People all over the world can never seem to get enough of "Wheel of Fortune", and we keep looking awestruck as Pat Sajak and Vanna White trot out a new season AGAIN AND AGAIN...
Wheel of Fortune (U.S. game show)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Wheel of Fortune | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Format | Game show |
| Created by | Merv Griffin |
| Directed by | Jeff Goldstein (1975–78) Dick Carson (1978–99) Mark Corwin (1999–2013) Bob Cisneros (2013–present) |
| Presented by | Daytime Host Chuck Woolery (1975–81) Pat Sajak (1981–89) Rolf Benirschke (1989) Bob Goen (1989–91) Hostess Susan Stafford (1975–82) Vanna White (1982–91) Nighttime Host Pat Sajak Hostess Vanna White |
| Narrated by | Charlie O'Donnell (1975–80, 1989–2010) Jack Clark (1980–88) M. G. Kelly (1988–89) Jim Thornton (2011–present) |
| Theme music composer | Frankie Blue John Hoke[1] |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | Nighttime version: 5,000 (as of February 27, 2009)[2] |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Merv Griffin (1975–2000) Harry Friedman (1999–present) |
| Producer(s) | John Rhinehart (1975–76) Nancy Jones (1976–95) Harry Friedman (1995–99)[3] Karen Griffith (1997–present) Steve Schwartz (1997–present) |
| Location(s) | NBC Studios Burbank, California (1975–89) CBS Television City Hollywood, California (1989–95) Sony Pictures Studios Culver City, California (1995–present) |
| Running time | approx. 22 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Merv Griffin Productions (1975–84) Merv Griffin Enterprises (1984–94) Columbia TriStar Television (1994–2002) Sony Pictures Television (2002–present) Califon Productions, Inc. |
| Distributor | King World Productions (1983–2007) CBS Television Distribution (2007–present) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC (1975–89, 1991) CBS (1989–91) Syndicated (1983–present) |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) (1975–2006) 720p/1080i (HDTV) (2006–present) |
| Original airing | Daytime January 6, 1975 – June 30, 1989 (NBC) July 17, 1989 – January 11, 1991 (CBS) January 14, 1991 – September 20, 1991 (NBC) Nighttime September 19, 1983 – present |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Wheel 2000 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
The daytime version was originally hosted by Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford, with Charlie O'Donnell as its announcer. O'Donnell left in 1980, Woolery in 1981, and Stafford in 1982; they were replaced, respectively, by Jack Clark, Pat Sajak, and Vanna White. After Clark's death in 1988, M. G. Kelly took over briefly as announcer until O'Donnell returned in 1989; O'Donnell remained on the daytime version until its cancellation, and continued to announce on the syndicated show until his death in 2010, after which he was replaced by Jim Thornton, who has been the announcer since. Sajak left the daytime version in January 1989 to host his own late-night talk show, and was replaced on that version by Rolf Benirschke. Bob Goen replaced Benirschke when the daytime show moved to CBS, then remained as host until the daytime show was canceled altogether. The syndicated version has been hosted continuously by Sajak and White since its inception.
As of 2009, Wheel of Fortune ranks as the longest-running syndicated game show in the United States, with over 5,000 episodes aired.[2] TV Guide named it the "top-rated syndicated series" in a 2008 article,[5] and in 2013, the magazine ranked it at number 2 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.[6] The program has also come to gain a worldwide following with sixty international adaptations. The syndicated series' 31st season premiered on September 16, 2013.[7]
Contents
Format
Main game
In Rounds 1–3, the wheel contains three special tags: the Wild Card, which can be used to call an additional consonant after any turn or in the bonus round; a Gift Tag, which offers $1,000 credit toward purchases from the sponsoring company; and two ½ Car tags, which award a car if the contestant wins the round(s) in which he or she claims both. Unlike the other tags, the ½ Car tags are replaced in subsequent rounds unless the car is won. A special wedge in the first two rounds awards a prize which is described by the announcer before the first round. All of the tags and the prize wedge are located over $500 wedges, so calling a right letter on any of them awards both it and $500 per letter. The first three rounds also contain a special wedge which, if claimed and taken to the bonus round, offers an opportunity to play the bonus round for $1,000,000. A contestant must solve the puzzle in order to keep any cash, prizes, or extras accumulated during that round, with the exception of the Wild Card; once this is picked up, it is kept until the contestant either loses it to Bankrupt or uses it. Bankrupt does not affect score from previous rounds, but it does take away the Wild Card, ½ Car tags, and/or million dollar wedge if any was claimed in a previous round.
