time he registered for another scam. He registered a business under a family member's name so he could then hire and fire himself and collect unemployment. Amazing.

I like that one.

His brother James said, quote, he didn't understand the value of good, hard, honest work. He thought those people were fools.

There like suckers. He's like, he was very out of step with everyone else in the Midwest. Yeah, we all thought, what's wrong with this guy? He should go to la.

Between nineteen sixty nine and nineteen eighty two. Sure, he got arrested three times for stuff like receiving and concealing stolen goods. Okay, petty theft, larceny by trick. Three arrests in thirteen years isn't bad by a ridiculous crime?

Stand pretty good. They're all small.

Yeah, and like my personal standard is zero in thirteen years. You have a ball, you know, among these folks. So that takes us up to nineteen eighty three. By this time, Larson, he's been divorced twice. He has three kids with three different women.

Awesome, no judgment.

Oh no, I'm not judging. I'm laughing at his commitment to bad decisions.

Like this doesn't work.

Moving on, His main squeeze was his girlfriend Teresa dinwitty dim.

Witty with an end, And yeah, I thought it was dim witty. I was like, that's just come on, family.

Here's how she described her man quote, he always thought he was smarter than everyone else and had a constant yearning for knowledge.

Is that like a dim witty to say that?

Well, I mean like he thinks he's smarter than anyone else, but for knowledge. It's just like, yeah, what was he.

Doing for a living and what was he doing for knowledge?

He was an h back guy and he also drove a mister Softy ice cream truck.

Oh, mister Softie. I talked about them.

And in his free time he read magazines and news papers.

Oh yeah, I'm.

The Other thing he did was stare at a wall filled with twelve TVs? What looking for get rich quick schemes?

Wait? Wait? What? Yeah? Wait?

Is this his own wall? Or he go to like a TV salesman?

And this is what Dinwiddy said. Quote He had an entire wall of twenty five inch televisions stacked one on top of the other. What He watched them all at once and it got so hot the paint peeled off the wall.

Oh wow.

You know I always saying I can't ever get enough information. I want as much information as you have. I please give me more than why always say that? He found the line that I won't cross twenty five TVs stacked and just sitting there going watching all.

The twelve TVs twenty five inch television in nineteen eighty three was expensive, totally and hot. And how are you plugging all?

These these are flat screens? These are just radiating.

One of them, he says, sitting in a hot box with these screens like Elvis.

At the end, I feel like maybe it's not the best way to come up with get rich Quick schemes.

It's a lot of power, it's also.

Incredibly creepy visually all of it.

So but apparently it worked.

But here's the yeah, Well, so the get Rich Quicks games, they started to zero in on game shows.

That's because that's what's on in the daytime, right, that's all he's got, Like I'm a rob, a soap opera actor.

Or like Bob Ross. Anyway, So he watched a ton of The Prices Right and Wheel of Fortune, and he determined that those were unhackable. He wasn't going to be able to beat those games. He couldn't outsmart him.

I thought someone hacked Planko. Anyway, it doesn't matter, I don't. He just wasn't under the show.

He couldn't do it. In November of nineteen eighty three, he sees an episode of Press Your Luck.

For the first time, all right, and he's smitten.

Fired up the old VCR.

Yes whammy, Yes whammy.

He starts taping episodes to study the show. For six months, he watched the show for eighteen hours a day. What for six months eighteen hours a day.

I'm getting to the eighteen hours six months he did this then now eighteen hours every one of those days, the same show.

And over and over different episodes.

Sure, but I'm saying the same, Like, he's not watching Jeopardy and this show. He's just watching this pressure all the time.

He came away with observations.

I bet he did.

I bet he came away with a religion.

Well, first he figured out that the lights on the board moved in five different predetermined patterns. They weren't random like the show said they were.

Yeah.

And then the other thing he figured out was that the whammy never appeared in squares four and eight.

Whoa never showed up there.

This was big intel and it was the key to cracking the show. No Whammy's for real.

Yeah, So months.

Went by, it hits four and eight right.

Yeah, exactly. And he keeps watching episodes of Press Your Luck. He memorizes the episodes. He like tested his reflectures to prepare.

Like when you watch Jeopardy.

Well, yeah, he's like pausing the tape to see if when he pauses on the right thing. He practiced mirroring the mannerisms of the contestants who did well, and they'd say certain things and he like committed those to memory.

Okay, so like fake it till you.

