PYL Zero Spins

[cool245]

Did any player on Press Your Luck miss all the questions in a round and end up with no spins?

[Vahan_Nisanian]

Yes.

[Jay Temple]

Let me piggy-back rather than starting a new thread. Has anyone not had the chance to answer questions in round 2 because they got 4 whammies in the first round?

[Ian Wallis]

No - although it almost happened a couple of times.  At least twice a contestant had 3 whammies in round 1 and was passed spins.  Neither hit the 4th whammy.

Too bad...I wouldn't have minded seeing it happen once!  I guess they would have come back from commercial with only two contstants on stage...

[Kevin Prather]

Talking ex-rectum, I wanna say that I read it happened a couple times, and when it did, the round was scrapped and started over.

[TLEberle]

I have to believe that the other two contestants would cry foul! at their money/prizes being wiped out due to the third player's misfortune.

[jage]

That would make very little sense. If I had 3 whammies in round 1 and I knew they would throw out the round if I get 4, I'd do everything in my limited power to get that 4th one. Plus, I bet they would have done something fun with the poor 3rd contestant who has to watch the rest of the game. But S&P would be all over them if they just went for a do-over.

[JasonA1]

Some of this could be a result of the original Press Your Luck bible portion Mandel Ilagan shared with us some years back. I couldn't find the post to link to, but I did keep the text:

 [size="3"][size="2"]"ALTERNATE QUESTIONS

In order to insure an adequate number of spins to play the bonus round, the producer may elect to use alternate questions in the third and fourth position during either of the question and answer rounds. The decision to use an alternate question will only be made when the spins scored by the players at that time are abnormally low. In order to accomplish this, the alternate question will always be considerably easier than the programmed question in order to generate additional spins."

Another interesting tidbit:

"Should a round play through three questions with no scoring from any of the contestants, a tape stop will be called for, new questions will be programmed, and the round will start over.

Similarly, if a flood of Whammys [exact wording from the bible!] should occur in the first bonus round and all three contestants 'Whammy out,' using the same spin scores the round will be started again and played through."

-Jason[/size]
[/size]

[PYLdude]

That would make very little sense. If I had 3 whammies in round 1 and I knew they would throw out the round if I get 4, I'd do everything in my limited power to get that 4th one. Plus, I bet they would have done something fun with the poor 3rd contestant who has to watch the rest of the game. But S&P would be all over them if they just went for a do-over.

I'm quite certain of two things...

1) that they wouldn't tell you if that was the case

and

2) should they not have the procedures in place, I'm pretty sure that at the beginning of the next question round two people would be at the desk, not three.

[BillCullen1]

I remember watching an old ep of PYL on GSN a few years ago. One lady got three Whammies in Round 1 and managed to buzz in with four correct answers in Round 2, earning her a maximum 12 spins. She had zero, so she went first against the big board. Guess what happened on her first spin.

[TLEberle]

Double Your Bucks?

[Ian Wallis]

"ALTERNATE QUESTIONS

In order to insure an adequate number of spins to play the bonus round, the producer may elect to use alternate questions in the third and fourth position during either of the question and answer rounds. The decision to use an alternate question will only be made when the spins scored by the players at that time are abnormally low. In order to accomplish this, the alternate question will always be considerably easier than the programmed question in order to generate additional spins."

I guess that's what the flashing light on Peter's podium was for.  You could sometimes see it on the wide shot of Peter and the contestants.

I remember seeing one episode when the show was originally broadcast where an end-of-show disclaimer read something like "becuase an inadequate number of spins was earned in the second round, contestants got to keep all prizes, the round was played over and the tape edited".  Couldn't tell you exactly when but I know I saw that at least once.

Another interesting tidbit:

"Should a round play through three questions with no scoring from any of the contestants, a tape stop will be called for, new questions will be programmed, and the round will start over.

That rule might not have been in place in the beginning.  There's an episode from just before Thanksgiving 1983 that I have where there were no spins earned after three questions of the first round.  The fourth question the maximum 5 spins were awarded.  Oddly enough, out of those five spins, four resulted in whammies.

There was also an episode from early 1984 where all three contestants only have 1 spin going into round 2.  Peter took an extra long time explaining some of the squares on the board before letting the contestants spin.

I wonder how many spins were actually earned in that incident I described above if they let those two cases air.

[Sonic Whammy]

It was Episode 93 where such a do-over was known to have taken place. Ian, your memory is close, but when this ep was originally uploaded, the message in the credits did mention the low spin count, and that the contestants & producers agreed to do the question round over. But the message only suggests that the question round was done over and not the money round, so there was no "players got to keep their prizes" to worry about.

[trustno1]

I know that in one of the October 1985 episodes a player got no spins in Round 2, but she was also leading after round 1.