Each game also features three Toss-Up puzzles, which reveal the puzzle one random letter at a time, and award cash to whoever rings in with the right answer. The first determines who is interviewed first, the second determines who starts Round 1, and the third determines who starts Round 4; respectively, these are valued at $1,000, $2,000, and $3,000. In addition to these, each game has a minimum of four rounds.[11] Rounds 2 and 3 are respectively started by the next two players clockwise from the player who began Round 1.
Round 2 features two Mystery wedges. If a wedge is landed on, a contestant may accept $1,000 per correct letter, or forfeit that amount to flip over the wedge and see whether its reverse contains a $10,000 cash prize or Bankrupt. Once a Mystery wedge is flipped over, the other becomes a regular $1,000 space and cannot be flipped over. Round 3 is a Prize Puzzle, which offers a prize (usually a trip) to the contestant who solves it. Starting with Season 31, an Express wedge is also placed on the wheel in Round 3. A contestant who lands on this space and calls a consonant that appears in the puzzle receives $1,000 per appearance. The contestant can then either "pass" and continue his/her turn normally, or "play" and keep calling consonants for $1,000 each (without spinning) and buying vowels for $250. The Express play only ends when the contestant either calls an incorrect letter, which has the same effect as landing on the Bankrupt wedge, or solves the puzzle.[12][13] The final round is always played at least in part as a Speed-Up, in which the host spins the wheel to determine the value of each letter by adding $1,000 to the value that stops before the red contestant's arrow, and vowels are free. Contestants call one letter at a time, and are given three seconds to attempt solving if that letter appears in the puzzle.[14] Play proceeds from the viewer's left to right, starting with the contestant who was in control of the wheel at the time of the Final Spin, until the puzzle is solved.
After the Speed-Up round, the total winnings of the three contestants are compared. Contestants who fail to earn any cash and prizes in the game are awarded a consolation prize of $1,000. The contestant with the highest total winnings wins the game and advances to the Bonus Round.
Bonus round
In the bonus round, the winning contestant spins a smaller wheel known as the Bonus Wheel with 24 envelopes to determine the prize. He or she is given a category, and a puzzle for which every instance of R, S, T, L, N, and E is revealed; after providing three more consonants and a vowel, the contestant has ten seconds to attempt solving the puzzle. Regardless of whether the round is won or lost, the host reveals which prize is in the envelope at the end of the round. Prizes in the bonus round include cash amounts ranging from $30,000 to $50,000 in increments of $5,000, a vehicle with $3,000 cash, and a top prize of $100,000.If the contestant has the Million Dollar Wedge, the $100,000 prize is replaced with a $1,000,000 prize. The $1,000,000 prize has been awarded twice: to Michelle Loewenstein on the episode that aired October 14, 2008,[15] and to Autumn Erhard on the episode that aired May 30, 2013.[16] Contestants who win the $1,000,000 may receive it in installments over 20 years, or in a lump sum of that amount's present value.[17]
Previous rules
Originally, after winning a round, contestants spent their winnings on prizes that were presented onstage. At any time during a shopping round, most often if the contestant did not have enough left to buy another prize,[18] a contestant could choose to put his or her winnings on a gift certificate; alternatively, he or she could put the winnings "on account" for use in a later shopping round, but at the risk of losing any "on account" money to a Bankrupt.[9] The shopping element was eliminated from the syndicated version on the episode that aired October 5, 1987,[19] both to speed up gameplay and to alleviate the taxes paid by contestants.[11] However, the network version continued to use the shopping element until the end of its first NBC run on June 30, 1989.[20]Before the introduction of Toss-Up puzzles at the start of the 18th nighttime season,[21] the player at the red arrow always started Round 1, with the next player clockwise starting each subsequent round.[22] The Wheel used to feature a Free Spin wedge, which automatically awarded a token that the contestant could turn in after a lost turn to keep control of the Wheel.[23] It was replaced in 1989 with a single Free Spin token placed over a selected cash wedge. Free Spin was retired, and Free Play introduced, at the start of the 27th nighttime season in 2009.[24] Between September 16, 1996[25] and the end of Season 30, the show featured a progressive jackpot wedge, which had been in several different rounds in its history. This wedge started at $5,000 and had the value of every spin within the round added to it; to claim the jackpot, a contestant had to land on the wedge, call a correct letter, and solve the puzzle all in the same turn. In later years, it also offered $500 per correct letter and $500 to the jackpot, regardless of whether or not it was won.
