Author Topic: Strange thing on Wheel in the 70's (Read 5181 times)

Jimmy Owen · « **on:** August 31, 2003, 08:37:41 PM »

Do you remember the odd thing the contestants had to do if the puzzle was unsolved and a commercial break came up?

Adam Nedeff · « **Reply #1 on:** August 31, 2003, 08:44:40 PM »

Turn their backs...

It's not so odd; it was just a good way to ensure the contestant in control of the board and wheel didn't have an extra 2 minutes to study the board and figure it out when in all fairness, they shouldn't have been able to otherwise.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #2 on:** August 31, 2003, 08:52:00 PM »

What makes it odd compared to today is that play moved so slowly that they routinely NEEDED to go to a commercial in the middle of a round. BTW, I remember that they originally didn't actually show the contestants turning their backs, but somebody (probably Chuck) said in an interview that it was always the practice.

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #3 on:** August 31, 2003, 08:53:52 PM »

Yeah, when I was a child of 14 I thought, \"why not put it behind the curtain Susan came out of?\" Not sure if it was a bad idea now.

zachhoran · « **Reply #4 on:** August 31, 2003, 08:58:16 PM »

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Aug 31 2003, 07:52 PM\'] What makes it odd compared to today is that play moved so slowly that they routinely NEEDED to go to a commercial in the middle of a round. BTW, I remember that they originally didn't actually show the contestants turning their backs, but somebody (probably Chuck) said in an interview that it was always the practice. [/quote]
The commercial in the middle of a puzzle was a part of the NBC Daytime run from 1975-89, stopping when the show moved to CBS. Some of the earliest syndicated episodes had commercial breaks in the middle of a puzzle as well.

drmusic_99 · « **Reply #5 on:** September 01, 2003, 01:38:08 AM »

While I don't remember seeing it on the actual show, it seems to me it happened to a sitcom character when they were a contestant... (cue laugh track at character's befuddled expression when asked to turn around) Could it have been..... \"227\"?

BrandonFG · « **Reply #6 on:** September 01, 2003, 02:28:47 AM »

[quote name=\'drmusic_99\' date=\'Sep 1 2003, 12:38 AM\'] While I don't remember seeing it on the actual show, it seems to me it happened to a sitcom character when they were a contestant... (cue laugh track at character's befuddled expression when asked to turn around) Could it have been..... "227"? [/quote]
It was \"Gimme a Break.\"