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- [00:07]
Carter Roy
It's May 19, 1984, and the audience in a Los Angeles television studio is going absolutely wild. The man sitting on stage in front of them is as euphoric as they are. In the background is a giant blinking game board that he has just conquered. The man claps his hands, shakes his head and makes a sound that no one has ever heard before or since. Not quite a scream, more like a high pitched yodel. The outburst is a mix of excitement, exhaustion and utter disbelief. It's basically his way of asking, what the hell did I just do? This is Michael Larson, and what he has just done seems impossible. Or at least fishy. That day, he appears on Press yous Luck. It's a pre taped daytime game show on cbs. In every half hour long episode, three contestants take turns playing a massive game board. Each square on the brightly colored grid holds cash prizes, extra spins, or a little red monster. You heard that correctly, a little red monster. The tiny animated boogeyman, or boogeywoman, is a whammy. What's a whammy? Well, it's a day ruiner. If you buzz in and land on a whammy, you instantly lose all of your winnings. It's the show's signature gimmick. About 1 in 6 spins results in a whammy. This prevents contestants from piling up big sums of money, usually. But on this fateful afternoon 42 years ago, Michael Larson goes on a hot streak that leaves those who witness it flabbergasted, the network brass, the host of Press yous Luck, Peter Tomarkin, the studio audience, and most of all, Michael himself. He racks up a whopping 45 consecutive spins without a whammy. The the shocking run helps him win $110,237 in cash and prizes. If you adjust for inflation, that's a little over 350 grand at the time. It is the highest single payday in the history of game shows, and it's a spectacular TV moment. But there's still one mystery left to be solved. How exactly a schlub with a thrift store dress shirt, slicked back, gray hair, bushy beard, and a chipmunk smile manages to take Press yous luck for 100 grand? Is he a cheater? Is he just supernaturally lucky? Or has he made his own luck? Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday and we would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts or check us out on Instagram heconspiracypod. Stay with us.
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- [04:31]
Carter Roy
You spin some crackpot theory and I find the evidence.
- [04:34]
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- [04:36]
Carter Roy
I think I'm good to go.
- [04:37]
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- [04:39]
Carter Roy
You cannot be here. This is a police investigation. I've written you. What does that mean?
- [04:43]
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- [04:47]
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- [05:24]
Carter Roy
As Michael Larson is making history, the constant beep boop sounds of the game board become almost hypnotic. While the audience is transfixed, the the producers of Press yous Luck start to panic. It doesn't take a genius to realize that he has figured something out. It's just unclear what. The mood in the control room is pretty grim. Darlene Lieblick Tipton is a practices department executive at cbs. Here's how she says it went down after about the third spin. The question that is sort of mentally being asked of everybody is how is he doing that? And then it was Just how is he doing that? And then it was just, oh, my God, he's doing that. And it got quiet. The quick and dirty theory is that Michael must be running some kind of scam. No one could be that lucky. Michael certainly wouldn't have been the first game show contestant caught up in a scandal. The game show scandal is practically an American tradition. In the 1950s, several network quiz shows get in hot water for prearranging outcomes. The most notorious of those incidents involves a Columbia University lecturer named Charles Van Doren. He becomes a celebrity after winning $129,000 over the course of several months in 1956 and 1957 on the NBC game show 21. The feel good story curdles when news breaks that the show's producers have rigged the game in favor of the telegenic Van Doren. Four decades later, Robert Redford makes a movie about the scandal called Quiz Show. It turns out that Michael Larson is nothing like Charles Van Doren. But there is a conspiracy afoot. Well, sort of. By definition, conspiracies involve two or more people working together, but, you know, conspiring. Michael is a lone wolf, though that's a slightly overdramatic way to describe an ice cream truck driver. That's right. Michael drives a Mr. Softy truck in his hometown of Lebanon, Ohio. He also finds work as an air conditioning repairman. Neither job pays terribly well. The man has never been great with money, though. Making more cash and fast has been a lifelong obsession. To understand what makes a guy like Michael tick, we need to go all the way back to his childhood in Ohio. Even back then, he fixates on making a quick buck. From a very young age, Michael believes that good old hard work is for suckers. In middle school, Michael sells candy bars to classmates at inflated prices. When he grows up, he starts to cook up money making schemes that fall into, well, ethical gray areas. It becomes a habit. He never quits. At one point, Michael starts a small business in a family member's name, then hires and fires himself so he can collect unemployment