It's truly a sad day in the game show world. Peter Tomarken, host of my favorite game show of all-time, Press Your Luck, died yesterday when a plane he was flying (which I assume was named No Whammy, Big Bucks, or PT Cruiser) crashed off the coast of LA. When are celebrities going to realize that they should not fly planes themselves? Looks like Tomarken pressed his luck by doing so. Too soon?For those of you too stupid to remember Press Your Luck, it was the only game that featured the hilariously droll Whammies and people shouting "Big Bucks! Big Bucks! No Whammies!" The rules of the game are explained nicely on Wikipedia. It was pretty much the greatest game show ever, until 1984 when some guy figured out that the pattern of lit-up squares was not random, winning over $100,000, which in today's money is the equivalent of about $4 billion, nearly bankrupting the upstart Columbia Broadcasting System in the process. Only Tomarken's wry wit and devastating good looks kept the show and the network afloat. Good night sweet prince.
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10 comments:
Surely you jest as to the greatness of Press Your Luck. Even the feeble minded dimwits of Lyons Township could determine that the original "Concentration," hosted by Hugh Dows, remains the greatest television gameshow of all time. A 30 square grid represents man's salvation.
Bob,
Proper grammar calls for a hyphen between "feeble" and "minded."
ADL
Good Sir,
You and I are both aware that each generation hyphenates at discretion.
Discretion, Bob, is the mother of feeble-minded children. And Concentration sucked.
Handrew,
You are better than ellipses. You really are, unless I was mistaken about you.
When did I use ellipses?
And Concentration sucked.
While you did not use the classic "..." as an ellipsus, you still do not fool anyone. Additionally, your love of Double Indemnity is troubling.
Double Indemnity? Well, I do happen to be a fan of Billy Wilder's 1944 thriller starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson. In fact, I own a copy of it on DVD. And for the record, the use of an ellipses is prefectly acceptable for emphasis.
Let's agree to disagree, as both of us are fools. The word is ellipsis. The plural is ellipses. We are both in need of a good pitying.
Kudos on owning a Digital Video Disc.
Hey, who let Stewie Griffin on your blog.
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