Do Go On - 484 - The 'Press Your Luck' Scandal

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

If there's one thing we love, it's game show scandals! And this week we hear about a very successful contestant on the American game show Press Your Luck. But WAS he just lucky, or was there more to it? This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 09:49 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).For all our important links: https://linktr.ee/dogoonpod Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnMlSVS9hb4https://www.nofreelunch.co.uk/blog/michael-larson-press-your-luck/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Your_Luck_scandalhttps://www.daytondailynews.com/local/lebanons-michael-larson-and-the-110000-press-your-luck-scandal-of-1984/GTVLQYYNN5DGBPFOAKNESTBN5A/https://www.thisamericanlife.org/412/million-dollar-idea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenjai Amarna 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. And welcome to another episode of Doogh One. My name is Dev Warnacky and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. Hello.

Hey, how good is it to be alive? So good to be back. People, this doesn't matter, but it's our first episode we're recording this year. Yeah. Wow. Wow about that. But here's the thing. We did a bit of podcast magic with the last couple of episodes and we're like, wow, 2025.

Oh, did we lie? Yeah, we lied. I'm so sorry about that. I'm doing a lie. Yeah, you guys thought we were here the whole time, but really, we were. We had holidays. We had a great holiday. Yeah.

Join holiday, we all went away together. Yeah. Great fun. As we do every year. Yeah. And I look forward to it every year. It was great to go to Disney World together. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We'd already done two of the Disneylands. Yes. And we thought, let's mix it up. We're Disney adults. People complain about their bosses a lot, but I think ours are great. Our bosses are awesome. I did make a joke of that. I've joined a new gym and one of the trainers is walking around making conversation and, are you back to work yet, Jess?

And I said, no, no, I got another couple of weeks off. I said, yeah, I've got a pretty cool boss. And they went, oh, that's awesome. And then I went, it's me. Oh, you admit to him? I'm the boss. Oh, okay. They're like, cool, man.

And you know, I'm going to go check on somebody else. Then we like sort of pan down to your t-shirt that just says girl boss. Okay, my gym clothes are private. Girl boss. I should get a t-shirt that just says gym clothes. Oh. I like it. I like that. Jim's clothing.

Jim's clothing. No, that's nothing. But, yeah, is it, do you often start new gyms just to be, just to be able to use that bit again? Yeah. Is that why you start a new gym? It's like, I need a fresh audience. Yeah.

And you get the first week's usually free as well, so that's pretty good. Yeah, it was a 14-day free trial. And people can be like, holy shit, look at the, look how much he's leg pressing. Yeah. A whole new group of people to do that. Yeah, yeah. But then, unfortunately, we were doing upper body stuff. And I was, I looked over.

I'd done it a 15 kilo bar. I thought that was pretty good. The bench press looked over. The two guys next to me were bench pressing my body weights. And I was like, okay, so we're all on different journeys. Yeah. I'm counting the bars. Yeah, yeah, that's bench pressing me.

Okay. Yeah, but you always skip up a body day, don't you? Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you just lie on your back and you go, all right, get on. Get on my legs. Get on. Get on my legs, I said.

Oh, my God. You do that thing where you roll them around. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like on some sort of looney tunes cartoon for booting him away. Sert de Soleil. Yeah. Anyway, it is nice to be back. My goodness.

I've missed you. So good to be alive. And here. In the flesh, I've missed you too. No, that was too delayed. No, no, I have. I've really missed you too. Even more delayed.

Dave, do you want to explain how the show works? Yes. If you've joined us for the first time, which every week there is, usually some new people, we take it in terms to report on a topic which is often, but not always suggested to us by one of the listeners. we go away, do a little bit of research on it, bring it back to the group in the form of a report. We usually say about a year 9, year 10 level high school report,

and the other two people listen quietly and maybe say something at the end, like, well done. Dave, you've mixed it up there because you've said you've been honest with the level of quality of year 9, but then you've fully lied about how we don't interrupt. Oh, yeah, so we will be interrupting. You can either be ironic through the whole part or none of it. I'll be fully serious and say we will interrupt with the level of a year 9 or year 10.

Yeah. Interrupting. Dog shit risk. A year nine or ten student when the teacher's out of the class. Because the teacher would control it somewhat. Yeah. We don't have one of those. We don't have a teacher.

We've got a feeling teacher. Yeah. And we made... They're wheeled in the VCR. Yeah. That's our vibe. If that doesn't sound like your kind of thing, well, there's the door.

Yeah. Don't let it hit you on the way out. Unless you're listening in a tent. Hey. And while we hate to see you go, we love to watch you leave. We're into butts here. Big butts. I'll take a little butt

Yeah Oh yeah Any butt I'll take a little butt Any butt Oh you're saying We're big butts We're big butts

And we cannot lie So big So big So lies We always get up to the topic With a question And it's my It's my week

It's my question Okay So here's my question It is a convoluted question All right To you I say Good luck Which idiom

I love an idiom Means To take more risk Than his reason or ask for more than one should. I've got an example where you might say, don't blank, you've already been given extra time. Oh.

Don't piss on my leg and tell me a training. You're asking a bit much. Don't. Take the piss. Mm, no. Don't wear a jacket. It's very warm out today. I don't think man understands.

To you, Dave. I'll come clean. I don't think I understand. That's okay. I definitely understand, but I don't know if I know. So it's... Don't blame. So let's say, let's say.

We understand. I'm sorry, we understand. Okay, you're on a road trip with the family. Yeah. Two, two. You've already asked Dad to stop for Maccas and he's obliged. Yeah. You then asked to stop at the next road house for an ice cream.

Then you drive it along and you go, dad, and dad says, oh, don't. Or I'll turn this car around. Okay. Give us a word. Something about luck. Something about luck. Don't push a luck. Yes.

Another word for push. Maybe like if you were to push a button, you could also press. Press your luck. Press your luck. Oh, okay. And the question was, don't blank your luck. No, I didn't say your luck. I just gave that to you then.

That blank. To help you. The correct answer is press your luck. Press your luck. But what was the first thing you asked with the blank? That's what I'm so confused about. You said don't blank and then you said another sentence. You've already been given extra time.

Don't press your luck is that what was meant to go in there. Correct. Okay, well, I thought the blank represented a single word, Jess. So I didn't understand. So I should have said, don't blank, blank, blank. And here's the thing. Here's the thing. I was just listening back to space cadets where I asked a question that you two had never heard

of the answer. And Matt said, why do you ask questions like this when we don't know the answer? So I tried to write a different kind of answer this week. And it hasn't proven any more successful. Hey, like I'll talk to you in your language. You're on a journey and you're not there yet, but you're taking steps in the right direction. Okay. Okay.

I mean, I'm pretty sure the idiom is push your luck. I agree. But I think it could be a cultural thing. And is, sorry, is press? Is press like part of it? Is this an episode about... It needs to be press. Okay.

Oh, because this is about journalism or something? Putting press gang or something? No, this is about the TV show, Press Your Luck. Oh. Oh, I've not heard of it. I know. So if I said which 80s TV show, you'd say, Oh, Jess, what have you asked us about something we could not possibly know?

Wait, would I reply to you like Russell Crow and Love and Thunder? Why were you doing Greek voice? I wasn't doing Greek voice. I was doing Matt voice. You were doing... Don't get me cancelled. Okay. Also, very happy that I got one right there because there's a listener of this podcast called Bob.

who is keeping tally of who gets the questions right and they did this every year and it's reset because it's a new year. Do you say Bob or Bob? Bob. I am Bob. I am Bob. I'm like she should not be in charge of keeping school. I think Jess saw, but I don't know of Matt seeing this. The email came through at the end of last year,

24 saying, hey, I've tallied the results and this is how many points each of you got. Man, do I need the points? What's the score? I've got the email here. So also just the rules that Bob uses is they only count episodes where all three of us are here. Two points for a correct answer and one point if no one got the answer. Well, I like that.

All those valid episodes, Matt and Bob reported 16 times, Dave reported 17 times. That's why I got ripped off. So in third place, I'm sorry, I work harder than everyone else. In third place at 24. 24. Oh no, no, we need like, there's wins and draws. Do you want to hear the total or just the wins?

Yeah, give us a total. Total, Dave, 24. Matt 38 Okay Dave Joe Bob 41 Whoa yes Bob Congratulations

It was a close run between Bob and Matt with the lead switching multiple times through the year apparently There you go exciting stuff

And we thank Bob For keeping track of something very important Thank you so much Bob That's a great work But good to be off to hopefully at the start of a new year for me

Yeah Flyer You're claiming that You'll get the point For that Do you think Even though I said the answer And you just change

One of the words Yeah Usually when you say the correct order. Yeah, when you get a correct order, I think. Okay. I feel like we're making up rules on the fly. All right, mate, don't press your luck. Oh, no, that is right, isn't it?

Push your luck, press your luck. I think it's, yeah. I mean, if there was a TV show named that, it's probably because it was a thing. I feel like if it was in Australia, we might have called it push your luck. Right. But you have to press a button in the show. So maybe. Yes.

Anyway, I will explain because this is actually the press your luck scandal. Oh. Gosh. This has been suggested by a few people, three to be precise. It's been suggested by David Coning from L.A., Matt Bukowski from Clinton, Connecticut, and Malcolm from Dublin. And, okay, so a bit of an explainer, first off, of what Press Your Luck is. So it was a TV game show in the early 80s on CBS. It was a revival of an earlier game show, which was also created by the same producer, Bill Carruthers.

How could say it's the name Caruthers? Brothers is great. And that show was called Second Chance. Second Chance only ran for a few months in 1977, and Carruthers and Jan McCormack began developing Press Your Luck a few years later in 1983. They obviously, they're like, no, this is good. It's failed once, but we just need to...

We need to... Jujit. Jujit. That's a TV term for anybody listening. To Jouge is kind of to like, um, kind of like strip it back. Yeah. And start again.

Yeah. So it's a mechanical term. Okay. I'm just a little worried that they're pushing their luck. All right, thank you. Pressing their luck. Fuck. Yeah, you got a second chance of it there.

See, that's how you do it. He is very good. It's actually, it's honestly, can I be honest with you? Yeah. It's scary how good. It's scary. How does his mind work really well. And quick.

Yeah. And that's where he gets us. But AJ will edit around it. So it's just Dave winning not so much of me. losing and bombing. Yeah. I assume. I never listen back.

No, why would you? So the format of PressyLuck was that three contestants answered trivia questions, and each correct answer gets you a spin. There's a big game board. It consists of 18 spaces laid out in a rectangular loop that's six spaces wide and five high. So a light flashes randomly around the board, marking one space at a time, and the contestant uses one of their spins by hitting their buzzer to freeze the board and collect whatever is lit at that moment.

Right. So I think it's just kind of, I'm not going into it in heaps of detail, because you know how game shows can get quite, like, finicky and quite complex. But it's just like trivia, and then you collect all these spins, and then you just sit there and spin. It's almost like the pokies. It's like a slot machine, but in a game show type thing, and you're just collecting stuff.

The spaces, they have prizes, it could be holidays, could be, like, big objects, could be cash. But you can also land on the show's mascot, Whammy. Oh. I knew you'd like Whammy. Sounds a bit of a bit of a bit like number wang. Should we get, is Whammy an animal? Uh, no, I don't think so.

Okay. What is whammy? It's literally just a guy called whammy. Hey guys, I'm Whammy, what do you want? I'm Greg Whammy. You just got me whammy. He's kind of like a little red devil type thing. Whammy.

Whammy. So whammy sounds cute, but you don't want to land on whammy. Oh, it's bad. Oh, it's a whammy. It's a wammy. It resets your winnings to zero dollars. Oh, no. So you do not want to land on Whammy.

Are you both looking up Whammy now? I was trying to, but my computer's dead. I can't show you Whammy. This kind of vibe. Oh, it kind of looks like the Just for Laughs logo. Oh, yeah. Mixed with like the Tassie Devil. Yeah.

That kind of vibe. What a powerful combo. So, yeah, you don't want to land on Whammy. Oh, I've got a picture of him here dressed up as a court jester. He's a cheeky one. Yeah, Whammy's fun. So any contestant who lands on the whammy a total of four times known as whamming out. Oh, whammyying out.

