Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: En Elizabeth, Are you yeah? I'm doing all right?
Speaker 3: Listen here? Do you know what's ridiculous I do?
Speaker 2: Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Please share?
Speaker 4: I found some word I think you may not know.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I know you're.
Speaker 4: Like what, I know a lot of words that's not
Speaker 4: true at all.
Speaker 2: Like here, I'll give you an example.
Speaker 4: Do you know the word at the end of your
Speaker 4: shoelace is what that's called?
Speaker 2: Right, We've talked about.
Speaker 3: This before, dangle or something.
Speaker 2: You actually told me.
Speaker 4: This, so I know you know it at one point, right.
Speaker 4: Or the way it smells after it rains is one
Speaker 4: of my favorite words is petrocore. Yeah, these are just
Speaker 4: like random words, right, But here's the one that I
Speaker 4: think you may.
Speaker 2: Know or who knows.
Speaker 4: The armhole enclose where the sleeves are.
Speaker 2: What's that call? What's that whole called? It's called the
Speaker 2: arm sky, the arm sky.
Speaker 4: It's like arms eye, but it's s okay, c y
Speaker 4: e armsig armside Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so then it's one of the ones where people
Speaker 4: actually did it backwards. They thought it was like a
Speaker 4: printing air. And that's why people call it armsky because
Speaker 4: these letters got pushed together. It turns out no, we
Speaker 4: had reversed it and said, oh, it's arms eye because
Speaker 4: of it's armsky, and we just prefer that it makes
Speaker 4: more sense to say arms eye. So for a while
Speaker 4: older printers would say arms eye. Then they went back
Speaker 4: to it's actually arms sky. Anyway, the whole of a shirt,
Speaker 4: T shirt or whatever, it's called an arm sig. I
Speaker 4: got one last one for you. Yeah, okay, I actually
Speaker 4: use this one all the time. I thought i'd invented it,
Speaker 4: but apparently I did not. They have a term for
Speaker 4: it when you combine the question mark with an exclamation point.
Speaker 2: Do you know what that's called?
Speaker 3: Isn't that something that.
Speaker 4: It's on the tip of your tongue. I can see
Speaker 4: it right there, just spin it out.
Speaker 2: I can see it.
Speaker 4: It's right there, Elizabeth, there's the tarot bang you said
Speaker 4: bang first? Then yeah, yeah, so there that is. It's
Speaker 4: not ridiculous. We have all these little words, you know.
Speaker 3: I love those little hidden secret words that don't really
Speaker 3: ever come out to play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do.
Speaker 4: Exactly, and then you find it and then you know,
Speaker 4: some of us often sound pedantic wreck Actually that's an
Speaker 4: entro bag.
Speaker 2: But this is just you and me right now? Is
Speaker 2: that fun?
Speaker 3: It's beautiful and it's ridiculous. Do you want to know
Speaker 3: what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I am horror for it.
Speaker 3: No whammies ever. What this is a ridiculous crime A
Speaker 3: podcast about absurd and outrageous caper's heists and cons. It's
Speaker 3: always ninety nine percent murder free. And guess what, one
Speaker 3: hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Damn right.
Speaker 3: We were just talking about game shows the other day.
Speaker 3: You and I we both love Jeopardy.
Speaker 2: Yes, big time favorite.
Speaker 3: That's about the only game show I like. Really, I
Speaker 3: liked rock and Roll Jeopardy on V one.
Speaker 2: Back all day.
Speaker 4: I had a friend who won that really yeah, he indact,
Speaker 4: he bought like a mini.
Speaker 2: Cooper with the I killed.
Speaker 3: If I'd have gone on there, I'd still be winning,
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 2: Would still be on. He'd be that shows Ken.
Speaker 3: Jennings, Yeah, I should have been on the show.
Speaker 2: You should have.
Speaker 4: You really do kill it that.
Speaker 2: I'm so good tell me this long.
Speaker 3: Time about that era. We were talking the other day
Speaker 3: about how his kids we knew people who were stoked
Speaker 3: to stay home sick and watch game shows, and I
Speaker 3: never really got into that.
Speaker 4: My sister was a Price is Right girl. She was
Speaker 4: really into that. So she said home. I had to
Speaker 4: stay home because she was my younger sister. Mom's like,
Speaker 4: you stay home too and take care of her. I'm like,
Speaker 4: all right, single mom rules, okay. So then yeah, she
Speaker 4: love the prizes right well.
Speaker 3: Like so, back in the eighties, there was a game
Speaker 3: show called Press Your Luck.
Speaker 2: She loved that one too.
Speaker 3: It was contestants answered trivia questions in order to earn
Speaker 3: spins on a game board, and like the board would
Speaker 3: sort of randomly shuffle the spaces on itself, and the
Speaker 3: spaces were for stuff like prizes or cash or extra spins,
Speaker 3: or the space could have like a little scruffy cartoon
Speaker 3: qtie gremlin thing called the Whammy. Yeah yeah, And if
Speaker 3: you landed on the Whammy you lost everything. You'd one
Speaker 3: up to that point, and the Whammy would do like
Speaker 3: a little dancer skite. It was kind of like a
Speaker 3: like a little cartoon devil meets Animal from the Muppets
Speaker 3: meets Baby Babu frick.
Speaker 4: Yeah meets the Sandman from the Apollo Yes.
Speaker 3: Exactly, So Press your Luck. It was a CBS show
Speaker 3: and it ran from nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 3: The host was Peter Tamarkin.
Speaker 2: Rod Roddy was the Great Voice Rody.
Speaker 3: And Bill Carruthers was both the director and the voice
Speaker 3: of the Whammy Oh. There were three contestants on each episode,
Speaker 3: competing against each other, and the game had four rounds.
Speaker 3: There were two question rounds and then two big board rounds,
Speaker 3: so it would go like question, big board, Question, bigboard,
Speaker 3: and the big board round. Contestants used all the spins
Speaker 3: that they had gathered up to try and win cash
Speaker 3: and prizes, and the game board it had eighteen spaces
Speaker 3: laid out in like a rectangular loop six by five. Yes,
Speaker 3: I feel like this is like when someone's trying to
Speaker 3: explain a border card game to me at a party
Speaker 3: and I'm totally lost and I have to act like
Speaker 3: I know what I'm doing, and I keep thinking like
Speaker 3: this is why I don't leave the house, Like I
Speaker 3: don't have to learn these things. I'm a slow learner. Anyway.
Speaker 3: A light would flash randomly around the board, marking one
Speaker 3: space at a time, and then the contestant in control
Speaker 3: uses the spin by hitting their buzzard to freeze the
Speaker 3: board and collect whatever's lit at that moment. Okay, so
Speaker 3: remember if you hit the whammy, you lose everything totally. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: contestants would say no whammy's if you landed on the
Speaker 3: whammy a total of four times, that was called whammying out. Yes,
Speaker 3: you got the boot from the game.
Speaker 2: Dude. My old roommates still love the show.
Speaker 4: And he used to say, like in things, just in life, right,
Speaker 4: like we were going up and we were waiting in
Speaker 4: line and there's like two different lines. He's like, no way,
Speaker 4: I mean, mammy, like, we're going to get the shorter line.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's it all the time.
Speaker 3: It's part of the culture. So I've established that. Now
Speaker 3: we understand press your.
Speaker 2: Luck total, We're all for the most part.
Speaker 3: With that established, Let's talk about a guy, Michael Larson.
Speaker 3: He was born in nineteen forty nine in Lebanon, Ohio,
Speaker 3: and he had three older brothers.
Speaker 4: He's just like little classic baby boomer born in the
Speaker 4: Middlewest brother troll Baby. He's got older brothers. This is
Speaker 4: a big boomer energy.
Speaker 3: They said that his first scam was in middle school
Speaker 3: when he would buy candy bars and sell them to
Speaker 3: other students at an inflated price. During pe class.