checks. He also takes advantage of a bank's $500 offer to open an account. Then, after waiting the minimum amount of time he needs to in order to collect the cash, he closes the account and opens another under a different name. He's the kind of guy who works hard to find shortcuts in life, but hates doing hard work. Michael is one of four boys. His oldest brother, James, can see where Michael is headed. James later describes his brother as someone whose desire to make money fast will doom him to self destruction. Even as Michael approaches middle age, he doesn't seem worried about the path he's chosen. It's 1983 and Michael is now well into his 30s. He still doesn't have his life figured out. He's been divorced twice and is now in a common law marriage to a woman named Teresa. That year she notices her husband doing something strange. Michael collects a bunch of television sets and stacks them on top of each other in their living room. He watches the TVs for hours. Hey, he has plenty of time on his hands. It's late fall in the Midwest. Cold neighborhood kids aren't begging their parents for spare change to buy Bomb Pops. Michael fixates on game shows, recording episodes on VCRs with hopes of finding an edge. It's around this time that he discovers a series that he has never seen before. It's called Press yous Luck. The show is partially the brainchild of producer Bill Carruthers. Bill back in the 1970s, he co creates a game show called Second Chance. The format will probably sound familiar. Three contestants answer questions for chances to play on a giant game board. On every spin, a randomized light moves around that board. It's up to the player to buzz in and stop the light on a square containing a sum of money. At first glance, it seems easy to pile up lots of cash fast. But there are three spaces on the board that hold little red devils. Land on one of those and you lose all of your winnings. Michael Brockman, the head of daytime TV at ABC in the 70s, loves Second Chance. It premieres in 1977, but it flops. The network cancels it after only a few months. Unlike most scrap shows, Second Chance gets a second chance at life. Brockman moves to CBS in the 80s and encourages Carruthers to resurrect that game show concept. This time he retools it into something more aesthetically pleasing. The prize board is bigger and brighter and the motionless devils who take all the contestants money are replaced by whammies who show up to viewers at home in animated form. Basically, the whammies are a more sinister version of the Minions. And for those of you who weren't around in the 80s, this was ubiquitous. No Whammies was almost like 6, 7. It's what you said all the time when you didn't want something to happen. You're at the vending machine hoping it doesn't get stuck. No whammies at the blackjack table. No whammies going through red light hoping you don't get a Ticket from a cop. No whammies. Carruthers also wants to make the prize round even more entertaining. In the new show, the light will move around the board slower than on Second Chance. That makes it easier for the audience to follow. And unlike on Second Chance, the squares on the board will no longer be fixed. The spaces will have three different configurations that shuffle in real time. That means that on some spins, a square will hold a prize, and on some spins, the same square will hold a whammy. This makes the game more unpredictable, but most contestants and people watching at home don't care about any of that. They just want to see someone buzz in and stop that moving panel of lights on a square with a big prize. While developing the new show, Carruthers is concerned about one randomization. He really doesn't want an enterprising contestant to be able to memorize the board's movements. The problem is a computer program that makes each spin truly random is not in the budget. Hey, it's the early 80s. As a compromise, Carruthers asks CBS for a light system that cycles around the board in 12 separate patterns. It's not totally random, but it's random enough. The network says yes to the request at first, but then it comes back with a computer program that can only provide five patterns. After CBS officially picks up Press yous Luck, Carruthers tries to tell his bosses that five patterns just aren't enough. He tells them that some contestant will eventually memorize the board. Not if, but when. Executives at CBS ignore the warnings. Brockman, now the head of daytime programming at the network, claims that the consensus among the brass is that the low number of patterns on the board is not a risk. Later, he admits the obvious they were wrong. Press yous luck premieres in September 1983. That's shortly before Michael Larson starts binge watching it. Long before binge watching becomes a thing. To understand why he might be so determined to try to game this particular game show. I want to take you through a typical episode. Michael notes that every episode has two question rounds and two prize rounds, and every episode starts with a question round. The host, Peter Tomarkin, tosses four questions at three contestants. There are two ways to answer each question. One, by buzzing in first and answering off the top of your head. You're even allowed to answer before Tumarkin finishes the question, and two, by picking one of the three answer options to Markin provides. If you buzz in first and answer correctly, you're awarded three spins on the game board. If you answer correctly via the