5 Things That Make Press Your Luck the Best 1980's Game Show

Taking a little break from our Year in Reviews 2012:  Movies Edition series to pay homage to that staple of 1980's day time TV:  the game show.  Specifically, one of my personal favorites, the ridiculous and whammirific Press Your Luck!  The Price is Right is the indisputable king of daytime TV game shows--synergistic fact, Rod Roddy was the announcer for both The Price is Right and Press Your Luck--a title I certainly will not contradict here.  But thanks to the magic of reruns and the geniuses of programming at the Game Show Network (GSN), here are five things that make Press Your Luck the best 1980's game show.

1.  1980's Contestants

I loved Press Your Luck as a kid during it's three year run from 1983 to 1986.  But it is immeasurably more entertaining looking back through our retro spyglass.  I was but a small child in the '80's so my perspective is a bit hazy, so a question to all you older folks:  was everyone just ugly and/or awkward looking during the Reagan years?  It's not just the bad haircuts, earth tone blazers, novelty sized eyeglasses, bushy mustaches, or in some cases all of the above.  You don't have to look too hard at your nearest hipster hangout to see a lot of "fashion" of the era has come back, and with a vengeance.  So it's not just the style, but the people themselves.  Everyone either appears to be a giant dork or a hayseed.  This was long before the reality TV era, where everyone and their uncle's cat thinks they can and should be on TV.  You can see a noticeable difference in the sensibilities of the eras.  I'm sure the producers told the contestants to act excited and whatnot, and you can see that their trying so hard.  But John and Jane Q 1980's were, generally, just not ready for the spotlight.  On a recently viewed episode, one of the female contestants, Bea, was so nervous on camera she could barely even speak!  Sort of an important aspect of game show contestanting.  Can you imagine such a thing on today's game shows, like Minute to Win It or Who Wants to be a Millionaire?  It's the exact opposite.  With the exceptions of Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and the Price is Right--all hold overs from the golden age of game shows mind  you--contestants on today's shows never shut up.  Before each question or challenge we're subjected to some inane reasoning for their answer or an obnoxious soliloquy about how when they're grandmother used to bake apple cobbler she always made sure to grease the pan with genuine hog lard and that memory gave the contestant the insight needed to complete the challenge in record time.  Or something equally stupid.  Yes, even Press Your Luck had it's share of blowhards, but they were much fewer and further between.  So, awkward and ill-dressed as they are, give me the unassuming not ready for prime time game show contestant of the '80's any day over today's fame seeking blabbermouth.

2.  Terrible Prizes

If you're not familiar with Press Your Luck here's how it worked.  It featured three contestants who would buzz in to answer a series of trivia questions to win "spins."  Their were two rounds of questions, and after each round contestants would get a chance to use their spins on the "Big Board."  The Big Board features many squares displaying dollar values or fabulous prizes.  And of course, the whammies (more on those later).  A lighted border would flash around the various squares and when a player would hit their buzzer and yell "STOP!" one square would remain lit, netting the contestant either a whammy, cash, or fabulous prize.  Except many of the prizes were far from fabulous.

Examples:

• A water conditioner - Huh.  A really nice, practical prize, I'm sure.  But maybe the most unexciting prize ever.  Wouldn't you have to live somewhere with the most mineral enriched water ever to truly appreciate a game show water conditioner?  As in, your faucet is basically dispensing rocks?
• A graphic - To this day I'm still not sure what this is.  The prize tile simply read "Graphic" and had a poor representation of American Gothic displayed on it.  I'm guessing it's art of some kind?  Why wouldn't you just say that?  Art.  Doesn't that sound better than Graphic?  Am I getting a decal to stick on the side of my car?  Or a single graphic on a floppy disc to display on my Tandy?  This still boggles my mind--way more than it should.
• A Jog 'n Tramp - Um, we actually had one of these.  Pretty fun as a little kid.  Pretty awful as a game show prize.
• A silver service - Great, something to collect dust in my china cabinet.  Has anyone ever actually used one of these sets to serve tea?
• A trip to Concord, CA - So........I.......wha......I just.........huh.  Concord.
• Silver gifts - What's with all the silver stuff?  Who's picking the prizes, Paul Revere?  And what exactly are silver gifts?  Is this a sneaky way of unloading the leftover silver services from the warehouse?  Is it a pocket watch, a paperweight, just a solid bar of silver?  These are questions that need answers.
• Catamaran - This is my personal favorite.  It's the epitome of impractical game show prizes.  Sure, it might be fun on the open water, the wind in your face and sea mist in your hair.  Too bad it's going to spend the next decade taking up room in your garage or costing you money at a self storage facility.