Make it, I guess in May of nineteen eighty four, so just before Olympic fever began sweeping the Oh of.

Course, yes, before the world and learned if Mary lou Retti what I.

Was gonna say? Like he just like Mary Lourettin hopping up onto the balance beam. Larsen made his move. Yeah, sassy. So he didn't make a whole lot of money. He didn't make a lot of money, so he didn't have a lot of cash lying around. So he took what he had and he bought a ticket to fly from Ohio to California to audition for pressure Luck. So he takes everything he's got, heads out.

There, go to La where the Olympics will be occurring.

Right, Lewis, I'm sure that the pricing was getting higher.

Yes, take a lot of excitement. Did Cardi get a hotel room?

Totally? He's like, you know what, I am a compelling contestant character.

Sure, I'm perfect fest I'm good for TV.

He tells the producers that he's unemployed, and he tells him that he rode the bus all the way out to Hollywood a shot on his favorite show. He said he was broke. He said he was so broke that he couldn't even afford a birthday present for his daughter, who just is about to turn six.

He's like, you know, you heard that new song Jack and Diane. I'm from their town.

He's got a chili dog in his hand. He said he was so broke that the dress shirt he was wearing, he said he bought it at a thrift store down the street for sixty five cents. Yeah, that's what he tells him, and that the show would be a chance for him to finally make something of himself.

This is my chance.

I only win while doing what he loved.

You held the key to my dream exactly.

This is what I've always wanted. This show that's been on for like six months. So the show's director, executive producer and voice of the Whammy, Bill Carruthers, he likes, he liked larcense, jim.

I bet good, dudetanding of all got charisma.

He's got that special something, this spark that's going to resonate in the Madness Contestant coordinator Bob Edwards was not feeling.

He knows people.

He said, He's like, I would not recommend Larsen. When they said why, he said he couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew that he was just no good.

Yeah, he could in the eye. There was that extra watching it.

Carruthers overruled this decision. This is what This is what Edwards said.

Quote.

We held daily auditions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, maybe fifty people in each session. Larson walked up right off the street and told us he was an ice cream man from Ohio. There was something about him that I just didn't believe. I didn't trust him.

Hmm.

So he's like, I'm an unemployed ice cream man. Remember how Larson spent all that time studying the tapes that I forget. In his audition, he repeated the phrases he heard most often from contestants, and he even some of their facial expressions.

That's super odd. And do you think they remember it well?

I think that he's thinking like this was successful in the past and they're not going to connect it. This is how he put it later. Quote, I took six months out of my life and said I was going to do this, and everyone said it was silly until I did it, and then they said, hey, that's pretty neat.

That's what I did it for the Neat.

May nineteenth, nineteen eighty four. Time to record an episode. All right, Zaren closure, Oh yes, close, I want you to picture it. So Zaren, you are not Zaren Right now. You are a dental assistant named Janie Leeitris. You're a big fan of the show. Press your luck and you've finally got in the call to be on the show. It is your big day. You get all dulled up in your favorite red striped ruffleneck rayon blouse with a thin maroon ribbon in a bow at the neck. You

All right, Zaren, did I win?

I've been waiting this all time.

Well you're gonna have to wait a little bit longer. So we've got returning champion baptist minister ed long dental assistant Janie Lee Trice. That was just me and Michael Larson. They're all lined up for a chance to literally press their luck on a game show.

No Whammies, girl, No whammies.

The show's host, Peter Tamarkin, asked Larson what he did for a living, and he answered, quote, I drive an ice cream truck in the summer, and I hope to win enough money to not have to do that. That's a good answer. So this was the first question you've probably got. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in your pocket or purse right now, because his likeness is on the headside. Larson buzzed in prematurely and yelled fifty dollars Bill, Well,

Oh damn right?

What was that about? Did you know, Zaron, that has spent a long time since I first got down, but I still keep making these funky sounds.

I did know that get your money.

Yeah, So this this bum answer kind of knocked the wind out a Larsen. He sat back for the rest of the question round, but eventually he earned three spins. On his first spin, he stopped on square seventeen. What was the prize A whammy? Sons? Yeah, this gave him a chance so to kind of figure out his buzzer timing. Remember how he determined that the whammy never showed up on squares four eight? Yeah, Well, his next two spins landed on square four both times, and that made him twenty five dollars.

Yes, positive yeah.