Speaker 2: Sat capitalis it's not a.
Speaker 3: Scam, that's capitalism. Like I'm like, okay, Well, you know,
Speaker 3: after high school he elevated his scam game beyond snickers
Speaker 3: the scam.
Speaker 4: They weren't really candy bars, Now that was a scam.
Speaker 3: He had this thing going where he would open and
Speaker 3: close bank accounts because at the time, some banks would
Speaker 3: offer money for you customer new toe also, she could
Speaker 3: get as much as like five hundred bucks for opening
Speaker 3: the bank account. Those days are long gone. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: but back then, Larson would open account, get the cash,
Speaker 3: close the account, lather, rinse, repeat.
Speaker 4: Well this is before they deregulated the banks and near
Speaker 4: fighting over customers exactly.
Speaker 3: So one time he registered for another scam. He registered
Speaker 3: a business under a family member's name so he could
Speaker 3: then hire and fire himself and collect unemployment. Amazing.
Speaker 2: I like that one.
Speaker 3: His brother James said, quote, he didn't understand the value
Speaker 3: of good, hard, honest work. He thought those people were fools.
Speaker 4: There like suckers. He's like, he was very out of
Speaker 4: step with everyone else in the Midwest. Yeah, we all thought,
Speaker 4: what's wrong with this guy? He should go to la.
Speaker 3: Between nineteen sixty nine and nineteen eighty two. Sure, he
Speaker 3: got arrested three times for stuff like receiving and concealing
Speaker 3: stolen goods. Okay, petty theft, larceny by trick. Three arrests
Speaker 3: in thirteen years isn't bad by a ridiculous crime?
Speaker 2: Stand pretty good. They're all small.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like my personal standard is zero in thirteen years.
Speaker 3: You have a ball, you know, among these folks. So
Speaker 3: that takes us up to nineteen eighty three. By this time, Larson,
Speaker 3: he's been divorced twice. He has three kids with three
Speaker 3: different women.
Speaker 2: Awesome, no judgment.
Speaker 4: Oh no, I'm not judging. I'm laughing at his commitment
Speaker 4: to bad decisions.
Speaker 2: Like this doesn't work.
Speaker 3: Moving on, His main squeeze was his girlfriend Teresa dinwitty dim.
Speaker 4: Witty with an end, And yeah, I thought it was
Speaker 4: dim witty. I was like, that's just come on, family.
Speaker 3: Here's how she described her man quote, he always thought
Speaker 3: he was smarter than everyone else and had a constant
Speaker 3: yearning for knowledge.
Speaker 2: Is that like a dim witty to say that?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean like he thinks he's smarter than anyone else,
Speaker 3: but for knowledge. It's just like, yeah, what was he.
Speaker 2: Doing for a living and what was he doing for knowledge?
Speaker 3: He was an h back guy and he also drove
Speaker 3: a mister Softy ice cream truck.
Speaker 4: Oh, mister Softie. I talked about them.
Speaker 3: And in his free time he read magazines and news papers.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm.
Speaker 3: The Other thing he did was stare at a wall
Speaker 3: filled with twelve TVs? What looking for get rich quick schemes?
Speaker 2: Wait? Wait? What? Yeah? Wait?
Speaker 4: Is this his own wall? Or he go to like
Speaker 4: a TV salesman?
Speaker 3: And this is what Dinwiddy said. Quote He had an
Speaker 3: entire wall of twenty five inch televisions stacked one on
Speaker 3: top of the other. What He watched them all at
Speaker 3: once and it got so hot the paint peeled off
Speaker 3: the wall.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: You know I always saying I can't ever get enough information.
Speaker 4: I want as much information as you have. I please
Speaker 4: give me more than why always say that? He found
Speaker 4: the line that I won't cross twenty five TVs stacked
Speaker 4: and just sitting there going watching all.
Speaker 3: The twelve TVs twenty five inch television in nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: three was expensive, totally and hot. And how are you
Speaker 3: plugging all?
Speaker 2: These these are flat screens? These are just radiating.
Speaker 4: One of them, he says, sitting in a hot box
Speaker 4: with these screens like Elvis.
Speaker 3: At the end, I feel like maybe it's not the
Speaker 3: best way to come up with get rich Quick schemes.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of power, it's also.
Speaker 3: Incredibly creepy visually all of it.
Speaker 2: So but apparently it worked.
Speaker 3: But here's the yeah, Well, so the get Rich Quicks games,
Speaker 3: they started to zero in on game shows.
Speaker 4: That's because that's what's on in the daytime, right, that's
Speaker 4: all he's got, Like I'm a rob, a soap opera actor.
Speaker 3: Or like Bob Ross. Anyway, So he watched a ton
Speaker 3: of The Prices Right and Wheel of Fortune, and he
Speaker 3: determined that those were unhackable. He wasn't going to be
Speaker 3: able to beat those games. He couldn't outsmart him.
Speaker 4: I thought someone hacked Planko. Anyway, it doesn't matter, I don't.
Speaker 4: He just wasn't under the show.
Speaker 3: He couldn't do it. In November of nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 3: he sees an episode of Press Your Luck.
Speaker 2: For the first time, all right, and he's smitten.
Speaker 3: Fired up the old VCR.
Speaker 2: Yes whammy, Yes whammy.
Speaker 3: He starts taping episodes to study the show. For six months,
Speaker 3: he watched the show for eighteen hours a day. What
Speaker 3: for six months eighteen hours a day.
Speaker 4: I'm getting to the eighteen hours six months he did
Speaker 4: this then now eighteen hours every one of those days,
Speaker 4: the same show.
Speaker 3: And over and over different episodes.
Speaker 4: Sure, but I'm saying the same, Like, he's not watching
Speaker 4: Jeopardy and this show. He's just watching this pressure all
Speaker 4: the time.
Speaker 3: He came away with observations.
Speaker 2: I bet he did.
Speaker 4: I bet he came away with a religion.
Speaker 3: Well, first he figured out that the lights on the
Speaker 3: board moved in five different predetermined patterns. They weren't random
Speaker 3: like the show said they were.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then the other thing he figured out was that
Speaker 3: the whammy never appeared in squares four and eight.
Speaker 2: Whoa never showed up there.
Speaker 3: This was big intel and it was the key to
Speaker 3: cracking the show. No Whammy's for real.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So months.
Speaker 4: Went by, it hits four and eight right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And he keeps watching episodes of Press Your Luck.
Speaker 3: He memorizes the episodes. He like tested his reflectures to prepare.
Speaker 2: Like when you watch Jeopardy.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, he's like pausing the tape to see if
Speaker 3: when he pauses on the right thing. He practiced mirroring
Speaker 3: the mannerisms of the contestants who did well, and they'd
Speaker 3: say certain things and he like committed those to memory.
Speaker 2: Okay, so like fake it till you.
Speaker 3: Make it, I guess in May of nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 3: so just before Olympic fever began sweeping the Oh of.
Speaker 4: Course, yes, before the world and learned if Mary lou
Speaker 4: Retti what I.
Speaker 3: Was gonna say? Like he just like Mary Lourettin hopping
Speaker 3: up onto the balance beam. Larsen made his move. Yeah, sassy.
Speaker 3: So he didn't make a whole lot of money. He
Speaker 3: didn't make a lot of money, so he didn't have
Speaker 3: a lot of cash lying around. So he took what
Speaker 3: he had and he bought a ticket to fly from
Speaker 3: Ohio to California to audition for pressure Luck. So he
Speaker 3: takes everything he's got, heads out.
Speaker 4: There, go to La where the Olympics will be occurring.
Speaker 3: Right, Lewis, I'm sure that the pricing was getting higher.
Speaker 4: Yes, take a lot of excitement. Did Cardi get a
Speaker 4: hotel room?
