They managed to use ROBERT BLAKE AS BARETTA on an episode that wound up airing after Blake was accused of shooting his wife. A clip was dubbed in of Pat explaining the circumstances.
THE CROCODILE HUNTER was used on one that aired right after Steve Irwin's death. Again, Pat appeared in a post-production segment to say that the episodes were taped before any incidents.
Two episodes taped in New Orleans right before Hurricane Katrina had puzzles edited out that were deemed insensitive to hurricane victims. One, THE LOUISIANA SUPERDOME, was restored in reruns.
After Vanna became pregnant for the first time, they announced it in one episode (November 2, 1992) with the puzzle VANNA'S PREGNANT. However, she miscarried between taping and airing, so the only viable option was to edit out the puzzle. The problem is that, rather than explain this, they aired a video about the San Francisco tapings and had Pat claim they played a puzzle while the viewers watched that.
THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS was used as a puzzle on December 2, 2013, just two days after the death of Paul Walker. Due to the extremely short notice (especially with his death happening on a Saturday and the episode airing on Monday), there was no time to dub in an explanation, but some affiliates ran a crawl, and the show commented about the situation on social media after the airing.
The May 2, 2014 episode had the puzzle ROBIN WILLIAMS AS MRS. DOUBTFIRE. When the week with this episode was scheduled to rerun about a month after Williams' death that August, the episode was replaced with one from a different week. It did rerun multiple times on GSN, however.
The episode that aired the same day as the Paris terrorist attacks on November 13, 2015 ended up having a trip to Paris as the featured prize on the Wheel, though it was pre-empted in many markets by breaking news coverage of said incident anyway.
On September 12, 2017, the show gave away its first trip to Cuba... less than a week after it was hit by Category 5 Hurricane Irma.
The week of September 18-22, 2017 was originally scheduled to have the theme "Salute to Texas". However, one week before its intended airing, it was delayed three weeks to October due to Texas being hit by Hurricane Harvey, and each episode was preceded by a clip of Pat and Vanna explaining that the week was taped beforehand.
On October 27, 2017, a trip to Puerto Rico was given away roughly a month after the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria. As the trip was described, a caption appeared on screen explaining that the episode was taped beforehand.
On February 27, 2020, a trip to Italy was given away. At this time, Italy was among the countries with the highest reported cases of COVID-19. Another Italy trip was offered on March 11. Both of these episodes were taped in January, when the virus was not as widespread. Starting March 24, some trip copies were accompanied by a caption noting that the episodes are taped in advance.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Too Soon is no longer a trope, and it doesn't seem like any of these entries fit under Distanced from Current Events:
- Too Soon:
- They managed to use ROBERT BLAKE AS BARETTA on an episode that wound up airing after Blake was accused of shooting his wife. A clip was dubbed in of Pat explaining the circumstances.
- THE CROCODILE HUNTER was used on one that aired right after Steve Irwin's death. Again, Pat appeared in a post-production segment to say that the episodes were taped before any incidents.
- Two episodes taped in New Orleans right before Hurricane Katrina had puzzles edited out that were deemed insensitive to hurricane victims. One, THE LOUISIANA SUPERDOME, was restored in reruns.
- After Vanna became pregnant for the first time, they announced it in one episode (November 2, 1992) with the puzzle VANNA'S PREGNANT. However, she miscarried between taping and airing, so the only viable option was to edit out the puzzle. The problem is that, rather than explain this, they aired a video about the San Francisco tapings and had Pat claim they played a puzzle while the viewers watched that.
- THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS was used as a puzzle on December 2, 2013, just two days after the death of Paul Walker. Due to the extremely short notice (especially with his death happening on a Saturday and the episode airing on Monday), there was no time to dub in an explanation, but some affiliates ran a crawl, and the show commented about the situation on social media after the airing.
- The May 2, 2014 episode had the puzzle ROBIN WILLIAMS AS MRS. DOUBTFIRE. When the week with this episode was scheduled to rerun about a month after Williams' death that August, the episode was replaced with one from a different week. It did rerun multiple times on GSN, however.
- The episode that aired the same day as the Paris terrorist attacks on November 13, 2015 ended up having a trip to Paris as the featured prize on the Wheel, though it was pre-empted in many markets by breaking news coverage of said incident anyway.
- On September 12, 2017, the show gave away its first trip to Cuba... less than a week after it was hit by Category 5 Hurricane Irma.
- The week of September 18-22, 2017 was originally scheduled to have the theme "Salute to Texas". However, one week before its intended airing, it was delayed three weeks to October due to Texas being hit by Hurricane Harvey, and each episode was preceded by a clip of Pat and Vanna explaining that the week was taped beforehand.
- On October 27, 2017, a trip to Puerto Rico was given away roughly a month after the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria. As the trip was described, a caption appeared on screen explaining that the episode was taped beforehand.
- On February 27, 2020, a trip to Italy was given away. At this time, Italy was among the countries with the highest reported cases of COVID-19. Another Italy trip was offered on March 11. Both of these episodes were taped in January, when the virus was not as widespread. Starting March 24, some trip copies were accompanied by a caption noting that the episodes are taped in advance.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman