82 Fun Facts About Wheel of Fortune

What was the 1980s craze for Wheel of Fortune's Vanna White called?

Vannamania swept the country in the mid-1980s, turning a co-host with almost no lines into a star with endorsement deals and her own doll.

What job was Pat Sajak working when he was hired to host Wheel of Fortune?

A TV weather forecaster at KNBC in Los Angeles, Sajak seemed "too local" to NBC chief Fred Silverman, Merv Griffin later wrote, until Griffin threatened to halt production.

The original Wheel of Fortune puzzle board was built from three-sided rotating pieces known as what?

Trilons had a green side for unused spaces, a blank side to hide a letter and a lettered side, so each one was turned by hand to show its letter.

Guinness recognised Pat Sajak in 2019 for which record?

Longest run hosting one show: Guinness counted 35 years 198 days on the nighttime version alone, which left out the daytime shows he had fronted since 1981.

Who was Wheel of Fortune's first and longest-tenured announcer?

Charlie O'Donnell left in 1980 for another show when NBC looked set to cancel Wheel, saw the network change its mind days later, then came back and stayed until his death in 2010.

Vanna White, famous for a job with almost no lines, gave her 1987 autobiography which title?

Vanna Speaks became a national bestseller, out in 1987 when the co-host viewers rarely heard talk was also in demand to endorse products.

Who began hosting the syndicated nighttime version of Wheel of Fortune starting in September 2024?

Ryan Seacrest confirmed the job in June 2023, about two weeks after Pat Sajak said the coming season would be his last, and Vanna White signed on to stay beside him.

Which actress won the top prize on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune on October 17, 2021?

Melissa Joan Hart was the first Celebrity Wheel of Fortune player to win the top prize, solving the bonus puzzle in the episode aired October 17, 2021; her winnings went to charity.

What was the original title of the 1973 pilot for Wheel of Fortune?

Shopper's Bazaar, the 1973 pilot, was reworked through two more pilots that took the name Wheel of Fortune before NBC put the show on the air.

After a 1997 upgrade, Vanna White began revealing Wheel of Fortune's letters with what?

A touch screen: the 1997 board swapped hand-turned blocks for 52 touch-sensitive monitors, so the famous letter-turner has not turned a letter since.

Which six letters does Wheel of Fortune give every bonus-round contestant for free?

RSTLNE come free; the contestant adds three more consonants and one vowel, then gets ten seconds and may call out as many guesses as the clock allows.

While Pat Sajak fronted the nighttime show, who hosted the daytime Wheel of Fortune when it moved to CBS in July 1989?

Bob Goen hosted the daytime show on CBS and then NBC until it was cancelled for good in 1991; three decades later he came back as a host of the touring Wheel of Fortune Live!

Wheel of Fortune is trademarked under which patriotic nickname?

America's Game is the tagline the show has trademarked, and its producers leaned on it again in 2022 when they announced the first touring stage version.

Who was the original co-host and letter-turner on Wheel of Fortune when it premiered in 1975?

Susan Stafford was the original co-host and letter-turner from the January 1975 premiere, leaving more than seven years later to pursue humanitarian work.

Why did Wheel of Fortune's original host leave in 1981?

A salary dispute with the show's creator ended his run: he later said he had asked for a raise to match other top hosts, his contract was not renewed, and Pat Sajak got the job.

Which game show host filled in for a week in August 1980 while Wheel of Fortune's original host was away?

Alex Trebek, four years before he took over Jeopardy!, filled in for a week in August 1980; on April 1, 1997 he and Pat Sajak swapped shows for a day, Sajak hosting Jeopardy!.

The nighttime Wheel of Fortune dethroned which game show as the top-rated program in syndication?

Family Feud gave up the top spot in syndication soon after Wheel's 1983 launch; by the fall of 1986 it, Tic-Tac-Dough and The Joker's Wild had all ended their runs.

Wheel of Fortune has taped since 1995 on Stage 11 of a studio lot in which California city?

Culver City has been home since 1995, with Jeopardy! taping on the stage next door; the show began in Burbank and spent six years at Television City in between.

Vanna White grew up in which South Carolina beach town?

North Myrtle Beach is where Vanna Marie Rosich was raised by her mother and her stepfather, Herbert White, whose surname she took before leaving to model in Atlanta.

Which classic word puzzle game inspired the creation of Wheel of Fortune?

The show's creator based it on Hangman, which he had played with his sister on long family car trips, then added a roulette-style wheel for an element of chance.

Who replaced Pat Sajak as host of the daytime Wheel of Fortune in January 1989?

Rolf Benirschke, a former San Diego Chargers kicker new to game shows, lasted less than six months; when the daytime show moved to CBS that summer he lost the job.