3.  Horrible production values

Compared to the high-tech, slick TV programming we have today, a lot of vintage TV looks pretty creaky.  Bad sound, fuzzy pictures, cheesy graphics and special effects are not the fault of the era.  They were doing the best they could with what they had.  But even amongst its contemporaries, Press Your Luck was pretty bad.  On more than one occasion I've seen cue card holders and stage hands clearly in the frame.  It's not like this was a live broadcast.  Couldn't they have re-shot those sequences.  Other times I've noticed people just sort of milling around behind the set, their silhouettes clearly visible behind the host.  When the contestants would hit their buzzers to answer the trivia questions, it sounds like you or way slapping our dining room table.  Presumably, the buzzers were not active until the host finished reading the question and only then would they actually buzz when struck.  But contestants were always trying to buzz in early, so there was always cacophony of table slapping to accompany the questions.  It just really hurt the overall professionalism of the show.  No, really.  Also, sometimes the tiles on the Big Board wouldn't light up and you'd just have empty spaces.  Or pieces of the set literally falling apart on camera.  I guess that's what separates the greats from the rest.  Can you ever remember Plinko on the Price is Right not working correctly, or some stage hand loitering just behind Alex Trebek?  I didn't think so.

4  Host Peter Tomarken

Do people aspire to be game show hosts, I wonder?  Well, if Peter Tomarken ever did he certainly found his calling.  The perfect blend of smarm and charm, he was actually kinda funny and appeared to have a good time ribbing the contestants.  Always with a smile that seemed genuine, he signed on with, "Welcome to Press Your Luck, the game where you can win a bundle or lose your shirt," and always signed off with a goofy little poem about whammies.  They were always terrible.  At one point they were sent in from viewers at home (allegedly).  Who would actually take the time and then spend the stamp to sent it in.  But as game show hosts go, he was pretty good.  Not as dignified as Trebek or Barker, not as creepy as Richard Dawson or Wink Martindale after too many plastic surgeries, it's a shame he never did much of note after Press Your Luck.

5.  The Whammies

As mentioned earlier. other cash and prizes, whammies also resided on the Big Board.  If you hit a whammy, a devilish looking little cartoon creature that bore a resemblance to the Tasmanian Devil wearing a cape, you lost all your money and prizes.  Get four whammies in a game and your disqualified.  As a kid I loved the whammies.  When a player got one a little cartoon whammy would appear next to the players money total, manically laughing and erasing their winnings with a lawnmower, WWI era fighter plane, or by moonwalking across them (this was the 80's after all), or other such silliness.  It's a ridiculous gimmick that fans of the show love and haters hate.  Because that's what they do; haters gonna hate.

Bonus Reason:

In 1984 was embroiled in something of a scandal when contestant Michael Larson won over $110,000 utilizing 47 spins in one game, both a record by far.  The game actually had to be split between two episodes.  Believing Larson must have cheated, CBS initially refused to give him his winnings.  However, they could never prove it.  Larson had learned the pattern of the flashing lights and timed his buzzes accordingly.  His run is available on YouTube and is pretty fun to watch.  You can almost hear the producers' brains exploding.  Tragically, Larson lost all his money in bad business deals and died in 1999 of throat cancer.  He was only 50 when he died, though he looks like he was pushing 65 at the time of his winnings in 1984.  People just looked older back in the olden days I guess.

Here's Larson's record-breaking run:

5 Things That Make A Christmas Story Timeless

As I mentioned in the last post, my wife and I watch pretty much the same Christmas movies every year.  We'll try a new one every once in a while, for instance we watched Four Christmases the other night.  Not sure that one will make the yearly rotation, though there were some amusing moments, but I can only take so much Vince Vaughn in any 12 month period.  One of our, as well as any other self-respecting Christmas movie aficionado's, favorite is A Christmas Story.  Based on Jean Shepherd's awesomely titled novel of his 1940's Indiana childhood In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, and directed by Bob Clark, A Christmas Story is a nostalgic look back at one boys longing for the perfect Christmas gift.  But why am I telling you this?  Everybody's seen it, right?  Right?!

