Like almost any TV game show (or any other television show for that matter), Press Your Luck had to go through the "pilot" stages before becoming an actual television series. In many cases, the pilot episode is never displayed publically, and never broadcast. However every now and again, the pilot episode may become public in the bootleg stages, and one example of this is the pilot of "Press Your Luck". While there were not that many changes made after it was an offical series, the pilot episode is rather neat to watch.

When you think about it, there was only one change in the gameplay in the pilot, and that was in the question rounds. Instead of four questions being asked, there were five, that could give a contestant as many as 15 spins if they buzzed in and answered all five of the questions correctly. (Not bad!)

There was also 2 technical tidbits of interest. For some reason, the board ran a little slower than what would air. (If this was done on purpose so the players knew when to buzz in or not, I don't know). The other trivia fact is that the pilot episode of Press Your Luck did use the now infamous "Larson Patterns" (discovered by Michael Larson), just like many early episodes did.

Naturally, because it was a pilot, there was not a concern to get the set as done as it would eventually become. In fact, the logo was nothing more than a stamped out font, with some of the lettering inversed. Another thing missing were the trademark blue windows that appeared behind the contestants as they played the big board. Instead, a spacey look & lots of stars were used.

Also, because it was unknown wheather or not the show would be successful, the show experimented with only a single Whammy animation. (While this would go on to become just one of over seventy different and unique animations made, just one was enough for a start.) And the first time the whammy was seen on camera, it was the infamous "Whammy with the Hammer" animation, in which he would punch out your score down to $0.

One thing to notice is that this pilot episode featured two contestants that also appeared on the pilot episode of "Second Chance", this shows presuccessor. Jack Campion and Maggie Brown. (Jack would eventually also go on to appear in the pilot of "Jeopardy!" with Alex Trebek, and Maggie would become a contestant on the actual run of "Press Your Luck", as well as an episode of "Wipeout", another game show hosted by Peter Tomarken.)

This pilot of "Press Your Luck" is a nice treat for any fans of the series!