In the 22 December episode of Wheel of Fortune, a contestant missed the most obvious answer, inviting sounds of surprise from the audience and sympathy from the host, Pat Sajak.
The contestant named Gwen had $8,250 on the line when she received a question from the category of “Event.” After asking for the vowels “O” and “A,” she was left with the following puzzle: “SURPRISE/_ARRIA_E/PROPOSA_”
“Surprise Carriage Proposal,” she confidently replied, but to her dismay, “Surprise Marriage Proposal” was the appropriate response.
She was corrected by the buzzer and the collective gasp from the audience while Sajak consoled her as she hung her head. He told the participant, “Sometimes you get excited, and your mouth doesn’t say what your brain intended. I’m sorry.”
Gwen, however, still managed to win $11,150 and had a much better time with fans of the show than a previous contestant who received the board at “TH_ /_RITI_S/_GR_E.” The contestant Gishma answered “The British Ogre,” while the correct answer was “The Critics Agree.”
Gishma also received $15,853 in cash and a cruise trip, which made up for all the trolling she received on social media.
have never seen my mom so upset pic.twitter.com/wtsMbegonF
— blaire erskine (@blaireerskine) December 23, 2023
What is Wheel of Fortune?
The American television game show Wheel of Fortune, created by Merv Griffin and usually referred to as just Wheel, has been broadcast every day since January 1975.
It has a competition where participants complete word puzzles that resemble the Hangman game in order to win money and prizes that are chosen by spinning a massive carnival wheel. Launched in nightly syndication, the current version of the show debuted on 19 September 1983.
Pat Sajak and Vanna White, who have presented the evening edition since its launch, have remained the hosts. Wheel was a network daytime program that debuted on NBC on 6 January 1975 and ran until 30 June 1989.
It then aired on CBS from 17 July 1989 to 11 January 1991. On 14 January 1991, Wheel returned to NBC. However, it was canceled that same year, running until 20 September 1991. (From 1983 until the end of the network version, the syndicated nighttime version and the daytime version ran together.)
Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford presented the network version initially. When Woolery resigned in 1981, Sajak took over. In January 1989, Sajak departed from the network version to continue hosting the Wheel at night while hosting his own talk show.
In the daytime, Sajak was replaced by Rolf Benirschke, who was later replaced by Bob Goen when the network program transferred to CBS. For the second NBC run, Goen stayed in her role as host.
After Stafford left the network show in 1982, White took over and stayed on it for the remainder of its existence. In its history, the show has also had four announcers: Jim Thornton, M. G. Kelly, Charlie O’Donnell, and Jack Clark.
A Television Phenomenon
There are also two spin-off versions: The first was Wheel 2000, a kid-focused version that ran concurrently on Game Show Network and CBS in 1997 and 1998. David Sidoni and Tanika Ray, the latter portraying “Cyber Lucy,” a computer-generated character, served as the hosts for this edition.
On 7 January 2021, ABC debuted the second Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, in which celebrities compete in an altered version of the game and contribute their wins to charitable organizations.
By far the longest-running syndicated game show in the US, Wheel of Fortune has aired and been taped for 7,000 episodes as of 10 May 2019. In 2008, TV Guide called it the “top-rated syndicated series”; the same publication placed it at No. 2 on their list of the 60 best game shows ever in 2013.
In addition, the program has gained popularity all over the world thanks to its 60 international adaptations. 11 September 2023 marked the debut of the 41st season of the syndicated series.
Sajak surpassed Bob Barker, who hosted The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007, to become the longest-running host of a game show with the 36th season of the program in 2018.
