Broadcast History
The format for Press Your Luck is similar to that of the 1977 ABC game show Second Chance, hosted by Jim Peck and also produced by the Carruthers Company. When the show was brought back to CBS, Peter Tomarken, who had just come off of a 13-week gig as the host of Hit Man on NBC, was tapped to be the host. A pilot was filmed in May 1983. Production on the actual series commenced four months later, on September 10, nine days before it was scheduled to premiere.
The show premiered on September 19, 1983 on CBS at 10:30 AM ET (9:30 CT/MT/PT), replacing Child's Play, and placing it between The New $25,000 Pyramid and The Price Is Right.
On January 6, 1986, CBS relocated Press Your Luck in order to make room for a Bob Eubanks-hosted revival of Card Sharks. Press Your Luck replaced Body Language in the network's 4:00 PM afternoon time slot. The last of episode aired on September 26, 1986, but it was not acknowledged as the finale. Following this, CBS returned the 4:00 PM timeslot to its affiliates.
Shortly after cancellation, 130 episodes of the show were sold to Republic Pictures for the purposes of syndicated reruns to a handful of local stations. These episodes originally aired on CBS from February 25, 1985 to August 23 of that same year, and were also the first to be shown on USA Network from 1987 to 1988.
On September 14, 1987, nearly one year after its cancellation, USA Network picked up Press Your Luck for its afternoon block of game show reruns. Press Your Luck remained on the schedule until October 13, 1995.
The series was later purchased by FremantleMedia, who also owns the Goodson-Todman and Reg Grundy libraries. Since then, the company has handled revivals and video game licences, such as with Whammy! and the 2009 video game.
GSN aired the show from September 1, 2001 to March 29, 2009. Over its eight years of repeats on GSN, the network only aired episodes from February 21, 1984 to November 15, 1985, with a few skips due to tape glitches. From 2001 to 2003, the Larson episodes were banned from airing on GSN until clips were incorporated in Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal – including footage not aired during the original CBS broadcast. Later, the episodes themselves aired on GSN.
GSN resumed airing the series on October 15, 2012, starting with the series premiere from September 19, 1983.
On June 8, 2006, Press Your Luck was featured as the fourth round of Gameshow Marathon on CBS.
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