Headscratchers / Wheel of Fortune

• Why the hell buy a damn vowel if you know what the phrase is and then solve it right after buying the vowel?? You're just throwing away $250 for no damn reason!!! Idiots!!!
  • Two reasons. One, to confirm your thoughts (e.g. "b_ll" is "ball" as opposed to "bell" or "bill"). Two, it helps ease the pressure — you have ONE shot to solve the puzzle and a simple mispronunciation will cause you to lose your turn (and likely, the next player will solve it). $250 is a drop in the bucket when thousands or tens of thousands of dollars are at stake. Not buying the vowel (and getting that breather) leans toward the penny-wise, pound-foolish train of thought.
    • But the penalty is exactly the same for guessing the phrase and being wrong as it is for buying a vowel and being wrong. Either way, you lose your turn and basically hand victory to the next player.
    • Think of it this way: Buying a vowel when it's "obvious" that they know the puzzle is like saying, "Timeout! I think I know this" as they regather their thoughts. (You can't delay on your turn or you lose it. And spinning, as noted below, can risk a "Lose a Turn" or "Bankrupt".) Furthermore, just because you can solve the puzzle doesn't mean they can. And you can armchair quarterback it all you want, but YOU are not on the show and thus YOU do not have the pressure of national TV and thousands of dollars at stake and the fear of choking at the worst possible moment.
  • Additionally, you'll also see people buying vowels when there are still consonants left around. The reason for not spinning to try and gain money from knowing what's in the puzzle (as opposed to solving, which adds nothing to your score—if you have $250 when you solve, you get $250) is pretty obvious: You don't want to land on a "Lose a Turn," or worse, a "Bankrupt."
    • There's actually more incentive not to spin now, even if you only have $250. Nowadays, there's a $1000 minimum, so if you solve with only $250, they make it $1000 instead.
    • Also, just because you know what one of the words is doesn't mean you know the whole phrase; You buy an obvious vowel in the hopes that it shows up somewhere else to help you out, and since you know there's at least one, you don't risk losing a turn.
  • Let's just say there's a reason that you never see any Wheel of Fortune contestants move on to Jeopardy!...
  • Also, it's not as if the $250 swing would make that big a difference. The scores are usually far enough apart at the end of the game.
• Better yet, why does everybody always pounce on the vowels every single time they land on Free Play, even in situations when it would not be beneficial? I remember one recent Before & After puzzle had S_B_A_ PLATFORM SHOES. The only vowel remaining was U, so logic would dictate that the first word is SUBWAY. The contestant spun the wheel and landed on Free Play, and true to Complacent Gaming Syndrome, he stole the U just because he could. Then he solved the puzzle and denied himself the extra $500 he could have gotten for the W or the Y.
  • For one thing, the producers actually encourage contestants to call vowels on Free Play if any remain...
• If Sajak constantly had to remind players that "Person does not always mean proper name" (and forgot to do so nearly half the time), why did it take them until 1996 to realize the easy solution of just making Proper Name its own category? It's not like they were against making new categories in the 1990s...
  • It's not that Sajak "forgot" to mention it, it's that he only mentioned "person does not mean proper name" on puzzles where that was in fact the case (in other words, he was giving you a backhanded hint)
  • I think you are giving TV Producers, Executives, and Developers (as well as all the other many people involved in the decision making process of show) a lot more credit than they deserve. I imagine it was something they thought would not need it's own category back then if people would just understand the difference... which they obviously didn't. And you kind of answered your own question. They did make it a new category in the '90's. It just took the until 1996.
• Why do so few contestants employ any kind of strategy in the Bonus Round? It's really not that hard to pick up on something as simple as T_E being THE. Call that H; it might help you somewhere else!
  • Even worse are the contestants who don't try to "talk it out." Being silent for the whole 10 seconds doesn't help anything. If you have part of the word filled in, try saying that fragment out loud and seeing if you can match any full word to that sound!
    • Talking it out does not help everyone. If everyone could talk it out and get the phrase on accident I am sure they would, but some people think better in their own heads. Talking it out would probably hurt those people more than it helps.
  • Actually, knowing that there is a missing H in T_E doesn't necessarily mean you should call an H. If that's the only H in the puzzle, it hasn't helped you, and if it's not, well, it's not like the rest of the puzzle was any more likely to have an H simply because there was a missing H in T_E. This strategy only makes sense if the H appearing or not appearing somewhere will help you actually solve the puzzle. If not, it makes more sense to call the most common consonants.
    • H is one of the most common consonants — it's the fourth most common, behind only T, N, and S — and if "T _ E" is already showing then T is already taken.
