Press Your Luck show airing on 12/17

[TLEberle]

I assume that the cash amount on one side was exactly enough and he opted for the prize in the corner?

[WarioBarker]

Per Jason's listing, it was $2500 or $500 + One Spin. The guy took the spin, then hit $750.

(And I just now realize that I said Move One Space was hit on the final spin. Well, it would've been the final spin, at least...)

[TLEberle]

I'm not sure if that's more or less defensible than the idea I had where it was $2,500 or Some Prize, but golly, just take the $2,500 and make a new friend.

[BrandonFG]

As far as anybody seems to know, no. One nearly happened on June 2, 1986 (#699) after Move One Space was hit on the final spin, but the contestant opted to go for the win...and lost by $1,250.

Now that you mentioned it, I can now recall reading about an episode where someone passed on a tie for an outright win and fell short.

Thanks!

Did USA ever get that far in the run? I remember seeing a scenario like that as a child, where the contestant had his pick of whatever dollar value and a prize (a trip maybe?). He chose the prize and lost, whereas the money (IIRC) would've tied. I'm wondering if it's the one you guys are describing, but I have no clue as to when the original episode aired.

Granted, it's been about 25 years since I've seen that episode, so my memory is very hazy.

[Ian Wallis]

USA ran that episode in 1993.  I think the air-date of June 2, 1986 is wrong.  It came in the group of episodes that started with Paige, and the "N" falling off, which were from mid-June 1986.  This occurred about three weeks after that.

[JonSea31]

Off-topic, but I think Jason Hernandez made a mistake that he doesn't realize.  He didn't take into consideration that there was non-stop coverage of the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986 that pre-empted Press Your Luck that day.  The Julie/Sean/Jennifer episode had the question about Reading Railroad from Monopoly that was brought up by Peter at the end of an April 1986 episode, which he said aired on January 31, 1986, but where the letter was sent in from, she must have seen it on the morning on January 31, 1986 on a tape delay, which would make the original airdate January 30, 1986.

I will supply proof that there was non-stop coverage of the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986.

Back on topic, this would be the second thing Peter mentioned within days that a certain event was a first.  Obviously, the first 0-0-0 tie first occurred on November 26, 1984.  Also, Peter mentioned that the Add-a-One hit for $11,000+ on a recent GSN airing was the largest Round 1 total in Press Your Luck history.  Little did he know that he forgot all about Brian having $12,000+ just before Halloween 1985.

[Kevin Prather]

I'm not sure if that's more or less defensible than the idea I had where it was $2,500 or Some Prize, but golly, just take the $2,500 and make a new friend.

Absolutely. I wonder if the contestant didn't realize he could be a co-champ, or just did the math wrong. Especially in a game that's all luck and virtually no skill, there's nothing wrong with playing against an experienced player.

[Vahan_Nisanian]

It was believed by some PYL fans that the Dorothy/Wayne/Joe episode was the first 3-$0-tie, until GSN began running the 1984 episodes in 2001.

Turns out USA never showed Chris Kass' 5-day run. It was part of the episodes where Peter was promoting the 2nd Home Player Game; any episode which began with Peter saying "Get your pens and paper for an address we'll give you later in the show", was always skipped over by USA Network. And this was one of them.

[BrandonFG]

USA ran that episode in 1993.  I think the air-date of June 2, 1986 is wrong.  It came in the group of episodes that started with Paige, and the "N" falling off, which were from mid-June 1986.  This occurred about three weeks after that.

Ah, thank you! For some reason, I thought it was sometime around 1989 or '90...

ETA: Dan's explanation makes things a bit clearer, as I vaguely remember there being a $2500 space. Dunno where I got the idea of a prize as the second option.

[aaron sica]

I will supply proof that there was non-stop coverage of the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986.

Do you have to? This subject was already explored once -> http://www.gameshowforum.org/index.php/topic,26782.msg332314.html#msg332314

[WarioBarker]

USA ran that episode in 1993. I think the air-date of June 2, 1986 is wrong. It came in the group of episodes that started with Paige, and the "N" falling off, which were from mid-June 1986. This occurred about three weeks after that.

