Game Over: The Cast of "Press Your Luck"

Press Your Luck was a game show that ran for four years in the mid 1980s.  A modest hit for CBS, it was famous for the big board, through which contestants could win cash and prizes.  It was also famous for the "Whammy," an animated gremlin, who would steal all your winnings if you had the misfortune of landing on his square.  See a compilation video here.

The show made TV history in 1984, when an unemployed ice cream truck driver from Ohio swept the board, taking home more than $110,000 in cash prizes - a sum unheard of before and rarely seen since.  Larson used a new invention called a "VCR" to record the show, then memorize the proclaimed "random" patterns displayed on the big board.  "STOP!"

Ultimately, life would throw Larson the biggest Whammy of them all, along with the show's announcer Rod Roddy (Come on down!) and host/watch winder Peter Tomarken.  They are buried in Ohio, Texas, and California respectively.

Peter Tomarken hosted a series of game shows both before and after Press Your Luck, but none could ever rival its success.  He left Hollywood in 2000 and became a real estate agent, as well as an "Angel of Mercy" pilot, through which he transported patients for surgical procedures.  It was on such a flight on March 13, 2006, when his Beechcraft Bonanza crashed off Santa Monica, killing him and his wife Kathleen.  The cause was later determined to be improper engine repair.

Location: Hillside Memorial Park, Los Angeles

Plot: Laurel Gardens, Block 16, Plot 4, Grave 3
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September 11, 2001, is a date all Americans will remember.  With the attacks on America serving as a backdrop, Rod Roddy received devastating news that day - he had colon cancer.  The long-running emcee of The Price is Right, who had served the same role throughout the run of Press Your Luck, would begin a two-year battle with his condition, ultimately passing on October 27, 2003.  He was buried with his mother in Fort Worth, Texas.

Location: Greenwood Memorial Park and Mausoleum, Forth Worth, Texas

Plot: Peace 44

GPS: 32.76205, -97.36848
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Michael Larson is the man who beat the Whammy at his own game.  Sadly he'd lose most of his winnings in poor investments and faulty home security.  He received little attention for his accomplishment at the time, but has received more in recent years, though sadly it is posthumous.  Larson died of throat cancer in 1999, while in hiding from the government on charges of tax fraud.  Watch his full episode here, and a TV Land special documenting it here.

Location: Lebanon Cemetery, Lebanon, Ohio

Plot: Section C