The network version allowed champions to appear for up to three days (originally five). Throughout the history of the daytime version, a tie game meant that no bonus round would be played that day and all three players returned on the next show, even if one finished behind the other two. The cumulative scores from both days were used to determine which player became the champion. In later years, the top three winners from the week's first four shows would return to compete in the "Friday Finals", with a Jackpot beginning at $10,000 instead of $5,000. The rules allowing champions to return after their initial appearances were eliminated permanently beginning with the syndicated episode aired September 21, 1998.[26]
Before December 1981, the show did not feature a bonus round.[9] Under the bonus round's original rules, no letters were provided automatically; the contestant was asked for five consonants and a vowel, and had fifteen seconds to attempt solving the puzzle. Also, bonus prizes were selected by the contestant at the start of the round.[27] The current time limit and rules for letter selection were introduced on October 3, 1988.[28] Starting on September 4, 1989, the first episode of the seventh nighttime season, bonus prizes were selected by randomly drawing from one of five envelopes labeled W, H, E, E, and L. One prize was always $25,000 cash, and the rest were changed weekly; any prize that was won was taken out of rotation for the rest of the week.[29] These envelopes were replaced with the Bonus Wheel on October 22, 2001.[30]
Personnel
Hosts and hostesses
The original host of Wheel of Fortune was Chuck Woolery. He hosted the show for almost seven years (except for one week in August 1980 when future Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek filled in for him),[9][31] and left following a salary dispute with show creator Merv Griffin.[11] Woolery's last episode aired on December 25, 1981,[32] and just three days later, he was succeeded by Pat Sajak, a former weather forecaster from Chicago.[33] Griffin said that he chose Sajak for his "odd" sense of humor; although NBC president and CEO Fred Silverman initially rejected Sajak for being "too local", he was approved as host after Griffin said that he would not tape any more episodes until Sajak became host.[34]
Susan Stafford was the original hostess. She missed a month of episodes in late 1977 after she fractured two vertebrae in her back, with Summer Bartholomew and Arte Johnson filling in for her.[9][35] After Stafford dislocated her shoulder in a car accident, Bartholomew returned for seven episodes which aired between May 24 and June 1, 1979, followed by Cynthia Washington (then the wife of San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Gene Washington) for the week of episodes airing June 4–8.[36] Stafford left the show in October 1982 and subsequently became a humanitarian worker.[37] Bartholomew, Vicki McCarty (later married to Interscope Records co-founder Jimmy Iovine), and Vanna White rotated as guest hostesses[38] until White was chosen as the permanent hostess in December 1982.[11] Chosen by Griffin himself from over 200 individuals,[39] White became highly popular among the young female demographic,[40] and among adult fans interested in her daily wardrobe.[39]
Sajak and White have starred on the nighttime version continuously as host and hostess, respectively, since it began, except for very limited occasions. During two weeks in January 1991, Tricia Gist, then the girlfriend of Griffin's son Tony, filled in for White when she and her new husband, restaurateur George San Pietro, were honeymooning.[41] On an episode in November 1996, when Sajak proved unable to host the bonus round segment because of laryngitis, he and White traded places for that segment.[42][43] On the episode aired April 1, 1997 Sajak and White played a prank on their fans when they appeared as contestants at the Wheel,[44] playing for the Boy Scouts of America and the American Cancer Society, respectively;[45] Trebek served as guest host, while Sajak's wife Lesly was the guest hostess.[44]
In January and February 2011, the show held a "Vanna for a Day" contest. In this contest, home viewers submitted video auditions to take White's place for one episode, with the winner determined by a poll on the show's website.[46] Katie Cantrell of Wooster, Ohio (a student at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia) was named the contest winner in late February 2011.[47] Cantrell took White's place for the second and third rounds on the episode that aired March 24, 2011.