The airdate may be wrong (some stuff about '86 remains uncertain, and it's been well-established that USA skipped some episodes), but the Move One Space decision being "$500 + One Spin or $2500?" definitely puts it before the "falling N" episode (Scott/Paige/Jacques) -- primarily since on the latter show, the $2500 in #13 moved to #12 with a $500 put in its place.

Since $2500 remained in #12 for the rest of the run, the "possible tie" scenario has to be before then.

I wonder if the contestant didn't realize he could be a co-champ, or just did the math wrong.

If the latter is the case, it's especially odd since the players can see each other's scores. It wasn't as if the scores were huge complicated numbers at that point, either -- it was the leader's $5,250 to his $2,750.

I think Jason Hernandez made a mistake that he doesn't realize. He didn't take into consideration that there was non-stop coverage of the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986 that pre-empted Press Your Luck that day. The Julie/Sean/Jennifer episode had the question about Reading Railroad from Monopoly that was brought up by Peter at the end of an April 1986 episode, which he said aired on January 31, 1986, but where the letter was sent in from, she must have seen it on the morning on January 31, 1986 on a tape delay, which would make the original airdate January 30, 1986.

The problem with that is from what I've been told, the January 27, 1986 show (#609, Bill/Donna/Don) was pre-empted in markets that didn't air the show at 4:00 PM. Since the 28th had the aforementioned tragedy, #610 (Wayne/Julie/Bill) was also bumped down -- and hence, a market that had pre-empted #609 would've aired it on January 29 and #610 on the 30th, putting #611 (Julie/Sean/Jennifer) on the 31st.

Pre-emptions aside, the airdates listed by Jason for the aforementioned three episodes are the ones CBS originally had them scheduled for.

[Vahan_Nisanian]

Daniel, JonSea31 told me on Facebook that if a preemption for PYL occurred in 1986 in non-4 p.m. stations, a sitcom rerun would be put in its place (his Detroit CBS affiliate dropped the program by June). It's likely that was what they did on January 29. But the weirdest thing he told me was that a rerun of Maude was put at non-4 p.m. stations on March 31.

It's weird, because I can't think of anything that might have interfered with the program on March 28. Not even this site says such a thing (Central Time Zones):

http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/

[WarioBarker]

JonSea31 told me on Facebook that if a preemption for PYL occurred in 1986 in non-4 p.m. stations, a sitcom rerun would be put in its place (his Detroit CBS affiliate dropped the program by June). It's likely that was what they did on January 29.

If so, the only other possibilities I can think of are:
1) CBS fed #609 and #610 on January 30 (the former for pre-4PM stations, the latter in the normal slot), which would allow for the sitcom rerun on the 29th.
2) CBS planned to show the sitcom rerun on the 28th, but after...well, we all know what happened...they realized they had two consecutive pre-emptions of regular programming and opted to just go back to business as usual on the 29th, shelving the sitcom rerun and pushing down the Press feed by two days -- #609 on the 29th (albeit a repeat for the 4PM stations), etc.

(Mind you, this is all speculation on my part, although I'm leaning more towards the former.)

[snowpeck]

JonSea31 told me on Facebook that if a preemption for PYL occurred in 1986 in non-4 p.m. stations, a sitcom rerun would be put in its place (his Detroit CBS affiliate dropped the program by June). It's likely that was what they did on January 29.

If so, the only other possibilities I can think of are:
1) CBS fed #609 and #610 on January 30 (the former for pre-4PM stations, the latter in the normal slot), which would allow for the sitcom rerun on the 29th.
2) CBS planned to show the sitcom rerun on the 28th, but after...well, we all know what happened...they realized they had two consecutive pre-emptions of regular programming and opted to just go back to business as usual on the 29th, shelving the sitcom rerun and pushing down the Press feed by two days -- #609 on the 29th (albeit a repeat for the 4PM stations), etc.

(Mind you, this is all speculation on my part, although I'm leaning more towards the former.)

None of that makes any sense. The sitcom rerun would have been a local decision because the station had a hole to fill. They would normally have rolled tape at 4PM to catch the PYL episode to run the following day, but since there was no episode due to whatever preemption, they weren't able to record an episode to run in the following day's slot. So, they had to fill the programming hole with whatever they had.

[WarioBarker]

Fair enough. Thanks for the correction, Greg.