Speaker 3: Totally? He's like, you know what, I am a compelling
Speaker 3: contestant character.
Speaker 2: Sure, I'm perfect fest I'm good for TV.
Speaker 3: He tells the producers that he's unemployed, and he tells
Speaker 3: him that he rode the bus all the way out
Speaker 3: to Hollywood a shot on his favorite show. He said
Speaker 3: he was broke. He said he was so broke that
Speaker 3: he couldn't even afford a birthday present for his daughter,
Speaker 3: who just is about to turn six.
Speaker 4: He's like, you know, you heard that new song Jack
Speaker 4: and Diane. I'm from their town.
Speaker 3: He's got a chili dog in his hand. He said
Speaker 3: he was so broke that the dress shirt he was wearing,
Speaker 3: he said he bought it at a thrift store down
Speaker 3: the street for sixty five cents. Yeah, that's what he
Speaker 3: tells him, and that the show would be a chance
Speaker 3: for him to finally make something of himself.
Speaker 2: This is my chance.
Speaker 3: I only win while doing what he loved.
Speaker 2: You held the key to my dream exactly.
Speaker 3: This is what I've always wanted. This show that's been
Speaker 3: on for like six months. So the show's director, executive
Speaker 3: producer and voice of the Whammy, Bill Carruthers, he likes,
Speaker 3: he liked larcense, jim.
Speaker 4: I bet good, dudetanding of all got charisma.
Speaker 3: He's got that special something, this spark that's going to
Speaker 3: resonate in the Madness Contestant coordinator Bob Edwards was not feeling.
Speaker 2: He knows people.
Speaker 3: He said, He's like, I would not recommend Larsen. When
Speaker 3: they said why, he said he couldn't put his finger
Speaker 3: on it, but he knew that he was just no good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he could in the eye. There was that extra
Speaker 4: watching it.
Speaker 3: Carruthers overruled this decision. This is what This is what
Speaker 3: Edwards said.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 3: We held daily auditions, one in the morning and one
Speaker 3: in the afternoon, maybe fifty people in each session. Larson
Speaker 3: walked up right off the street and told us he
Speaker 3: was an ice cream man from Ohio. There was something
Speaker 3: about him that I just didn't believe. I didn't trust him.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 3: So he's like, I'm an unemployed ice cream man. Remember
Speaker 3: how Larson spent all that time studying the tapes that
Speaker 3: I forget. In his audition, he repeated the phrases he
Speaker 3: heard most often from contestants, and he even some of
Speaker 3: their facial expressions.
Speaker 2: That's super odd. And do you think they remember it well?
Speaker 3: I think that he's thinking like this was successful in
Speaker 3: the past and they're not going to connect it. This
Speaker 3: is how he put it later. Quote, I took six
Speaker 3: months out of my life and said I was going
Speaker 3: to do this, and everyone said it was silly until
Speaker 3: I did it, and then they said, hey, that's pretty neat.
Speaker 2: That's what I did it for the Neat.
Speaker 3: May nineteenth, nineteen eighty four. Time to record an episode.
Speaker 3: All right, Zaren closure, Oh yes, close, I want you
Speaker 3: to picture it. So Zaren, you are not Zaren Right now.
Speaker 3: You are a dental assistant named Janie Leeitris. You're a
Speaker 3: big fan of the show. Press your luck and you've
Speaker 3: finally got in the call to be on the show.
Speaker 3: It is your big day. You get all dulled up
Speaker 3: in your favorite red striped ruffleneck rayon blouse with a
Speaker 3: thin maroon ribbon in a bow at the neck. You
Speaker 3: got the day off work. You're ready for your fifteen
Speaker 3: minutes of fame. If you sit in the producers is
Speaker 3: a very nice woman applies powder to your face. The
Speaker 3: backstage area of the set bustles around you, peeple chat.
Speaker 3: A squeaky cart rolls by with reels of films stacked
Speaker 3: on top. Up tempo music plays softly in the background
Speaker 3: as a man hypes up the studio audience. A production
Speaker 3: assistant approaches and tells you it's time to take the stage.
Speaker 3: You push back your chairs, smooth out your sensible pant legs,
Speaker 3: and follow the assistant to the main area of the
Speaker 3: sound stage. Your low heels click on the hard floor.
Speaker 3: As you approach the stage, you see a long table
Speaker 3: with three spots, each with a light up number board
Speaker 3: in front of them. There are six spaces on the
Speaker 3: number board, with the first space dedicated to a dollar sign.
Speaker 3: It hits you that you could possibly win tens of
Speaker 3: thousands of dollars today. Dare you dream so big? A
Speaker 3: production assistant leads you to your spot at the far
Speaker 3: end of the lectern. As the studio audience laughs and
Speaker 3: chats in their seats. Two other assistants lead in the
Speaker 3: other contestants. A man in a tan suit sits at
Speaker 3: the other end of the lectern. He's Ed Long, a
Speaker 3: Baptist minister and the winner of the last episode, the
Speaker 3: reigning champion. Then up comes the fella in the center spot,
Speaker 3: Michael Larson. He's in a blue suit and his beard
Speaker 3: is as wild as his eyes. The host, Peter Tremarkin,
Speaker 3: comes out to greet you all. You are starstruck. He's
Speaker 3: just as personable and handsome in real life as he
Speaker 3: is on TV. The audience quiets down and settles in
Speaker 3: for a great match. You are so nervous, your palms
Speaker 3: are sweating. The theme song starts up and you put
Speaker 3: a deep breath. Time to Shine, Janey, Time to Shine.
Speaker 3: Let's take a break. Here's some ads. Get our wits
Speaker 3: about us. When we come back, I'm going to tell
Speaker 3: you all about this particular episode of this particular game show.
Speaker 2: All right, Zaren, did I win?
Speaker 4: I've been waiting this all time.
Speaker 3: Well you're gonna have to wait a little bit longer.
Speaker 3: So we've got returning champion baptist minister ed long dental
Speaker 3: assistant Janie Lee Trice. That was just me and Michael Larson.
Speaker 3: They're all lined up for a chance to literally press
Speaker 3: their luck on a game show.
Speaker 2: No Whammies, girl, No whammies.
Speaker 3: The show's host, Peter Tamarkin, asked Larson what he did
Speaker 3: for a living, and he answered, quote, I drive an
Speaker 3: ice cream truck in the summer, and I hope to
Speaker 3: win enough money to not have to do that. That's
Speaker 3: a good answer. So this was the first question you've
Speaker 3: probably got. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in your pocket or
Speaker 3: purse right now, because his likeness is on the headside.
Speaker 3: Larson buzzed in prematurely and yelled fifty dollars Bill, Well,
Speaker 3: first of all, wrong, yeah it's a dime. Second of all,
Speaker 3: I thought you were broke, buddy, He well with the
Speaker 3: what's with the high roller? Twenties on the top and
Speaker 3: the fifties on bottom the top not as oh yes,
Speaker 3: we got them?
Speaker 2: Oh damn right?
Speaker 3: What was that about? Did you know, Zaron, that has
Speaker 3: spent a long time since I first got down, but
Speaker 3: I still keep making these funky sounds.
Speaker 2: I did know that get your money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So this this bum answer kind of knocked the
Speaker 3: wind out a Larsen. He sat back for the rest
Speaker 3: of the question round, but eventually he earned three spins.
Speaker 3: On his first spin, he stopped on square seventeen. What
Speaker 3: was the prize A whammy? Sons? Yeah, this gave him
Speaker 3: a chance so to kind of figure out his buzzer timing.
Speaker 3: Remember how he determined that the whammy never showed up
Speaker 3: on squares four eight? Yeah, Well, his next two spins
Speaker 3: landed on square four both times, and that made him
Speaker 3: twenty five dollars.
Speaker 2: Yes, positive yeah.