One of the reasons its such a classic is that we can all identify with Ralphie and his covetous desire for the official Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time.  We've all wanted something so badly for Christmas--and not just as kids--that it consumed our entire being, penetrated every ywaking thought and dream, and rendered any alternative no matter how thoughtful and noteworthy, even a homemade pink bunny suit, utterly lacking.

Here are five things that make A Christmas Story so timeless....

1.  It's a great period piece

I first saw A Christmas Story in the mid '80's when I was probably eight or nine, and even though the movie was released only three or four years prior to that, for a long time I thought it had actually been made in the time and place it portrays, early 1940's Indiana.  A lot of period movies try too hard to look the part and as a result everything ends up looking too polished, too perfect.  Well, save for perhaps the "major award," nothing looks polished or perfect in A Christmas Story.  On the contrary, you can almost hear the creak in their wooden floors, or smell the "whiff of ozone" when the sparks fly from the Christmas tree lights.  The costumes and sets are all perfect because they aren't.  They look lived in and used.  You get a real feel for the era and what a cold Midwestern Christmas would've looked like and what a malfunctioning coal furnace would've smelled like.

2.  The Old Man

Peter Billingsley's Ralphie is the obvious protagonist, but Darrn McGavin as the Old Man really steals the show.  Whether he's battling the furnace or the Oldsmobile that would freeze up in the middle of winter on the equator, his tapestry of swearing is delivered with the perfect combination of righteous indignation and old school working man angst.  McGavin delivers in all his big scenes, from his pride at winning his indescribably beautiful major award, to his frustrated rage when he learns there is no glue, to his utter joy of watching Ralphie unwrap his BB gun.  I can't imagine any other actor playing that role better.

3.  The unwrapping

This scene is to me maybe the greatest scene in any Christmas movie ever.  Those two and a half minutes capture the essence of the joy in giving and receiving just about perfectly.  Ralphie trying to put on a brave face after all the presents are opened and not finding what he wanted.  Ralphie unwrapping the gift faster as he realizes what it is.  The Old Man's face as he watches the excitement on Ralphie's.  Mother's face as she is as surprised as Ralphie.  Just a pitch perfect scene.  Love it.

4.  The kids

Another detail the movie gets right is how the kids talk.  Unlike a lot of movies, the conversations Ralphie and his friends have sound a lot like how kids I knew in elementary school talked.  Some the vernacular is different, given that I wasn't in elementary school in 1940's Indiana, but the dialogue rings true.  Yes, sometimes young kids swear.  Yes, they dare each other to do stupid things.  Yes, they call each other names and throw each other under the bus when faced with punishment.  And yes, they still need their mommies when they've had a rough day at school.  Just another thing A Christmas Story gets right.

5.  Randy in the bathroom/red cabbage segue.

Ok, so maybe this doesn't belong on the timeless list, but I always found it hilarious.  Probably because I'm immature.  I couldn't find a clip of it anyway on the web, but next time you watch it look for this.  Right after Ralphie decodes the Little Orphan Annie message he leaves the bathroom and his little brother Randy enters.    Randy runs to the toilet, lifts the seat, pulls down his pants and starts to sit down.  Cut immediately to a big pot of red cabbage boiling on the stove that looks...less than appetizing.  That could not have been an accident.  Well played Stan Cole.  Well played.

Really, I could go on.  So many great and memorable scenes.  A classic tale of childhood nearly everyone can relate to and a must watch every season.

5 Things...That Make Lawrence of Arabia the Consummate Epic

Even before I had ever seen it, whenever I thought of an epic movie Lawrence of Arabia was the first thing that came to mind.  Of course, this was in the olden days when the word epic was used to describe something sweeping and heroic, not a frat party or that burrito you just ate.  Even from just the view clips and snippets I had seen--mostly in Oscar show montages and such--it looked like a vast movie.  Wide desert panoramas, exotic costumes, British people, and TWO VHS tapes!  When I finally did see it several years ago, it did not disappoint.  Not only did it check off all the items from the What Makes an Epic Movie checklist (it has an overture and an intermission!  How much more epic can you be?), it is undoubtedly one of the finest examples of film-making ever.  Here are my five things that make David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia the consummate epic.