So on the second half of the show, they've answered more questions. Big board comes back up. Squares four and eight are still safe, but in this it they also come with extra spins in addition to the cash prizes noted. So while some of the squares had like fifteen hundred, others had fifteen hundred plus one spin, and so four and eight always had the plus a spin.

Okay, keep it going.

Yeah, And like I said, they also never have whammies. Yes, so these are.

And to keep it going.

Yes. So he knows all this from his intense studies, and he just cut loose in the second half of the show. He knows he's unstoppable, and he could not only collect cash, but he could like keep the extra spins. So he earned seven initial spins in the question round, and since his previous showing during the big board round was pretty weak, he got to go first. In his first fifteen spins, he'd sometimes hit squares four or eight, but he managed to avoid the whammies altogether. His luck.

It was very much pressed.

Then came spin sixteen, so from then on he landed only on.

Four or eight, just to keep it safe.

For twenty nine consecutive spins. Yeah, he racked up one hundred and two thousand, eight hundred and fifty one dollars. Oh my gosh, that's prizes.

What was I standing there thinking? When I was on the set.

Next to him, he would just who knows.

Picking my job off the floor.

You can find the montage of spins on YouTube like search Press your Luck Michael Larson, and there's one by the account killer Watt VIDs. That's pretty good. It's thrilling. I imagine watching it and not knowing how going to be. It must have been wild. So at the tapings.

Money Carlos stuff, a big gambler comes in, Yes.

So to Marke, and he's kind of freaking out, Like first he's all blown away by this guy's supposed luckily we've never seen this happen roll. Then he's like trying to process. He's like, this is unreal.

That's thirteen in a row. I don't know how that's possible.

And then he's getting frustrated. Yeah, it's like six, and it says, you've got to be kidding me.

At one point, I mean, your hands.

When he hit thirty thousand, he was already doing something unimaginable total show. Tamarkin said, then, quote, Michael, you are really pressing your luck. After this show, you're going to get a special call from the president of CBS.

Oh, like he's already you must be cheating.

Yeah, he's just you know, he's thinking, like this isn't good. This is not good.

One of us is getting a call from the president.

Just spinning and spinning. After each successful spin, he has a choice to stop or keep going, and like the tension and drama is he just charges ahead. Is great television.

Everyone thinks he's about to lose it all everything.

And he wins it and so then it was like, oh my god, stop, you're going to lose it all, you idiot. And then he'll say let's do it again. It goes crazy.

So I would love to see the footage of the people's faces. Yeah, I'd spin seventy then at twenty three and then.

You can hear it, like you've got to watch the montage. It's amazing. He gets to spins forty four and he's getting tired, and on spin forty five he didn't hit four or.

Eight pass the other competitors. Could you do the spin?

So forty five he misses. According to him, he misses finally, according to him quote, I remember that moment. I was just so drained. I suddenly forgot where their whammies were. So I stopped and passed control of the board to the other players. I felt so relieved that it was over. So he doesn't hit a whammy, he doesn't get four or eight, and then he's like, okay, I've got a star.

He really could have hit the wammy by mistake.

Then completely and he realized his only real wrisk.

Yeah, so he's like, oh, I don't want that.

He hands it off to Ed Long's Baptist minister. He gets the leftover spins, and because remember Larson has been banking spins.

Each time.

Ed got a whammy on the first he cursed got.

It's like one of those.

Those people who say that like a slot machines hot and then all of a sudden, now it's bad.

Don't go near it.

Yeah. So what what were the odds that that Larson was beating? So, according to the Hollywood Reporter quote, the odds of hitting a whammy were one and six, the same odds as rolling a seven at a craps table. Larson had made forty five spins without hitting one. It was a statistical impossibility.

Yeah, it's like in the trillions are yeah, higher than that.

So at this point, the show's control booth operators like they know something.

Yeah, they just don't know what.

They figured that Larson had cracked the board in some way, so they called Michael Brockman.

And you said that there was only five patterns or whatever they're running, and they did. They didn't quickly put that together.

Yes, I think they did. They're like, something's gone on. They called Michael Brockman, CBS head of daytime programming. All right, he told TV.

Guide later, what's happening? They call?

Yeah, okay, he tells tv Guide later. Quote, something was very wrong. Here was this guy from nowhere and he was hitting the bonus box every time. It was bedlam, I can tell you. So there's talk behind the scenes of pulling the plug.

He's like doing like, oh, yeah, the cancel. There's a fire along.