multiple Choice option, you are awarded one spin. Michael also notices that these questions aren't exactly brain busters. They they don't really test academic knowledge, but they're barely even trivia. They're based on the kind of topics that used to pop up on Family Feud. Here's a real press your luck question. Crow's feet are those facial lines around the eyes that we get from squinting, According to American Health magazine, what age does the average person get them? Is the correct answer 40, 30, or 50? The questions seem designed to get the contestants to the prize round as fast as possible. After all, that is the main event. In the prize round. The person who's earned the fewest spins gets the first shot at the big board, which features 18 squares. When it's a contestant's turn, a panel of lights cycles through the grid seemingly at random. But in reality, the lights only move in those five patterns I mentioned. Each contestant has a buzzer. There are two goals. One is to smash that buzzer down and stop the lights on a square containing a prize. And the other is to avoid whammies. Like I said before, landing on a whammy zeroes you out. It's by design. Whammies are the producer's way of keeping winnings down. It doesn't always work, though. On Press yous Luck, several contestants go on to take home mid five figure sums. And just a note on that fact, all of that cash isn't always collected in one episode. If you win, you can play on for five total episodes. Naturally, this is what Michael wants in on a show where you can make fast money, Michael spends weeks trying to crack Press yous Luck. He studies game film like an NFL coach slowing down the tape and pouring over it frame by frame. He sits in front of the TVs in a trance, counting the light flashes on the prize board. This leads to an epiphany. According to his common law wife, Teresa, he starts acting like a kid at Christmas. What Michael has realized is that on each spin, the lights on the prize board move around the squares on the grid in five predetermined patterns. This is the vulnerability Bill Carruthers had tried to warn his bosses about. If Michael memorizes the patterns, then he can conceivably buzz in and land on any space he wants. What Michael has also figured out is that there are a handful of squares on the prize board and that never contain whammies. Two squares in particular only hold cash prizes and extra spins. This is the coup de grace. If Michael can land on those two spaces over and over, he'll be able to pile up cash, keep spinning, and avoid whammies. That is, if all goes to plan. Get rich quick Schemes take a lot of work and plenty of luck. So Michael Larson has a plan. He buys a cheap plane ticket to Los Angeles. In those days, Press yous Luck holds open auditions. One day, Michael walks in for a tryout and immediately plays up his humble background. He does exaggerate his life story a little, claiming he's just gotten off a bus from Ohio. The homespun charm offensive works. Bill Carruthers is the executive producer of the show. He's impressed by Michael, who he finds charismatic and funny. And I mean, Michael is an ice cream man, an underdog, and America loves underdogs. But not everyone is buying Michael's act. Bob Edwards is the contestant coordinator at Press yous Luck. He also gets a kick out of Michael's story. But Edwards finds it too good to be fully true. Michael seems off to him. Edwards thinks that the guy must be hiding something. He just doesn't know what. Edwards is suspicious enough that he tells Carruthers that they should not put Michael on the show. Carruthers overrules him. Now Carruthers says years later that he should have listened to Bob. And that's how Michael ends up on Press yous Luck. Before the taping, Michael meets his competitors. One is Ed Long, a Baptist minister. He's the returning champion who's coming off an $11,000 payday. The other is Janie Littrus Dakin, a dental assistant. Looking back on that day, she describes Michael as a creepy person with a creepy smile. She also admits to underestimating him. On the Press yous Luck stage, Michael is in the middle, with Ed to the audience's left and Janie to the audience's right. At the beginning of the episode, the host interviews each of the contestants. Naturally, Peter Tomarkin asks Michael about being an ice cream truck driver. Michael says that he hopes to win enough money so he doesn't have to drive his ice cream truck that summer. When the game starts, Michael doesn't play like someone who's about to strike it rich. During the first multiple choice question round, he earns three spins on the big board, the fewest of the three contestants. That means that he gets to go first in the prize round. Right before his turn, Michael positions his hands a few inches above the red buzzer. Then the board starts lighting up. Come on, big bucks, big bucks. Michael slams his hand down on the red buzzer. That's the sound of Michael landing on a whammy and inauspicious start. But the failed spin serves an important purpose. It helps Michael get his timing down. That'll come in handy later. On his next spin, Michael wins $1,250. And on his next one, his last of the round, he lands on the same square and pockets another $1,250. Michael ends the first round with a modest $2,500, putting him in third place behind Ed and Janey. As far as anyone's concerned, there's absolutely nothing abnormal about Michael's performance so far. No one knows it yet, but Michael is about to make TV history.