Which rapid-fire opening round did Wheel of Fortune introduce for its 44th season in 2026?

Fortune Frenzy opens the show with a burst of quick puzzles worth $1,000 each; the host said it squeezes in more gameplay and shakes off contestants' early nerves.

Who was the original host of Wheel of Fortune, fronting the NBC daytime show from its 1975 premiere until Christmas Day 1981?

Chuck Woolery hosted the 1973 pilot, lost the job to an actor for two later pilots, then won it back before the premiere; his last show aired on Christmas Day 1981.

Which actor and TV personality composed Wheel of Fortune's original theme, titled "Big Wheels"?

Alan Thicke, later the sitcom father on Growing Pains, composed the original theme 'Big Wheels'; in 1983 the show's creator replaced it with his own composition, 'Changing Keys'.

What was the Wheel of Fortune children's spin-off that aired on CBS and GSN in 1997-98 called?

Wheel 2000 had children play for points and prizes instead of cash, and its episodes aired on CBS and Game Show Network at the same time.

Pat Sajak gave up the daytime Wheel of Fortune in 1989 to host what for CBS?

A late-night talk show: The Pat Sajak Show lasted 15 months before CBS cancelled it in April 1990, unable to dent Johnny Carson, while Sajak kept the nighttime Wheel throughout.

How much does it cost a contestant to buy a single vowel on "Wheel of Fortune"?

$250 has been the price of a vowel for decades, as the show itself likes to boast; only in the final speed-up round do vowels cost nothing.

The rubber pointers that click past the pins on Wheel of Fortune's wheel are called what?

Flippers of hard rubber slap against stainless steel pins as the wheel turns, and under the rules one has to clear a pin completely before the next wedge counts.

What happens to a Wheel of Fortune contestant who lands on Bankrupt?

Turn and round money lost: Bankrupt wipes out the cash and prizes won in that round, though anything banked in earlier rounds is safe.

Pat Sajak's final Wheel of Fortune season won him his first what?

Primetime Emmy: Sajak took Outstanding Host for a Game Show in 2024, his farewell year, where all his earlier hosting Emmys had been Daytime awards.

In 2013, Vanna White was presented with a Guinness World Record certificate for what feat?

Most frequent clapper: Guinness estimated 3,480,864 claps over 30 seasons, about 606 a show, and sent an adjudicator to hand her the certificate during a taping.

A Wheel of Fortune solve worth only a few hundred dollars triggers what?

A $1,000 minimum is the house rule for a solved puzzle, so a contestant who solves after a single cheap letter still banks four figures.

Which Wheel of Fortune item lets a contestant call an extra consonant in a regular round or the bonus round?

Wild Card holders can call a second consonant on the same spin, but the card is never safe: a Bankrupt takes it away even if it was won in an earlier round.

Califon Productions, the company behind Wheel of Fortune, is named for a town in which state?

New Jersey's Califon, a borough said to have been named for California, lies near the farm Merv Griffin once owned; the company name runs in the show's closing credits.

Celebrity Wheel of Fortune premiered in prime time in 2021 on which network?

ABC ordered the celebrity edition in November 2020 as the game's prime-time debut, with famous contestants playing for charities of their choice.

What does landing on Lose a Turn cost a Wheel of Fortune contestant?

The turn and nothing else: play simply passes clockwise to the next contestant, with every dollar and prize left where it was.

What did the "Free Play" wedge, used from 2009 to 2021, let a contestant do?

Call any letter with no penalty: Free Play let a contestant try a consonant or take a free vowel without risking the turn; it replaced the Free Spin token in 2009 and was retired in 2021.

Vanna White played which Roman goddess, brought to life from a statue, in a 1988 NBC TV movie?

Venus was her role in Goddess of Love, made at the height of her fame: the statue comes to life after a bridegroom slips a ring onto its finger.

What puzzles, added to "Wheel of Fortune" in 2016, let contestants give words in any order?

Crossword boards come with a linking clue instead of a category; the first, in 2016, was "seeing red", and the producer said he and Sajak had mulled the format for years.

Which studio, as successor to Columbia TriStar Television, came to own Wheel of Fortune?

Sony Pictures Television inherited the show through a chain of sales: Merv Griffin sold his company in 1986 to Coca-Cola, then the owner of Columbia Pictures, whose television arm later became Sony's.

What does a contestant usually win, on top of the round's cash, for solving Wheel of Fortune's Prize Puzzle?

A trip is the usual reward: the Prize Puzzle, played as round three, hands its solver a holiday on top of whatever the round's letters earned.

Who took over as Wheel of Fortune's announcer in 2011?

