History Trivia / WheelOfFortune

** In Canada, ''Celebrity Wheel of Fortune'' started on Yes TV for Season 1 (the same network that airs the syndicated version, and still does today), then moved to the larger CTV for Seasons 2 onward, with reruns airing on E! (both networks are owned by Bell Media; [=NBCUniversal=] does not have any ownership of E! Canada aside from licensing the E! brand).

** The syndicated version is likely the most pre-empted syndicated program on TV, due to its unique rule that it can only be aired in the prime access hour (7-8 PM Eastern/Pacific), which is when networks and local stations generally prefer to air sporting events, pregame shows, award shows, local debates, local NFL team shows, local news specials, delayed or extended newscasts, and even ''infomercials''. This is especially true in the Central Time Zone, where ''Wheel'' exclusively airs at 6:30 PM, due to most stations airing local news at 6:00, giving sister program ''Jeopardy!'' less restrictions for its time slotting (most air it at 3:30 or 4:30 PM preceding local and national news, meaning it rarely gets affected by sports or specials). ''Wheel's'' prime access time slot mandate was a result of [=KingWorld=], its former syndicator, not wanting affiliates to slot it too close to the daytime version, which would potentially cause confusion among viewers and unnecessary competition between two versions of the same program. Although the daytime version has been off the airwaves for more than three decades, the rule still stands today. ''Jeopardy!'' has never had this rule since that show never ran in both daytime and syndication at the same time. Affiliates are generally not allowed to move ''Wheel'' temporarily to a morning or afternoon time slot if a pre-emption is planned, instead having to move it overnight or to a sister station, if at all.

** Hulu's copies of ''Celebrity Wheel'' in Season 1 were edited to remove any mention of entering each game's Round 2 puzzle online for a chance to win $10,000. Despite this, any reruns that air on TV (including reruns from previous seasons that air on Canadian network [=GameTV=]) still include the giveaways and all references to them, even though they expire a few days after the episode's original airing. Hulu left the episodes unedited in Season 2, but began editing them again in Season 3, with Vanna's $10,000 giveaway bumpers now removed entirely (Season 1's edits generally kept the tail end of them), and crossfades added to remove any references to the Prize Puzzle trip, including the entirety of the trip's copy, due to the trip going to a home viewer. Because of these edits, Jim Thornton's voice is barely present on the Season 3 edits outside of the opening. Starting in 2023, reruns on ABC have the giveaway information at the bottom of the screen replaced with a caption reading, "PREVIOUSLY BROADCAST; SWEEPSTAKES HAS ENDED", but the footage itself is still left intact.