Yeah, they're like stop the taping somehow. But like Larsen hadn't technically broken any rules as laid out by the show. So the CBS compliance person Darlene Tipton said, quote, it wasn't unusual for contestants to go on streaks. It was kind of the way the game was designed. But after about ten spins of the board, it started to become obvious that he was hitting the same prize on the same square every time.

He's always hitting four and eight, and that's skill.

It's not random.

He's doing that with his stopping of the timer, right, So it's literally a physical talent.

Yes exactly, not saying like stop.

Yeah, well and she goes on. It's not random and it's not luck. He could aim and hit, which we didn't think was possible. First the booth got very quiet. Then there wasn't Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, what do we do? People were turning to me saying, can we stop this? We knew how to deal with every other situation, but all we could do with this was hang on for the ride.

Damn.

Yeah.

So this is kind of like.

That, like a sniper and the rigging with like an elephant's franke gun, Like, all right, we're gonna have to go at option unicorn.

Did you see during the Olympics all the speed walking, yes, controversy that like, uh, it's like mall walking. I guess it's very sassy and they're not supposed to run her job. You can't leave the ground, yeah, like they you have you can't have both feet off the ground at the same time to the naked eye. And so like when they were slowing down the footage, these people were very obviously jogging, but just in a super sassy way. But like because that was in a slowed down version, it didn't.

Count because it's not the naked eye, right, so.

You know, so it goes Yeah, have.

You seen those kids that what they do it? But they looks like they're floating, like stepping on the air the whole time. I'd like to see a competition of them where it looks like you can't ever touch.

The more interesting to me, Yeah, that's two di visual eyes naked eye. So the real question with Press Your Luck sure is how lazy did they have to be to build a.

Board totally the five patterns? Even I whould come up with something more about.

Head of Daytime Programming Michael Brockman he addressed this issue, quote, pilots are test vehicles. You can cut corners on this show. What was expensive to create was the light pattern on the board. No one wanted to spend that much money on the pilot, and then the pattern wasn't improved enough when the show went into production. So what that tells me is they didn't think this show was going to.

Go into production, oh exactly, or I didn't think their viewers were that smart, you know.

Yeah, why not?

Both?

So back to the episode It's your turn janeye Lee tris to her turning against exactly what did she do?

Prester luck?

She no this agent of chaos as from one agent of chaos to another recognized, she gave her last three spins to Larsen. Way to go, let's do this. She's like, yeah, this is insane, break me off some exactly. So Larson, because of the rules, had to use those spins. So at this point, his score is so high that they had to ditch the dollar signed space on his light up number board and just go with all totals. Remember

Took Okay, another time he took an honest chance.

He didn't get a whammy. Instead, he won a trip to the Bahamas, and with that the game was over. Like so all told, Michael Larson won a sail boat wow, an all inclusive vacation to Kawaii, which like yes, please that trip to the Bahamas and one hundred and ten two hundred and thirty seven dollars in cast.

She won like half their season's prize budget.

Oh completely, it's nearly three hundred and fifty thousand dollars today, ed long, he still got his eleven grand from the.

Previous episode, Old.

Gal Janey, she and it on a whammy and she walked away with nothing, just her dignity.

And the memories Elizabeth, and you can't take those away.

While the control booth had figured that he wasn't really cheating, CBS Standards and Practices they were sure, oh, cheating.

The control is basically talking electronic cheating. They're like, you have nobody exactly in your ear. You're not getting electronic you know, signal on your foot.

And that's like in the taping and afterwards, Standards and Practices looked at it and they're like, no, he's a cheater. He's all crimed up and They're like, because of this, we can't pay him out. Oh, they're just positive.

There's just no way pulled the casino move, Like, I question your wins.

Yeah, so they went over CBS went over the footage frame by frame, but came up.

Like this a pruider film.

Because he wasn't using he wasn't using a device to control the board or working with someone else.

Yeah, he wasn't doing any known cheats.

He just basically beat him at their own game.

Well, he did a mental algorithm.

Essentially, he pressed their lucks not being better about the setup. So a former executive for CBS Daytime Programming, Bob Boden.

Not Bob Boden, Bad Bobby Boden.

And Bobby Boden said, quote, he fit every criteria. He had not broken any rules of the game, he had played fairly, and he was an eligible contestant. We paid him his money. He was simply smarter than CBS.

Yeah, are you smarter than a CBS the.