Call it whamming, you idiots, is immediately eliminated from the game and forfeits all remaining spins. So a little side note about whammy from this wonderful game show encyclopedia website called Wikipedia.org. Oh, does the W.S stand for whammy? Yes. It says the animations featuring this character were created by anima. Savage Steve Holland. Sorry, Saved. He's a wrestler.

How good is that? A wrestler and animator. Savage Steve Holland. Carruthers personally selected Holland to design the character and immediately liked Holland's first concept, which he sketched out on a napkin. First go on a napkin, he's like, love it. That's whammy. That's why I'd still got all the perforations and stuff.

Yeah. He's got a napkin-y-looking body. Yeah, and in the corner it says Hilton Hotel. And there's a bit of ketchup on him. Holland animated the character Viaguer. computer software, thus making Press You Like one of the first game shows to use computer designed graphics. It's the 80s people.

Author David Baber noted that the Whammy animations were popular with viewers. Some of the animations featured Whammy taunting the contestants and becoming injured or harmed in a manner which Baby compared to Wiley Coyote cartoons. So like if somebody hit a whammy, a little whammy graphic would come up on the screen in front of them and he'd be taunting them or he'd like, you know, it was a little fun little game thing. Do you remember when on the cricket in the 90s of someone went out for a duck, the little duck would walk. Yes.

I love that duck. Oh my God, I completely forgotten that duck. Back to the pavilion. So a duck being zero, like a... You score for nothing in cricket. And obviously the batsman is furious, muttering all the way back to the stands and this little animated thing walked across the bottom of the screen. Yeah, like, what's sort of like a home brand Donald Duck. Yeah.

Flings his hat backwards. It's bad under the arm. Sometimes Whammy featured satires of pop culture figures like boy George and Tina Turner. The people loved Whammy. Whammy should get his own show. Whammy does. That's why. Kind of.

So the show is quite popular. It ran for a few years initially. I'll talk about recent reboots later. But Press Your Luck really gained a lot of public attention in 1984 thanks to one particular contestant. Oh. Enter Michael Larson. So Michael Larson was born in Lebanon, Ohio in 1949. He was the youngest of four sons. He graduated from high school in 1967. By 83, he was twice divorced and living at the home of his girlfriend,

Teresa. She would later say of her boyfriend, he always thought he was smarter than everyone else and that he had a constant yearning for knowledge. His eldest brother James described him as well-meaning, but a little different. Michael's reputation for always running some little scam began at an early age, secretly selling marked up candy bars to other middle school students. He was always like, he was always looking for a get rich quick kind of thing. Yeah,

there's no quicker way than selling candy to kids. Yeah. They fucking love that stuff. They're marking that up, 10, 15 cents a pop. I wish I could still eat sweets like I could as a kid. I know. My God. A friend had come over to watch a movie or for a sleepover or something

and it would be a full packet of chips, a whole block of chocolate. Now I'm like, two little pieces that I'm full. Oh, I could have. Too sweet for me. What's happened? No fun. I'll be ruined all week.

Oh, God, that'll clog me up. What do you mean by that? No kid saying, oh, no, that'll clog me up. Oh, I couldn't possibly. James said that while Michael was smart enough to go to college, he instead spent his time looking for easy ways to get rich. Nice. He didn't understand the value of good, honest, hard,

work. He thought those people were fools. Do you think the candy he's on selling is stealing from babies? Because that's an easy way to make money. Because then it's like 100% that's all profit. And that's the easiest crime of all. Yeah. So Michael, you know, he's got a, um, a penchant or a ponchant. Oh my God. We love, Dave and I saw idols recently and they've got a great line in one of this and he's got a ponchant for smoking. And kicking doches in the mouth. Oh, that's good. And sadly for you.

My last cigarette's gone out. Ponshaw. Such a great word. Ponsham. And I'm not either to do. I've got a pon shong. It's very good. Well, yeah, I looked up, because I was like, am I saying that word wrong?

And I looked it up, and the American and British pronunciations are very different. So it is like penchant in America. I've never heard pension, I don't think. But the Brits and us, I believe, we say ponchon. Which is interesting. And the French, they're like, we did not have a word for that. It's got to be a... That was good French.

Did you see his face? Yeah, that was very French. He looked like a Muppet for a second there. He did a great French face. Anyway, he's got this poncho. It's got to be a French word, right? Must be. He's got a poncho for schemes.

And these schemes continue as an adult. He once registered a business under a family member's name so that he could hire himself, then fire himself and collect unemployment benefits. I hope he acted. it out. You're fine. Oh, fuck you. Flip the desk.

We're family. And then he'd get unemployment benefits. Yeah. He'd keep an eye out for banks who offered, apparently this was a thing. They would offer $500 to new customers for signing up. So he would create an account, wait the minimum amount of time, withdraw the money, close the account and repeat that under a different name. Okay.

I'm like, that first bit doesn't feel like a scam, but maybe fake names. Fake names, I think is where... Edging in a fraud. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love these people because they feel like that they're not working hard. They're like, I'm doing anything I can to not work a normal hard job and they're working extremely hard. Yes, yeah, yes.

So much mental energy is going into things. Oh, don't worry. He takes it to a whole new level. So he had taken a few college courses in his 20s. He never graduated from college. He instead earned an air conditioning repair certification. So he worked a noble profession. Repairing aircones.

And in the summer he drove an ice cream truck. Okay. Selling ice cream? Telling ice cream. Okay. He's just driving around. Go on why are these kids running along the street? Great mileage on this thing.

No, he's selling ice cream. Okay. Well, that makes sense. That's where he began basically selling candidate kids. Yeah. Whoa. And you'd be doing a markup. Probably would be going to the freezer at the supermarket.

Yeah. You know, paying $4 for a time than selling for $4 per scoop. Do you think they just? have tubs of ice cream in an ice cream machine. They're just scooping it into a cone. I think if they're the kind of guy that he is, yes. I don't think he's making proper good stuff. You don't think he has like the soft serve and they dips it in the chocolate or anything?

No, no. Puts a little banana smiley face on there or something. I love the sprinkles on mine. I loved that. You're away, but last year, Saran Jiamana came on and told us about the history of ice cream. I was there. Dave, you weren't here. I was away.

Are we just one person to you? I was like, he's looking at her, but he's definitely human. I do. I do. I think of you. was, you know, the other two. And, you know, one of you's not here. It could be either of you.

Yeah, who cares? Much of a muchness, right? As long as you're here, that's all it matters. That's what I'm... You're carrying this show. That's what I mean the listeners think, but... Definitely not true, but, um, Dave, the... We found out, um, after that that Americans have a different song for their Mr. Whippies.

And they don't even call Mr. Whippies. Oh, yeah. They don't do greensleaves. They don't do green sleeves. They do like, I don't know, take me out of the ballpark or something. Oh, yeah. Not that, but something else. Something else.

Yeah. The entertainer, but not the Billy Joel song. Do da, do, do da, do da, that's the entertainer. That one then, yeah. Oh, yeah, okay, I can see that. Yeah. But ours is Greenslaves, which is... I think we got that from the English.

I think that's what they have. Yeah. That's not a great ice cream song. I'll come out and say it. The whole time I was trying to think of Greenslaves. What kept coming to me was Harry Potter music. And I was like, no, that's not it. Hang on, I've got it.

Nope, that's still Harry Potter. So he's driving an ice cream truck, selling ice cream. Okay, that's a good, hard, honest work, I'll say. Okay. His house was filled with stacks of newspapers everywhere, and boxes and piles, which he'd scour for possible scams. His brother said he used to sit at night and watch the TV

and tape all these shows that you see on late-night TV. Like up late-lake with hot dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like anything that might have some sort of cash prize, or something he was around. Teresa said he had like 12 TVs in the living room. Oh my God. Lined up on the walls.

Imagine if he sold off these TVs. Yeah, now he could get rich fairly quickly. They were old, this is still Teresa, they were old consoles and he would have one sitting on top of it, like one sitting on top of another. And we had an entire wall full of 19 inch, 25 inch TVs. And he would watch them all at once. It got so hot back there, it peeled the paint off the wall.

Oh, my gosh. He's just watching these TVs. So, this American Life told this story as part of a series. I loved this from Ira Glass. Teresa says she had a tough time explaining this TV business to visitors. Usually, she'd just tell people Michael was straight up crazy. It's easier. Oh, come through this way, sorry, Michael's crazy.

Lemonade. Yeah. But Teresa says he was actually methodical with his TV viewing. He'd tune each TV to a different channel. The idea was to watch for anything that would make. him rich. He'd also watch TV ads, infomercials and of course, game shows. Right. Do you reckon he's got the sound on for all of them? Or are that... Oh my God, that would be such a sensory overload. I couldn't handle that room too much.

I actually can't handle it if you're talking to me and then there's like another loud conversation happening right there. My brain shuts down. If that feels like that's, they would have done that in Guantanamo Bay sort of stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sitting here, making you watch it. Eight different game shows at once. But it's not like he could have subtitles on. It's the 80s. Yeah. So...

Teletext. Do they have that then? That feels the super 80s, but I don't know. So, yeah, how are you consuming all of those TV shows at once? What is Teletext? Where am I? You said that about the thing you suggested. That's probably teletext.

What is Teletext? So you can't have a conversation with yourself, you're fine. So during a period of unemployment in the early 80s, Larson said, it was winter and I wasn't exactly selling a lot of ice cream, not with that attitude.

I was watching a lot of television. In particular, he liked testing his knowledge at game shows and he repeatedly watched a relatively new show at the time, press your luck.

Watching the show repeatedly, he began to think there must be a way to predict where on the board prizes were located, how you could avoid whammy. He's like, there's got to do it.

He was always into... His nemesis becomes that frickin' whammy. Go off what the time. curse you whammy. I won't let you bankrupt another family whammy. I don't think he cares about other people. But yeah, he's watching, there's an interview with him much later and he's like, yeah, now I'm thinking

about jeopardy. There's got to be a way. Like, he's always like, there's just a code I've got to crack and I can do it. What you're going to do is get really smart of general knowledge. So he started to tape episodes and re-watch them, slowing down the board sequences to watch them frame by frame to see if there was any pattern or repetition, see if he could crack the case. Okay.

And would you believe there was? Whoa. So a website called no free lunch.com.uk, sums it up nicely. Generating genuine randomness is surprisingly hard. Humans are predictable and so bad at being random. You might think the solution to creating random outputs is to program a computer to do it for us, but a program needs instructions which inevitably reflect the programmer's human predictability.

I do you remember I think I had to like change the way iPods shuffle because it wasn't shuffling in a way that people would. Oh, this is the same thing like if it was genuinely random people would annoyed at it. Oh. Maybe take it back a step or something like that because if it was genuinely random, I'm just remembering something from nearly 20 years ago. And then it would come up and you go, oh, that's not random, but it actually is like your brain more. You hate it. You hate it. Yeah.

So it has to, it's like, it's your top songs and then every now and then it pulls an old one out. Yeah. There's some algorithm. Oh, this is random. I haven't heard this for ages. That's random. Thanks, shuffle. Yeah, but shuffle's like, you fucking idiot.

You dumb shit. So, this creates a catch-22 that very smart scientists and national security experts spend a lot of time and money trying to solve with extremely complex hashing algorithms. This is all still from No Free Lunch. Yes, there is a pseudo-random function in Excel, but that wasn't launched until 1985. So faced with options for creating a random function. function to power their game board back in 1983, Press Your Luck decided to dodge the issue entirely and program into the game board five fixed alternating sequences.

The producers thought that no one would notice, but Michael Larson did. And it literally goes one, two, three, four, five. So, uh, it was five sequences. So they weren't necessarily like, it only did five lights, but I don't know how many, like, all segments might have multiple moves in that year. Yeah, absolutely. Right. So, Phil, if you weren't studying it, it would feel random.