*** Starting in Season 2, the show was moved from Thursdays in winter to Sundays in fall, still at 8:00 PM Eastern/Pacific. This put the show up against ''Sunday Night Football'' on NBC. On CBS, it was against part of ''Series/SixtyMinutes'' whenever it followed NFL on that network (starting at 7:30 at the earliest, but almost always slid later due to overrun). The premiere in particular also had to contend with the second-to-last episode of ''Series/BigBrother 23'', and the Las Vegas market pre-empted it with a Golden Knights NHL preseason game. Compared to the last season's premiere, the Season 2 premiere lost close to '''two-thirds''' of the 18-49 demo and more than half of its viewers overall.
*** For Season 3, the show remained on the Sunday lineup, still mostly during NFL season, and its success, along with ''Jeopardy!'''s AdoredByTheNetwork status at ABC, resulted in ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' joining it as a standalone series. Keeping with the O&O's order of ''Jeopardy!'' before ''Wheel'', ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' replaced ''Wheel'' in the 8:00 slot, sliding the latter to 9:00 and replacing ''Series/SupermarketSweep'' (which, like ''Wheel'', was originally Sundays at 8:00 but then slid to 9:00). Despite this, reruns of both series (and ''Jeopardy! Masters'') aired on Tuesdays during Spring and Summer 2023 with ''Wheel'' first this time. By the second half of the season, ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' moved to Thursdays, with ''Wheel'' briefly returning to the 8:00 slot, but the rest of the season, a mix of new episodes and reruns, aired inconsistently on various days at either 8:00 or 9:00, and the season finale did not air until May 2023, four months after the previous new episode. Furthermore, while reruns were planned to air every Tuesday for the entire summer up until Season 4's premiere, the reruns ceased a month earlier than planned, with the rest of them being replaced with ''Celebrity Family Feud'' reruns, despite the primetime ''Jeopardy!'' reruns continuing.
*** For Season 4, ABC's original plan was to put ''Wheel'' back in its original time slot of Thursdays at 8:00, followed by fellow laid-back game shows ''Series/PressYourLuck'' and ''[[Series/{{Pyramid}} The $100,000 Pyramid]]'', with ''Jeopardy!'' on Tuesdays paired with ''Series/TheBachelorette''. However, ABC later decided to move all ''Bachelor'' series to Thursdays and move both ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel'' to Wednesdays at 8:00 and 9:00, respectively, leaving ''Wheel'' once again "buried" by ''Jeopardy!'', which, by this point, has seen and will continue to see several more primetime specials on the network.
** The syndicated version is likely the most pre-empted syndicated program on TV, due to its unique rule that it can only be aired in the prime access hour (7-8 PM Eastern/Pacific), which is when networks and local stations generally prefer to air sporting events, pregame shows, award shows, local debates, local NFL team shows, local news specials, delayed or extended newscasts, and even ''infomercials''. This is especially true in the Central Time Zone, where ''Wheel'' is pigeonholed into the 6:30 PM slot in all but one market, due to most stations airing local news at 6:00, giving sister program ''Jeopardy!'' less restrictions for its time slotting (most air it at 3:30 or 4:30 PM preceding local and national news, meaning it rarely gets affected by sports or specials). ''Wheel's'' prime access time slot mandate was a result of [=KingWorld=], its former syndicator, not wanting affiliates to slot it too close to the daytime version, which would potentially cause confusion among viewers and unnecessary competition between two versions of the same program. Although the daytime version has been off the airwaves for more than three decades, the rule still stands today. ''Jeopardy!'' has never had this rule since that show never ran in both daytime and syndication at the same time. Affiliates are generally not allowed to move ''Wheel'' temporarily to a morning or afternoon time slot if a pre-emption is planned, instead having to move it overnight or to a sister station, if at all.
** ''Wheel'' is the only current daily syndicated program that does not offer a second daily airing at all (whether a different run or an encore of the same episode). If you miss an episode on your local station, your only legal chance of seeing it again is if it shows up as a repeat the following summer, on a Saturday next season (if ''that'' doesn't get pre-empted by college football), or, even less likely, on streaming. While ''Jeopardy!'' occasionally posts full episodes that were subject to pre-emptions on their [=YouTube=] channel, ''Wheel'' has never posted more than a full round. Since there are only 65 weekday repeats and 52 weekend repeats a year, compared to a season's 195 episodes, several episodes only get to air one time. When ''The Ellen [=DeGeneres=] Show'' left in 2022, several affiliates replaced part of its hour with ''Jeopardy!'s'' secondary run (known as ''Daytime Jeopardy!'' or ''Jeopardy! II''), but were forced to find another program that wasn't ''Wheel'' to pair that with. Many fans view ''Daytime Jeopardy!'' as pointless since it is currently only a few months behind the main run (although prior to Alex Trebek's passing, it was an entire year behind), but for unknown reasons, CBS Media Ventures still refuses to offer an equivalent for ''Wheel''.