Speaker 3: So on the second half of the show, they've answered
Speaker 3: more questions. Big board comes back up. Squares four and
Speaker 3: eight are still safe, but in this it they also
Speaker 3: come with extra spins in addition to the cash prizes noted.
Speaker 3: So while some of the squares had like fifteen hundred,
Speaker 3: others had fifteen hundred plus one spin, and so four
Speaker 3: and eight always had the plus a spin.
Speaker 2: Okay, keep it going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like I said, they also never have whammies. Yes,
Speaker 3: so these are.
Speaker 2: And to keep it going.
Speaker 3: Yes. So he knows all this from his intense studies,
Speaker 3: and he just cut loose in the second half of
Speaker 3: the show. He knows he's unstoppable, and he could not
Speaker 3: only collect cash, but he could like keep the extra spins.
Speaker 3: So he earned seven initial spins in the question round,
Speaker 3: and since his previous showing during the big board round
Speaker 3: was pretty weak, he got to go first. In his
Speaker 3: first fifteen spins, he'd sometimes hit squares four or eight,
Speaker 3: but he managed to avoid the whammies altogether. His luck.
Speaker 3: It was pressed.
Speaker 2: It was very much pressed.
Speaker 3: Then came spin sixteen, so from then on he landed
Speaker 3: only on.
Speaker 2: Four or eight, just to keep it safe.
Speaker 3: For twenty nine consecutive spins. Yeah, he racked up one
Speaker 3: hundred and two thousand, eight hundred and fifty one dollars.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's prizes.
Speaker 4: What was I standing there thinking? When I was on
Speaker 4: the set.
Speaker 3: Next to him, he would just who knows.
Speaker 2: Picking my job off the floor.
Speaker 3: You can find the montage of spins on YouTube like
Speaker 3: search Press your Luck Michael Larson, and there's one by
Speaker 3: the account killer Watt VIDs. That's pretty good. It's thrilling.
Speaker 3: I imagine watching it and not knowing how going to be.
Speaker 3: It must have been wild. So at the tapings.
Speaker 4: Money Carlos stuff, a big gambler comes in, Yes.
Speaker 3: So to Marke, and he's kind of freaking out, Like
Speaker 3: first he's all blown away by this guy's supposed luckily
Speaker 3: we've never seen this happen roll. Then he's like trying
Speaker 3: to process. He's like, this is unreal.
Speaker 2: That's thirteen in a row. I don't know how that's possible.
Speaker 3: And then he's getting frustrated. Yeah, it's like six, and
Speaker 3: it says, you've got to be kidding me.
Speaker 2: At one point, I mean, your hands.
Speaker 3: When he hit thirty thousand, he was already doing something
Speaker 3: unimaginable total show. Tamarkin said, then, quote, Michael, you are
Speaker 3: really pressing your luck. After this show, you're going to
Speaker 3: get a special call from the president of CBS.
Speaker 2: Oh, like he's already you must be cheating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just you know, he's thinking, like this isn't good.
Speaker 3: This is not good.
Speaker 4: One of us is getting a call from the president.
Speaker 3: Just spinning and spinning. After each successful spin, he has
Speaker 3: a choice to stop or keep going, and like the
Speaker 3: tension and drama is he just charges ahead. Is great television.
Speaker 2: Everyone thinks he's about to lose it all everything.
Speaker 3: And he wins it and so then it was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, stop, you're going to lose it all,
Speaker 3: you idiot. And then he'll say let's do it again.
Speaker 3: It goes crazy.
Speaker 4: So I would love to see the footage of the
Speaker 4: people's faces. Yeah, I'd spin seventy then at twenty three
Speaker 4: and then.
Speaker 3: You can hear it, like you've got to watch the montage.
Speaker 3: It's amazing. He gets to spins forty four and he's
Speaker 3: getting tired, and on spin forty five he didn't hit
Speaker 3: four or.
Speaker 4: Eight pass the other competitors. Could you do the spin?
Speaker 3: So forty five he misses. According to him, he misses finally,
Speaker 3: according to him quote, I remember that moment. I was
Speaker 3: just so drained. I suddenly forgot where their whammies were.
Speaker 3: So I stopped and passed control of the board to
Speaker 3: the other players. I felt so relieved that it was over.
Speaker 3: So he doesn't hit a whammy, he doesn't get four
Speaker 3: or eight, and then he's like, okay, I've got a star.
Speaker 4: He really could have hit the wammy by mistake.
Speaker 3: Then completely and he realized his only real wrisk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's like, oh, I don't want that.
Speaker 3: He hands it off to Ed Long's Baptist minister. He
Speaker 3: gets the leftover spins, and because remember Larson has been
Speaker 3: banking spins.
Speaker 2: Each time.
Speaker 3: Ed got a whammy on the first he cursed got.
Speaker 2: It's like one of those.
Speaker 3: Those people who say that like a slot machines hot
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden, now it's bad.
Speaker 2: Don't go near it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So what what were the odds that that Larson
Speaker 3: was beating? So, according to the Hollywood Reporter quote, the
Speaker 3: odds of hitting a whammy were one and six, the
Speaker 3: same odds as rolling a seven at a craps table.
Speaker 3: Larson had made forty five spins without hitting one. It
Speaker 3: was a statistical impossibility.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like in the trillions are yeah, higher than that.
Speaker 3: So at this point, the show's control booth operators like
Speaker 3: they know something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just don't know what.
Speaker 3: They figured that Larson had cracked the board in some way,
Speaker 3: so they called Michael Brockman.
Speaker 4: And you said that there was only five patterns or
Speaker 4: whatever they're running, and they did. They didn't quickly put
Speaker 4: that together.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think they did. They're like, something's gone on.
Speaker 3: They called Michael Brockman, CBS head of daytime programming. All right,
Speaker 3: he told TV.
Speaker 2: Guide later, what's happening? They call?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, he tells tv Guide later. Quote, something was
Speaker 3: very wrong. Here was this guy from nowhere and he
Speaker 3: was hitting the bonus box every time. It was bedlam,
Speaker 3: I can tell you. So there's talk behind the scenes
Speaker 3: of pulling the plug.
Speaker 4: He's like doing like, oh, yeah, the cancel. There's a
Speaker 4: fire along.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like stop the taping somehow. But like Larsen
Speaker 3: hadn't technically broken any rules as laid out by the show.
Speaker 3: So the CBS compliance person Darlene Tipton said, quote, it
Speaker 3: wasn't unusual for contestants to go on streaks. It was
Speaker 3: kind of the way the game was designed. But after
Speaker 3: about ten spins of the board, it started to become
Speaker 3: obvious that he was hitting the same prize on the
Speaker 3: same square every time.
Speaker 2: He's always hitting four and eight, and that's skill.
Speaker 3: It's not random.
Speaker 4: He's doing that with his stopping of the timer, right,
Speaker 4: So it's literally a physical talent.
Speaker 2: Yes exactly, not saying like stop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well and she goes on. It's not random and
Speaker 3: it's not luck. He could aim and hit, which we
Speaker 3: didn't think was possible. First the booth got very quiet.
Speaker 3: Then there wasn't Oh my god, oh my god, oh
Speaker 3: my god, what do we do? People were turning to
Speaker 3: me saying, can we stop this? We knew how to
Speaker 3: deal with every other situation, but all we could do
Speaker 3: with this was hang on for the ride.
Speaker 2: Damn.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So this is kind of like.
Speaker 4: That, like a sniper and the rigging with like an
Speaker 4: elephant's franke gun, Like, all right, we're gonna have to
Speaker 4: go at option unicorn.
Speaker 3: Did you see during the Olympics all the speed walking, yes,
Speaker 3: controversy that like, uh, it's like mall walking. I guess
Speaker 3: it's very sassy and they're not supposed to run her job.