Announcers
Charlie O'Donnell was the program's first announcer until his departure in August 1980, when he left to work on The Toni Tennille Show in wake of the announced but retracted cancellation of Wheel.[48] O'Donnell was replaced by Jack Clark, who continued to work with the show until shortly before his death in July 1988.[49] Los Angeles radio personality M. G. Kelly took over as announcer when the nighttime version's sixth season started in September 1988.[50] O'Donnell returned in 1989,[9] and remained with the show until shortly before his death in November 2010.[51] Don Pardo, Don Morrow, and Johnny Gilbert have occasionally served as substitute announcers.[9] Gilbert, Rich Fields, Jim Thornton, Lora Cain, Joe Cipriano, and John Cramer filled in after O'Donnell's death, and Thornton was confirmed as the permanent replacement in 2011 at the start of Season 29.[52]Production staff
Wheel of Fortune typically employs a total of 160 in-house production personnel who live within the Los Angeles metropolitan area, with over 200 local staff joining them for those episodes that are taped on location.[10] Griffin was the executive producer of the network version throughout its entire run, and served as the syndicated version's executive producer until his retirement in 2000. Since 1999, the title of executive producer has been held by Harry Friedman, who had shared his title with Griffin for his first year,[53] and had earlier served as a producer starting in 1995.[3]John Rhinehart was the program's first producer, but departed in August 1976 to become NBC's West Coast Daytime Program Development Director. Afterwards, his co-producer, Nancy Jones, was promoted to sole producer, and served as such until 1995, when Friedman succeeded her.[3] In the 15th nighttime season, Karen Griffith and Steve Schwartz joined Friedman as producers; they were later promoted to supervising producers, with Amanda Stern occupying Griffith and Schwartz's old post. Bob Sofia is the coordinating producer, and Randy Berke is the line producer; both have had long tenures on the Wheel of Fortune staff.[53]
The show's original director was Jeff Goldstein, who was succeeded by Dick Carson in 1978.[9] Mark Corwin, who had served as associate director under Carson, took over for him upon his retirement at the end of the 1998–99 season,[54] and served as such until he himself died in July 2013.[55] Jeopardy! director Kevin McCarthy,[56] Corwin's associate director Bob Cisneros,[57] and Wheel and Jeopardy! technical director Robert Ennis Jr.[58] filled in at various points until November 2013, when it was announced that Cisneros would be promoted to full-time director.[59] As of 2014, the show's associate directors are Brooke Eaton and L. David Irete, the latter of whom served with Cisneros as another associate director of Corwin's.[53]
Production
Wheel of Fortune is owned by Sony Pictures Television (previously known as Columbia TriStar Television; the successor company to original producer Merv Griffin Enterprises).[60] The production company and copyright holder of all episodes to date is Califon Productions, Inc., which like SPT has Sony Pictures Entertainment for its active registered agent, and whose name comes from a New Jersey town where Griffin once owned a farm.[61] The rights to distribute the show on American television are owned by CBS Television Distribution, into which original distributor King World Productions was folded in 2007.[60]The show was originally taped in Studio 4 at NBC Studios in Burbank.[62] Upon NBC's 1989 cancellation of the daytime series, production then moved to Studio 33 at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, where it remained until 1995.[63] Since then, the show has occupied Stage 11 at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City.[64] Some episodes are also recorded on location, a tradition which began with two weeks of episodes taped at Radio City Music Hall in late 1988.[65] Taping sessions usually last for five or six episodes in one day.[10]
Conception