Show Brockman, that head of Daytime Programming, he said, quote, I said, how did he cheat? He beat the system. CBS finally agreed to pay him what he'd won, So he's won. That guy's on his side.

There's a new mayor in Television City, and this is Michael Larson.

They cut Larson a check a couple of weeks later, but they didn't let him come back for the next episode, as was the custom, because he's blown by the network's prize limit of twenty five thousand dollars. Yeah, this boom gone. The episode was such a beast that they had to split it into two parts.

What Yeah, it was.

A two parter. So the first half aired on June eighth, nineteen eighty four, and the second half was shown on the eleventh. And some at CBS didn't want to show it at all.

I bet not. I'm surprised they did.

They did come to an agreement that it wouldn't air as a rerun or in syndication. Oh and then also CBS established a seventy five thousand dollars cap on contestants winnings.

Huh, So that's you know, wow.

That's it. It did air though, and then there's the big board.

I kind of understand, like, it seems to me that would be the kind of show you would want, if you're in their position, you'd want would want to air that to put out the challenge for other people to try to beat your show become yeah all the time. Maybe I'm too like, you know, trained by our modern virality and the idea of like you want to get you know, you want to get the gourd of mouth. So obviously this probably wasn't the big thing in the eighties.

Is they the network gave them a cap of twenty five thousand. They don't career contestant, so they don't have a big budget. Sure, and they're probably thinking that now that the networks had to get legal involved and they've had to pay out over one hundred thousands money there, so they don't want to do a call to action of other people to be like, oh, yeah, I guess what, Like, I've got.

A big brain.

I can get on there and outsmart this. That's my guess.

That's a good read.

It's just a cheap show.

You can see the blood in the water, and they don't want to invite more sharks.

Yeah, and it's supposed to be a cheap show. They're not going to spend a lot of money and get a good return.

And now they're spent a lot of money and I'm saying that they could get a bigger return. They're like, that's not what we want.

Right exactly, that's my guess. So the big board, right, they had to reprogram it.

Of course, hopefully more than five patterns.

They put in twenty seven additional light patterns. That's a good number to make things seem more random. Although I assume someone could memorize those two you memorize.

Not me.

I couldn't memorize one of them, but there are people out there.

I bet you could. You could do it. If it's visual.

This is purely visually.

If it was like my ear, I might not be able to.

I'd be like trying to get whammies because I like the little cartoons totally. It was like it's very babus, which I love. I like that.

You couldn't help yourself even trying to wind.

You'd still do my my animal brain would be like, let's watch another ram cartoon.

I wouldn't lie to you again.

This is it better than a trip to the you're for yourself?

Oh yeah? The Whammy wears like a little cape and has double horns. It's like a bad teeny little super guy.

A lot of that in the eighties, like the Annoyd from Domino's.

Remember Curious Larson heard about the big board overhaul, and he wrote to the contestant coordinator at pressure like quote, it's like a zodiac letter. I know you've added patterns to the board, but I bet I can beat you again. How about a tournament of champions?

I like his heart. I got to bet they didn't answer no. I bet they were just like whatever.

Larsen set the record for most game show winnings in a single day with that one ten in nineteen eighty four. It stood until two thousand and six, when The Price Is Right had someone win one hundred and forty seven thousand. Whoa and then another Prices writer A pr contestants broke that with one hundred and seventy thousand and twenty thirteen.

In one show Yeah, and then.

Michael Stauber won a total of two hundred and sixty two thousand, seven hundred and forty three on the October fourteenth, twenty nineteen episode of The Prices Right.

How are they winning this much? On the pres Has this show changed?

I have no idea. I never watched it in the first place. Shocking, I know.

Yeah.

Do you remember when the Wheel of Fortune you would get some money after a round, then you'd have to do shopping. They'd like open up her room. Yeah, that's seed my sister. She was into game shows. I remember, so people don't even know existed growing up.

And to this day, I watched Jeopardy and then change the channel as fast as I.

Can hear the song.

I hate it because I can't stay you know what. I'm glad. I'm glad he had three careers, but I can't keep then Pat Sajack's little face, Yeah, I don't want to see it sounds like and it's just to me, I think it's a dumb game totally.

He was like a human, like chipmunk and like the only and like normally you'd be like, oh, that'd be kind of cool.

You can tell him, no, he doesn't have a babu ACoM. And it's also they get the dumbest contestants. Oh my god. Anyway. Twenty eleven, Damn Interesting media outlets said that despite the nineteen eighty four win having been called a cheat, a scammer scandal.

