This page has been updated with lots of screengrabs! Some of them I had when my page was online in the late nineties, and some of them are new to the site. Special thanks to Christian Lemke for directing me back to the picture site, and for taking the pictures himself. Please note that the filesizes of the screengrabs are quite large, so these pages may take some time to fully load. It's worth the wait!

Yes, Press Your Luck, the game show that sweeped the eighties by storm, made a comeback by Pearson Television. However, it isn't aired in the states, but is enjoyed by German audiences this time around. The show debuted on the RTL2 network on August 16, 1999. Under the title "Drück Dein Glück", translated it still means "Press Your Luck". The show did make a couple of changes that I will mention here.

Just like Press Your Luck (PYL), Drück Dein Glück (DDG) was played with 2 types of rounds: The Question and "The Big Board" rounds. The first difference here is that three rounds of each style are played instead of 2. In each of the first 2 question rounds, there are 4 questions, yet only two questions in the final. In the first round, a buzz-in answer gets the player 2 spins, a multiple choice answer, 1 spin. In rounds 2 and 3, a buzz-in answer gets you 3 spins, a multiple choice answer, 2 spins.

Of course, we all know that it was the Big Money rounds that were the most exciting to watch. However this time around, the board looks to be like a video wall of some sort, and totally computerized, unlike the American version. Also, on Drück Dein Glück, there are only 16 spaces on the board, unlike 18 on the USA Press Your Luck. Some of the spaces I am still learning on what they mean, however, what you want to avoid here, instead of the cute little red fellow we know and love as "The Whammy", you have to look out for "Hainz der Geldhai", which in a nutshell, translates into "Hainz, The Money Shark".

At this moment, I am being told that there is only one single "Hainz" animation, of Hainz eating the money. Just like the US version, four Sharks will put you out of the game. The Hainz symbols are indicated by lit-up shark lights at the top of the contestant podium, as seen on the right.

It's time to mention the major major rule change. To quote my friend Christian Lemke from Germany, who's the one that told me about Drück Dein Glück in the first place, and let me know about other aspects...

"They introduced some new rules...If a player hits the first prize (a car) in the final bonus round, he has won the game, regardless of their score.  That's actually quite stupid, since in today's episode a girl won the car with a score of zero and 3 "whammies".  Oh, and if you've won the car, you won't come back."

This above rule is by FAR the biggest problem with the new version. In a fair comparison, again for those of you like myself that had GSN during the 1997-1998 season (also known as "The Dark Period"), you may remember the "Three Crowns" space on the GSN original show "Trivia Track", in which all you had to do was hit that space for an automatic win without answering any questions at all. Just stupid!

On a personal note, there was something funny that myself, and a few friends of mine that love PYL always wanted to know: "If Pearson decided to revive Press Your Luck, would they change the format like they have done with many other revivals?" Looks to me like we all just got the answer, no?