Merv Griffin conceived Wheel of Fortune just as Jeopardy!, another show he had created, was ending an 11-year run on NBC. Griffin decided to create a Hangman-style game after recalling long car trips as a child, on which he and his sister would play Hangman. After he discussed the idea with Merv Griffin Enterprises staff, they thought that the idea would work as a game show if it had a "hook". He decided to add a roulette-style wheel because he was always "drawn to" such wheels when he saw them in casinos. He and Murray Schwartz, then the president of Merv Griffin Enterprises, consulted an executive of Caesars Palace to find out how to build such a wheel.[37]When Griffin pitched the idea for the show to Lin Bolen, then the head of NBC's daytime programming division, she approved, but wanted the show to have more glamour to attract the female audience; she suggested that Griffin incorporate a shopping element into the gameplay, and so, in 1973, he created a pilot episode titled Shopper's Bazaar, with Chuck Woolery as host and Mike Lawrence as announcer. The pilot started with the three contestants being introduced individually, with Lawrence describing the prizes that they chose to play for. The main game was played to four rounds, with the values on the wheel wedges increasing after the second round.[66] Unlike the show it evolved into, Shopper's Bazaar had a vertically mounted wheel,[67] which was spun by Woolery rather than by the contestants; this wheel lacked the Bankrupt wedge and featured a wedge where a player could call a vowel for free, as well as a "Your Own Clue" wedge that allowed contestants to pick up a rotary telephone and hear a private clue about the puzzle. At the end of the game, the highest-scoring contestant would play a bonus round called the "Shopper's Special" where all the vowels in the puzzle were already there, and the contestant had 30 seconds to call out consonants in the puzzle.[66]
Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, an actor from 77 Sunset Strip, served as host for the second and third pilots, both titled Wheel of Fortune.[68] These pilots were directed by Marty Pasetta, who gave the show a "Vegas" feel that more closely resembled the look and feel that the actual show ended up having, a wheel that was now spun by the contestants themselves, and a lighted mechanical puzzle board with letters that were now manually turnable. Showcase prizes on these pilots were located behind the puzzle board, and during shopping segments a list of prizes and their price values scrolled on the right of the screen.[66] By the time production began in December 1974,[66] Woolery was selected to host, the choice being made by Griffin after he reportedly heard Byrnes reciting "A-E-I-O-U" to himself in an effort to remember the vowels.[68] Susan Stafford turned the letters on Byrnes' pilot episodes, a role that she also held when the show was picked up as a series.[37][69]
Audition process
Throughout the year, the show uses a custom-designed Winnebago recreational vehicle called the "Wheelmobile" to travel across the United States, holding open auditions at various public venues. Contestants are provided with entry forms which are then drawn randomly. Individuals whose names are drawn appear on stage, five at a time, and are interviewed by traveling host Marty Lublin. The group of five then plays a mock version of the Speed-Up round, and five more names are selected after a puzzle is solved. Everyone who is called onstage receives a themed prize, usually determined by the spin of a miniature wheel. Auditions typically last two days, with three one-hour segments per day.[71] After each Wheelmobile event, the "most promising candidates" are invited back to the city in which the first audition was held, to participate in a second audition. Contestants not appearing on stage have their applications retained and get drawn at random to fill audition vacancies. At the second audition which occurs in the same city the Wheelmobile originally visited, potential contestants play more mock games featuring a miniature wheel and puzzle board, followed by a 16-puzzle test with some letters revealed. The contestants have five minutes to solve as many puzzles as they can by writing in the correct letters. The people who pass continue the audition, playing more mock games which are followed by interviews.[72][73]
Music
Alan Thicke composed the show's original theme, which was titled "Big Wheels". In 1983, it was replaced by Griffin's own composition, "Changing Keys",[74] to allow him to derive royalties from that composition's use on both the network and syndicated versions.[75] Steve Kaplan became music director starting with the premiere of the 15th syndicated season in 1997, and continued to serve as such until killed in a plane crash in 2003;[76] his initial theme was a remix of "Changing Keys", but by the 17th syndicated season, he had replaced it with a composition of his own, which was titled "Happy Wheels".[77] Since 2006, music direction has been handled by Frankie Blue and John Hoke;[1] themes they have written for the show include a remix of "Happy Wheels" and an original rock-based composition.[77]In addition to "Changing Keys", Griffin also composed various incidental music cues for the syndicated version which were used for announcements of prizes in the show's early years. Among them were "Frisco Disco" (earlier the closing theme for a revival of Jeopardy! which aired in 1978 and 1979),[78] "A Time for Tony" (whose basic melody evolved into "Think!", the longtime theme song for Jeopardy![79]), "Buzzword", "Nightwalk", "Struttin' on Sunset", and an untitled vacation cue.[77]