** Affiliates that have a partnership with local major league sports teams tend to pre-empt ''Wheel'' frequently for specials or pregame shows on or close to game days (even when the game does not immediately follow ''Wheel's'' time slot), or even weekly programs discussing said team. The worst offender is WKRN-TV in Nashville, which pre-empts ''Wheel'' every Tuesday during NFL season for a local Titans show. WIVB-TV in Buffalo and WROC-TV in Rochester also frequently pre-empt ''Wheel'' for Buffalo Bills specials, even when they don't actually air the games themselves. Multiple notable episodes (including at least one $100,000 win and the first episode with a same-sex couple) ended up pre-empted by this and several other local specials dedicated to things as menial as '''Susan B. Anthony's birthday'''.
** ''Wheel'' and ''Jeopardy!'' have a long-standing deal with Creator/{{ABC}} to be carried on its O&O stations (except KTRK-TV in Houston, which does not carry ''Wheel''), which serve the top four Nielsen markets and account for roughly 20% of U.S. viewership (not counting KTRK). Starting around the 2020s, these stations began pre-empting ''Wheel'' (but never ''Jeopardy!'') with O&O-exclusive specials (mainly ones that precede live network events such as the CMA Awards, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, and the NFL Draft) on an increasingly frequent basis. When ''Wheel'' swapped out two travel-themed weeks for reruns at the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic (see DistancedFromCurrentEvents), all of the ABC O&O's pre-empted ''Wheel'' with the Mountain Time Zone feed of ''ABC World News Tonight'', despite airing only one hour after the East Coast feed in most cases. Although only reruns were affected, fans generally did not agree with this decision, as many considered the show a comforting distraction during the hard times.
** Usually when a live sporting or political event happens in East Coast primetime, its West Coast broadcast pre-empts ''Wheel's'' regular time slot. Usually, West Coast affiliates move Wheel to primetime slots after the event, but before the late-night local news, most commonly in the 9:00 or 10:00 PM hours. However, this can still result in the show getting pre-empted in part or in full if the event runs long, especially if the affiliate has an additional local newscast or postgame program (such as KGO-TV's ''After the Game'') following the event that slides other programming. This is especially true any time ABC nationally airs Monday Night Football; the Season 39 premiere in particular ended up not airing in multiple West Coast markets due to that day's game going into overtime, and a rerun of the episode over a year later suffered the same fate due to college football. This also happened with the Season 40 premiere, getting pre-empted ''twice'' on the West Coast by Monday Night Football and Game 5 of the 2023 NBA Finals, both of which ran long (especially the latter since it ended up being the winning game).
** Any time ABC has a live event that airs before West Coast airings of ''Wheel'' and ''Jeopardy!'', Los Angeles affiliate KABC-TV switches the order of the two shows to have ''Wheel'' follow the event, in order to reduce the likelihood of ''Jeopardy!'' getting joined in progress if the event runs too long. They even do this on Saturdays with UFC matches that are scheduled to end at 7:00 PM Pacific Time, normally ''Jeopardy!'s'' slot. When ''Wheel'' does end up getting joined in progress, it usually affects at least one contestant, as a large portion of ''Wheel's'' contestant pool is from the Los Angeles area, significantly more than ''Jeopardy!'', especially since the COVID-19 Pandemic.
** Despite still being one of the top-rated syndicated programs, ''Wheel'' is generally viewed as "disposable" by affiliates due to almost every episode being self-contained. When they have to choose to bump one of the two game shows in the prime access hour, they will almost-always choose to save ''Jeopardy!'' due to [[AlwaysSecondBest often having slightly higher ratings]] and continuity through its champions, which ''Wheel'' has not had on a regular basis since 1998 (and not at all from January 1999-March 2023). In some cases, if ''Jeopardy!'s'' time slot is pre-empted but ''Wheel's'' is not, stations will move ''Jeopardy!'' to '''replace''' ''Wheel'' for the day, even when ''Wheel'' has a contestant from the area. At least one program director claimed that their affiliate's contract with CBS Media Ventures ''forces'' them to do this, even with the Saturday repeats. Similarly, if ''Jeopardy!'' is scheduled after an overrunning event, some stations will ensure airing the episode in its entirety, thereby cutting off part of ''Wheel'' or just skipping over it straight to the next show.
** Even ''infomercials'' tend to get prioritized over ''Wheel''. Affiliates tend to pre-empt the show with paid programming on a random basis. Most of these only affect the Saturday repeats, but it does occasionally happen with first-run weekday episodes, and it rarely happens with ''Jeopardy!''. In one instance, three CBS O&O's (WBZ-TV Boston, WCCO-TV Minneapolis, and KTVT Dallas) all pre-empted ''Wheel'' with the same infomercial for nonprofit medical organization Operation Smile ''twice'' in a span of eight days. Portland ABC affiliate KATU is also notorious for slotting ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel'' at 10:00 PM following a newscast at 8:00 and two infomercials at 9:00 on days with sporting events. Any time the sporting event runs long (which is almost-always), every program after the game ''except Wheel'' (yes, that includes the infomercials) slides to air in its entirety, with ''Wheel'' getting joined in progress or skipped over to the 11:00 news. They briefly stopped sliding the shows after fans complained, but eventually reverted.
** Once Thursday Night Football began on network television in 2014, then-producer Harry Friedman was not pleased after learning that the event began at 7:30 PM Eastern, ''Wheel's'' most common time slot (and ''Jeopardy!'s'' slot in several markets). When he first expressed concern, representatives from the NFL and CBS outright '''lied''' to him that it would start at 8:00 and would not affect ''Wheel'' or ''Jeopardy!'' on the East Coast. Since an episode with a million dollar win was set for the Thursday of the season premiere week, Friedman had it rescheduled to air on Wednesday. Thursday Night Football originally aired interchangeably on CBS and NBC, then moved all games to FOX from 2018-21, before moving exclusively to Amazon Prime, NFL Network, and select local affiliates starting in 2022. Fortunately for ''Wheel'', only 11 FOX affiliates were carrying the show in 2018 (decreasing to 10 a year later), and very few airings of ''Wheel'' are affected by local broadcasts of games as of the 2022 season.
** The Summer and Winter Olympics on Creator/{{NBC}} pose a problem for most of its affiliates that air ''Wheel''. Starting in 2006, NBC began offering an optional pre-show, ''The Olympic Zone'', at 7:30 PM Eastern. Most affiliates carry this, and some that pre-empt ''Jeopardy!'' for this move that show to replace ''Wheel'' for the entirety of the Olympics, or pair it with an additional local pre-show at 7:00 to pre-empt both shows. In February 2022, the Beijing Winter Olympics conflicted with a historic and near-impossible streak of three $100,000 wins in a row. Despite news of this leaking in advance and the constant references to the wins throughout the week actually giving the show a sense of continuity (a common reason for program directors favoring ''Jeopardy!'' over ''Wheel''), many affiliates still refused to air these episodes in favor of ''The Olympic Zone'' or moving ''Jeopardy!''. Fortunately, these episodes were re-broadcast in July 2022.
** The April 24, 2020 episode, which was the highest-winning episode of its week and featured a rare $50,000 Bonus Round win, managed to get pre-empted nationwide on ABC affiliates ''twice'' (in terms of U.S. coverage, ABC is the largest network carrier of the show). Its original airing was the same day as Day 2 of the NFL Draft. A repeat was scheduled over a year later on September 11 (or 12), 2021, the second weekend of college football. ''All three contestants'' lived in markets that air ''Wheel'' on ABC. The winning contestant watched on flagship affiliate WABC-TV, which slotted the episode on Saturday, April 25, immediately following Day 3 of NFL Draft coverage and a local newscast. The Draft overran and caused the newscast to run late, with ''Wheel'' getting joined in progress in the middle of Round 3. WABC did air the repeat airing in its entirety, but at 5:00 AM on a Sunday morning. Another contestant stated that her affiliate (KGUN) also joined the original airing in progress after the Draft (after airing the same day's ''Jeopardy!'' in its entirety), but did air the rerun after college football without issue. Several ABC affiliates did not air either of the two airings. Fortunately, the episode is available on Pluto TV.
** The Season 37 finale ended up being scheduled the same day as the NFL kickoff game, which begins pregame coverage at 7:00 PM Eastern on NBC and pre-empts ''Wheel'' (a rerun during most years) on all of its affiliates. Since it was the second of only two new episodes that week, some affiliates opted to air the episode the following day in place of that day's rerun. A few others aired the episode early; Michigan affiliate WPBN aired it at 11:00 AM.
** Any time the Kansas City Chiefs make it to the Super Bowl (which they have done three times in the 2020s alone), local FOX affiliate WDAF-TV temporarily moves ''Wheel'' to a late-night slot for ''over a week'' consecutively in favor of specials hyping the big game, starting two Fridays prior.