Yeah. But they just didn't count on anyone ever going. I'm going to try and crack this code. The producers were aware of it, but they were like, who's going to, like, there's no way you'd figure that out. But if you're slowing it down and watching it frame by frame over a six-month period, you might figure it out. And that's what Michael Larson did.

And he's doing that while watching 12 other TVs. Yeah. He's also slowing down Wheel of Fortune. Yeah. There's got to be a way to spin this wheel. And finale. Now, is this a good strategy? So over the course of several weeks, he recorded every episode that I had of Press Your Luck,

and he watched it repeatedly, and he was able to figure out the game's secret. Going clockwise round the 18 square rectangle, the fourth and eight square always contained cash and never whammy. Whammy was never in four and eight. That'd be crazy to put with whammy in four and eight. It was always cash. The lights always moved in. one of five patterns and Michael spent months practicing getting the timing right. He would push his pause button at exactly the right moment to land on a tile that had cash on it. Oh my gosh.

So I think it's essentially, think about it this way, like let's say the first sequence starts on the second from the left. So he knows, okay, that's this sequence. It's going to, it's, it goes in this order. And then the next sequence starts. So yeah, it's amazing. He just knows when to tell it to stop. Yeah. To me, this isn't a scam. This is just a, a guy who's figured something out and he's like, they've left this loophole there then. Yeah. That would be like asking a question about geography and then being, and you've studied for it. And they say, well, you know all the capitals. Yeah. Well, that's a scam. You don't mention all of them. And it is like casinos going, you can't count cards. Like, no, that just

means I'm really good at playing this game. I'm doing the game. Yeah. I'll figure it out. Yeah, well, that's why we don't like it. Yeah. House always wins. You're really stuffing that up. Yeah. You are fucking this house. So in May of 1984, he was finally ready to try the real deal. Not only had he studied the game itself, but he had also studied the contestants. Try and get on. He practiced mimicking their expressions and excitement, hoping that he would appear to the casting director as a good fit for the show.

So you have to hand it to him. That bit seems a little bit sociopathic. Hi, I'm Gillian and I'm a librarian from Wisconsin. Okay. We had one of those last week. That's very weird. He is dedicated. You've got to give it to him.

And he's got, he must have to sort of practice being surprised. Yes, I got it again. Like, you can't be like, yep, knew it. Too easy. Oh, wow. Well, no whammy on that one? Crazy. Yeah, that's weird.

That's unexpected. Hey, has anyone else noticed that I've not had any whammies? Pretty good run of luck. Wow, beginners luck, I suppose. Right, everybody? Scoffing. He's just yawning the whole way. He's not even looking at the screen.

He's hitting the buzzer. Whatever. So he spends the last of his money. on a ticket from Ohio to Hollywood and go straight to the auditions for press your luck. Kind of going from God's country to the devil's land, really? Whoa. Sorry.

Whoa. La La land, sure. Where dreams are made, but, you know, there's a few vices there as well. What do you mean? I don't know. There are vices in L.A.? Yeah, I don't know. What do you mean?

I don't know. Matt, I'm scared. Well, I think there, I think there are some. places you can go there and get up to no good. What do you mean? Well, let me put it this way. Van Halen started in California in L.A. If you know what I mean?

I don't. Is this yes ending? Somebody was already... I think you'll... Oh, no, okay. The sunset strip, okay? Uh-huh. Now, this is a place where if you have certain

proclivities towards maybe things that are better done when the sun goes down. Like sleeping? Yeah. Yeah. To name a few. Is proclivities ever a positive thing? I don't know. I've got some positive proclivities.

Well, see, that sounds pervy. Well, I'd say, I don't mind what your proclivities are, but I'm not going to spend another minute on it. I don't get fucked to that. But I ain't spend it any more time on it. I ain't spending any more time on it. Anyway, so he goes from Ohio, God's Country to Hollywood, devil country, apparently, and go straight to auditions for Press Your Luck.

He wants to appear as an ideal candidate with a good backstory for a game show. You know, like, they always want somebody who's like, oh, I need a more, I've just had a baby. Or like, oh, I'm trying to win money because I crashed my car. The other day I was watching a bit of deal or no deal was on, and someone was up, and they were like, what are you going to spend the money on? I'm going to build a really big chicken group, please. Exactly. Exciting stuff.

I think the host, Grandinia asks, how much do you need for that? Oh, about 20,000. How big is this chicken? How big are the chickens? It's one chicken. It's one huge chicken. It's one fucking huge chicken. Yeah, people need a big backstory.

Who's that cartoon rooster? Fogonglego on. Yeah. Is it fogg-on-leg-old? It's a little house for Foghorn Leighorn. Well, I see, boy, I see. Is that him? Yeah.

Foghorn leghorn. They just got away with that. That's crazy. That's good thing. So, yeah, he wants a good story, right? So he told interviews about being unemployed. His long journey from Ohio to Hollywood purely out of love for the show. I got fired by my own flesh and blood.

I think he's trying to dial back the crazy a little bit. So he's like, oh, you know, I'm out of work. I've been scamming kids since I was a kid. He says, like, he wasn't able to afford a birthday gift for his six-year-old daughter and that he'd bought this shirt that he was wearing at a thrift store down the street for 65 cents. You know, like, obviously he needed this cash and they're like, oh, great. This is a good story.

The show's executive producer, Bill Carruthers, he really liked Michael Larson, but the senior contestant coordinator, Bob Edwards, said to Bill, I don't know, there's just something about this guy that bothers me. And Bill recalls saying, he doesn't like the poor. Famously, Bill says, Bobby, we've been doing this together for years. We really disagree. I've got to overrule you here. Let's book the guy.

Oh, really? Yeah. So on the 19th of May, 1984, Michael Larson got his chance. Nice. He was seated at the centre podium, there's three of them. To his right was returning champion Ed Long from California, a Baptist minister. And to his left was dental assistant Janie Littress. Man, how unlucky were those two.

They did not stand a chance. Yeah. Have they been rewinding Whammy for six months? I assume the Baptist minister has got the time to do that, yeah. What's he doing there? A preacher in the devil's country. Do you think he's taking, what if he was trying to earn some money for the church? Oh my God.

He's a returning champ though, so, you know. Jess, can I ask, is it good work that this church is doing? Because some of them, you know, I don't know if they're all doing great work. So I think I need to see what the program was. Before you'll allow him to win some money. Yeah, before I'll be happy or sad. that he's been beaten by a force. Yeah, true.

Let's not think about it. Yeah. Well, I actually think he was going to use that money for bad things. Yeah. Let's assume bad. Yeah. And then we don't have to think about the children who, like, didn't get to eat or something. Yeah.

And we don't have to think about that. In the first round, in the first question round, Larson earned three spins. He stopped his first spin on square 17, which revealed a whammy. No! Why do you do that? First spin, whammy. Oh, did you do that? to make it...

Get him off the scent. Yeah. Uh, no. He hadn't quite figured it out. It's not... This handles a bit different from my remote control at home. Matt is not wrong. It was basically like...

It was almost like a practice. Like, he, it allowed him to sort of calibrate the timing of his button presses. But no, he had not done that on purpose. And this American life was like, you can see that he's like disappointed. And then he sort of has to like shake it off and try it. Which I think is with what we know, you go, yeah, I bet he's disappointed. But if you're watching, he would be disappointed. Yeah, you just got a whammy.

But that's also the perfect time to get a whammy because you haven't won anything yet anyway. You can't lose anything. Can't lose anything. Can't lose anything. I'm still at zero. Oh, no. Oh, no. So his next two spins land on square four, both of them.

Yes. earning $12.50 each. So he's on $12.50? No. He's on $2,500 by the end of the first round. This man is wearing a $0.65 shirt. Imagine how many shirts you could get for that. This is $19.83 money, too.

Oh my gosh. Not bad and not suspicious. Long and Litteris had managed to avoid the whammy and they had four grand each. Yeah. So, so. Oh, they had even more. They had more.

So he's looking like, everyone's fine, but nothing at this stage is making everybody go. Hang on. Did I miss this? How do you earn spins? There's another element to this game. Right. So he's also got to be getting those right.

Exactly. Because that would be very funny if he was, he was very little bit more, but could never get a spin. Because he just buzzes in and goes, I don't know. I've got no life experience. I've been watching this show

and you're not repeating any answers. I don't know the answers to things you've already asked and you're very unlikely to ever ask them again. And I only know them if you ask him really slowly. What is the square root of 1801? Dave? I was not going to be an exact number. I've picked a bad number.

The fact that he knows that at all, like, I'm just like, my brain's just on la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la and I wait for somebody to be like, ooh, cheers, come back. Anyway, so he's got 2,500 bucks by the first of, by the end of the first round. He's doing okay. In the second question round, Larson earned seven initial spins on the big board. And his last place position earned him the first spin. So because he's coming last, he gets to go first.

Okay. In his first 15 spins. So if you get one right, do you get to go again? Oh, so you get, you earn all your spins in the question round and then you go to the board. And you just, I think, I don't even know if you take turns hitting your little spins, but you just, they just fucking sit there spinning. So it's not question spin. No. How boring for people at home.

It must be so boring. I don't understand. And now here are 38 different spins. Unless I'm wrong. Please, I was going to say, free to tell me if I'm wrong. Don't, I don't. Nothing you can do with the information at that point.

This isn't once. Occasionally we'll do a report on something and you go, I'd like to continue learning about this. But often it's like, I'm never going to think about it. No, I'll leave this room and never think about this again. This is not an 80s game show. I'm happy to leave it in the park. Sorry, in his first 15 spins, so this is important.

Larson occasionally missed his safe squares of four and eight, but was successful in avoiding whamies. Okay. earning cash and prizes up to $29,000, equivalent to $86,000 today. Wow. So it's big money. Bill Carruthers said, by spin eight or nine, I turned to my associate director and said, he's got us. Like they, the control room were like, he's consistently landing on the same two.

Right. How is he doing this? Yeah. He needed, yeah, he needed to mix it up a little more. Couldn't just be two and four. He had to, because he knows the whole thing. He should have been gone, and on these certain ones, three is always safe. But he's like, I don't want to win those couch cushions of that instead of night.

Yeah, yeah, that's why I just want the cash. Yeah. And sometimes it would be like $3,000 plus a spin. You'd get to go again. Oh, that's why he had 15 spins when he earned seven. 17. Oh, yeah, it's okay. Is that true?

He didn't. Yeah, no, I'm in seven. No, you're correct. You're correct. He just kept spinning. Kept winning spins. Spin when you're winning. Robbie Williams said that.

I think, did he? In theory of the show could be infinite if you just keep spinning again. They're like, we're going to be back tomorrow with more of this shit, I guess. I don't know. Beginning with spin 16, he then landed on only squares four and eight for 29 consecutive spins. Yeah. So he didn't know, he didn't have a plan down to not seem so conspicuous. Like, how do you spin out unless you hit a whammy?

Like, how else does it stop? you run out of spins, but if you're that good, he just keeps spinning. And if he did get a whammy at any point, he'd lose everything. Yep. So, yeah, he's in a tight spot, isn't he? Yeah. But he just needs to stop getting extra spins. 29 spins in a row.

And they knew like 12 spins earlier he's got us. Yeah. And do you want to know how much he's won at this point? Yes, I would like to know. $102,8551 in cashed prizes. That would be close to $300,000 at that point. Oh, that's over 100 grand in 1983 money. Uh-huh.

Whoa. Yeah. So this is big. I really hope. The control room would be melting down. Literally, I'm going to talk about the control room right now. But this is, this is the kind of, I really hope that he hasn't signed some contract with fine print saying you're not allowed to have been good at the game or something, you know, is there going to be something that screws him out of it? Yes, sometimes I have a thing where maybe it's because of incidents like this where like if it doesn't go to air.

You don't get the money. That's right. Which is brutal. Like on a millionaire or something. Which is why you shouldn't win too good. Yeah. So Darlene Lieblitch Tipton. That's incredible.

What, Jess, one more time. Darlene Leiblich Tipton. Jess, if you haven't researched a topic, you can't come in here and just riff some nonsense. I thought I did okay with Bill Carruthers, but I have gone too far with Darlene Leiblich. Litch Tipton. Much like this guy, you've pushed it too far. You've pressed your luck. I was using the Sims name generator.