1.  War!

Wars are bad.  We know this.  However, as much as they are the realm of tragedy, suffering, and destruction, they are also an arena for bravery, courage, and the testing of ones mettle in ways nothing else could.  LoA--which is how we would all refer to it if it was released these days--has all of these in scads. We in the modern era are used to our movie battles being very gritty and realistic, so movie battles of a bygone era look pretty dated and cheesy for the most part.  A smitten soldier heaves his weapon skyward then clutches his chest where presumably the bullet entered only we can't know for sure because his death is completely bloodless.  For all we know it may have been a cardiac episode that did him in.  For the most part the battles in Lawrence of Arabia hold up pretty well.  There are still quite a few melodramatic rifle heaving deaths, but there is also a level of grit and decidedly unglamourous destruction not often seen in movies of the era.  Plus, in these days of CGI soldiers, its pretty cool to see a hundred or more real people riding real camels across the desert at high speed.  And where did they find all those camels!?  Legions of camels!  Camels!

Most importantly, it captures the effect war can have on people, both the individual and the group.  Lawrence is at first an idealist, bold and arrogant, looking to be the savior of the Arab people and guide them to post-war independence, free of the influence of the West.  But as the war progresses and he begins to realize the true intentions of those he considered allies, he becomes disillusioned.  He continues to fight, but he also transforms into something much different than what he was at the start.  His fuel for the battle is less his desire to free a people then to satisfy his own vanity and thirst for vengeance.  By the time he realizes what he has become, it's too late and the damage has been done.

On a broader view, the movie portrays the war as the unsentimental reality that it was.  The British would gladly accept the assistance of the Prince Feisal's little army, but pay only lip service to the idea of carving any sort of independent Arabia out of a defeated Ottoman Turk empire.  And what exactly are Prince Feisals' motivations to begin with?  The final minutes of the movie are a stark reminder that wars are generally fought for the interests of nations first, everything else second.  There are exceptions of course, and while the freeing of oppressed people can be a byproduct of war, especially in the case of WWI that was certainly a secondary objective if an objective at all.

2.  Sand!

Director David Lean and his cinematographer really really like sand dunes.  But that's okay.  There is shot after shot of beautiful, sweeping desert landscapes that convey the vastness of the desert and smallness of the men and their camels trying to cross it.   I would love to have seen Lawrence of Arabia in one of those old movie theaters with the ginormous screens.  The desert vistas must have looked absolutely--wait for it--EPIC on those screens.

3.  Characters!

Lawrence of Arabia is filled with colorful, larger than life characters, ably played by tremendous actors.  Of course, there is Peter O'Toole as Lawrence, who perfectly captures the arrogant and flamboyant mystique of the erstwhile leader of the Arab army.  The worldly Prince Feisal is played by Obi-Wan--I mean Alec Guinness, who is decidedly un-Jedi like in his political maneuvering.  Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn are fantastic as rival tribal leaders who make up the bulk of Lawrence's shaky alliance of Arab clans.  Plus all the other British guys as various generals and soldiers are wonderful as well.  Never underestimate other British guys.  They make any movie seem more important and epic.  Must be the accents.

4.  Politics!

The first time I saw this movie was during the Iraq War, after "Mission Accomplished" and at the height of the sectarian violence.  Watching the final scenes of this movie in that context was an interesting and eye-opening experience.  Without being too spoilerish--as if I should even care about spoilers when talking about a movie released 50 years ago--the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Or as The Wire's Slim Charles would aptly say, "The Games the same, just got more fierce."

5.  Score!

Sometimes I think folks over look how important a movies score is.  It's like we take it for granted.  Well, it's not like we do take it for granted, we do take it for granted.  We just assume it will always be there, comforting us, exciting us, prompting how we should feel.  But a good score makes a huge impact.  Lawrence of Arabia's score by Maurice Jarre is a perfect example of this.  I could yammer on a little more about it, but instead just watch, listen and enjoy.