  • The fact is, there may be no strategy at all to them not choosing the H in T_E. It is a lot of nerves up there. First they made it pretty much by luck of the spin to the Bonus Round (and hopefully some skill), and second there is a lot of time restraints so they must choose their letters quickly. Not to mention the pressure of knowing you will be on TV in addition to the normal pressure of just being there and playing the game in the first place. Putting yourself in their shoes is basically impossible unless you actually get on the show. If you have been on the show... did you feel the pressure?
  • Actually, if you give it some thought, there's good strategy in that example to not guess "H." In the regular rounds, getting a letter correct gets you some points and another turn. In the very last round, you're asked for 3 consonants and 1 vowel, and that constitutes your only chance at guessing letters. Why waste one of your 3 consonants on an "H" if you already know it's there? You're better off picking consonants you're only semi-certain of, or even not certain at all—their presence or absence will help you more.
• This is not so much about the show, but about how people see it. Why do people love to associate the show with the elderly? Because of this, some people feel ashamed or embarassed to admit they like watching "Wheel." I'm always on Twitter searching for any "Wheel" news, or just because I like to read people's witty comments about what's going on that night's episode. Just about every day I see a lot of people say things like, "I'm watching 'Wheel of Fortune.' I must be 80 years old." or "Why the heck am I watching 'Wheel of Fortune'?" Why do we treat it like it's such a bad thing to like it if you're not a retiree? Also, if it's true that "only old people watch it," then why are most of the contestants in their 30s-50s or so? Why does it continue to reign the top of the syndication charts ratings-wise? Plus, there are college weeks and teen weeks. Has it ever been explicitly stated somewhere that the show's target demographic is 60+? The only thing I've noticed is the occasional Bayer or Sea-Bond commercial.
  • Heck. I'm 28 and watch it.
  • I think it might simply be that the show is so old that the original demographic was whatever it was for the timeslot (which I don't think has changed in the last almost 40 years of the show) and those people have grown almost 40 years older, so if we assume it was targeted to a 25-35 age group, the people that have been watching wheel now are in their 65's-75's. Mostly, I would say that the young just don't want to be associated with the old and want to try and distance themselves.
  • In addition, unlike other super long runners that have gone on for decades like Saturday Night Live or Doctor Who, the look and feel of the show have not changed much. In addition, Pat and Vanna have been on the show for a VERY long time. I think that's the reason behind Wheel of Fortune's association with the elderly: It's essentially an HD relic. (I notice The Price Is Right has a similar reputation, and had Family Feud not changed its answer wall to be completely digital and, starting with Steve Harvey, revamped the scope of its categories, it probably would've been struck by this too.)
• Does Vanna White have a portrait somewhere that's aging for her? I swear, she doesn't look any older than she did in the 80's!
  • Just don't let her look at it!
• Why are longer puzzles (two lines, but still 20+ letters) sometimes used for final rounds that begin as Speed-Ups? It's understandable during the trilon, but why now?
  • Probably to ensure that the round's done in due time. They already do a ton of editing to get the show in at ~22 minutes.
• Why are there two Toss-Up puzzles before the game even begins? What makes the first one pointless is if the second one is unsolved, the red player goes first. Is the purpose of them simply to offer free money or what?
  • The first Toss-Up kicks off the game with someone winning $1K and determining who Pat interviews first. The second ($2K) one determines who kicks off round 1. Why it defaults to the red player is that before the Toss-Ups existed, the red player ALWAYS started the game (who stood at what podium was determined by a number draw before taping— part of Pat's older opening boilerplate usually included the phrase "we drew numbers to see who will go first"), so Toss-Up #2 basically replaces that number draw and adds a cheap puzzle to the game to speed things along.
• Recently, during the Bonus Round, contestants get a choice of three categories. They typically go something like this:
  THING
  PLACE
  LIVING THING
  The bottom category is always way more specific than the others, and in cases like the above, are a more specific version of one of the upper categories. As a result, most contestants pick the bottom one. Is there any incentive on taking one of the vaguer categories? If not, why are they there at all?
• Most of the time Collette is mentioned as a sponsor, Pat and Vanna are in Portugal. Is there anything special about Portugal and Wheel of Fortune that they go there more often than any other European country combined?
• Why does Wheel like to ignore the daytime version? It seems like they pretend only the syndicated version exists.
  • It may be because the syndie version's more well-known.
  • Another reason lately may be due to not wanting to be associated with Chuck Woolery, who has posted some very controversial opinions on social media, which actually gained traction, unlike Pat's.
• What's the point of the Rhyme Time and Same Letter categories? Virtually all puzzles featured in these categories are random collections of words that the writers slapped together to fit the category. In my opinion, if there's not a long list of possible options for a category without having to make some up, the category shouldn't exist.

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