Minor Wheel of Fortune Gameplay Change for Season 27

[Joe Mello]

[quote name=\'Don Howard\' post=\'220620\' date=\'Jul 20 2009, 08:34 PM\'][quote name=\'knagl\' post=\'220615\' date=\'Jul 20 2009, 08:07 PM\']I don't know what was wrong with having the free spin disc, but from Pat's (on-air) comments about it, it seems like the show staff never cared for it.[/quote]
Then the staff is welcome to go screw themselves. Perhaps they'd like to find work elsewhere if the placement of a Free Spin disc troubles them so.[/quote]
Since this seems to be a problem, I could tell them where to place their Free Spins.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'tpirfan28\' post=\'220612\' date=\'Jul 20 2009, 05:00 PM\']What happened to the old saying "If it's not broke, don't fix it?"[/quote]
Fifteen years of Megaword, clue puzzles, bonus questions, and Mystery wedges and you're just asking this question NOW?

[wheelloon]

So they basically combined the Free spin, Buy a Vowel space from the very very beginning, and a $500 space...

Free spin was always a natural part of the game to me, it's been there in some basic form since 75, and I'd even say it's an iconic part of the show. And while it has been my thought process these past few years they've been approaching the FS as less and less of something important to the game (it not helping that 95% of contestants who've landed on it in recent memory don't use any seeming strategy with it!), I'm still not thinking highly of this...

I never had a problem with contestants getting more than one FS, personally. If anything, it came off as humorous, in the least, to see people piling them up in front of them like a stack of pancakes. Also, while I understand the rules for this new thing just fine... much like how they had to handle the $1kk Wedge to make it logistically viable... it comes off... as overly and unnecessarily complicated.

Is anyone else missing the time where people just picked up a FS/prize when they landed it on it before calling a letter? That would've been a better solution than this. Oh yeah, and you mean there's SOMETHING else on the wheel valued at $500? Are there more $500 things in various forms now than $300 wedges on the wheel? Oy...

/At least Pat's probably happy with the name now.

[Bill Neuweiler]

Maybe it's done to speed things up.  It takes up a lot of time to pass that silly disc back from the blue position.  Two questions...How many rounds did this freaky space last, and is the Wild Card still in play?

[Craig Karlberg]

This new Free Play thing irks me a little bit.  Sure it may "save" players $250 on buying a vowel for free, but to sacrafice the Free Spin disc for that?  It just comes off as totally unecessary.  This game is really starting to really get "broken" bit by bit.  What's next?  A 4th toss-up after Round 6(if it ever gets THAT far)?

[Dbacksfan12]

This, coming from the same staff that regularly edits down spins and cuts complete rounds from the tape.

I'm trying to decide which game show has the most incompetent producing staff....looks like Wheel just took the lead.

[TimK2003]

[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'220685\' date=\'Jul 21 2009, 05:00 AM\']This new Free Play thing irks me a little bit.  Sure it may "save" players $250 on buying a vowel for free, but to sacrafice the Free Spin disc for that?  It just comes off as totally unecessary.  This game is really starting to really get "broken" bit by bit.  What's next?  A 4th toss-up after Round 6(if it ever gets THAT far)?[/quote]


They will probably play toss-ups for the first 15 minutes of the show, then they'll start Round 1, the time bell goes off, and Pat gives the wheel a final (and only) spin.

At this rate, with another 5 years of "tweaking", the show could have NOTHING that was seen or done back on episode #1 when Chuck Woolery first hosted Wheel.

/Wait a minute...Woolery Lef....??

[Ian Wallis]

As he said, the old Free Spin wedge, as in the ability to rack up Free Spin after Free Spin after Free Spin after Free Spin...

I remember a Woolery episode one summer where a contestant racked up about 6 of them.  She kept spinning the wheel in a perfect circle to land on the same spot over and over again.  I can't remember if she actually used them all during the course of the show though.

[Don Howard]

[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'220699\' date=\'Jul 21 2009, 08:58 AM\']At this rate, with another 5 years of "tweaking", the show could have NOTHING that was seen or done back on episode #1 when Chuck Woolery first hosted Wheel.[/quote]
Other than Charlie O. (and even he was gone for eight years), what does it have? Who on the staff has been a member of the team continuously since that opening day telecast in 1975?

[Sodboy13]

[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'220686\' date=\'Jul 21 2009, 04:46 AM\']This, coming from the same staff that regularly edits down spins and cuts complete rounds from the tape.

I'm trying to decide which game show has the most incompetent producing staff....looks like Wheel just took the lead.[/quote]

Given that the entire staff of Family Feud apparently can't perform basic addition, I'd say we have a two-horse race, at minimum.

[tpirfan28]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'220653\' date=\'Jul 20 2009, 11:34 PM\'][quote name=\'tpirfan28\' post=\'220612\' date=\'Jul 20 2009, 05:00 PM\']What happened to the old saying "If it's not broke, don't fix it?"[/quote]
Fifteen years of Megaword, clue puzzles, bonus questions, and Mystery wedges and you're just asking this question NOW?
[/quote]
Might be the first time I've said it here...I've wondered it for quite some time.  Might explain why I've stopped watching the program with any sort of consistency since about 2003 or so.

[calliaume]

I'm sorry, but I don't see this as a major change.  It takes out a little bit of the "strategy" of when to use the Free Spin card you just got, but that's about it.  In some ways, it's better than a free spin, in that you don't incur a penalty for an incorrect guess.  Remember, a Free Spin can also yield a Bankrupt -- not possible here.

It's just tinkering at the margins to me.

[Tony Peters]

[quote name=\'calliaume\' post=\'220725\' date=\'Jul 21 2009, 11:26 AM\']I'm sorry, but I don't see this as a major change.  It takes out a little bit of the "strategy" of when to use the Free Spin card you just got, but that's about it.  In some ways, it's better than a free spin, in that you don't incur a penalty for an incorrect guess.  Remember, a Free Spin can also yield a Bankrupt -- not possible here.

It's just tinkering at the margins to me.[/quote]
Of course, enough margins have been tinkered at in the last decade-plus that the whole flavor of the show is almost unrecognizable from its peak of enjoyability/popularity/what-have-you.

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'Don Howard\' post=\'220711\' date=\'Jul 21 2009, 09:51 AM\']Other than Charlie O. (and even he was gone for eight years), what does it have? Who on the staff has been a member of the team continuously since that opening day telecast in 1975?[/quote]
Although he passed away last year, I believe art director Dick Stiles worked on the show going back to the beginning. I remember seeing him credited alongside Ed Flesh in one of the MT&R episodes from 1976.

[Neumms]

[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'220686\' date=\'Jul 21 2009, 04:46 AM\']This, coming from the same staff that regularly edits down spins and cuts complete rounds from the tape.[/quote]

I don't mean to pull a "Woolery left" thing, but do they really cut entire rounds out of the aired show? How could they? Even the house minimum would count as score.

It also strikes me as incredible how a show that gives so much money can seem so tightfisted when, instead of cash multiplied by number of appearances of the guessed letter, they give away a flat $1000 gift certificate at a surf shop (or wherever).