*** October 4, 1997 (''Wheel 2000''): The blue player calls the last consonant in the Speed-Up puzzle GOOSE BUMPS. The red player is not told that only vowels remain, so she picks a (nonexistent) consonant. Before the yellow player can call a letter, Cyber Lucy says "There's only vowels left, I believe." That player picks the O's and solves for 550 points. Since this makes the final scores 1,550, 550, and 1,900, this error affects the outcome of the game. On a successful solve worth 750 points, the red contestant would've had enough to go to the Bonus Round.

*** On December 20, 2012, the blue contestant missolves the puzzle HICKORY-SMOKED COUNTRY HAM without enunciating the D. Neither the judges nor Pat notice this, and it is treated as a successful solve. Luckily, this doesn't affect the outcome as the final scores are $11,950, $1,500, and $8,000. The error got very little coverage because it happened the day after the SEVEN SWANS A-SWIMMING incident.

** The syndicated version is likely the most pre-empted syndicated program on TV, due to its unique rule that it can only be aired in the prime access hour (7-8 PM Eastern/Pacific), which is when networks and local stations generally prefer to air sporting events, pregame shows, award shows, local debates, local NFL team shows, local news specials, delayed or extended newscasts, and even ''infomercials''. This is especially true in the Central Time Zone, where ''Wheel'' is pigeonholed into the 6:30 PM slot in all but one market, due to most stations airing local news at 6:00, giving sister program ''Jeopardy!'' less restrictions for its time slotting (most air it at 3:30 or 4:30 PM preceding local and national news, meaning it rarely gets affected by sports or specials). ''Wheel's'' prime access time slot mandate was a result of [=KingWorld=], its former syndicator, not wanting affiliates to slot it too close to the daytime version, which would potentially cause confusion among viewers and unnecessary competition between two versions of the same program. Although the daytime version has been off the airwaves for more than three decades, the rule still stands today. ''Jeopardy!'' has never had this rule since that show never ran in both daytime and syndication at the same time. Augusta, Georgia affiliate WRDW-TV still manages to get away with airing ''Wheel'' at 10:00 AM Eastern ('''nine''' hours early) during March Madness when ''Series/LetsMakeADeal'' is vacated from the CBS daytime lineup.

** As for streaming services, Netflix had featured a rotation of a total of 74 episodes (25 at a time, with one episode being featured in two batches) that only ranged from Seasons 34-37. The announcement of the launch of a 24/7 ''Wheel'' channel on Pluto TV was initially celebrated by fans. Then when streaming actually started, ''still'' nothing older than Season 34 was initially offered, and Pluto initially stated that this would not change. The Vulture journalist who originally reported the announcements, himself a fan of retro ''Wheel'', stated that he could not get an answer as to why ''Wheel'' did not go any earlier. Catering to demand, Pluto TV added 100 episodes ranging from Seasons 20-30 (2002-2012) in March 2023, and to everyone's surprise, 98 more episodes ranging from Seasons 1-16, plus Pat and Vanna's first shows from the daytime series, were added. Many of these episodes had never been seen since their original broadcasts or syndication reruns.

** Until returning champions were introduced in Season 7, the nighttime version often aired out of order. Game Show Network's reruns of pre-1989 episodes were the first time they were shown in production order.

** ''Celebrity Wheel of Fortune'' quite obviously arranges its episodes such that the biggest wins, including any episodes in which both Bonus Rounds are won, air first, rather than airing them mostly in the order taped. Episodes where both Bonus Rounds are lost are often grouped to air in the second half of the season. In Season 1, only 5 out of 16 Bonus Rounds were won, with all but one of them airing in the first half of the season, and the only double-win episode was the series premiere. Similarly, Season 2 had two double-win episodes which aired second and third, followed by a million dollar win in the season's fourth aired episode, with all of the double-loss episodes following it, although they did squeeze in another double-win episode as the penultimate one of the season.

*** For Season 3, the show is remaining on the Sunday lineup, still mostly during NFL season, and joining it is ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' as a standalone series. Keeping with the O&O's order of ''Jeopardy!'' before ''Wheel'', ''Celebrity Jeopardy!'' replaces ''Wheel'' in the 8:00 slot, sliding the latter to 9:00 and replacing ''Series/SupermarketSweep'', potentially resulting in yet another ratings drop. This is the exact same treatment ''Sweep'' went through; that show began airing Sundays at 8:00 during its first season, then was pushed back to 9:00 for Season 2 to make room for the moving ''Wheel'', then got shelved (but not explicitly cancelled, much like the most recent revival of ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire''). However, due to the show's versatility in scheduling and not being depending on consistency for the sake of continuity, several episodes were able to air in more desirable weeknight slots.

** Pluto TV's prints do not feature the Mystery Round sponsor logo in the top-left corner of the screen during said round. However, the logos were intact on GSN and Netflix, despite the sponsor's ad before the round always being omitted.