Jim Thornton, a Los Angeles news-radio anchor, won the job in 2011 after a run of guest announcers followed the death of his predecessor; he held it until 2026.

Which round-two wedge offers $1,000 a letter or a flip that reveals either $10,000 or a Bankrupt?

Mystery Wedge play is a one-time gamble: once a contestant flips one of the two, the other turns into an ordinary $1,000 space that can no longer be flipped.

What is the top cash prize a contestant can play for in the Bonus Round after carrying the special wedge to it?

$1,000,000 replaces the usual $100,000 top envelope, but only for a contestant who has held on to the special wedge: any Bankrupt along the way takes it back.

Pat Sajak was born and raised in which Midwestern city?

Chicago gave him his start: he studied broadcasting at Columbia College Chicago and landed his first radio job in the city before the Army sent him to Vietnam.

Which actor, later Grease's TV host Vince Fontaine, fronted Wheel of Fortune's second and third pilots?

Edd Byrnes, 77 Sunset Strip's Kookie, later admitted he had been drinking at the taping; the show's creator reportedly dropped him after hearing him recite the vowels backstage.

What usually happens to the gowns Vanna White wears on Wheel of Fortune?

Returned to designers: the gowns are loans, picked about a dozen at a time from the racks sent in for each taping session, so she never gets to keep one.

The 1973 pilot's "Your Own Clue" wedge let a contestant hear a hint through what?

A rotary telephone on the set gave the contestant a private clue; that pilot's wheel stood upright, spun by itself and had no Bankrupt wedge at all.

Roughly how much does Wheel of Fortune's studio wheel weigh?

2,400 pounds is about what the wheel weighs with its steel-tube frame, Plexiglas tiers and more than 200 lights; with only one in existence, it is taken apart and rebuilt whenever the show travels.

The first wheel built for Wheel of Fortune in the 1970s was made mostly of what?

Paint and cardboard made up the first wheel; its designer, Ed Flesh, had it lie flat under an overhead camera because the pilot's upright wheel was hard to see on screen.

From 1989 to 2001, Wheel of Fortune's bonus prizes were picked from five envelopes labelled with what?

The letters W-H-E-E-L marked the five envelopes: one always held $25,000 in cash, and for most of that run a prize that was won came out of rotation for the rest of the week.

Since 2017, Wheel of Fortune's bonus-round contestant chooses what?

The category: the winner now picks one of three before spinning for a prize envelope, where the category and puzzle used to be fixed in advance.

How does Wheel of Fortune break a tie for first place after the speed-up round?

A final toss-up puzzle settles the tie and pays the winner an extra $1,000, and that contestant goes on to the bonus round.

Which Wheel of Fortune wedge, added in 2013, lets a player keep calling consonants for $1,000 each without spinning?

Riding the Express is a gamble: a wrong letter, a bad solve or running out of time counts as a Bankrupt.

From 1996 to 1998, Wheel of Fortune's top three winners of the week came back to play in what?

Friday Finals brought back the three highest scorers from Monday through Thursday for the Friday show; returning players were dropped for good in September 1998.

Until 2021, who performed the final spin that starts Wheel of Fortune's speed-up round?

The host spun it until 2021, when Pat Sajak, newly a consulting producer, objected to his own spin having a direct effect on who won; the contestant in control spins now.

In November 1996, why did Sajak and White swap roles for a bonus round?

He had laryngitis, so Vanna White hosted the bonus round while Pat Sajak turned the letters; the following April Fools' Day, both played the game as contestants.

Why did a stand-in turn the letters for Vanna White for two weeks in January 1991?

She was on her honeymoon after marrying restaurateur George Santo Pietro; her stand-in, Tricia Gist, later married the son of the show's creator.

Why did Vanna White miss a week of Wheel of Fortune shows that aired in October 2023?

She had COVID-19 on the taping day for Teachers Week, so a California Teacher of the Year, Bridgette Donald-Blue, turned the letters in her first absence in more than 30 years.

Who ran Celebrity Wheel of Fortune's puzzle board in 2023 while Vanna White played against Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik?

Maggie Sajak, Pat's daughter, had done the job once before, in January 2020, when White was filling in as host during her father's recovery from surgery.

Who succeeded Merv Griffin as Wheel of Fortune's executive producer and ran the show for two decades?

Harry Friedman also ran Jeopardy!, so when the two shows tied for a 2011 Daytime Emmy he became the first producer to tie with himself; he stepped down in 2020.

Which executive producer was fired from both Wheel and Jeopardy! in August 2021?

Mike Richards was removed as executive producer of both shows on August 31, 2021, eleven days after stepping down as Jeopardy!'s newly named permanent host amid criticism over past podcast remarks.