Quote.

His impressive performance on Press Your Luck maybe one of the only honest days of work that Michael Larson ever did. When Peter asked Larson on air what was going what he was going to do with his winnings, Larson told him quote invest in houses is his answer. Yeah. He paid the taxes on his winnings. And then he bought his daughter a bunch of presents for his sixth birthday that happened to be the day before the show was taped.

He was how long did sometime last?

Let's take a break and when we come back, we'll check in on Michael Larson post pyl victory. No Wammy's, no Wammy's, no wammies. There it is Michael Larson Saren. The episode of Press Your Luck where he dominated aired in June of nineteen eighty four. By late nineteen eighty four, following a dizzy in case of Olympic fever, he withdrew one hundred thousand dollars from five different banks.

I gotta ask my friend's style if he remembers this because he was so into it. Yeah, actually is old enough you can remember it.

So he goes around, He takes out one hundred grand, five different banks. He gets them all in one dollar bills. Why well, he was not heading to sloths.

I say, that's my only guest. Immediately lost loyal hower.

The gals and bills while they ignore him and sleep soundly under down comforters at a very generous area of personal space.

Maybe I try to tuck one in a pocket of a robe.

You get you don't get that, you get that clothes.

Oh, I thought you could maybe like daintily chuck it up.

On that table and then the well when we wake up, the gal say, they'll get over there. No, he was trying to win a radio game that offered a prize if you matched announced numbers with those on a dollar bill.

Oh so he wanted many chances possible and he was not successful.

Yeah, that's a bad one.

He gave up. He redeposited half the bills. Oh no, and what did he do with the rest of the money.

Lottery scratch offs?

No, he hid it in various places in his girlfriend's house, remember her Dinwitty.

Yeah, so one night he's acting like a guy who watched his twelve TVs it once again exactly, he's got like Mason jars of one dollar bills basically buried in the backyard.

One night, the two of them, the couple, they're out on the town, living it up at a Christmas party. That's fun for them. While they were out, though, something bad happened. Burglars broke in and they took the fifty thousand he had squirreled around the house.

How did they know where it was? Sounds like an inside.

John Arson was convinced that his girlfriend.

I'm thinking, was not so dim wady.

She woke up one morning and he was standing over her, staring at her like after this, just staring, So she bounced like good for her, no room for creepy. Sure, yeah, I mean this guy has a wall of television sets and you know, and this is.

What makes her bounce. She wakes up one day and he's staring. After the robbery, I get, there's a greater concept.

So she grabbed five thousand dollars that he had hidden in the kitchen drawer that the burglars hadn't gotten. She grabs the kids, she runs. That was her house, though, so she stayed at a hotel while she waited for him to get his stuff and go go. He did. They never figured out who stole the cash, and they never will. Nineteen eighty six, Press your luck went off the air, moment of silence.

Please really that quickly?

Yeah?

It did not last long. Let's jump forward to the mid nineteen nineties. I wasn't even born then. I was born in twenty fifteen. So by this point, Larson he had moved to Dayton, Ohio, and he was working as an assistant manager at Walmart.

Was this mid nineties, Okay, so I was a retiree in Ohio, at this.

Yes, you had already retired at this point.

Being one of the greatest generation at all.

Yeah. So he's he's living in Dayton, Ohio. He's working at Walmart, not the Walmart and bowling green over big shout out that appeared in the Pokemon episode. This is the Walmart date store. Yeah, is it a superstar? I'm curiously so Larson. He had a job, he had a new girlfriend, and he had a new con He was selling shares in a multi level marketing scam run by a company called Pleasure Time Incorporated. Oh god, Hubba hubba.

Pleasure Time Incorporating.

Well, here's what that was. So there were indeed, ahub in Taro Bay. There were ads, very early online ads on America Online. Oh whoa that said, you can't lose about this For just one hundred and eighty nine dollars a.

Share, just pennies dollars on the day.

Investors could get in on the ground floor of an operation that would yield them at least sixty dollars a week. That sounds good least Yeah, more twenty thousand people thought it sounded good. And what was this scheme called the American Indian Lottery that familiar. Basically, it's unregistered securities. Yes, which translates to classic Ponzi skis. Pleasure Time Incorporated did business under the name Telephone Information Systems and Group Dynamics.