Lawrence of Arabia richly deserves its esteem as one of the greatest films of all time.  The scope and spectacle make it something to behold. From the starkness of the landscapes to the complexity of the men who inhabit it, it is by all accounts an epic of epic proportions.

5 Things...That Make Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol a Great Action Flick

Bloggers Note:  New feature!  5 Things... will be a regular feature on Critical Error.  It will consist of 5 Things about something that make it something.  For instance, 5 Things that Make Grey's Anatomy A Pretty Terrible Show.  I will then list those five things.  Got it?  Good.  Proceed.


My wife and I recently took in the latest installment of the Mission Impossible franchise, subtitled Ghost Protocol.  Do you realize the first one came out 15 years ago!?  Think about that for a second.  A child born the year after it came out is now driving.  Blows my mind.  Anyway, here are 5 Things...^TM that make Mission Impossible:  Ghost Protocol a Great Action Flick.

1.  Gadgets/disguises:  This is the kind of stuff that makes a movie like this that much cooler.  Who doesn't love spy gadgets?  Magnetized suits, false limbs, contact lenses that do facial recognition and photocopying, lasers that cut glass, reversible jackets that are Marshall Zhukov on one side and Fonzi on the other, retinal scanners, secret computer terminals hidden inside old Eastern Bloc pay phones, nuclear brief cases, the list goes on.  Oh, and the coolest iPhone/iPad apps ever.

2.  Tom's Tower Stunt:  If you've seen any of the trailers, you've seen glimpses of Tom Cruises scaling the worlds tallest building in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa.  This is an amazing feat of stuntery.  Yes, it's pretty amazing that Cruise did the stunt himself, but even more amazing at whoever figured out how to make it work so ol' Tom didn't plunge to his grisly death.  Though I imagine that it wouldn't actually be that grisly as falling from that height the body would probably break up in the earth's atmosphere or vaporize once it hit the pavement.  That or he may just get caught in the towers gravitational pull and Tom would spend the rest of his days orbiting it like a Maverick shaped moon.  That would probably appeal to the Scientologist in him.  Anyway, to see it on the big screen is incredible.  It's so dizzying, my wife literally got sick.  Like, threw up into her bag of popcorn.  Ok, not really but that does provide a nice segue into...

3.  My Wife's Reactions:  Watching an intense action movie with my wife is entertainment that rivals what's on the screen.  No, she didn't vomit into her popcorn bag, but she was visibly dizzied from the scene.  Her gasps at each death defying leap and fall were pretty hilarious.  At the end of it she held her head in her hands and finally exhaled.  A few other scenes had her face palming and jumping in her seat.  She actually gets stressed out.  We should all surrender ourselves to the power of cinema in this way.

4.  Tom Cruise Running As Fast As He Can:  I am convinced they could make a movie that is nothing but Tom Cruise running as fast as possible for an hour and a half and it would be the year's top comedy.  Tom, make this happen.

5.  Actors Who Can Act:  I think a question that deserves deeper thought is, what separates a good action movie from a bad action movie?  Is it the size of the explosions?  The quality of the kung fu?  Certainly not the plot?  Some, would make the case that its that you care enough for the characters that the action sequences that put them in peril cause you to emote a greater concern for their well being, thus ratcheting up the tension and excitement.  Maybe.  But, without really giving it much thought, I do think it has a lot to do with the actors, though less in how we care for their characters than in how convincing they are in doing whatever it is they are supposed to be doing.  Not just the action sequences, but the in between stuff too.  You know, like the 15 minutes of total dialog. So, its not so much that you care for the characters, but you believe them.  Yes, it does have to do with the quality of the action also.  The editing, sound design, and all the technical aspects play a major roll, but let's be honest, a lot of great looking action movies have been lousy snoozefests (I'm looking at you Avatar).

So, back to MI: GP, it had quality actors.  Cruise, for all his weirdness, is good.  Jeremy Renner is terrific and Simon Pegg is comic relief that is actually comical.  No ones going home with a statue or anything, but it works.

Conclusion:  Another winner from JJ Abrams, producer.  The movie was directed by veteran animation director Brad Bird, who directed the best of all the Pixar movies (which is saying something), The Incredibles.  Fun, exciting, thrilling, everything going to the movies should be.