The Wheelmobile, which toured the country holding open Wheel of Fortune auditions, was what kind of vehicle?

A Winnebago RV carried the travelling auditions, where names were drawn at random and five people at a time played a mock speed-up round; since the pandemic, auditions have moved online.

In 1980, NBC spared Wheel of Fortune from cancellation by trimming which 90-minute morning show to an hour?

The David Letterman Show lost its weak final half-hour that August, days after NBC had told the Wheel staff the game was cancelled; the freed slot kept Wheel on the air.

Which company, run by three brothers, first distributed the nighttime Wheel of Fortune to local stations?

King World, run by brothers Roger, Michael and Robert King, could at first find only about fifty stations willing to take the nighttime show, and none in the country's three biggest cities.

What kind of co-host revealed the letters on Wheel of Fortune's late-1990s children's spin-off?

An animated hostess named Cyber Lucy stood in for a human letter-turner; actress Tanika Ray supplied her voice and her movements through motion capture.

Where were Wheel of Fortune's first on-location episodes taped in late 1988?

Radio City Music Hall hosted two weeks of shows in late 1988, the first of dozens of road trips for which the show's only puzzle board is dismantled and shipped along.

During COVID-era tapings, Wheel of Fortune contestants spun the wheel using what?

Each contestant spun with a white bicycle handlebar grip fitted to the wheel so nobody touched a shared surface; the podiums were widened too to keep the players apart.

The sound heard when a Wheel of Fortune spin lands on Bankrupt is known as what?

The slide whistle was nominated for Favorite Game Show Sound Effect at GSN's 2009 awards, only to lose to another Wheel sound, the one that starts each new round.

Which toy company released the first Wheel of Fortune board game in 1975?

Milton Bradley issued the first home version in 1975, the year the show premiered, with prize cards so that winners could spend their play money as TV contestants then did.

Which company introduced Wheel of Fortune slot machines in 1996?

IGT first licensed the show for slot machines in 1996, and the line went on to become one of the company's longest-running and most popular.

As an Army DJ in Vietnam, Sajak hosted the same radio show made famous by whom?

Adrian Cronauer, the AFVN disc jockey portrayed by Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam, originated the sign-on; Sajak kept up the Dawn Buster tradition of opening with 'Good Morning Vietnam!' on Armed Forces Radio in Saigon.

Sajak accidentally cut off which president's Christmas broadcast to the troops in Vietnam?

Working the board at Armed Forces Radio in Saigon, Sajak killed the feed of Richard Nixon's 1969 Christmas message to the troops early and decided it would be best not to resume it.

In which 1982 film did Pat Sajak appear as a Buffalo newscaster?

Airplane II: The Sequel cast Sajak as a Buffalo newscaster in 1982, his first year as Wheel's host and a small step from his old job on local television in Los Angeles.

Which children's show spoofed Wheel of Fortune as "Squeal of Fortune", hosted by a Muppet called Pat Playjacks?

Sesame Street's Pat Playjacks had Prairie Dawn and the Count guess how many times the pig at the center of the wheel would squeal before it stopped.

Which Martin Short character was famously obsessed with Pat Sajak?

Ed Grimley idolized Sajak on SCTV and Saturday Night Live, yet Short said he had never watched Wheel growing up in Canada; it was his parents who were the fans.

Before joining Wheel of Fortune, Vanna White appeared as a contestant on which game show in 1980?

Vanna White was called to Contestants' Row on The Price Is Right in 1980 but never won her way on stage; the clip of her running down has been replayed many times since.

Vanna White won $403,000 after suing which electronics company over an ad that showed a robot turning letters on a game-show set?

The Ninth Circuit sided with White against Samsung on personality rights, over a famous dissent by Judge Alex Kozinski, and the Supreme Court declined the case.

Vanna White has her own "Vanna's Choice" line of what?

Vanna's Choice is a line of yarn launched with the Lion Brand company in 2008; White, a crocheter since before her TV fame, gives a share of the proceeds to charity.

Wheel of Fortune's original host went on to front which dating show from 1983 to 1994?

Love Connection kept Wheel's first host on air for 11 seasons; by coincidence it premiered on September 19, 1983, the same day as the nighttime Wheel that made his successor famous.

Who hosted the ITV revival of Wheel of Fortune when it launched in 2024?

Graham Norton fronted the revival after ITV shot a 2020 pilot with Alison Hammond and passed on it; the original British run lasted from 1988 to 2001.

Before Vanna White, the Guinness record for longest-serving game show hostess belonged to a letter-turner in which country?

Australia's Adriana Xenides turned letters on the local Wheel of Fortune for 18 years, a run that put her in Guinness World Records until White overtook her.