Darlene Lee Blitch Tipton. I went perfect. Incredible. She worked on the show. She was sitting in the control room watching Michael Larson play the game. She said, it wasn't unusual for contestants to go on streaks. It was kind of the way the game was designed. After about, oh, I don't know, five to ten spins of the board,

that's when it started to become obvious to people that he was hitting the same prize in the same square just about every time. And that skill, that's not random, it's not luck. He could aim and hit, which we didn't think was possible. And he continued to do it. Nobody else had ever done it that way. Everybody else had played it virtually like a slot machine. You just hit the button and it stops where it stops.

He had it down to a skill, a fine art. That's fucking awesome. I've been in the booth for thousands of episodes of game shows. Never one like that. First, the booth got very quiet. Then there was an, oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Oh, my God. What do we do? People were turning to me saying, can we stop this? But he wasn't breaking any rules of the game. I couldn't stop the game. He was playing it according to the rules set out. We had no rules against what he was doing. He beat us at it. We have to let it play out the way it plays out and see what happens. That's so awesome. How good is that? What they, I mean, what they could potentially do is go, oh, there's a tech issue. Fake a blackout. And they go and then quickly reschedule, you know. But, I love that they're like, well, he's got us. Yeah. We're all, we're all bankrupt now. We're like, okay, so we need to have a meeting and maybe restructure some of our rules and and our finances.

They've got someone in tech just like working by the scenes trying to write a new algorithm quickly. Because it only takes one whammy, you lose it all? Yeah. Surely he can go, I'm going to, I'm stopping here. I don't want to risk anymore, but you can't do that. I'm not really sure. Otherwise, it would always end with whamies, wouldn't it? Surely.

But maybe this is before they could rig it quite so well. Yeah. And does the host like being like, ha ha, why you won again? Well, there's an interview with the host later and he was sort of like, I'm sitting here thinking I'm going to go and after this. I'm going to like have a look at my contract because he's going to be owning the TV network. Like, okay, it's CBS. Maybe it'll be LBS. And they're all sort of joking like he's going to own this entire place.

So, like I was saying before, game show rules can be complex, and I was keeping it quite brief and broad before, but I thought this was interesting and a little bit heartbreaking. After his 44th overall spin, Larson was losing his focus. On spin 45, he missed the extra spin squares because he's trying to land on ones that give him an extra spin. He says, I remember that moment, I was just so drained, suddenly forgot where the whammies were, so I stopped and passed control of the board over to the other. the players. I felt so relieved that it was over. So at some point he could stop. Oh my God,

he's just hogging the ball. And he can give his then remaining spins to the next person. So Ed Long received his remaining spins and hit a whammy on his first try. So that wasn't last and purposefully fucking him over, but he was just like, I'm, I need a break. Like, I'm losing it here. So he's stopped. And then Ed Long, the Baptist minister, immediate whammy. I don't know. It just feels like if God's on someone's side here, it's Michael's. Yeah. Wouldn't you as the Reverend be like, what the hell?

God, why have you forsaken me? No, you'd be saying, okay, God, we're going to talk about this on the car driving on the road home. Yeah. Okay? Okay. I am not yelling at you here publicly, but I am very honest. I know you're busy and you probably can't help every Reverend on a game show at every

moment, but come on. I was going to do some good stuff with this cash. And I got whamied. And I'm taking that personally, God. I'm rethinking if I even believe you're real God. Yeah. And then God smites him. And they're like, oh, great.

Great. Well, this is added insult to injury. Real mature. It's got lost in a dish. She's like, oh, yeah, okay, okay. All right. You're smart ass. So, from this American life again, Michael Streak had gone so long that he busted the show's

half hour format. It was supposed to be a half hour show. They're like, well, this is going to have to be two episodes. So the host did it. an impromptu interview to add time so the episode could be stretched into an hour-long special or across two episodes. Right, because of course it's not live. No, it's recovered.

They're going to air it. It's so good. By the end of the show, Michael Larson had won a total of $110,237, equivalent to $3,000. That's awesome. In cash and prizes, which included a sailboat and an all-inclusive vacation to Hawaii and also the Bahamas. two different vacations, a sailboat and cash. That is a great day of work.

It's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, he's paying, like, you say that's one day, but he earned that over months and months. Exactly. When you break it down, you go, 300 grand over six months. Yeah, is it even? I'd be like, poor. Probably should have just got a regular job and just earn that easily.

Easily. Like in a week or something. Yeah, probably. Maybe even if it's across a year for like a shit job, but you have no. more like work-life balance. Yeah, that's the trade-off. You're not giving sick leave when you're at home watching those videos. That's right.

You're accruing sick leave and annual leave when you work in that terrible job that only pays $3,000 for a year. Yeah. So, you know, it's just, it's how you want to spend your time. $3,000 US, which is basically nothing. Oh, true. Yeah, this is US. Once you convert it to Australian, that's like, what was that, a measly half million? Oh, embarrassing.

And what are you doing your downtime as well? Because, you know, normally you just flick on the telly, but for him, that's work. You bring him work home then. You think I talk at home? No. Okay, bad example You can't shut me up Yeah, you can't take your work home

You know So anyway, this is how Michael chose To live his life and earn his money Not for me personally You can keep your half a million So he shattered records that day And not just for Press Your Luck But for any American game show

He'd won more than anyone ever had in a single episode That is so awesome And also that's got to be some great ratings Yeah, sure Yeah, sure you're tuning in for this hour long special Or surely you split it up. Like leaving a... Will he be able to keep this run going?

Oh, will they get whamming? Ed Long, the Baptist minister, he got... Because he was the returning champ, so he got to keep 11.5,000 from a previous episode, which is still the equivalent of 33 grand. That's good money. It's great for the kids. While Janie Litress's last whammy had left her with nothing.

No. Sad for Janie. Gosh. I, uh, yeah, does it... Would a Baptist Reverend, they, because they're the ones that, like, get married and, you know, and just live normal lives apart from Sundays, right? I don't, I don't understand the world. But is he, is he going, I'm just going to buy a $30,000 boat?

Or is he going, I'm going to give this to kids? Who knows? I don't know. I don't know, Ed's story. What the, are you really phoning it in this week, Jess? This week? Bring it in for years. Everybody knows.

I don't think so. I think your reports have... I wasn't fishing. Have improved. Don't you fucking start. Don't you fucking start. Don't you start. I will cry.

Yeah, Rodney. I will cry. Stop it at once. Because they used to be awful. God, they would start at a very poor level. Did you, yeah, my first few reports were you like, we've made a mistake. Yeah, well, no, why have we done this? Yeah.

And now, you're stuck with me. The Beatles? And you're like, that was your first one, right? And you're like, oh, oh, what's you don't? She kept calling him John Lemon. Like, oh dear. Kept going on about Joan Lemon. Yeah.

Oh, God, no. Can we tell her? I don't know. It's embarrassing. So, aftermath. What happens after this? What? I assume he comes back and does it night after night after night after night. Well, CBS's standards and practices department thought that Larson had cheated and was not entitled to his winnings. So network executives poured over the footage but could find no evidence.

of wrongdoing. Yeah, how could he cheat? That's not like, you can't, this isn't a coughing scandal. Well, you're absolutely right. It's not, yeah, he wasn't cheating. Mm. He just beat them at their own game. Yeah, he got really good at their game and then won it.

He paid attention from Wikipedia again. Former executive for CBS daytime programming Bob Bowden. I thought it was Bob Bobbubbin for a second though. I was like, whoa. Bob Bob Boat. I think he can be Bob Bobbubbin today. Bob Bob Bobbin. explained in 2007 the network's prevailing wisdom was that he hadn't cheated that he was just

smarter than CBS. A week later they mailed last in a check. He was ineligible to return to the show as long had done. So they stopped him from being that return champ and just drying them out because he had exceeded the network's limit of $25,000. Oh, so I was smart enough to have that as a, yeah, that's a qualifying thing or whatever. The episode aired on June 8 and 11, so they did split it across two, broke into two parts. Some at CBS had wanted to quash the episode entirely, just like you're saying, just don't put it out. And afterwards made the ultimatum that it was never to be aired again, even including the

requirement of their broadcasting syndication contracts. How interesting. What it felt like Dave said, it would have been a great rating thing. Fix your system in the meantime. Yeah, but they, yes. And they wanted to prevent anybody from repeating his success. Yeah, so that's on you, though. Yeah.

You fix that up, make it actually random. Yeah, put it in a season finale in six months time or whatever, and then you got time to fix it. And they did do that. So the big board was then programmed with 27 additional light patterns, and CBS set a $75,000 ceiling for contestants winnings. So because of him, they changed a few things. But he later contacted Pressurelux contestant coordinator and issued a challenge. I know you've added patents to the board, but I bet I can beat you again. How about a tournament of champions?

They did not respond to Mr. Watson. I feel like they've missed a trick here. Like, surely they should have seen this as like, obviously he's got us, but let's turn this into a positive. How much, let's get attention to this. This guy beat us at our own game. He's coming back. We've made it even harder.

Let's see if we can beat the new system. There's now over 30 different patterns. And he's still like, I reckon I could learn it. So I think that, yeah, I think they're stealing out to it. And do it like half of the, whatever he wins, half it goes to a charity or whatever, goes to this reverence boat. He'd still be pretty happy with that, I reckon. Yeah.

I don't, yeah, I don't, I don't, I feels like they were, they were obviously a bit bitter on, you'd feel like. They probably felt like they'd been, they, he'd made a fool of them. Yeah. Yeah. So what did Michael do with his winnings? Great question. Thank you.

He's already got more TVs than anyone on. Yeah. So he's, he's good for TV. We can all agree on that. He's got to borrow it and he's got two great holidays. Yeah. His brother James told this American life, well, yeah, I tried to get him to look at some reasonable investments,

maybe buy some real estate, and he just put it into the bank, which is, I thought, a very wise move. Then after a couple of months, he took some of it out. I said, what are you doing? He says, I'm trying to win this contest that they have on the radio station in Dayton, and you have to get a certain serial number.

So Teresa explains, every day they would give a serial number out on the radio. And if you can match that serial number on a $1 bill, then you won $30,000. So Michael figured, I got more $1 than a lot of people in this area. So he withdrew all of his money from the bank. 100 grand, he's withdrawn it. And singles. It took him over two weeks and five different bank branches to bring the whole $100,000 home. Teresa said, we would sit and go through this money looking for these serial numbers. You have a few days to turn it in. So we had several numbers we were looking for.

It took us weeks to go through half that money, literally go through it. Oh, man. Because you have to eat and bathe and do other things. And they keep, they must have kept, they would have found numbers a few days too late. Maybe. Oh, this would have been good. Their best system would have been putting it all in, in order numerically. And then they'd go, when another one comes up, they could find it rather than, you know, have a bit of a system.

Here's the thing. Every now and then. And it is rare. What are you laughing? Every now and then, very, very rarely, maybe twice in the 10 years I've known you. You are very smart. Don't be shy. I mean, we only have to refer back to our underscores year 12.

I'll quickly do a ranking here. Mine was the highest. And then you two, I forget, one or the other. And we're all doing the same job now. I think one of you got 69. Hello. Really? Did you have to guess which one of us got 69?

Well, you both look like the likely types. Yeah. I feel like Dave would have done subjects that, like, scored a little higher, I think. Really? In drama and studio art? Yeah, the exact classes I did. Basic English, basic maths. I did accounting.

Maths methods. Okay. And look at us now. Look at us now. The three of us making the exact same money, right, guys? I make less because of the pay gap. Yeah. Which the boys have explained to me is just how it's done.

Exactly. Well, that's the thing. People say, you know, there is a pay gap. I'm like, well, if we're going to fight to get rid of this pay gap, then until the fight's been won, there's a pay gap. Yeah, yeah. So there's a pay gap. Yep.

What is it, 14%? Yeah. Yeah. So apologies, but I'm sorry. Apologies, but sorry. He did accounting. He knows. So I trust him.

Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, they should have just put it in order. They didn't do that. They just checked them all. There's like literally needle and haystack type stuff. I guess so, yeah. After a few weeks of no luck, Michael put half the money back in the bank,

which still left 50 grand lying around at the home in cash. In one dollar bills. $1.000 notes. And they are like stacked in, because that's quite $1, that's a lot of cash, right? Did he have to get rid of some of his newspaper stacks? No, no, no, can't get rid of those. You might make money off those later.

Yeah, yeah. So the money's kind of piled around and hidden around in weird places. Anyway, one night the couple attended a Christmas party and didn't return home until about 1 a.m. Oh, no. Only to find the back door kicked in and the cash gone. Oh, no. Naturally, Michael immediately accused Theresa of having something to do with it. Oh, my God.

The police questioned Theresa several times. They turned up nothing and they gave up, but Michael didn't. Teresa said he would keep a really close eye on her, convinced she told someone about the money and was in on the theft. Yeah, the fact that they were out all night. Jeez, that's not a good sign for the relationship, is it? Yeah. If he's immediately like, you did it, didn't you? Yeah.

I hope he's right and I hope he's wrong. You know what I mean? Yes. Yeah. You know what I mean. At night while I was asleep, he'd come in and stand and just stare at me and it gave me the creeps. So. If he's wrong, this is not good stuff.

It's okay. It does okay because she goes, fuck this. Packs up her kids and leaves while he's out. Into bags? I'm picturing it like folding up the kids. Putting him in luggage, bags off the kids. No, no, a bit more humane. Those bags for carrying dogs.

Oh, yeah, they've got like a breathing grill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got a little grill in it. One of those backpacks you can put a cat in and the cat's just like a bubble thing and the cats just looking around. They can have a little look. I fucking love those. Some of their kids are pretty big too.

Teresa is quite strong. Yeah. She's got a 14 year old in a backpack. No problem. So he's blamed her. Yeah. I blame the kids. I reckon that one of them just told someone at school.

Hey, do you know, we've got $50,000 $1 bills in our house. Oh, yeah. And then they've told their parents who's told something, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, like, you know, people in the area would know he'd won that money.

So maybe it would be a safe bet to, like, break in and see what he's got. I don't know. Yeah, you'd think you would have, we'd have some valuables. Yeah. Yeah. So got that sailboat somewhere in the house.

It would have been hard to do that in a discreet way, stealing 50,000 notes. Yeah, you would need a, like, Like literally a truck. Yeah, it'd be a lot. Yeah, he was bringing it home in like garbage bags and it was... Oh, so it's already ready to go. He's pre-bagged it.

He's pretty bagged it. I thought that was still like rubbish. So, Teresa leaves. She calls Michael and says, get out of my house. Oh, she leaves and then says get out of my house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's actually quite smart. Yeah.

To this day, the robbery has never been solved. Oh, my gosh. Well, that's, that's left me feeling very unsatisfied. Yeah, sorry. Even though I wanted both things happen, I go. I got what I wished for. Yeah. I wanted it to be Schrodinger's burglary and that's what I got.

But now that I've got it, I didn't want it. A real monkey poor scenario there. Nobody wants Schrodinger. No. This American Life says Michael moved back to his little hometown outside Dayton, Ohio and he found a new girlfriend. In 1999, nine years after Michael's big win, Michael and this girlfriend suddenly fled Ohio. It was in 1990 the win.

No, it was in 84. Right. Oh yeah. It says nine years after Michael's. Michael's big win. Hmm. Why are your words lying to us, Jess? That's a good question.

I don't know. Anyway, so they fled. I blame Ira Glass. I do too. Yeah, they don't really fact check on that show. Teresa and James, so the girlfriend and the older brother, later learned why Michael suddenly fled from federal investigators. The pair were caught up in a huge scam that combined a pyramid scheme, fake investments,

and Indian lotteries. Altogether, 20,000 people were conned out of $3 million. It was also the first major internet fraud that the Securities and Exchange Commission ever investigated. The FBI hunted Michael and this woman for almost four years until 1999. That's maybe where we got mixed up. When Michael died in Florida from throat cancer.

So he had just fled. He was still chasing get-rich-quick schemes. And the new scheme was with the new girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I think, like, I think they were part of it. I think it was a bigger group. There doesn't go into heaps of detail about it, but a lot of money.

So, he's a piece of shit? Um, yeah. Like, I think he's winning on that show fully, cool, legit, but yeah, a lot of the other stuff. I mean, I feel like early on it was kind of established as a bit of a kook. Yeah. I thought at one point you were going to let us know the newspaper was being used to water down the ice cream. Like, you're something. I'm like shredding, shredding it, paper mesher, hang it in.

Every second scoop is paper mashet? Yeah, by the time you get to the second scoop, he's driven away. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What? This doesn't taste that good. Do you ever actually want the second scoop? That's my question.

Oh, right. You know, you get two scoops and you get through the first one, you're like, fuck. Love that enough. What I want is two half scoop so I can get both flavors. Yeah, yep. I see, I go, I don't know if I can choose between. Scoops are huge, too. Yeah.

I've been hot. Because it's been going for nice evening walks and getting ice cream. I don't get the ice cream. And it's too big a scoop. Really? I very rarely get ice cream anymore. It's like when you were talking about before, as a kid, it was like, holy shit. I could eat this three meals a day. And now I'm like, oh, I'm enjoying it while I'm having. And I'm like, I don't know. I kind of wish I didn't have that. Yeah, I think that's when it's nice to then walk home because for half of the walk home, I go, my tummy hurts. Walk it off. Yeah. And by the time I'm home, I'm hungry again.

The good thing about certain flavors, maybe even the best flavors, is if you want two kinds of flavors combined, you can do that like peppermint and chalk chip. You're getting two things at once there. Oh, okay. That's why it's a perfect ice cream flavor. Perfect ice cream flavor. And only fools disagree. Even if, like, another example would be if you want, like, berry and also boys flavored. Yeah.

If you like licking a boys. But I just want a little bit of boys Easy on the Barry, but a lot of boys Heavy on the boys, thanks If we could get it in a swirl Ooh That is my other fake favourite Your other fake favourite

No, my other favourite I know That's why you said it Yeah, because I love you Did you, I thought you were saying That was your fair I thought we were like maybe kindred spirits No, I just thought

I honestly just thought that joke was a bit funny Of saying boys and Mary And that's why I purposely flipped it So that the funny bit of was at the end. It's just like, yeah, it's like a comedy thing. You know, explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. It's boring. Um, all right. So, it's boring and gross. Stop it. Okay. So, wrapping up. Teresa says even today that she has bad feelings about how Michael treated her. After all, he accused her of taking his money. And when

Michael ran away from the feds, he left behind a son he'd had with Teresa. Because of that, it's easy to get her to say bad things about him and the kind of person he was. That makes this one thing she said kind of surprising, which is that it particularly bothers her when sometimes people say he cheated, press your luck out of money. They call what he did a scandal or a scam. She says, I will say the game show is one thing he did do that was honest. He didn't cheat. There was no cheating to memorize something. He'd sit here for six months and study. That was pretty amazing. Yeah, great. Yeah. So we're on the same page. It's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We like her.

We like her. He did one interesting thing. We think it's a bit of fun that he studied the game and won a lot of money. Afterwards, probably not the best. Yeah. Probably one of the worst. Not one of the worst. There's definitely been worse, but you know what I mean.

Not a great person, but. You know what, though? I agree with CBS that he cheated. And so did Usain Bolt. Doing all that training before the Olympics? Yeah. Come on, mate. Come on, mate. If you don't rock up in bad shape to the Olympics, cheating.

Why bother? Okay? You're cheating. Yeah. Straight up. And you know what? Like, Usain Bolt, he started an epidemic amongst the rest of them because they're all training now. Oh, good. They're all out there.

They're training really hard. They're training really hard. They get, like, sponsorships. They get coaches who know what they're talking about. And it's like, you guys have lost touch. with what the Olympics is all about. They all start running as soon as the gun goes off. Yeah.

It's like, well, yeah. Or you've practiced that and you know, you know the hack that that's the best time to start. Yeah. I've seen these high jumpers and they're like trying to jump higher than the last person. And it's like, what the, where's the sportsmanship? They're only cheating themselves in my opinion. Yeah. I think, yeah.

Like, it should be random. You run and jump. Sometimes you go under the pole. Yeah. Sometimes you aim to go through the pole. and if you happen to get over it, you win. Yeah. Randomly, as it should be.

Yes. CBS. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. It's just not on. Was that in Les Moonvez's time? Yep. He's just the name I remember because David, David Letterman would mention him a lot and he was on CBS. It's great name, Moonvez.

Moonvez. If that's a real memory. I should say that. If that's a real memory. Could have been a dream. It could have been a dream. So that's Theresa. are sort of reflecting on on his time at Pressure Luck.

His brother James said that he felt that by winning the game show, that was the start of his downfall. Him winning that large amount of money convinced him in his own mind that he could trick anybody and that he could do just about anything. But he still says he's glad Michael won. He just wished his brother had been a different person, the kind of person who could be happy with what he's got. Bit of a brutal sentence, yeah.

Different person, maybe so. Like, his eyebrows weren't so bushy. He just, he just, he just, he hate with his mouth open, you know. If I could get another brother, could I get one who eats with the mouth square, please? He had two others, like there was, they were four boys, so. You did say that at the start. You said he was the youngest of four boys. I was wondering if, if there were daughters and you just weren't mentioning them.

Oh, who cares? He was the youngest of four sons. There was seven daughters as well, but. But we don't talk about them. You don't, you are really misogynistic, Jess. Yeah. And it's about time I called you out on that. Uh-huh.

So I have. Great. I'm not changing. Do better. No. I just said I'm not changing. Okay. Well, I've done my bit.

As the feminist of this podcast, that's been, yeah, chewing at me for a while that I wanted to say, don't, don't do that. Yeah. It's good to wiggle a finger at a woman, isn't it? Well, in the name of equality. I think so, yes. Okay, so what happened to Press Your Luck? That's what we're all want to know. What happened to Whammy?

Following the show's cancellation by CBS in 1986, it aired frequently in reruns, first on the USA Network and then Game Show Network. Whammy, the all-new Press Your Luck, a revival of the series. Yes. aired from 2002 to 2003, not that long.

And there have been adaptations of Press Your Luck that have aired in other countries. including Australia, I think it was in like the 80s. Do we have Whammy? Did Burjo? Probably. Who hosted Berjo? No.

Was it one of them though? Was it... Tony Barber. Oh, Tony Barber. Glenn Ridge? Or was it Michael Pope? One of Dave's... I guess he...

Do you see him as an equal in the warm-up game? I would never seem as an equal. No. Is he the king of the warm-up? It was Ian... Molly Maldrum. It was Ian Raleigh Meldrum. No, it wasn't.

Ian Huey Hewitson? No. I saw it before. Was it Carl Stephanovic? No. It was, it was Ian Turpey. Oh, In Turpy! I mean, he's one of the goats.

Supermarket Sweep? Yeah, yeah. Ian Turpies' mustache. It's quite a moh. So, was that a show? There was some... He hosts a supermarket sweep. I feel...

Ian Turby's mustache. I mean, he did host his own... I guess his top lip host. He's a mustache. Every day. There's a song or something called Ian Turpies' mustache, I'm sure. That feels like a tism. There's got to be Tism.

No, that wouldn't be tism. Gosh, that's an incredible mustache. That is such a great mustache. If anybody else wants to, internationals want to Google Ian Turpey, it's T-U-R-P-I-E. And their nickname, Terps. Terps. It's so great.

That's how our culture works. Big fan of Terps. I have one more sentence, may I? Sure. So, yeah, there was an adaptation in Australia, the UK, Germany, and then an adaptation of Whammy also aired in the Philippines. It's been adapted into a number of video games for computers and video game consoles. Oh my gosh.

So double check on the Switch Store if you want to play that at home. I want to play Whammy at home. A weekly primetime version, reverting to the name, Press Your Luck, began on ABC in 2019 with Elizabeth Banks as the host. Okay. It's sixth season premiered in May 2024, so maybe, there will be a seventh season very soon. Oh my gosh.

But it's basically come back and been going for a few years again now. So that's why before I was like, I may have misunderstood the structure of the show. If you're watching the Elizabeth Banks version now and you're like, no, that's not how it works. You could let me know, but honestly, I'll ignore it. So let it go. It's not a big deal.

Okay. I appreciate you letting me know that in advance. Nothing is coming up for Ian Turpies mustache in Google. I don't know. But boys, that is the story of the press your luck scandal. Whammy! That's fantastic. That is.

I'm so happy that I know that Whammy exists now. Yeah, it's important. It's important to know that Whammy exists. And yeah, I mean... Should we all get Whammy tattoos? Matching whammy tattoos? Or should we get whammy in different characters? Like, I've got the Joker, Jester Whammy.

Oh, get the interpy wammie. Mustast whammy. Mustast whammy. Do you think? We're talking about doing new t-shirts this year, right? What about whammy with a mustache and it just says, do go on, press your luck. I love it. Okay.

I'm going to get on to Les Moonves now, see if he okay is it. I'm just going to double check if he's a real person. He is a real memory. He is former CEO of CBS. There you go. Thanks. Thanks, Brian. You didn't let me down this time.

Matt's just sitting there talking to his own brain. On your brain. You're on your brain. What are we having for dinner? He started working at CBS in 95, so he wasn't there for the whammy incident, unfortunately. Disappointing. Moon Vez, great name. Amazing name.

Oh dear. If you keep scrolling, he has well and truly been cancelled. Oh, no. A lot of allegations coming out in 2018. Les Mundvez. Well, I'm sorry So we now either have to keep this bit in

or edit the whole thing out Oh my God, I'm so sorry Les, uh, yeah I don't think I was being, I don't, I wasn't giving him any praise or anything Or did I accidentally say that Les, I stand by everything that Les Moon Vaz has done? No, I'm just sure there would have been American people

who are aware of his reputation. John, and teletext, which I asked before, what is it? I still don't really know. You still don't know, but let me try and explain what I think it is. Well, this is the Wikipedia page. It's a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipped television sets. It sends data in a broadcast signal hidden in invisible vertical blanking interval area at the top and bottom of the screen. So I don't know.

It's vaguely what I was talking about. Apparently it was invented in the UK in 1970s. The 1970s by John Adams. The John Adams? The John Adams? Who's the John Adams? Is he one of the founding fathers of America or something? I know that from Hamilton.

Oh. Does that bring us to anything? One of the first presidents, too. Is that true? There you go. One of. Yeah, that actually brings us to everyone's favorite section of the show. Jeez, and it's so good to be able to say those words once again.

Yeah, I've missed it. In the year of 2025, uh, in this section of the show, we spend, you know, sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes. I reckon we've gone an hour before, but normally it's more like 20 to half an hour-ish. and we thank some of our fantastic Patreon supporters if you want to be one of these supporters and help keep the show running go to patreon.com slash do go and pod

and yeah you can sign up on a bunch of levels there's all sorts of things you get depending on where you sign up you get to vote for topics you get which Jess's topic this week was voted on by the patrons you also get an ad free feed you get four bonus episodes a month

including a D&D episode a bonus report our movie club and another one that's often like a quiz or someone a bit fun. We do one a month that's a bit of fun. One's for us. Yeah. Three are for you.

The rest of them are really fun, but one of them's a bit of fun. We play games like, am I a dead woman? Yeah. Could I bring that back? We've done a, what do you call it, an agony aunt sort of one a few times. We're good at that and we are agony. Yes. And other such things.

Am I wrong? You're not wrong. The Who New York podcast started as one. of those. Yeah. And the Science Hour occasionally, which is a show where we, yeah, we tag out and let these weird scientists in and they talk about outcast science. I hate it. Yeah. One of them sounds like you. I don't know if you noticed that. Really? And the one that's... The duck guy. No, no, the duck guy. That guy does not sound like you, but he likes to get amorous with ducks. I think that's the subtext. And maybe even just the text.

So, yeah, there's all sorts of things you can do. You also get access into the nice corner of the internet, the Facebook group. But yeah, we normally start the section with people who've signed up on the Sydney Schoenberg level or above. They get to be involved in the fact, quote or question section, which has a jingle go something like this. Fact quote or question. Oh, you always remembers the ding.

Oh, she always remembers the singer. That would have woken some people up. Didn't have to do the hand gesture this time. Dave was watching my tongue. Yeah, watching the tongue. I was a tongue conducting. Washing the tongue? Didn't have to do the hand this time.

Dave was watching the tongue. I feel weird about what I said twice. Yeah, that was weird. What were you talking about? I don't know. So the way this works is people on that section or above get to give us a fact quote or a question or a brag or a suggestion or really, whatever they like.

And then I read them out for the first time on the show. So hopefully they haven't said anything too bad. But otherwise I'm sure AJ would probably edit it out. Or he wouldn't. Who knows? We don't know what AJ does. We don't know what he does. AJ's the editor.

I think people would have inferred that from context clues. Anyway, the first one this week comes from Sam Cutler, and they also get to give themselves a title. Sam's title is Sam Spam-A-Lot the Fifth. And Sam has a question writing, Oh, hi, my three favorite. Sort of big smiley emoji. Yay!

three exclamation marks. It's a new year. Ah! I'm super anxious. Help me! Uh, emoji with really big eyes. I'm directing another animated short film and I'm scared. We met Sam briefly after the London show.

Sam's from, was it was like Schmeag and Schmug, something like that, a cartoon series. That's not it, but it's something fun like that. I think you've nailed it. I think it's Schmig and Smug. Anyway, Sam writes, I'm about to direct another animated short. film and I'm scared. I'm about to go into the hardest part of making the film for the next 10 months and it's a marathon of doom. A part of me just wants to hide and be a hermit crab. We will have like 60 or more people on the project at once and they're all submitting things

to me to review while I'm in meetings and doing a gazillion other tasks. It's like an avalanche of stuff and everything is important. All this while fighting imposter syndrome. Why am I directing this? Who am I? Do kids even care if the gozzling is cute? Uh, big sort of squinting smiling face, big squinting smiling face, big squinting smiling face. Anywho, stress aside, what's your best motivator? I listen to you guys and you make me laugh so much. There's something super special about the dynamic of your friendship and humor makes me beyond happy that I can bask in it. Like a wonderful, rewardy thing at the end of the end of the the day. You guys can't listen to yourselves. He-he-he-he or hi, hi, hi, what do you do? Coffy,

goose-walking, PS. Seeing you all in the UK was such a treat, such a charismatic trio. Also, finally getting to meet a Jess. Five exclamation marks. You are so stunning. Not your value. A squinting, smiling face. Loved the Pez report. Ooh, a little sizzle about a future report. Yes, queen Big smiley face And Matt remembered me E! Before I even said anything

Love heart, much chuffed love heart PPS I had a dream Matt sang me a happy New Year's message What a weirdo Me not Matt Ha ha ha ha Then I was sad when I woke up

And it didn't exist Bah ha ha ha ha ha Also Dave did the best Bye bye wave in the UK I'll put a clip on the Facebook page. Have you got a video of me going bye-bye? It makes me giggle so much.

He had flair. He was there. La la la la la. Hamungo hugs to you all. Also contemplating whether or not to ditch work for a week to come see the 500 episode. Long fly from South Africa. But girl, so tempted.

Five love hearts. Also 500 episodes. A big open mouth face. What the F. David Blaine? So amazing. What a. message. That could be one of the best, best ever.

I hope I... Watching you read that, hearing you read that, brought me so much joy. I really hope, Sam, that I captured the vibe, okay? Yeah. As best as an old man could, yes. The sad thing that, um, thought I'd, I sang a Happy New Year's message. Yeah, let me see. You didn't.

Well, I'll do one now. Okay, great. Sam Cutler, Happy New Year to you. I hope you have a great. 25 Hope it's the best of your life And you remain alive Oh, it's kind of ominous at the end there

No, I hope that you do remain alive It was a quick rhyme with five I'm sorry, I could do another one I misunderstood I'm loving how you're still alive No, that's ominous too Something about being alive Mive was my next

Mive chive chive Chive Thrive, thrive. Oh, and that your chips include sour cream and thrive. Is that what you meant? Perfect. There was a question here. What do you do to stay motivated?

I don't. Next. Ooh, having a little reward or a treat is often nice. Oh, yeah, I'm very treat-minded. Yes. When I've had having a work on, Dave and I filmed our old show. and we had to re-remember them. And in the time that I was doing that, I would go to a cafe,

order a coffee or a cafe-ve, as Sam wrote. And that felt like, I don't know, I think getting out of the house helped. And, yeah, sitting there, a little coffee, and that maybe helped. But yeah, I guess it's the same little treat. Yep, love a treat. Or I don't know if these work for you. I love a little list. Yeah, I have a thing on my phone where if I've got a report to write for do go on a book cheat,

I have all the them listed down and I write what the topic is when I've picked that or the book is. And when I finish it, I put a little green tick emoji next to it. And I cannot tell you how satisfying it feels. So if I'm like, oh, I'm almost finished. I've probably got another hour of work to go. I think about how satisfying it will be to tick it off and how relieved I feel and it pushes me through that last little bit. And then I get the phone out and I go, big. I write physical lists and I have like pastel colored.

highlighters and then I highlight it as I go different colors so then it looks really pretty. So then I like the look of it. But then if there's a gap, I'm like, well, I've got to get that done. I've got to fill that in by achieving something. Exactly right. Yeah. That's great. If Jess sees a gap, she will fill it no matter what.

I don't know what that means. Thank you so much. And can we ask? Jess has given me the biggest blank. What do you mean by that? A little reference to, is Ryan Gosling going to mean this next project? No, it's probably a guy. The kids are attracted, like the look of the gosling.

I don't know. I thought is the guzzling cute. Yeah. And obviously the answer for Ryan is yes. That's a baby goose, I think. I wouldn't say he's cute. Okay. I think there's like handsome, cute, sexy.

Or like handsome, cute, hot, you know? I think he's handsome. Okay. But you probably didn't see him on the Disney Club. Maybe that's when he was cute. He was very cute, yeah. He's probably singing like, Hey, yeah, Mickey Mouse.

How is it in your house? Yeah, something like that. We didn't get it here. They can tell. They can tell. Hey, Debicki Mass. Yeah, they know we've never seen it. The next one comes from Andy Swibs.

Swibsy. Swibsy. He's giving himself the title of Bill Bryson. Okay. And he's offering a brag writing. Hey, everyone, bit of a brag here. So I grew up with ADHD and never let myself, slash, felt like I could read outside of school because it felt so difficult to me.

Fast forward to now where I've started reading more for fun as I've found tools for my ADHD, but still find I'm very slow. So naturally, I'm an audible person. I love audiobooks. I listen to them at like a 1.5 times speed so I can burn through books, burn through books. Very important. Don't burn books. But burn through them.

I'm very hard to burn. I'm on track to read three in January. That's crazy. Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. For me, crazy. a great summer. It's the summer of Jeff's summer of literature.

New me. Yeah. That's lit. Yeah. I'm lit for lit. So yes. It goes on. That's not the brag that I'm reading fast. The brag is that Hoogzy, his partner, fantastic partner, love you, hoogsie, is an incredible reader. She got a different brand of ADHD than me, I guess. Pause for light chuckles. Oh, swipesie. Anyways, a nice thing we do together at night to self our phones is that she occasionally reads to me. Best of both worlds. She gets to read and I get an in-person audio book.

Yeah. It really is the sweetest thing and I love her for it. Now, this last bit is mostly for Matt. Oh my God, thank God. Finally. My father-in-law gave us a book and we decided it had to be the next bedtime read. It's none other than Bill Bryson in a sunburned country. We're just getting into it and so far we're in.

enjoying it. Now, here is the kicker. It's a Canadian copy. That's more fun than interesting. But where it does get interesting is that it happens to be a signed copy. How fun is that? By who? It doesn't say. I guess it came from a family acquaintance that just had or has a fuck ton of books, so we kind of just have it now. Ha ha. Anyway, this is about the only group of people that I thought would find both parts of this brag, fun endearing, and with people, I wouldn't be embarrassed to share it with. Loll. It's January the second here today in upstate New York.

I wonder if that's upsy. Is that near Bill's Massive? They're in the, or might be going into the Super Bowl soon, or have just played in it, or didn't make it. Depending on what happens in the next week or two. It could be any of those things. But it's cold. scattered snow flurries coming along the lake.

I just wrote that and realized I'm updating people on the weather that they don't give a fuck about on the other side of the world in a completely different season. Loll, I'm not even a dad and I just did about the most dad thing. Fuck. I really love the use of the word flurry there. Yeah, I enjoyed that a lot. Yeah, snow flurries. That sounded really poetic.

I'm happy to hear it. So McFlurries. Does it mean to look like a snow flurry? Obviously that's a referencing a weather thing. That makes sense. Oh, right. Isn't that interesting? Yeah.

I don't know why I never, but yeah, I don't think I've heard of Flurry before. I like it. Anyway, I'll fuck off now. Cheers and happy new year. Looking forward to a ton of amazing reports this year. Love much. Swibsy. Swibsy.

Thank you so much Swabsie. That's very sweet. I like that you read together. It's very nice. Very wholesome. Hoogsie and Swabsie. Hoogsie and Swipes. You're the best.

Jess. Yep. I'm shipping them. Oh my God. Yars. Is that right? right? Uh-huh. Great. Uh, next one comes from Michael DeRisi, aka go chiefs. Okay, so the chiefs are playing the bills as we speak in a couple of days, but it would have already happened.

Anyway, here's a quote, and I'm so sorry, Michael, but I'm going for the bills because the chiefs have had their freaking turn, surely. They'll probably win their always in. Anyway, Michael writes, oh, Jess, you poor thing, working on your holiday. Jess Bob Perkins in episode 482 during the patron shoutout section who was in fact working on her holiday. That was a quote. I think you said it. Did you say third person?

Or Jess, you poor thing working on a holiday. Yeah. Didn't you listen to it? I'm sorry about that. Well, you can do that on your way home. In fact, let's just pause and we'll all listen together right now. All right, here we go. That was great.

What a great effort, Jess. I'll do it on your own. Now you get it. It's a bit of fun. Do we need to be here? Yeah, I'm that listener then makes me think. Don't you dare fuck off. Either of you.

Okay. Thank you so much, Michael. The final one comes from Drew Forsberg, aka Tiller, wouldn't want to be you. Maybe it's silent L. Tia wouldn't want to be you? Anyway,

I'm guessing we'll get context. I like it. I like it either way. This is a quote. So, Drew writes, Adderolf Huckab

Ebb Your dick A man A plan And a canal Panama City Beach Florida

And that's attributed To Bonmot Lacey slash greasy Okay Who's this Factor of question From it

Drew Foresburg Do we need to send It Drew are you okay I think we might need to send a A welfare check Can I hear it again?

I think, I mean, it makes more sense written down. It is like a, what is a BonMot meaning again, Dave? So it's just like a witty remark. Right. Because it is a, what do you call those things, same backwards and frontwards? Parallelogram. Palindrome. Palindrome.

What's a parallelogram then? Well, same. Yeah, so it's a palindrome. What's a parallelogram? Parallelogram's a shape where the two sides are parallel. It's a shape. Yeah. We're both.

It's like a full-sided shape where the... I think this is just like... This is just like... Maricuri. Nah, it's a shape. I've always said it was parallel. It may... I mean, it makes sense.

It makes sense to me. Oh, 69. Endescore people. I wonder who lazy, greasy is. And I make 14% less than you guys. Well, you know what? 69 and a score means that your marks were better than 68% of Victoria that year. God, that's terrifying. Our future leaders. I think that's a good score. Is that how that works? Yeah. Wow, that's sad. But yeah, you got the best number. You must have been

so stoked. Oh, yeah, I was so happy. I actually didn't really give a shit because I got a perfect score on my drama solo and that's all I really cared about. Yeah, I wouldn't, wouldn't you love to go back and tell me that none of that really matters? None of it matters. Could you go back and tell me that? No. I'm sure. You don't listen to me now?

You won't listen to me then. Who are you? Who's this old lady? I'll be like, what do you buy our order? Thank you so much to Drew Michael. Andy and Sam. The next thing we do is give me a bit of a shout out some of our other great supporters. Jess, you normally come up with a game based on the topic at hand?

I was thinking of the show they could be. be on or maybe the mascot of the show. Oh yeah. What do you think? I like both of those. Okay. Is it like existing shows or are we making up a game show? I was thinking we could make up a game show.

Okay, let's do that. We got the game tour. Based on an idiom. What about? Or just a phrase. What about one of us, one of us says the name of it and then the other two have to quickly, you know, give us the elevator pitch for the shows. Yep, great. We'll take turns.

We could go around the circle and as part of the pitch, like one of us comes up with the show and then one of us comes up with the show and then one of us comes up with Masco. Yeah, yeah. The other one, so one pitch, one mascot. All right. Here we go. So, we're going to thank nine people. So we split it up three ways then?

Let's go for go. Yeah. All right, I'll go first. I'd love to thank for all their support from Marrickville in New South Wales here in Australia. Jesse Napa. Jesse Napper. Jesse with an EY too.

Jesse was a carryover champ on Catch the Weasel. Oh, Catch the Weasel. the mascot is Wally the Weasel. You did well there getting on the mascot. Yeah. And yeah, the game is all about, they release a live weasel into the studio. And Wally. Well, Wally, yeah, name Wally.

And the contestants are blindfolded. And they also have, they can't hear. They've, like, all their senses are taken away. Yeah. And they've got to try and find, catch Wally the Wiesel. And this is why Jesse was such a carryover champ and, like, a beloved contestant. is because Jesse spent six months learning echolocation. Yeah.

And I think there should be some other fake animals in there as well. Like the real animals, but just aren't weasels. Like a capybara. There's a guinea pig. There's a little rabbit. And so people go, I've got it, I've got it. And you get open the blindfold. If you say I've got it.

Yeah. And you don't have Wally the Whistle, you're out. Yes. If you grab the wrong animal. So you've got to know your animals by feel. You've got to know your animals. When I said before that they couldn't hear or anything, that one wasn't true because of the echolocation thing, I think.

All right, is that right? So, Dave, do you want to think that next one? Oh, yes, from Rockingham in Western Australia, a big thank you and shout out to Callum Baker. Oh, Callum Baker. Carryover champ on Sucking my dog. Suckin my dog. It's a hot dog getting contest.

Ah, I guess. Suck my dog. If you're going to have a full breakdown, do it on, Mike. I was, my brain was going to say. say dad, and I try to go for the safety of another word, and it was... Dog. It wasn't as bad, but it was still bad. No, because it's hot dogs.

Yeah, hot dogs. What would you have done with Dad? I probably would have edited it out. Yeah. So suck my dog. Yeah. It's a hot dog eating competition. Yep.

Hosted by the mascot is the host. It was Grant Denner. He's dressed as Wally the Wiener. Yeah, Wally the Wiener. Yeah. That suits for grain, actually. Sucking my dog Great show

Congratulations, Callum You've got to bring your own hot dogs in Yeah Bring your own hot dogs in But they do supply condiments Yeah So there's something in it for you Condomments

You really hit the condom condiments You're really You're still thinking About sucking your dad We are so We should have We are too old for this

That's the thing That's the thing I think That's the thing. I think that you remain at the maturity level you are when you start a podcast. People say that about marriage. Like you sort of...

You lock in. The dynamics locked in. Yeah, it's not always a good thing. Sorry. And it's not a good thing right here. When I'm doing this one, I'm 65, it'll be embarrassing. Okay? It's embarrassing at 35.

Next up, I would love to thank from address unknown, so we can only sue deep within the the fortress of the malls. Very deep. Thank you so much to Pickles Dildo. Oh, my God. That is not correct. That is not right. Pickled Dillow.

Sometimes you read what you want to say. The text is too small. So the weirdest part about that is Pickled Dillo is the carryover champion for the game show, Pickled Dildo. And Jesse, remember, what do you do on the show? I can't remember what? Well, there's a number of jars

hidden around a studio and you have to find the Pickled Dildo. Okay, the coveted Pickled Dildo. You have 30 seconds. Is it, how long does it take to pickle a dildo? I feel like, you know, a lot of it is the brine soaking into the cucumber or whatever. Uh-huh. And a dildo, are these, or the dildos made of more organic sort of products?

Cucumber. Oh, okay. Yeah, a bit more El-natural. Right. Yep, yep, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no waste. Lebanese, what are we talking, European? I'm not the producer of the show, Matt. Continental.

I just explaining the show. Okay. And, Matt, remind us the mascot, though. The mascot, of course, is, Wally the Dildo. It's a late night show. We call them Waldo for sure. Yes.

Pickle Dildo. So thank you, Pickledillo. I'm so sorry, Pickledillo for what Jess just did to your name. I'm not. I'd love to thank also from, deep within the fortress of the moles, you're going to assume.

Address unknown. Please and thank you for your support. Victoria Jones. Oh, Victoria Jones. Of course, a carryover champion for the show. Hang in there, buddy! And what are we doing in the show there, Matt? It's a modern take on hangman.

Good one, yes. Only the contestant will be hanged if they don't solve the word in time. Just to be clear, they'll be put out on a clothesline like hanging, washing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, with the news around the neck, yeah. No, but obviously, it's not. Just trying to save it there, but that's right. No, I mean, they don't actually die, but it's still theatre.

Yeah, yeah. Like an old, you know, like, oh, it's old Wild West sort of thing. Yeah. But yeah, the noose is made out of killer pythons, the lollies, the confectionery, who are a major sponsor of the show. What's the mascot again, Popper? It's a killer python. Okay.

Was it? Wollie the python. Okay. It's confusing, but once you watch the show, you're like, oh, I see. The mechanics, it's hard to explain, absolutely. Yeah, it's one of those shows that you're like, this shouldn't work, but it does. Internet, what if there's going into its 78th season? It's crazy, yeah.

Short seasons, one episode. But they tell a story in that time. Quite a few of the seasons have been repeats, but. All right, next up, I would like to thank from London. A big thank you to Andy Garrett. Andy Garrett. I had one before. It's gone.

It's gone well. I've got one that's just come into my mind now. I've said that, but just moments before, it did come into my mind. Carover champ on, corner me boggles. Corner me boggles. I love that show. I used to watch it after school. Yeah.

Well, you could explain it then. Oh, yeah, great. So four people are in separate corners of the room. Yeah. But the room's actually set up like a parallelogram, if you know what that means. And there's between a different corners. And we all do. And you have to just quiz you away out of the corner.

Right. It's really not called a parallelogram. That's crazy. Yeah, you have to quiz you way out of the corner. They ask you to. Palindromes sounds more like a shape as well, I reckon. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Graham. I'm sure I've called it parallelogram and you guys have gone, yeah. I'm sure of it anyway. I don't think we went, yeah. I'm not bitter. Yeah. Yeah, buddy, yeah. Pat me on the head.

I like it. And the mass. got for corner me boggled. Geez, that's really escaping me. Oh, it's Wally the Corner. Well, Gawley the Corner. Anamorphic.

Corner. Oh, you've been cornered by Wally. Anthropomorphic, thank you. Just a couple of syllables shy there of getting it right. Close enough. Thanks, Andy. Good luck on corner me boggled. From Taperoo in South Australia.

That's great. That's very good. I would love to welcome and thank Al Kearney. Oh, you might remember. about Al Kearney from the great long-running TV show. Carot cook-off. Oh, yeah. Great show. So, can I explain this one?

Because this is one of my faves growing up. It was always on at like 4 o'clock, so I'd watch it after school. Very wholesome. So what they do is you, it's a cooking show, obviously, but you are covered in carrots. Yeah. You have hundreds of carrots taped to you, specifically like hands, like a long, your arms and stuff. So it's actually, it makes it quite hard to be like chopping things or like putting things in the oven and stuff. And so it's about who can make the best dish under those

circumstances. You also can't use carrot in the dish. And you, yeah. If any carrot falls in, you're in a hot, steamy room and the, your time runs out once the carrots are cooked. Yeah. Yeah. So it's pretty cool. And the mascot was it wise crack and Wally? Oh, yeah. Wise Crack and Wally, the zucchini. Yeah, ah, comes in, slaps you across the face with a zucchini and then runs out of the room. Yeah. It says a little riddle, a little joke. Which is weird because he's a zucchini.

So it's weird to use yourself as a weapon. But that's, he's wacky wally or whatever you said. Wisecracken. And then you said wise quacken. Yeah. Yeah, he was a duck zucchini. I'm recording this because this should just be sent straight to CBS, a new game show. Obviously.

Should we get on a Les Moonverse? I haven't heard from him in a few years. We'll cap the prize at 75,000. Yeah, I think that's very reasonable. Am I thanking this next person? Yeah. Oh my God, they're also from Address I Unknown. Can I only assume deep within the fortress of the moles.

Please and thank you. What a name. Martin Maddox. I remember Martin Maddox. Carry over champ on Gone with the Wind. Gone with the wind. Remember that show? Yes.

Where there was a gigantic fan. Yep. Huge, like as big as bigger than this room. And you had to eat jars and jars of beans. Mm-hmm. While wearing a parachute Yes And the first to

Breakwind Was eliminated What's the fan for then? Well, they'd just really like the show I think it's a lot tied to the theatre What was the mascot of that one? What was your name?

Was it Phil? No No, it was Wally! Wally, yes Wally, the Canterbean Man If you'd yell out, I'm out And then Canter Bean Man would come and give you a new... And the crowd would go, wally!

Wally! Wally! And everyone was heavily miced up around the batonks. Just for the listeners, I just want you to know as well that this is the only thing we've recorded today. And it's not late. It's not late today back. We're getting back into the group. We're just getting the words out.

Losing in the fucking minds. Two more to go. I love this. Great name coming up here. From South Haven in MS in the US. Is that Missouri? is that Mississippi? What are we talking here?

Someone look that up for me. It's Ernest Murray Jackson. Love that name. Ernest Murray Jackson is so good. I wonder if that's, it is Mississippi. Mississippi. Yeah, I wonder if that's also, is that his name? Or is he, that's just an adjective.

Mississippi. I'm Ernest Murray, Jackson, Mishipp. Mississippi. And, yeah. It was Murray Jackson. from, oh, Mr. Smyripparie Jackson was the carryover champ on. I didn't listen to a thing you said. All I picked up on.

I didn't hear the rest. I was giggling something else. You were giggling something else? I was looking up the next person sitting to make sure I was ready and then I'd sewn back in for Mishishapal. Well, that's funny because Ernest Mawry Jackson was the carryover champ of that great show from the 1970s. Ah, Mississippi.

Mississippi. Oh, yes. My dad loved that show. Oh, he would be loved. Oh, Mrs. Shipper. The set was built like a riverboat. Yeah. Beautiful.

Beautiful. Took you to another place. Yeah. Uh, Mississippi. Specifically. Mississippi. What's another thing about the, about Mississippi? Is it the river go through there?

Oh, you better believe. Probably. You bet your sweet Mississippi. What else happened on the who was the mascot on that game? Uh, Jess. Uh, that was an old woman. Oh, yeah. Named Mrs. Sipper.

Oh, yes. She always had a cup of tea in her hands. Yes. Because that was a lot of the game, wasn't it? Yeah. You were on the boat or the set built to look like a riverboat. And it was who, it was a sculling competition, but in Sips. Yeah.

So it's sort of like walking events at the Olympics. Yes. Who could skull at cup of tea the quickest, but I, only by sipping. Yeah. Beautiful to watch. Very satisfying. Yeah.

But there's a bunch of rules and technicality we probably won't get into, but yeah. Yeah. It was scorching hot. Yeah. Yeah. So you had to sort of sip but also blow. Yes. And they'd slow right down.

Just like that. Yeah. Steamboat Mickey is sort of. Yes, yes, yes. That's a perfect analogy. Yeah. It's like Mickey. Yeah, it's like Steamboat Mickey.

There's one to go here. Okay. Finally, I would love to thank from Arlington, Virginia, which is what I was looking up while you were saying, Bush, Shipper. What would your guess have been for VA? That was pretty sure. But you never know.

You never know. And I would love to thank Rollster. The Rollster. I remember how Rollster was the gym? I remember the, yeah, the Rollster game show that they were covered Champory on. on was sunglasses um

sunglasses sunglasses at night feeling all right and yeah all you can explain it better than me uh sunglasses at night feeling all right it was um it was a general

quiz show I seemed to remember yeah there was a disco element though yeah that's right that's right so if you were you won the round you got to put the sunglasses on and look ultra cool take to the dance floor, do some disco moves. If the audience liked you, you got to keep dancing. And if they didn't, you had to leave the show in shame.

That's right. That's right. And, yeah, if you kept dancing for three minutes, then you get to dance over to the gift shop, and then you had to keep jiving your way as you selected different prizes. As soon as they booed. Yeah, since they stopped cheering. That you were done. So you had to really dance as quick as you could scooping out different prizes.

Quickly, but well. a Rolex watch into the basket. Into the basket. Dance and dancing, dance and dancing. Keep dancing. Then they'd pour like oil and stuff on the floors, make it harder for you to dance. Yes, and then people would fall,

and it got very saucy as people soaked in those oils. Into their clothes. They all were wearing white. Yes. And the mascot was a disco ball. Disco ball. Yeah. Called Wolly the Disco.

Oh, Wally the Disco. Ball was silent. Yeah. Ball's his surname. He's like, please, call me disco. Could we wall in this going? Mr. Ball, that's my dad's name. There we have it. Nine game show ideas, all better than the last.

Yeah, right off the top of it. People are going to be like, oh, you wrote that out in advance, but we did it. We actually didn't. That was all a riff. Except for corner me buggled. You've thought of that a few weeks ago. There's something about it. I'm so glad you were able to turn that into it.

Well, you didn't really. Did you turn into something? No, no, you did. Yeah, parallel. Sorry, I misspoke there. Trivia. You could be so hurtful sometimes. So that brings our final section of the show where we welcome some great long-term and long-time supporters into the Triptitch Club.

We also can't believe this is still going. Jess can quickly explain what the Triptich Club is. The Triptich Club is for people who have supported us for three consecutive years on the Shat-Lever-Rabba. And so we welcome them into this exclusive club and it's got everything you could possibly ever want. We've got a bar, we've got a dance floor, we've got a stage day, books a band. We've got table ice hockey. There's ice hockey, air hockey, um, various arcade games. Don't tell me you've fucked with the air hockey table again.

Well, no, I've got two table ice hockey tables. Did you put ice on my air hockey table again? Well, I thought that was what you wanted. I don't. I need to walk away. I don't know what I can do to please you. I need to walk away. Don't think about pleasing me at all for starters.

Well, it seems like that's impossible. Anyway, so we welcome you into the club once you're in you can't leave, and why would you want to? Why would you want it? It's heaven on earth. It's heaven on earth and we all get along in there. Maybe there'll be a twist and it is actually having a new diet. I've just, I don't know. What could be one of those shows?

Why I was? Which show, all my spoiling? Oh, this. Yeah. Okay. That's just having a bit of fun. That is really fun. You were making a joke and I was like joining in.

I was. And that's my bad. I was not making a joke. That's my bad. Maybe all these people are dead. I was not making a joke. Okay. Okay. So, Dave.

Dave, you book a band? Who have you booked this week? You're never going to believe it. What? We are pretty good at reforming bands that have broken up a long time. We are very good at them. Yeah, even bringing some back from the dead, which probably plays into the idea that this is the afterlife.

Holy shit, yeah. You're never going to believe who I got to reform for us. Obviously, this episode was on Press Your Luck. And tonight we have one of Australia's greatest bands, in my opinion, The Luck Smiths. Whoa. Great get. So they're back.

Huge. Pretty cool. That's awesome. What's the song you're going to ask for? Are they going to be allowed to play their own songs? So I know sometimes you make them. No, they will be allowed to play their own songs. Wow.

But I think the two or three albums that I own. I think that's very reasonable. Jess, you normally have come up with a cocktail based on the topic as well. I have. It's called Press Your Luck. At every eighth one is poison. Oh, yeah. Will you Press Your Life?

Yeah, yeah. And I'm also going to give you a bit of attitude when you're ordering because as we learned, the idiom is sort of when you've asked a bit much, you know? And you also, it's not every eighth one. There's five different patterns. There might be more than five. Oh, okay. Just for them. Yeah, yeah.

And if they die, you say whammy! Yeah, that's right. As I hit the floor. But then, I mean, the reveal is you can't die when you're already dead. So you'll just feel really shit for a while. But you'll live through it. It'll be very painful. The Triptage Club has been around for six or seven years.

I think this is quite a big development. That we've just... Are we dead? Yeah, I don't know. Imagine if we died, right, and this was just how we had to spend eternity? I wouldn't mind it. Are you serious?

I love it. This is one of my highlights in my week. That's so sad. Get outside. Well, I do that after. That's how I leave this place. Ah. Oh.

You do live. leave this place. All right, so we've got six inductees in the Triptitch Club this week. What a brutal way to find out, you just died. And the way it works is Dave's on stage, Theodore of the Mind sort of stuff. He's emceeing the night. He's going to hype you up with some wordplay after I've read out your name. I'm on the door.

I'm lifting the velvet rope, got the clipboard, six names on it. Jess is hyping up Dave because he's got a bit low on self-esteem. some would say with good reason. Dave has the highest self-esteem of anybody I've ever met. Well, this is the theatre part. Oh, yeah. If anyone's got those self-esteem, it's everyone else in this room. Yeah.

And then we attack Dave because we're jealous. Yeah. All right, so are you ready to go, Dave? You ready to hop up some people? Oh, yeah, I guess so. All right. I'm fucking ready. He's incredible.

London town in Great Britain Please welcome Hannah Oblivion Well it's Oblivion out here But it's O'Haven in there From Birkenhead in Whirl Maybe Worcestershire or some

Or Wales in Great Britain It's Eleanor Lacey Sloan No some people They kick an own goal But Eleanor Lacey kicks a Sloan goal Yeah From Richmond Right here in Melbourne

Victoria Please welcome Meg Meg, run on in. Don't make me beg. Come on, Meg! Oh, shit, I begged. Oh, my God. Birkenhead is in Wirral.

That's what WRL stands for. Oh, you were right the first time then? You did say Whirl. No, I did not. Yes, you did. Whoa, that's weird. It made me think of Worrell from Wirrell. Yeah, you said it.

I'm impressed. I thought I said... Let's keep the momentum going from Vancouver. In the United States. In Washington State, I believe, it's Denise Goldsworthy. More like Denise gold medalsworthy. Oh, you're a star.

Also from Londontown in Great Britain. It's Matthew Port. Some people before Matthew Starr, but I prefer Matthew Port. And finally from, oh, address I know, could only assume from deep within the fortress of the moles. Please welcome and thank you to Connor Byrne. I Connor Burn for you. Yes.

But it's a different spelling of Byrne. Oh, very clever. Thank you so much to Connor. Matthew, Denise, Meg, Eleanor and Hannah. Make yourselves at home, please grab one of the seven non-poisonous cocktails. But that brings us into the episode. Does anything we need to do before we beat this baby, Hoh-Bopper? We just need to tell people how much they blame into us.

It means so much. We love us so much. Let's head into another fantastic year together. If you would like to suggest a topic, there is a link in the show notes. It's also on our website. where you can write in what you think will be interesting. Flick us the article you've looked at and, whoa, get credit for it when we do the topic. You can also find us on social media, do go on pod or do go on podcast on TikTok.

And that's it. Dave, boot this baby home. We will be back with another episode next week. But until then, thank you so much for listening and goodbye. Later's. Bye. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing the site. So we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester.

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