** As for streaming services, Netflix had featured a rotation of a total of 74 episodes (25 at a time, with one episode being featured in two batches) that only ranged from Seasons 34-37. The announcement of the launch of a 24/7 ''Wheel'' channel on Pluto TV was initially celebrated by fans. Then when streaming actually started, ''still'' nothing older than Season 34 was initially offered, and Pluto initially stated that this would not change. The Vulture journalist who originally reported the announcements, himself a fan of retro ''Wheel'', stated that he could not get an answer as to why ''Wheel'' did not go any earlier. Catering to demand, Pluto TV added 100 episodes ranging from Seasons 20-30 (2002-2012) in March 2023, the Season 10 premiere from 1992 and various episodes from Seasons 1-5 were added that August.

** Apparently, Rolf wanted to keep hosting after NBC cancelled ''Wheel'' and Merv fought for his best interests. CBS executives overruled them both; they wanted and got a new host, firing Rolf during the hiatus.

** As for streaming services, Netflix had featured a rotation of a total of 74 episodes (25 at a time, with one episode being featured in two batches) that only ranged from Seasons 34-37. The announcement of the launch of a 24/7 ''Wheel'' channel on Pluto TV was initially celebrated by fans. Then when streaming actually started, ''still'' nothing older than Season 34 was initially offered, and Pluto initially stated that this would not change. The Vulture journalist who originally reported the announcements, himself a fan of retro ''Wheel'', stated that he could not get an answer as to why ''Wheel'' did not go any earlier. Catering to demand, Pluto TV added 100 episodes ranging from Seasons 20-30 (2002-2012) in March 2023, and the Season 10 premiere from 1992 was added that August.

* BuryYourArt: Unlike other long-running game shows, Sony refuses to release any vintage full episodes of ''Wheel'' on television, DVD, or streaming services. Fan theories range from Pat Sajak refusing older seasons' release for vanity reasons, to Sony thinking that older decades of ''Wheel'' have drastically different gameplay compared to modern seasons and preferring to keep gameplay consistent. It was also believed by fans that ''Wheel'' is more stubborn on its pre-2017 episodes due to using different music cues, which are almost-always [[ClumsyCopyrightCensorship dubbed over]] with their modern equivalents on clip replays. However, Pluto's initial library did feature some episodes from 2016, which all retain the original music, debunking theories that rights to the 2007-2016 music package had been an obstacle in clearing these episodes for streaming.

** As for streaming services, Netflix had featured a rotation of a total of 74 episodes that only ranged from Seasons 34-37. The announcement of the launch of a 24/7 ''Wheel'' channel on Pluto TV was initially celebrated by fans. Then when streaming actually started, ''still'' nothing older than Season 34 was initially offered. The Vulture journalist who originally reported the announcements, himself a fan of retro ''Wheel'', stated that he could not get an answer as to why ''Wheel'' did not go any earlier. Pluto TV eventually started carrying older episodes from as far back as 2004 in March 2023.

* UrbanLegendOfZelda: Fans have circulated rumors about the old trilon-based puzzle board finding a home at the Smithsonian Institution. The board was actually rejected due to its size and is now "gone" according to Pat. The only remaining prop from it is a "W" slide on display at the Sony Studios' Wheel Hall of Fame.

* TheWikiRule: (''[[http://wheeloffortunehistory.wikia.com/ ding]]'')

** A major discrepancy in score on the March 15, 2023 episode was the result of such an edit. During Round 3, the blue contestant started off with two consonants on $3,500 and a vowel, totaling $6,750, then lost her turn to a bad consonant. When control returned to her, her score was suddenly back to $0 and Pat mentioned that she "got some money back". She went on to win that round, then lost the game by $5,651. A fan who was present at the taping confirmed that she lost the $6,750 to a Bankrupt following two incorrect consonants from the red and yellow players.

*** June 29-July 3, 2020: Originally scheduled as reruns of "Great Northwest" week (featuring the episode where a contestant famously trash-talked his wife and kids during his interview), it was changed to reruns of "Great American Cities: South Florida" week instead, due to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests_in_Seattle ongoing anti-police protests happening in Seattle at the time]]. This also impacted the Summer 2020 reruns of all the Great American Cities weeks from Seasons 33-37; the one for Seattle was scheduled last, by which point the protests had ended. "Great Northwest" week later saw some episodes rerun in the 2020-21 weekend run, and the full week is available on Pluto TV.