Downline, Group Dynamics done. You know that they rip people.

They promised huge profits in return for signing on more investors MLM baby. Okay, but this this wasn't just taking place in magazines or through the mail. This was online. Stanley B. Witten with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Chicago. Yeah, they said, quote. It's the first time the Commission has brought a case in which most of the offer sale of securities took place in cyberspace. Oh wow, que the

Oh, none of this.

And twenty thousand people fell for this. Yeah, there's going to be a worldwide on the phone lottery run from an Indiana.

What does this lottery work? Well, people would call a nine hundred telephone line. Oh do you remember those?

Dial a minute?

I don't remember them because I was born in twenty eighteen and I don't know what a cassette tape is.

I actually got reach and that's how I retired, was off of one nine hundred numbers.

So like that's you would it would cost money to call.

A nine hundred line by the minute, yes, and.

Then one nine hundred yeah, and that's but this is how the public would get into the lotto, however much it is a minute is one thing. Sure, that's the gravy on top, because they'd call and then buy a seven dollars ticket for the lottery over the phone.

Okay, And they'd have to wait, I'm sure, on the phone to handle some of the.

Process as the as racking up. And this would give money to the investors in the project, supposedly, and according to the ad, half of the seven dollars telephone wager went to the lotto pot and the rest would be divided among the tribe, the investors, and operating expenses.

Sure.

Joan McCown, who was the chief counsel of the SEC Enforcement Division in Washington, said that the SEC's market surveillance department was monitoring the financial bulletin boards of online services. So she's on message boards on like an AOL board. Yes, for the Chatter Frontier, it's the wild West. This is the first case where most of the advertising of the scam was online, so there's no chunk mail, no classified ads and papers. Federal District judge froze the assets of accounts.

This still counts as as wire fraud, not postal fraud. Right, so they've just gotten around the postal fraud.

Okay, Yeah, so they freeze accounts in Florida, Indiana, Ohio, but most of the investors' money had already been withdrawn. Sure, the SEC tracked more than three million that came from investors as Telephone Information and Group Dynamics downline made pitches on these computer networks. The scammers even took the idea to Europe, where they got people to sign up for two hundred equivalent of two hundred dollars apiece that same one pleasure time. The reason it had the name is

Were just diversive, Like, we got to find a way to get more elderly people in this. We've got all these younger dirtbags going with the sex phone calls.

We can get more money out of the older You use these.

Same lines later a week had or earlier, I guess probably in the morning.

Well, and so there's Michael Larson involved in a non existent American Indian lottery that raised three million dollars from twenty thousand investors. You know what, that made him one of the pioneers of internet scams.

Wow, look at him for.

One of the laziest men people didn't believe in exactly.

He's out there scamming game shows the Internet.

In the middle of all this precedence, seem made a play for more fame.

What see.

In nineteen ninety four, a movie came out, produced and directed by Robert Redford.

Wait a minute, one of your favorite John.

Taturo, your boy Rob Morrow, Yes, and Rafe Fines.

Oh different movies the movie I know these when you're talking.

About quiz show, yeah, dramas?

Are you're talking about sneakers? Your other one?

Oh?

God, no, that was that's that's in a class of its own. I would never be smirch it by bringing it into this. So quiz showed traumatization of the fifties quiz show scandals. Larsen went on Good Morning America to talk about the movie and his experience on Press Your Luck.

Okay, I've scammed a game show.

I know this.

He told him that he was bummed out that he never got to go on Jeopardy because, quote, I think I have figured out some angles on that. Yeah, like what being smart? Ken Jennings, James Holsauer with like a word. He got interviewed by from White Men Can't Jump, Yes, everybody, everyone would like a word. He got interviewed by TV Guide. They asked him what he did with all of his whammy free winnings. He said, quote, it didn't work out. We had a cash flow problem. Then I lost everything.

Oh my god.

I was about to say, like, he's the kind of guy who believes literally in easy comings.

He's like burnet im.

And then he said, it's more the thrill of the chase.

He's in for the actions, and he's literally in for the action.

He told interviewers that he chose Pressure Luck to beat because of the cash prizes it had. Quote, I just memorized the patterns. I thought maybe there would be a pattern in the way the lights moved. So I videotaped six or eight of them, and I watched them frame to frame. Six months later, I had a pattern down. Okay, he said he was currently studying video poker casino games in the hopes of going to Vegas.

Okay, good luck.