Speaker 3: You can't leave the ground, yeah, like they you have
Speaker 3: you can't have both feet off the ground at the
Speaker 3: same time to the naked eye. And so like when
Speaker 3: they were slowing down the footage, these people were very
Speaker 3: obviously jogging, but just in a super sassy way. But
Speaker 3: like because that was in a slowed down version, it didn't.
Speaker 2: Count because it's not the naked eye, right, so.
Speaker 3: You know, so it goes Yeah, have.
Speaker 4: You seen those kids that what they do it? But
Speaker 4: they looks like they're floating, like stepping on the air
Speaker 4: the whole time. I'd like to see a competition of
Speaker 4: them where it looks like you can't ever touch.
Speaker 3: The more interesting to me, Yeah, that's two di visual
Speaker 3: eyes naked eye. So the real question with Press Your
Speaker 3: Luck sure is how lazy did they have to be
Speaker 3: to build a.
Speaker 2: Board totally the five patterns? Even I whould come up
Speaker 2: with something more about.
Speaker 3: Head of Daytime Programming Michael Brockman he addressed this issue, quote,
Speaker 3: pilots are test vehicles. You can cut corners on this show.
Speaker 3: What was expensive to create was the light pattern on
Speaker 3: the board. No one wanted to spend that much money
Speaker 3: on the pilot, and then the pattern wasn't improved enough
Speaker 3: when the show went into production. So what that tells
Speaker 3: me is they didn't think this show was going to.
Speaker 4: Go into production, oh exactly, or I didn't think their viewers
Speaker 4: were that smart, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2: Both?
Speaker 3: So back to the episode It's your turn janeye Lee
Speaker 3: tris to her turning against exactly what did she do?
Speaker 2: Prester luck?
Speaker 3: She no this agent of chaos as from one agent
Speaker 3: of chaos to another recognized, she gave her last three
Speaker 3: spins to Larsen. Way to go, let's do this. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is insane, break me off some exactly. So Larson,
Speaker 3: because of the rules, had to use those spins. So
Speaker 3: at this point, his score is so high that they
Speaker 3: had to ditch the dollar signed space on his light
Speaker 3: up number board and just go with all totals. Remember
Speaker 3: he's over one hundred thousand dollars. He hit squares four
Speaker 3: and then eight on the first two spins, like dastard.
Speaker 3: He missed on the third one and hit square seventeen.
Speaker 3: Oh but no whammy.
Speaker 4: Took Okay, another time he took an honest chance.
Speaker 3: He didn't get a whammy. Instead, he won a trip
Speaker 3: to the Bahamas, and with that the game was over.
Speaker 3: Like so all told, Michael Larson won a sail boat wow,
Speaker 3: an all inclusive vacation to Kawaii, which like yes, please
Speaker 3: that trip to the Bahamas and one hundred and ten
Speaker 3: two hundred and thirty seven dollars in cast.
Speaker 4: She won like half their season's prize budget.
Speaker 3: Oh completely, it's nearly three hundred and fifty thousand dollars today,
Speaker 3: ed long, he still got his eleven grand from the.
Speaker 2: Previous episode, Old.
Speaker 3: Gal Janey, she and it on a whammy and she
Speaker 3: walked away with nothing, just her dignity.
Speaker 4: And the memories Elizabeth, and you can't take those away.
Speaker 3: While the control booth had figured that he wasn't really cheating,
Speaker 3: CBS Standards and Practices they were sure, oh, cheating.
Speaker 4: The control is basically talking electronic cheating. They're like, you
Speaker 4: have nobody exactly in your ear. You're not getting electronic
Speaker 4: you know, signal on your foot.
Speaker 3: And that's like in the taping and afterwards, Standards and
Speaker 3: Practices looked at it and they're like, no, he's a cheater.
Speaker 3: He's all crimed up and They're like, because of this,
Speaker 3: we can't pay him out. Oh, they're just positive.
Speaker 4: There's just no way pulled the casino move, Like, I
Speaker 4: question your wins.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they went over CBS went over the footage
Speaker 3: frame by frame, but came up.
Speaker 2: Like this a pruider film.
Speaker 3: Because he wasn't using he wasn't using a device to
Speaker 3: control the board or working with someone else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wasn't doing any known cheats.
Speaker 3: He just basically beat him at their own game.
Speaker 4: Well, he did a mental algorithm.
Speaker 3: Essentially, he pressed their lucks not being better about the setup.
Speaker 3: So a former executive for CBS Daytime Programming, Bob Boden.
Speaker 2: Not Bob Boden, Bad Bobby Boden.
Speaker 3: And Bobby Boden said, quote, he fit every criteria. He
Speaker 3: had not broken any rules of the game, he had
Speaker 3: played fairly, and he was an eligible contestant. We paid
Speaker 3: him his money. He was simply smarter than CBS.
Speaker 4: Yeah, are you smarter than a CBS the.
Speaker 3: Show Brockman, that head of Daytime Programming, he said, quote,
Speaker 3: I said, how did he cheat? He beat the system.
Speaker 3: CBS finally agreed to pay him what he'd won, So
Speaker 3: he's won. That guy's on his side.
Speaker 2: There's a new mayor in Television City, and this is
Speaker 2: Michael Larson.
Speaker 3: They cut Larson a check a couple of weeks later,
Speaker 3: but they didn't let him come back for the next episode,
Speaker 3: as was the custom, because he's blown by the network's
Speaker 3: prize limit of twenty five thousand dollars. Yeah, this boom gone.
Speaker 3: The episode was such a beast that they had to
Speaker 3: split it into two parts.
Speaker 2: What Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: A two parter. So the first half aired on June eighth,
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four, and the second half was shown on
Speaker 3: the eleventh. And some at CBS didn't want to show
Speaker 3: it at all.
Speaker 2: I bet not. I'm surprised they did.
Speaker 3: They did come to an agreement that it wouldn't air
Speaker 3: as a rerun or in syndication. Oh and then also
Speaker 3: CBS established a seventy five thousand dollars cap on contestants winnings.
Speaker 2: Huh, So that's you know, wow.
Speaker 3: That's it. It did air though, and then there's the
Speaker 3: big board.
Speaker 4: I kind of understand, like, it seems to me that
Speaker 4: would be the kind of show you would want, if
Speaker 4: you're in their position, you'd want would want to air
Speaker 4: that to put out the challenge for other people to
Speaker 4: try to beat your show become yeah all the time.
Speaker 4: Maybe I'm too like, you know, trained by our modern
Speaker 4: virality and the idea of like you want to get
Speaker 4: you know, you want to get the gourd of mouth.
Speaker 4: So obviously this probably wasn't the big thing in the eighties.
Speaker 4: They would have called it, you know, the water cooler moment,
Speaker 4: but it seems to be this is your water cooler
Speaker 4: moment if you have a new show this and get
Speaker 4: everyone think about it.
Speaker 3: Is they the network gave them a cap of twenty
Speaker 3: five thousand. They don't career contestant, so they don't have
Speaker 3: a big budget. Sure, and they're probably thinking that now
Speaker 3: that the networks had to get legal involved and they've
Speaker 3: had to pay out over one hundred thousands money there,
Speaker 3: so they don't want to do a call to action
Speaker 3: of other people to be like, oh, yeah, I guess what, Like,
Speaker 3: I've got.
Speaker 2: A big brain.
Speaker 3: I can get on there and outsmart this. That's my guess.
Speaker 2: That's a good read.
Speaker 3: It's just a cheap show.
Speaker 4: You can see the blood in the water, and they
Speaker 4: don't want to invite more sharks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's supposed to be a cheap show. They're
Speaker 3: not going to spend a lot of money and get
Speaker 3: a good return.
Speaker 4: And now they're spent a lot of money and I'm
Speaker 4: saying that they could get a bigger return. They're like,
Speaker 4: that's not what we want.
Speaker 3: Right exactly, that's my guess. So the big board, right,
Speaker 3: they had to reprogram it.