** In Singapore, recent episodes of the American version air on [=MediaCorp=] Channel 5. These airings remove two of the four commercial breaks, only retaining the ones after Round 2 and before the Bonus Round. Also, all promotional plugs are edited out, including plugs for the show's website. Round 1 is followed immediately by Pat announcing Round 2's category due to the removal of the first commercial break and the Mystery Round sponsor plug, although the tail end of the $10,000 wedge wipe is still sometimes intact. Since the episodes air several months after they do in North America, closing segments that discuss specific occasions such as holidays are completely omitted, cutting straight from the Bonus Round to the credits.

** Most of the episodes available on Netflix and Pluto TV are packaged by their full theme week, though some weeks only have one or two episodes available. In the most egregious example, Season 37's College Week Spring Break week excludes its Tuesday episode (#S-7157) despite not only having the week's only Bonus Round win, but also featuring ''Wheel'' superfan Christian Dixie, who made headlines for his enthusiasm and gameplay, most notably knowing the bonus puzzle WAVY OCEAN with only the E and N. The episode was not excluded from television reruns, however.

** May 10, 2021 (''Celebrity Wheel of Fortune''): Mayim Bialik promoted her sitcom ''Series/CallMeKat'' whose cancellation was announced five days before the episode aired.

** Although the show has seen less coveted time slots as the seasons progressed, ABC is fond of using ''Celebrity Wheel'' when in need of a one-hour program as filler to lead into a two-hour special or film at 9:00 PM. This included Monday, December 27, 2021, leading into ABC News' annual "The Year" special (with ''Wheel'' being the top-rated show of the night), and September 29, 2022, leading into an airing of Disney Halloween staple ''Film/HocusPocus''.

** Hulu's copies of ''Celebrity Wheel'' in Season 1 were edited to remove any mention of entering each game's Round 2 puzzle online for a chance to win $10,000. Despite this, any reruns that air on TV (including reruns from previous seasons that air on Canadian network [=GameTV=]) still include the giveaways and all references to them, even though they expire a few days after the episode's original airing. Hulu left the episodes unedited in Season 2, but began editing them again in Season 3, with Vanna's $10,000 giveaway bumpers now removed entirely (Season 1's edits generally kept the tail end of them), and crossfades added to remove any references to the Prize Puzzle trip, including the entirety of the trip's copy, due to the trip going to a home viewer. Because of these edits, Jim Thornton's voice is barely present on the Season 3 edits outside of the opening.

*** October 7, 2013 (#S-5866 through 5870): Southern Hospitality.

** The week of March 20, 2017 (episodes #S-6751 through 6755), designated as Southern Charm week, fell victim to this. ''Wheel'' failed to notice an image on its video wall depicting African Americans in slave-era clothing that appeared behind Pat and Vanna during the closing segments. This was only pointed out in the middle of a rerun of the week in June 2017, likely due to the original airings of the last two episodes being pre-empted on CBS affiliates by March Madness. Because the controversy only erupted on Thursday evening, there was only enough time to pull the Friday episode, and it was done in a rather unconventional manner. Since weekday episodes are distributed to affiliates one weekday in advance, meaning they already had it, ''Wheel'' instructed its affiliates not to air #S-6755 and instead air the week's Saturday rerun (episode #S-6363 from March 2, 2016), already sent to them earlier in the week, on Friday ''and'' Saturday. The last-minute pull allegedly did not apply to Canada. No episodes from this week, or any other Southern-themed weeks have since appeared in reruns or on streaming, nor has the theme been done since.

** The week of March 20, 2017 (episodes #S-6751 through 6755), designated as Southern Charm week, fell victim to this. ''Wheel'' failed to notice an image on its video wall depicting African Americans in slave-era clothing that appeared behind Pat and Vanna during the closing segments. This was only pointed out in the middle of a rerun of the week in June 2017, likely due to the original airings of the last two episodes being pre-empted on CBS affiliates by March Madness. Because the controversy only erupted on Thursday evening, there was only enough time to pull the Friday episode, and it was done in a rather unconventional manner. Since weekday episodes are distributed to affiliates one weekday in advance, meaning they already had it, ''Wheel'' instructed its affiliates not to air #S-6755 and instead air the week's Saturday rerun (episode #S-6363 from March 2, 2016), already sent to them earlier in the week, on Friday ''and'' Saturday. The last-minute pull allegedly did not apply to Canada. No episodes from this week have since appeared in reruns or on streaming.