- [22:06]
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- [23:06]
Carter Roy
So Michael Larson has cracked the code, but there's no way of predicting that an ice cream man would find the key to exploiting the show's vulnerability. The only person who believes he's capable of doing it is is Michael himself. The way he sees it, all it takes is memorizing some patterns. That is easier said than done. Each spin is a lightning fast sequence of flashing lights. Even if you know the patterns, it takes an extraordinary amount of mental acuity and energy to recognize them. And then hit the buzzer at the exact right moment. A split second early or late and you could land on a whammy. Also, imagine pulling all that off in front of a raucous studio audience with a motor mouthed game show host in your ear. Michael is under serious pressure. Keep that in mind as we return to the game. During the second question and answer round, Michael earns seven spins. But since he has the lowest money total of the three contestants, he gets the first crack at the prize board. The stacks of cash up for grabs are bigger now than they were the first time around. On his first spin, Michael lands on a square that awards him $4,000 in prize money and one more spin. This is the start of a serious heater. Michael kicks off the round with seven successful spins in a row. He has piled up $19,336 in total winnings. Like I mentioned earlier, the odds of hitting a whammy are about one in six. But Michael is in the zone now. He bobs up and down in his seat. He claps his hands. He screams. He raises his arms in the air. Whammy. Fearing Press yous Luck contestants usually pass control of the board to the other contestants. After a handful of positive spins. But not Michael, he waves his finger at Tomarkin as if to say, go, go, go. Michael even shrugs and says, I ain't never losing. Meanwhile, the control room at CBS is pure chaos. Brockman, the head of daytime programming, later describes the situation as nothing short of bedlam. They couldn't stop this guy. But the producers decide that the show must go on. They can't spot any obvious cheating. Filming continues and Michael keeps rolling. After 15 spins on the board, he has almost $37,000 in winnings. Already a one day show record, the taping has now flown past the time limit for a single episode of Press yous Luck. That's never happened before. This is why the original broadcast of Larson's run is a two parter. Nothing, not even the allotted time limit, can stop Michael Larson. Soon he passes $40,000, then $50,000, then $60,000, then $70,000, then $80,000, then $90,000. If you rewatch Michael's run now, you can pick up on his pattern recognition skills. But remember, Michael's research helped him figure out that there are two squares that never hold whammies. If you're looking at the big board on TV or one of those spaces is at about 12 o'. Clock. The other is about 3 o'. Clock. These are Michael's hotspots. He starts aiming at them on every turn. During a long stretch of the game, he lands on one of those two squares on 30 straight spins. Each one contains a cash prize and an extra spin. This allows Michael to keep spinning and keep piling up the cash. By then, the host of Press yous Luck has seemed to run out of things to say about Michael's performance. He's as shocked as the studio audience. Michael himself seems to be exhausted, or at least in a haze. Ed Long, one of the other contestants, has begun to notice that Michael looks drained both mentally and physically. Eventually, Michael passes the $100,000 threshold. Coming in. His goal is to win 100 grand. Mission accomplished. With $102,851 banked, Michael finally decides to pass. Continuing to press his luck seems awfully risky. When Michael passes, both of the other contestants openly congratulate him. It's Ed's turn now. He can't believe what's happening. Then he spins and promptly hits a whammy. Three spins later, his last spin. Ed whammies out again. Control of the board goes to Janie, who spins her way into $9,385 in cash and prizes. With 3 spins left, she decides to make Michael press his luck one last time. So Janey passes. That means it's Michael's turn again. According to the rules, he must take her three spins by then. He feels like he's running the final mile of a marathon. He just wants to cross the finish line without collapsing. Around that time, he starts to lose his concentration and discipline. The stakes could not be higher. One mistake on the buzzer and Michael might lose all his money. As if he's not under enough stress, his memory starts to fail him. Michael somehow stays sharp enough on his next two spins to land on his preferred squares. At 12 and 3 o', clock, he wins cash on both. Then on his third spin, his mind goes blank. He suddenly forgets where the whammies are. When Michael slams on the buzzer, he accidentally lands on an unfamiliar spot on the board. One where whammies have appeared earlier in the game. But in this case, he gets incredibly lucky. This time, there's no whammy. The square reveals a trip to the Bahamas. He's safe. Michael wipes his brow. His relief is palpable. Now that he's used up the three spins Janie gave him, he's allowed to pass his remaining two back to her. So that's what he does on her next spin. Janie wins $750, but doesn't earn an extra spin. She has one spin remaining. When Janie hits the buzzer again. She lands on a prize. A cruise to Mexico. There are now no spins left. The game is over. That means Michael is the champion. He finishes his run on Press yous luck with $110,237 in cash. Cash and prizes. Michael celebrates, unleashing his high pitched yelp. The show's announcer, Rod Roddy, who you may also remember from the Price is Right, almost loses his voice, listing all the things Michael has won a sailboat, a vacation to the Bahamas, a trip to Hawaii, oh, and over $100,000 in cash. The host of the show, Peter Tomarkin, is dumbfounded. He has spent the whole show watching Michael in awe. He never tries to throw Michael off his game, nor is he asked to by the producers. Peter is as amazed as the audience. He announces to Michael, you have won more money than anyone has even thought about winning. On Press yous Luck, the host looks as exhausted and relieved as the champion. Peter had been scared that Michael was tempting fate by spinning so many times. He didn't want Michael to lose all his money. But to Peter's amazement, Michael survives the rollercoaster ride. Before the credits roll, Peter interviews Michael one last time, and they hit on all the underdog story beats. Michael reminds the audience that he has borrowed money to travel to Los Angeles. He says that he's wearing a dress shirt that he bought for 65 cents at a thrift store. He explains that until now he didn't have enough money to pay for birthday gifts for his daughter, and he's excited that he won't have to drive an ice cream truck anytime soon. Not this summer, he says. No way. One thing Michael doesn't talk about is how exactly he won all that money.
- [31:54]
Commercial Announcer
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- [32:25]
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- [32:55]
Carter Roy
In the immediate aftermath of Michael Larson's press yous luck heist, executives at CBS scramble to get to the bottom of it. The Tiffany Network doesn't even want to air Michael's amazing run, at least not without investigating Michael first. The execs don't want the blood of a cheating scandal on their hands, but it becomes clear that Michael isn't a scammer at all. He's just an astonishingly keen observer. All he needed was a bunch of TVs, some VCRs and too much time on his hands. Years later, one game show exec says this what he did was legitimate. It was like being a card counter at blackjack. After all, nowhere in the rules did it say that you couldn't pay attention. CBS immediately and quietly tweaks a few things about the game. To prevent anyone else from copying Michael's strategy, the producers of Press yous Luck increased the number of prize board patterns from 5 to 32. They also decide to cap a contestant's winnings at $75,000. In June 1984, the network reluctantly airs Michael's episode as a two part special. It is, after all, a TV moment too good to hide from viewers. But beyond that, CBS doesn't exactly celebrate his incredible performance. Executives decide to show the two part episode once, then stash it away. The decision not to rerun it seems misguided by then. The cat is way out of the bag. But also it's understandable they don't want any copycats. Even if Michael is suis Generalise. Press yous Luck runs for three seasons on cbs. There are rumors that the network's decision to eventually cancel it is because of Michael's windfall. That isn't true. In fact, his run causes ratings to jump at first. In 2019, ABC reboots press yous Luck with Elizabeth Banks as the host. The revival is still going, but it's never reached the heights that the original did on that surreal day back in 1984. How could it? The uncut original footage of Michael Larson's performance doesn't officially resurface again until 2003, when the game show network airs a documentary about the incident called Big Bucks the Press yous Luck Scandal. It's narrated by Peter Tomarkin. As for Michael, well, he doesn't exactly triumphantly ride off into the sunset. Pulling off one of the most clever get rich quick schemes in American history teaches him the wrong lesson. Over the years, his small scams snowball into bigger ones and things get ugly. In his post game interview, Michael claims he's going to invest his winnings in real estate. He later says in an interview with TV Guide that cash flow problems throw a wrench into that plan. A few months after his Press yous Luck appearance, Michael hears about a radio station contest. Every day, a DJ in Dayton, Ohio, reads a serial number on the air. If that Serial number matches the serial number of your $1 bill. Then you win $30,000. So what does Michael do? He withdraws $100,000 in singles from the bank. Actually, he needs five banks to find that many small bills. Michael and his wife Teresa spend weeks sifting through the cash trying to find the winning serial numbers. They don't have any luck. After a while, they put half of the stack back in the bank. But there's still $50,000 in loose bills scattered around the house. One night they go to a Christmas party. But when they return, their back door has been kicked in and the money is gone. As the police investigate, Michael becomes paranoid. He accuses Teresa of stealing his money, or if not, putting someone else up to it. Teresa seriously starts to think that he might try to kill her. While she's sleeping. He stands at the end of the bed and stares at her. It gives her the creeps. The alleged robbery is never solved and Teresa leaves Michael. He is out of her life for good. It doesn't take long for America to forget about Michael Larson. In 1994, he makes one last documented public appearance when the movie Quiz show comes out. Good Morning America interviews him about his own game show scandal. During the segment, he claims that it had taken him six months to fully memorize all the Press yous Luck Prize board patterns. He also expresses interest in being a contestant on Jeopardy. He smiles and says that he's figured out some angles on that show. I'm very curious to know how you can trick Jeopardy. I guess if you spent six months memorizing encyclopedias, maybe that's what it is. Alas, Michael's game show days are over. At some point in the 90s, Michael moves from Ohio to Florida. It turns out that he isn't just trying to escape the harsh Midwestern winters. He's on the lam. You see, Michael has helped orchestrate a multi level marketing scheme through a shell company called Pleasure Time Incorporated. There are bogus investments in fake Native American lotteries. Michael allegedly bilks 20,000 people out of a total of $3 million. He is a pioneer. Until investigating the scheme, the Security and Exchange Commission had never pursued a serious Internet fraud case. The SEC files charges against the sham company in 1995. But the law never catches up with Michael. In 1999, he dies of throat cancer in Apopka, Florida at age 49. It's still unclear why Michael Larson decides to go from small time scammer to full on con man. Maybe he's desperate for money. Or maybe he's delusional enough to believe that he can outwit the powers that be. I mean, he'd done it once before, long after his brother's death. James Larson says that he believes Michael's performance on Press yous Luck was the start of his downfall. James also says that Michael always thought that the media didn't celebrate his feat as much as it should have. As his former common law wife Theresa puts it, the game show is one thing he did do that was honest. In reality, Michael Larson's legend doesn't actually die with him. In the early 2000s, Bill Murray is in talks to play Michael in a movie about the ice cream man's wild run on Press yous Lucky. The film is never made, but two and a half decades later, another actor, Paul Walter Hauser, takes up the mantle. He plays Michael in the Luckiest man in America, a true ish silver screen adaptation of his story that debuts in 2024, 40 years after Michael's appearance on Press yous Luck. Hauser nails Michael's mannerisms right down to his high pitched yelp. I think it's a performance that Michael himself would have approved of, though he might quibble with the movie's title. If you asked him, he'd say his most famous accomplishment had nothing to do with luck. Thank you for listening to conspiracy theories. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram. Hey, the Conspiracy Pod. If you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Our sources for today's episode include the TV Guide article the Day the Game Show Got Whammied, the this American Life segment Don't Hate the Player, and the Game Show Network documentary Big the Press yous Luck Scandal. Until next time, Remember, the truth isn't always the best story, and the official story isn't always the truth. This episode was written by Alan Siegel, edited by Miki Taylor and Justin Sayles, fact checked by Sophie Kemp and engineered video edited and sound designed by Alex Button. I'm your host, Carter Roy.