Speaker 4: Of course, hopefully more than five patterns.
Speaker 3: They put in twenty seven additional light patterns. That's a
Speaker 3: good number to make things seem more random. Although I
Speaker 3: assume someone could memorize those two you memorize.
Speaker 5: Not me.
Speaker 3: I couldn't memorize one of them, but there are people
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 2: I bet you could. You could do it. If it's visual.
Speaker 3: This is purely visually.
Speaker 4: If it was like my ear, I might not be
Speaker 4: able to.
Speaker 3: I'd be like trying to get whammies because I like
Speaker 3: the little cartoons totally. It was like it's very babus,
Speaker 3: which I love. I like that.
Speaker 4: You couldn't help yourself even trying to wind.
Speaker 3: You'd still do my my animal brain would be like,
Speaker 3: let's watch another ram cartoon.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't lie to you again.
Speaker 4: This is it better than a trip to the you're
Speaker 4: for yourself?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah? The Whammy wears like a little cape and
Speaker 3: has double horns. It's like a bad teeny little super guy.
Speaker 4: A lot of that in the eighties, like the Annoyd
Speaker 4: from Domino's.
Speaker 3: Remember Curious Larson heard about the big board overhaul, and
Speaker 3: he wrote to the contestant coordinator at pressure like quote,
Speaker 3: it's like a zodiac letter. I know you've added patterns
Speaker 3: to the board, but I bet I can beat you again.
Speaker 3: How about a tournament of champions?
Speaker 2: I like his heart. I got to bet they didn't
Speaker 2: answer no. I bet they were just like whatever.
Speaker 3: Larsen set the record for most game show winnings in
Speaker 3: a single day with that one ten in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: It stood until two thousand and six, when The Price
Speaker 3: Is Right had someone win one hundred and forty seven thousand.
Speaker 3: Whoa and then another Prices writer A pr contestants broke
Speaker 3: that with one hundred and seventy thousand and twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: In one show Yeah, and then.
Speaker 3: Michael Stauber won a total of two hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: two thousand, seven hundred and forty three on the October fourteenth,
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen episode of The Prices Right.
Speaker 2: How are they winning this much? On the pres Has
Speaker 2: this show changed?
Speaker 3: I have no idea. I never watched it in the
Speaker 3: first place. Shocking, I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Do you remember when the Wheel of Fortune you would
Speaker 4: get some money after a round, then you'd have to
Speaker 4: do shopping. They'd like open up her room. Yeah, that's
Speaker 4: seed my sister. She was into game shows. I remember,
Speaker 4: so people don't even know existed growing up.
Speaker 3: And to this day, I watched Jeopardy and then change
Speaker 3: the channel as fast as I.
Speaker 2: Can hear the song.
Speaker 3: I hate it because I can't stay you know what.
Speaker 3: I'm glad. I'm glad he had three careers, but I
Speaker 3: can't keep then Pat Sajack's little face, Yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: want to see it sounds like and it's just to me,
Speaker 3: I think it's a dumb game totally.
Speaker 4: He was like a human, like chipmunk and like the
Speaker 4: only and like normally you'd be like, oh, that'd be
Speaker 4: kind of cool.
Speaker 3: You can tell him, no, he doesn't have a babu ACoM.
Speaker 3: And it's also they get the dumbest contestants. Oh my god. Anyway.
Speaker 3: Twenty eleven, Damn Interesting media outlets said that despite the
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four win having been called a cheat, a
Speaker 3: scammer scandal.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 3: His impressive performance on Press Your Luck maybe one of
Speaker 3: the only honest days of work that Michael Larson ever did.
Speaker 3: When Peter asked Larson on air what was going what
Speaker 3: he was going to do with his winnings, Larson told
Speaker 3: him quote invest in houses is his answer. Yeah. He
Speaker 3: paid the taxes on his winnings. And then he bought
Speaker 3: his daughter a bunch of presents for his sixth birthday
Speaker 3: that happened to be the day before the show was taped.
Speaker 3: As he said, I can't even afford the presence. Then
Speaker 3: he took a year off of work, I suppose driving
Speaker 3: the ice cream truck or the h fact that he
Speaker 3: didn't want anyone to know about. He gave the sailboat
Speaker 3: to his son, and I don't know if he took
Speaker 3: the trips or he opted for the cash payout on those,
Speaker 3: or if that was even an offer for him. He
Speaker 3: opened a marketing company marketing yeah, his brother James. His
Speaker 3: brother James said, quote, I tried to get him to
Speaker 3: look at some reasonable investments. He put it in the bank,
Speaker 3: and for some time he was doing the right thing, well, Zaren,
Speaker 3: For some time he was until.
Speaker 2: He was how long did sometime last?
Speaker 3: Let's take a break and when we come back, we'll
Speaker 3: check in on Michael Larson post pyl victory. No Wammy's,
Speaker 3: no Wammy's, no wammies. There it is Michael Larson Saren.
Speaker 3: The episode of Press Your Luck where he dominated aired
Speaker 3: in June of nineteen eighty four. By late nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 3: following a dizzy in case of Olympic fever, he withdrew
Speaker 3: one hundred thousand dollars from five different banks.
Speaker 4: I gotta ask my friend's style if he remembers this
Speaker 4: because he was so into it. Yeah, actually is old
Speaker 4: enough you can remember it.
Speaker 3: So he goes around, He takes out one hundred grand,
Speaker 3: five different banks. He gets them all in one dollar bills.
Speaker 3: Why well, he was not heading to sloths.
Speaker 4: I say, that's my only guest. Immediately lost loyal hower.
Speaker 3: The gals and bills while they ignore him and sleep
Speaker 3: soundly under down comforters at a very generous area of
Speaker 3: personal space.
Speaker 4: Maybe I try to tuck one in a pocket of
Speaker 4: a robe.
Speaker 2: You get you don't get that, you get that clothes.
Speaker 4: Oh, I thought you could maybe like daintily chuck it up.
Speaker 3: On that table and then the well when we wake up,
Speaker 3: the gal say, they'll get over there. No, he was
Speaker 3: trying to win a radio game that offered a prize
Speaker 3: if you matched announced numbers with those on a dollar bill.
Speaker 4: Oh so he wanted many chances possible and he was
Speaker 4: not successful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a bad one.
Speaker 3: He gave up. He redeposited half the bills. Oh no,
Speaker 3: and what did he do with the rest of the money.
Speaker 2: Lottery scratch offs?
Speaker 3: No, he hid it in various places in his girlfriend's house,
Speaker 3: remember her Dinwitty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so one night he's acting like a guy who
Speaker 4: watched his twelve TVs it once again exactly, he's got
Speaker 4: like Mason jars of one dollar bills basically buried in
Speaker 4: the backyard.
Speaker 3: One night, the two of them, the couple, they're out
Speaker 3: on the town, living it up at a Christmas party.
Speaker 3: That's fun for them. While they were out, though, something
Speaker 3: bad happened. Burglars broke in and they took the fifty
Speaker 3: thousand he had squirreled around the house.
Speaker 4: How did they know where it was? Sounds like an inside.
Speaker 3: John Arson was convinced that his girlfriend.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, was not so dim wady.
Speaker 3: She woke up one morning and he was standing over her,
Speaker 3: staring at her like after this, just staring, So she
Speaker 3: bounced like good for her, no room for creepy. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean this guy has a wall of television sets
Speaker 3: and you know, and this is.
Speaker 4: What makes her bounce. She wakes up one day and
Speaker 4: he's staring. After the robbery, I get, there's a greater concept.
Speaker 3: So she grabbed five thousand dollars that he had hidden
Speaker 3: in the kitchen drawer that the burglars hadn't gotten. She
Speaker 3: grabs the kids, she runs. That was her house, though,
Speaker 3: so she stayed at a hotel while she waited for
Speaker 3: him to get his stuff and go go. He did.
