Where this was said
Getting On the Show: The Charm Offensive and the Suspicious Coordinator
At 18:10 · chapter starts 17:35
With his research complete, Larson bought a cheap plane ticket to Los Angeles and showed up at a Press Your Luck open audition. He leaned hard into the underdog narrative, claiming he'd just stepped off a bus from Ohio [1] — Host "Larson flew to LA and played up his humble Ohio ice cream man backstory at the Press Your Luck open audition. Executive producer Bill Carru…" 17:35 . The homespun charm worked on executive producer Bill Carruthers, who found him charismatic, funny, and irresistibly relatable. But not everyone was fooled. Contestant coordinator Bob Edwards got a kick out of Larson's story but found it a little too perfect, a little too constructed. Something about the guy set off his instincts. Edwards explicitly told Carruthers: don't put this man on the show. Carruthers overruled him. He would later say he should have listened. On the day of the taping, Larson met his two competitors: Ed Long, a Baptist minister and returning champion with an $11,000 previous payday, and Janie Litras Dakin, a dental assistant who would later describe Larson as a creepy person with a creepy smile — and admit she had underestimated him. The stage was set.
Larson flew to LA and played up his humble Ohio ice cream man backstory at the Press Your Luck open audition. Executive producer Bill Carruthers loved him. Contestant coordinator Bob Edwards smelled something off and explicitly recommended against putting him on the show. Carruthers overruled him.
