R.I.P. Peter Tomarken

Peter Tomarken, former host of popular game show Press Your Luck, and his wife, Katherine, were killed Monday when their small plane crashed into the ocean off the coast of Los Angeles. Tomarken, 63, owned the Beechcraft but was not flying the plane when it crashed while flying from Santa Monica to San Diego. The pilot reported engine trouble shortly after taking from Santa Monica and had turned around before the plane plunged into the ocean about a half-mile from the Santa Monica Pier.

Poor guy. I used to LOVE Press Your Luck and always thought Peter Tamarken was really cute, too. Need a refresher on Press Your Luck?

On Press Your Luck, contestants collected "spins" by answering trivia questions, and then used the "spins" on a board with dollar amounts. The person who amassed the most in cash and prizes at the end of the game won.

The show claims to be most memorable for the "Whammy," a red cartoon creature of indeterminate species wearing a cape. The Whammy's spaces on the game board took away the contestant's money, accompanied by an animation that would show the Whammy taking the loot—but frequently being chased away, blown up, or otherwise humiliated in the process.

The more memorable part of the show were its crazy, wailing contestants, who would scream, "NO WHAMMY! NO WHAMMY! NO WHAMMY!" while their block rotated around the board and then "STOP!!!" when they would pounce on the red button when they wanted their cursor to stop.

Also quite memorable was this HUGE scandal that occurred in the 80's with PYL. Wikipedia provides an account:

On one episode of Press Your Luck in 1984, a self-described unemployed ice cream man named Michael Larson made it onto the show. With the use of a VCR, Larson was able to memorize the presumed random patterns of the game board, to help him stop the board where and when he wanted to. On the episode he appeared in, Larson spun 35 times without hitting a Whammy and took away $110,237 in cash and prizes, most of which was earned via "cash plus a spin" spaces (thus allowing him to take so many consecutive spins). His total was a record by far for a single appearance on a game show up to that time. The Press Your Luck board's patterns were significantly reworked after this incident, increasing from the original five patterns to thirty-two, and such a run was never repeated on the show.