** Two travel-themed weeks from Season 37 were pulled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and replaced with reruns from Season 36 in most markets; others pre-empted them with repeats of national network news. The first was the week of March 30, 2020, designated "Carnival Week of Fun!", and the second was the week of April 13: "UK Getaway". The former aired the week of August 31, 2020 despite Carnival's operations still being on hold at the time, and the latter aired on the week of August 3.

* ScheduleSlip: The daytime version did not air for two weeks in 1989 while moving from NBC to CBS.

** The Wheel itself has racked up quite a lot of mileage: with 4,215 daytime shows and 7,000+ nighttime shows, this comes out to a shade over '''11,000''' episodes.

** On linear TV, the earliest episodes reran during the [[UsefulNotes/Covid19Pandemic COVID-19]] hiatus were from 2016, and the oldest that GSN has most recently aired were from 2013. The last time any episode prior to the 21st century aired on television was when GSN aired the 1994-95 season from 2008-10. The last time anything from the 1980's (or 70's) was seen was during GSN's Merv Griffin tribute marathon in 2007. In addition, the vintage clips that occasionally get replayed on the show are usually the same ones that have been seen many times since the [[ClipShow ceremonial 3,000th and 4,000th episodes]].

** Although the show is not allowed to air earlier than 7:00 PM Eastern in the United States, there is a small station based in Newfoundland, Canada (CJON-TV, branded as "NTV") that airs the show at 3:30 PM Eastern. This station is accessible with IPTV, and recordings of these early broadcasts often show up on YouTube almost immediately, around 4:15 PM; many fans have resorted to watching the show this way rather than waiting for it to come on TV at least two and a half hours later.

** Reruns of 2010's and 2020's episodes on GSN, Netflix, and Pluto TV remove almost all promotional plugs, and the "Retro Bonus Round", a play-at-home feature shown after Round 2 on some of such episodes, is often (but not always) edited out, as well as the SPIN ID drawings and any throws to them from Pat. Anything related to home viewer sweepstakes are excised as well; one episode even removed an entire montage of an event featuring winners of a previous sweepstakes. The Secret Santa episodes in particular were very choppy, with abrupt cuts to commercial before Pat even finished bidding the losing contestants goodbye.

** ''Wheel'' and ''Jeopardy!'' have a long-standing deal with Creator/{{ABC}} to be carried on its O&O stations (except KTRK-TV in Houston, which does not carry ''Wheel''), which serve the top four Nielsen markets and account for roughly 20% of U.S. viewership (not counting KTRK). Starting around the 2020's, these stations began pre-empting ''Wheel'' (but never ''Jeopardy!'') with O&O-exclusive specials (mainly ones that precede live network events such as the CMA Awards, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, and the NFL Draft) on an increasingly frequent basis. When ''Wheel'' swapped out two travel-themed weeks for reruns at the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic (see DistancedFromCurrentEvents), all of the ABC O&O's pre-empted ''Wheel'' with the Mountain Time Zone feed of ''ABC World News Tonight'', despite airing only one hour after the East Coast feed in most cases. Although only reruns were affected, fans generally did not agree with this decision, as many considered the show a comforting distraction during the hard times.

** Any time the Kansas City Chiefs make it to the Super Bowl (which they have done three times in the 2020's alone), local FOX affiliate WDAF-TV temporarily moves ''Wheel'' to a late-night slot for ''over a week'' consecutively in favor of specials hyping the big game, starting two Fridays prior.

** Sometime in the late 2010's, a special episode with a rematch between the three million-dollar winners was considered. This would have been the first time in nearly two decades that a contestant returned for any reason besides a technicality. The idea was ultimately scrapped after Michelle Loewenstein declined the opportunity.

** The closing chat from February 25, 2022 (#S-7545) was about Vanna's cat Stella. At the time of the episode's taping, stella had just celebrated her sixteenth birthday. Vanna said that Stella "could live for a lot longer", to which Pat takes as "more material" for the RunningGag of him getting her name wrong. On an episode later in the season, Vanna announced that Stella had passed away. Likely to avoid insensitivity, #S-7545 was barred from its scheduled weekend rerun.

** The closing chat from February 25, 2022 (#S-7545) was about Vanna's cat Stella who at the time of the episode's taping had just turned 16. Vanna said that Stella "could live for a lot longer", to which Pat takes as "more material" for the RunningGag of him getting her name wrong. On an episode later in the season, Vanna announced that Stella had passed away. Likely to avoid insensitivity, #S-7545 was barred from its scheduled weekend rerun.