Set
The first pilot used a vertically mounted wheel which was often difficult to see on-screen. Flesh, who also designed the sets for The $25,000 Pyramid and Jeopardy!, designed the wheel mechanism. Originally made mostly of paint and cardboard,[80] the modern wheel mechanism is framed on a steel tube surrounded with Plexiglas and more than 200 lighting instruments, and is held by a stainless steel shaft with roller bearings. Altogether, the wheel weighs approximately 2,400 pounds (1,100 kg).[10]
The show's original puzzle board had three rows of 13 manually operated trilons, for a total of 39 spaces. On December 21, 1981, a larger board with 48 trilons in four rows (11, 13, 13 and 11 trilons) was adopted. This board was surrounded by a double-arched border of lights which flashed at the beginning and end of the round. Each trilon had three sides: a green side to represent spaces not used by the puzzle, a blank side to indicate a letter that had not been revealed, and a side with a letter on it.[22] With these older boards, in segments where more than one puzzle was present, while the viewer saw a seamless transition to the next puzzle, what actually happened was a stop-down of the taping; during the old stop-downs, the board would be wheeled offstage and the new puzzle loaded in by hand out of sight of the contestants.[81] On February 24, 1997, the show introduced a computerized puzzle board composed of 52 touch-activated monitors in four rows (12 on the top and bottom rows, 14 in the middle two).[10] To illuminate a letter during regular gameplay, the hostess touches the right edge of the monitor to reveal it.[82] The computerized board prevented tapings from having to stop in segments where more than one puzzle was present, and thus allowed tapings to finish quicker at a lower cost to the production company. The former board was subsequently sent to the Smithsonian Institution for storage.[81]
Broadcast
Wheel of Fortune premiered on January 6, 1975, at 10:30 am (9:30 Central) on NBC. Lin Bolen, then the head of daytime programming, purchased the show from Griffin to compensate him for canceling Jeopardy!, which had one year remaining on its contract. Jeopardy! aired its final episode on the Friday before Wheel's premiere. The original Wheel aired on NBC, in varying time slots between 10:30 am and noon, until June 30, 1989. Throughout that version's run, episodes were generally 30 minutes in length, except for six weeks of shows aired between December 1975 and January 1976 which were 60 minutes in length.[83] NBC announced the cancellation of the show in August 1980, but it stayed on the air following a decision to cut the duration of The David Letterman Show from 90 to 60 minutes.[48] The daytime Wheel moved to CBS on July 17, 1989, and remained there until January 14, 1991.[9] After that, it briefly returned to NBC, replacing Let's Make a Deal,[84] but was canceled permanently on September 20 of that year.[9]The daily syndicated version of Wheel premiered on September 19, 1983, preceded by a series of episodes taped on location at the Ohio State Fair and aired on WBNS-TV in Columbus, Ohio.[85] When it debuted, the syndicated version offered a larger prize budget than its daytime counterpart.[33] The show came from humble beginnings: syndicators Roger, Michael, and Robert King, chairmen of King World Productions, could initially find only 50 stations that were willing to carry the show, and since they could not find affiliates for the syndicated Wheel in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, Philadelphia was the largest market in which the show could succeed in its early days.[75] Only nine stations carried the show from its beginning,[86] but by midseason it was airing on all 50 of the stations that were initially willing to carry it, and by the beginning of 1984 the show was available to 99 percent of television households. By 1984, Wheel had succeeded Family Feud as the highest-rated syndicated show.