The next year, in nineteen ninety five, he gets charged for that American Indian Lottery skill. He was under investigation by the FBI, IRS SEC and you can guess what he did. He made a run for it.

I was just gonna say, I bet he's a kype of cut and run.

He pressed his luck. So, according to his brother James, quote, winning that game show was the start of his downfall. It made him think he could trick anybody and do just about anything he pleased.

I'm above the law.

Yeah. So he was on the run for four years.

Well good on him.

Yeah, it's a long time.

From what we've found, that's not easy to stay out that long.

And I mean to stay ahead of the and then also head of your own guilty conscience, he said two different things.

Yeah, he nineteen ninety nine. Investigators tracked him to Florida.

He didn't even leave the country.

No, And what did they find a gravestone?

What?

Yeah, he had just passed away from throat cancer at the age of forty nine.

Dear God.

Yeah, they were too late, Darren.

So he was smoking like massively while he was watching those eighteen hours of TV. So I think that kind of goes hand in hand. That room had like striator grace smoke.

I can see the whole thing.

It's hot. Yeah.

Yeah. There was a film adaptation of the whole mess called Press Your Luck that was supposed to be in pre production as of August two thousand.

Howard twenty twenty four, Elizabeth, I know.

Howard Franklin was the screenwriter and director What Happened? Nicholas Cage was signed on as a producer and who was supposed to play Larsen?

Rob Morrow, Bill Murray? What?

Yeah, Billbury?

This is I want to be a dramatic actor.

Fair March sixteenth, two thousand and three, the Game Show Network showed its first ever documentary.

About the event, first ever doctum.

Yeah, the two hour long Big Bucks the Press Your Luck Scandal documentary. It brought together Janey the Preacher, Peter Tomarkin from the original taping, did.

Have Monty Hall just for like a commentary why not.

There was a reboat of Press Your Luck called Whammy, the all new Press Your Luck. I don't think so they had when it was on, though they had a March seventeenth, two thousand and three, memorial episode of the show with Ed Long and Janie Lee Trice. They returned to play against James Larson, Michael Larson's brother. The brother was like, I'll take a taste of this, get my

If the ant he kills everyone with the sword.

It's by Hobby di Castro. So Yeah, unable to let it go Sure. The Game Show Network rolled out a documentary series What And Its first episode was about the Press Your Luck scandal that aired in twenty eighteen.

Game Show Network I Hardly Knew You.

On May ninth, twenty twenty four, Protagonist Pictures announced its adaptation to the scandal called Press Your Luck.

I was goe A guess Yeah.

Maggie Briggs and Sameir Oliverros wrote the script. Oliverro's directed, and Paul Walter Hauser was cast as Larsen.

If he says, so is Aaron.

What's your ridiculous taway?

Man?

If I was to sit around and imagine a game show to cheat from the early eighties or even just for the eighties in particular, it's no way I would have picked no Whammies. That one is so known for you not beating it. I mean, that's like the whole idea, no Whammy, no Wamy, and they get the wamby. Yeah, this guy's like, I can beat the whammy. I really respect the fact that his goal was to beat the wam He beat the I mean to honestly, like I

Yeah.

I just thought that was amazing. And here this guy goes, I'm afraid of no whammy. That's ridiculous to me. Elizabeth, what about you? What's your ridiculous takeaway? You see, I did that all smak.

Thank you for asking on. I love the fact that the Game Show Network has gotten into documentary.

Total in a series of them.

Yeah, that's fair for them.

This is our thirty for thirty, Like we're kind of out of.

Game Show Show Dave. You know what I need to talk back?

Hell yeah, oh my god, I w ge.

Y'all are ridiculous. Horsey sauce is horse Radish, Horsey is Arby's slang nickname for horse radish, and oddly enough, I just got back to work from eating lunch at Arby's and eating Horsey sauce.

Ah. There you go. That's it for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. Email us at Ridiculous Crime at jamail dot com, and then also, most importantly, leave a talkback on the iHeart app.

Do It, Reach Out, Do It.

Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Wammy Tamer, Dave Coustatom, starring Emilie Rutger as Judith. Research by Marissa three thousand dollars and one Spin Brown and Andrea A Trip to Jamaica song Sharpen Tear. The theme song is by Thomas Go Back to spaces Lee and Travis Yes Whammies. Dutton post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup

Brown, Gus Clime, Say It One More Time Gequus Cry.

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts. My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows