After 26 years on television, Wheel of Fortune is celebrating its 5,000th episode this week. It has been on a long time. To get around the puzzle board, Vanna White now needs a scooter.
Some of the contestants from the first season’s Kids Week are now coming back for the Senior Citizen Challenge.
5,000 shows, and I still giggle when a contestant spins and then says, “I’ll take a P, Pat.”
They’ve been on for so many years, R, S, T, L, N, & E want to retire.
Over the years, they have had 15,000 contestants. That’s a lot of people for Jeopardy! fans to look down on.
Wheel of Fortune really has been on a long time. In fact, here’s a little of its history:
-Before the Premiere: The Used Letter Board was briefly called the New Letter Board.
-Season 1: Before episode number one, they had to invent the wheel first.
-Season 2: Pat Sajak’s suits were by Botany 1.
-Season 3: The show became more challenging with new puzzle categories and the invention of the alphabet.
-Season 4: Before each round, the producers had to carve the letters into rocks.
-Season 5: The prizes were livestock.
-Season 6: Instead of letters, the contestants had to guess hieroglyphs.
-Season 7: The top monetary value on the wheel was a handful of beads.
-Season 8: Pat Sajak’s cue card lines were painted on a cave wall.
-Season 9: If Vanna was wearing fur, it was from an animal she’d killed that morning.
-Season 10: There were still only 4 vowels.
-Season 11: The winner got cash and merchandise. Second place got a parting gift. Third place was hunted, killed, and eaten.
-Season 12: To widen their audience to more than 50 people, television was invented.
-Season 13: To widen their audience to more than 100 people, the Mid-West was invented.