[9] Its success led to Griffin creating a syndicated revival of Jeopardy! in 1984, with Alex Trebek as its host.[87] The syndicated success of Wheel and Jeopardy! led other syndicated game shows, such as Tic-Tac-Dough, The Joker's Wild, and Family Feud, to ultimate cancellation.[75] By 1986, Wheel had the highest ratings of any syndicated television series in history,[33] and at the peak of the show's popularity, over 40 million people were watching five nights per week.[75] As of 2009, the show is the longest-running syndicated game show in American television history and the second-longest in either network or syndication, second to the version of The Price Is Right which began airing in 1972. The syndicated Wheel has become part of the consciousness of over 90 million Americans, and awarded a total of over $200 million in cash and prizes to contestants.[10]
The popularity of Wheel of Fortune has led it to become a worldwide franchise, with over forty known adaptations in international markets outside the United States.[10] Versions of the show have existed in such countries as Australia,[88] Denmark,[89] France,[90] Germany,[91] Italy,[92] Malaysia,[93] New Zealand,[94] the Philippines,[95] Poland,[96] Russia,[97] Spain,[98] and the United Kingdom.[99]
Between September 1997 and January 1998, CBS and Game Show Network concurrently aired a special children's version of the show titled Wheel 2000. It was hosted by David Sidoni, with Tanika Ray voicing and providing motion capture for a virtual reality hostess named "Cyber Lucy".[100] Created by Scott Sternberg,[100] the spin-off featured special gameplay in which numerous rules were changed.[101]
Reception
Wheel of Fortune has long been one of the highest-rated programs on U.S. syndicated television. It was the highest-rated show in all of syndication before it was dethroned by Two and a Half Men in the 28th season (2010–11).[102][103] The syndicated Wheel shared the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game/Audience Participation Show with Jeopardy! in 2011, and Sajak won three Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Game Show Host—in 1993, 1997, and 1998. In a 2001 issue, TV Guide ranked Wheel number 25 among the 50 Greatest Game Shows of All Time,[104] and in 2013, the magazine ranked it number 2 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever, second only to Jeopardy![6] In August 2006, the show was ranked number 6 on GSN's list of the 50 Greatest Game Shows.[105]Wheel was the subject of many nominations in GSN's Game Show Awards special, which aired on June 6, 2009.[106] The show was nominated for Best Game Show, but lost to Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?; Sajak and White were nominated for Best Game Show Host, but lost to Deal or No Deal's Howie Mandel; and O'Donnell was considered for Best Announcer but lost to Rich Fields from The Price Is Right. One of the catchphrases uttered by contestants, "I'd like to buy a vowel", was considered for Favorite Game Show Catch Phrase, but lost to "Come on down!", the announcer's catchphrase welcoming new contestants to Price. The sound effect heard at the start of a new regular gameplay round won the award for Favorite Game Show Sound Effect; the "whistle" sound heard when a contestant hits Bankrupt was also nominated. Despite having been retired from the show for nearly a decade by that point, "Changing Keys" was nominated for Best Game Show Theme Song; however, it lost to its fellow Griffin composition, "Think!" from Jeopardy![107]
Merchandise
Numerous board games based on Wheel of Fortune have been released by different toy companies. The games are all similar, incorporating a wheel, puzzle display board, play money and various accessories like Free Spin tokens. Milton Bradley released the first board game in 1975. In addition to all the supplies mentioned above, the game included 20 prize cards (to simulate the "shopping" prizes of the show; the prizes ranged in value from $100 to $3,000). Two editions were released, with the only differences being the box art and the included books of puzzles. Other home versions were released by Pressman Toy Corporation, Tyco/Mattel, Parker Brothers, Endless Games and Irwin Toys.[108]Additionally, several video games based on the show have been released for personal computers, the Internet, and various gaming consoles spanning multiple hardware generations.
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