Speaker 3: They never figured out who stole the cash, and they
Speaker 3: never will. Nineteen eighty six, Press your luck went off
Speaker 3: the air, moment of silence.
Speaker 2: Please really that quickly?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: It did not last long. Let's jump forward to the
Speaker 3: mid nineteen nineties. I wasn't even born then. I was
Speaker 3: born in twenty fifteen. So by this point, Larson he
Speaker 3: had moved to Dayton, Ohio, and he was working as
Speaker 3: an assistant manager at Walmart.
Speaker 4: Was this mid nineties, Okay, so I was a retiree
Speaker 4: in Ohio, at this.
Speaker 3: Yes, you had already retired at this point.
Speaker 2: Being one of the greatest generation at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he's he's living in Dayton, Ohio. He's working
Speaker 3: at Walmart, not the Walmart and bowling green over big
Speaker 3: shout out that appeared in the Pokemon episode. This is
Speaker 3: the Walmart date store. Yeah, is it a superstar? I'm
Speaker 3: curiously so Larson. He had a job, he had a
Speaker 3: new girlfriend, and he had a new con He was
Speaker 3: selling shares in a multi level marketing scam run by
Speaker 3: a company called Pleasure Time Incorporated. Oh god, Hubba hubba.
Speaker 2: Pleasure Time Incorporating.
Speaker 3: Well, here's what that was. So there were indeed, ahub
Speaker 3: in Taro Bay. There were ads, very early online ads
Speaker 3: on America Online. Oh whoa that said, you can't lose
Speaker 3: about this For just one hundred and eighty nine dollars a.
Speaker 4: Share, just pennies dollars on the day.
Speaker 3: Investors could get in on the ground floor of an
Speaker 3: operation that would yield them at least sixty dollars a week.
Speaker 3: That sounds good least Yeah, more twenty thousand people thought
Speaker 3: it sounded good. And what was this scheme called the
Speaker 3: American Indian Lottery that familiar. Basically, it's unregistered securities. Yes,
Speaker 3: which translates to classic Ponzi skis. Pleasure Time Incorporated did
Speaker 3: business under the name Telephone Information Systems and Group Dynamics.
Speaker 2: Downline, Group Dynamics done. You know that they rip people.
Speaker 3: They promised huge profits in return for signing on more
Speaker 3: investors MLM baby. Okay, but this this wasn't just taking
Speaker 3: place in magazines or through the mail. This was online.
Speaker 3: Stanley B. Witten with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Chicago. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they said, quote. It's the first time the Commission has
Speaker 3: brought a case in which most of the offer sale
Speaker 3: of securities took place in cyberspace. Oh wow, que the
Speaker 3: lasers people fibers. Investors were told that by buying a
Speaker 3: quote membership share in Telephone Information Systems, they would profit
Speaker 3: from a worldwide telephone lottery that would be set up
Speaker 3: in conjunction with a Native American tribe. Sorry, of course,
Speaker 3: there's no tribe involved.
Speaker 2: Oh, none of this.
Speaker 4: And twenty thousand people fell for this. Yeah, there's going
Speaker 4: to be a worldwide on the phone lottery run from
Speaker 4: an Indiana.
Speaker 3: What does this lottery work? Well, people would call a
Speaker 3: nine hundred telephone line. Oh do you remember those?
Speaker 2: Dial a minute?
Speaker 3: I don't remember them because I was born in twenty
Speaker 3: eighteen and I don't know what a cassette tape is.
Speaker 4: I actually got reach and that's how I retired, was
Speaker 4: off of one nine hundred numbers.
Speaker 3: So like that's you would it would cost money to call.
Speaker 2: A nine hundred line by the minute, yes, and.
Speaker 3: Then one nine hundred yeah, and that's but this is
Speaker 3: how the public would get into the lotto, however much
Speaker 3: it is a minute is one thing. Sure, that's the
Speaker 3: gravy on top, because they'd call and then buy a
Speaker 3: seven dollars ticket for the lottery over the phone.
Speaker 4: Okay, And they'd have to wait, I'm sure, on the
Speaker 4: phone to handle some of the.
Speaker 3: Process as the as racking up. And this would give
Speaker 3: money to the investors in the project, supposedly, and according
Speaker 3: to the ad, half of the seven dollars telephone wager
Speaker 3: went to the lotto pot and the rest would be
Speaker 3: divided among the tribe, the investors, and operating expenses.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: Joan McCown, who was the chief counsel of the SEC
Speaker 3: Enforcement Division in Washington, said that the SEC's market surveillance
Speaker 3: department was monitoring the financial bulletin boards of online services.
Speaker 3: So she's on message boards on like an AOL board. Yes,
Speaker 3: for the Chatter Frontier, it's the wild West. This is
Speaker 3: the first case where most of the advertising of the
Speaker 3: scam was online, so there's no chunk mail, no classified
Speaker 3: ads and papers. Federal District judge froze the assets of accounts.
Speaker 4: This still counts as as wire fraud, not postal fraud. Right,
Speaker 4: so they've just gotten around the postal fraud.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, so they freeze accounts in Florida, Indiana, Ohio,
Speaker 3: but most of the investors' money had already been withdrawn. Sure,
Speaker 3: the SEC tracked more than three million that came from
Speaker 3: investors as Telephone Information and Group Dynamics downline made pitches
Speaker 3: on these computer networks. The scammers even took the idea
Speaker 3: to Europe, where they got people to sign up for
Speaker 3: two hundred equivalent of two hundred dollars apiece that same
Speaker 3: one pleasure time. The reason it had the name is
Speaker 3: it's a remnant of the company's old service. Something they
Speaker 3: called quote Fantasy calls on the nine hundred line. So
Speaker 3: it was a phone sex operator. Yeah, they switched over
Speaker 3: reached over to Indian I thought they.
Speaker 4: Were just diversive, Like, we got to find a way
Speaker 4: to get more elderly people in this. We've got all
Speaker 4: these younger dirtbags going with the sex phone calls.
Speaker 3: We can get more money out of the older You
Speaker 3: use these.
Speaker 4: Same lines later a week had or earlier, I guess
Speaker 4: probably in the morning.
Speaker 3: Well, and so there's Michael Larson involved in a non
Speaker 3: existent American Indian lottery that raised three million dollars from
Speaker 3: twenty thousand investors. You know what, that made him one
Speaker 3: of the pioneers of internet scams.
Speaker 2: Wow, look at him for.
Speaker 3: One of the laziest men people didn't believe in exactly.
Speaker 4: He's out there scamming game shows the Internet.
Speaker 3: In the middle of all this precedence, seem made a
Speaker 3: play for more fame.
Speaker 2: What see.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety four, a movie came out, produced and
Speaker 3: directed by Robert Redford.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, one of your favorite John.
Speaker 3: Taturo, your boy Rob Morrow, Yes, and Rafe Fines.
Speaker 4: Oh different movies the movie I know these when you're talking.
Speaker 3: About quiz show, yeah, dramas?
Speaker 4: Are you're talking about sneakers? Your other one?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: God, no, that was that's that's in a class of
Speaker 3: its own. I would never be smirch it by bringing
Speaker 3: it into this. So quiz showed traumatization of the fifties
Speaker 3: quiz show scandals. Larsen went on Good Morning America to
Speaker 3: talk about the movie and his experience on Press Your Luck.
Speaker 4: Okay, I've scammed a game show.
Speaker 2: I know this.
Speaker 3: He told him that he was bummed out that he
Speaker 3: never got to go on Jeopardy because, quote, I think
Speaker 3: I have figured out some angles on that. Yeah, like
Speaker 3: what being smart? Ken Jennings, James Holsauer with like a word.
Speaker 3: He got interviewed by from White Men Can't Jump, Yes, everybody,
Speaker 3: everyone would like a word. He got interviewed by TV Guide.
Speaker 3: They asked him what he did with all of his
Speaker 3: whammy free winnings. He said, quote, it didn't work out.
Speaker 3: We had a cash flow problem. Then I lost everything.
Speaker 3: Easy come, easy go.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: I was about to say, like, he's the kind of
Speaker 4: guy who believes literally in easy comings.
Speaker 2: He's like burnet im.
Speaker 3: And then he said, it's more the thrill of the chase.
Speaker 2: He's in for the actions, and he's literally in for
Speaker 2: the action.
Speaker 3: He told interviewers that he chose Pressure Luck to beat
Speaker 3: because of the cash prizes it had. Quote, I just
Speaker 3: memorized the patterns. I thought maybe there would be a
Speaker 3: pattern in the way the lights moved. So I videotaped
Speaker 3: six or eight of them, and I watched them frame
Speaker 3: to frame. Six months later, I had a pattern down. Okay,
Speaker 3: he said he was currently studying video poker casino games
Speaker 3: in the hopes of going to Vegas.
Speaker 2: Okay, good luck.
Speaker 3: The next year, in nineteen ninety five, he gets charged
Speaker 3: for that American Indian Lottery skill. He was under investigation
Speaker 3: by the FBI, IRS SEC and you can guess what
Speaker 3: he did. He made a run for it.
Speaker 4: I was just gonna say, I bet he's a kype
Speaker 4: of cut and run.
Speaker 3: He pressed his luck. So, according to his brother James, quote,
Speaker 3: winning that game show was the start of his downfall.
Speaker 3: It made him think he could trick anybody and do
Speaker 3: just about anything he pleased.
Speaker 2: I'm above the law.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he was on the run for four years.
Speaker 2: Well good on him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a long time.
Speaker 2: From what we've found, that's not easy to stay out
Speaker 2: that long.
Speaker 4: And I mean to stay ahead of the and then
Speaker 4: also head of your own guilty conscience, he said two
Speaker 4: different things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he nineteen ninety nine. Investigators tracked him to Florida.
Speaker 2: He didn't even leave the country.
Speaker 3: No, And what did they find a gravestone?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he had just passed away from throat cancer at
Speaker 3: the age of forty nine.
Speaker 2: Dear God.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were too late, Darren.
Speaker 4: So he was smoking like massively while he was watching
Speaker 4: those eighteen hours of TV. So I think that kind
Speaker 4: of goes hand in hand. That room had like striator
Speaker 4: grace smoke.
Speaker 3: I can see the whole thing.
Speaker 2: It's hot. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. There was a film adaptation of the whole mess
Speaker 3: called Press Your Luck that was supposed to be in
Speaker 3: pre production as of August two thousand.
Speaker 4: Howard twenty twenty four, Elizabeth, I know.
Speaker 3: Howard Franklin was the screenwriter and director What Happened? Nicholas
Speaker 3: Cage was signed on as a producer and who was
Speaker 3: supposed to play Larsen?
Speaker 2: Rob Morrow, Bill Murray? What?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Billbury?
Speaker 4: This is I want to be a dramatic actor.
Speaker 3: Fair March sixteenth, two thousand and three, the Game Show
Speaker 3: Network showed its first ever documentary.
Speaker 2: About the event, first ever doctum.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the two hour long Big Bucks the Press Your
Speaker 3: Luck Scandal documentary. It brought together Janey the Preacher, Peter
Speaker 3: Tomarkin from the original taping, did.
Speaker 4: Have Monty Hall just for like a commentary why not.
Speaker 3: There was a reboat of Press Your Luck called Whammy,
Speaker 3: the all new Press Your Luck. I don't think so
Speaker 3: they had when it was on, though they had a
Speaker 3: March seventeenth, two thousand and three, memorial episode of the
Speaker 3: show with Ed Long and Janie Lee Trice. They returned
Speaker 3: to play against James Larson, Michael Larson's brother. The brother
Speaker 3: was like, I'll take a taste of this, get my
Speaker 3: beek wet. November thirteenth, twenty seventeen, this book company, modern
Speaker 3: Itto Books published a graphic novel about his Press Your
Speaker 3: Luck winning streak called Larsen The Luckiest Man in the World.
Speaker 2: If the ant he kills everyone with the sword.
Speaker 3: It's by Hobby di Castro. So Yeah, unable to let
Speaker 3: it go Sure. The Game Show Network rolled out a
Speaker 3: documentary series What And Its first episode was about the
Speaker 3: Press Your Luck scandal that aired in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: Game Show Network I Hardly Knew You.
Speaker 3: On May ninth, twenty twenty four, Protagonist Pictures announced its
Speaker 3: adaptation to the scandal called Press Your Luck.
Speaker 2: I was goe A guess Yeah.
Speaker 3: Maggie Briggs and Sameir Oliverros wrote the script. Oliverro's directed,
Speaker 3: and Paul Walter Hauser was cast as Larsen.
Speaker 2: If he says, so is Aaron.
Speaker 3: What's your ridiculous taway?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 4: If I was to sit around and imagine a game
Speaker 4: show to cheat from the early eighties or even just
Speaker 4: for the eighties in particular, it's no way I would
Speaker 4: have picked no Whammies. That one is so known for
Speaker 4: you not beating it. I mean, that's like the whole idea,
Speaker 4: no Whammy, no Wamy, and they get the wamby. Yeah,
Speaker 4: this guy's like, I can beat the whammy. I really
Speaker 4: respect the fact that his goal was to beat the
Speaker 4: wam He beat the I mean to honestly, like I
Speaker 4: told you about my buddy style. This is like between
Speaker 4: us and inside joke that he pretty but spread to
Speaker 4: me because he liked the show and my sister like
Speaker 4: the show. So I was just always kind of like
Speaker 4: a I don't want to admire us of but I
Speaker 4: marveled at both he and my sister, two people close
Speaker 4: to me, two people I live with two people who
Speaker 4: I trusted implicitly were so afraid of this thing called
Speaker 4: the Whammy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I just thought that was amazing. And here this guy goes,
Speaker 4: I'm afraid of no whammy. That's ridiculous to me. Elizabeth,
Speaker 4: what about you? What's your ridiculous takeaway? You see, I did
Speaker 4: that all smak.
Speaker 3: Thank you for asking on. I love the fact that
Speaker 3: the Game Show Network has gotten into documentary.
Speaker 2: Total in a series of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fair for them.
Speaker 2: This is our thirty for thirty, Like we're kind of
Speaker 2: out of.
Speaker 3: Game Show Show Dave. You know what I need to
Speaker 3: talk back?
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, oh my god, I w ge.
Speaker 6: Y'all are ridiculous. Horsey sauce is horse Radish, Horsey is
Speaker 6: Arby's slang nickname for horse radish, and oddly enough, I
Speaker 6: just got back to work from eating lunch at Arby's
Speaker 6: and eating Horsey sauce.
Speaker 3: Ah. There you go. That's it for today. You can
Speaker 3: find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also
Speaker 3: at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. Email us
Speaker 3: at Ridiculous Crime at jamail dot com, and then also,
Speaker 3: most importantly, leave a talkback on the iHeart app.
Speaker 2: Do It, Reach Out, Do It.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
Speaker 3: produced and edited by Wammy Tamer, Dave Coustatom, starring Emilie
Speaker 3: Rutger as Judith. Research by Marissa three thousand dollars and
Speaker 3: one Spin Brown and Andrea A Trip to Jamaica song
Speaker 3: Sharpen Tear. The theme song is by Thomas Go Back
Speaker 3: to spaces Lee and Travis Yes Whammies. Dutton post wardrobe
Speaker 3: is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup
Speaker 3: by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Game Show
Speaker 3: Baptist Preacher Ben Bollen and Likable Dental Assistant Noel.
Speaker 5: Brown, Gus Clime, Say It One More Time Gequus Cry.
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