[quote name=\'Darion Blackwood Daniel\' post=\'229577\' date=\'Oct 31 2009, 06:07 PM\']I am already thinking of a few things:1. Stop offering trips all the time as prizes. TPIR knows that. (e.g. CARS)[/quote] Hey, look at that. We agree on something; set your stopwatches, friends; this won't happen for a while.
2. Double Play worthwhile?
I liked it, but I think the problem is that your average contestant wouldn't know how to operate it properly.
3. Raise the top prize to $200,000.
Written like someone who has a family member balance his checkbook.
[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'229588\' date=\'Oct 31 2009, 10:43 PM\']A lot of the other suggestions I see here fall in that category of making WoF a better game, when Wheel has never been about gamesmanship. A person who knows the puzzle early has always been encouraged to push their
luck to rack up a total.[/quote] I totally get this. If I want fate to guide my winning, I'll try out for High Rollers or Press Your Luck. If I want my skill to guide me, I pick Jeopardy! or Concentration.
But they're presenting a game. And as much as the wheel guides the game, I would prefer for the best solver to win the game. That's what guided my changes.
Those of you crowing about getting rid of a daily Prize Puzzle must be forgetting the whole SPIN ID tie-in which gives a casual viewer a reason to watch every single day. There's probably a lot of revenue there, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted this long, and grown into most of the show.
The Prize Puzzle was just the last one. There's the Hot Pockets Jackpot Round. The THREE gift tags on the wheel. And the promotional consideration spot before the end-of-show chat.
I get that they're out to make money, and that there are companies that are willing to pay for it. But if I want to watch ads, I'll go to the theater and leave when the feature is about to start. I want to watch the game, not footage of a toaster pastry being broken open while the gooey insides spill out.
And because I can almost sense an argument that Jeopardy! has lasted this long without resorting to gimmickry, I will present the fairly frequent set changes, Clue Crew, dollars doubling, new car bonuses and other changes as counter evidence. Sure it doesn't reek of "we're getting old" as much as the Million Dollar Wedge and everything that preceded it on Wheel, but the function of those "improvements" seems about the same.
I have no love for the Clue Crew; I think they break up the flow of the game and are there to be young fresh faces. The doubling of the money and the cars seemed to balance out the fact that Wheel of Fortune contestants were winning piles of cash for doing quite a bit less heaving lifting.
Jeopardy doesn't give you a chance to look at the set or notice the little things, because if you're not paying attention to the game, you're going to lose your place. On Wheel of Fortune, there really isn't all that much else to do while the wheel is spinning. So you notice the set, the gaudy wheel colors, the awful white outlines, the obnoxious clapping all the time...
[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'229593\' date=\'Nov 1 2009, 01:46 AM\']The program is as popular as ever, so maybe it ain't broke,[/quote] 1) From everything I've seen, Wheel/Jeopardy peaked in the late 80s/early 90s.
2) The point isn't to say "the show is perfect, leave it the way it is. "How to improve Wheel" is the thread title. And that's what I've been trying to do, as opposed to...
but I propose a different mechanism for choosing the letters in the bonus. Have five mini-wheels with one containing the vowels and the other 4 consisting of consonants. Maybe throw in a "wild card" space. Spin the wheels at approx the same time to get your letters. That would bring wheels back in as part of the game and allow the writers a little more freedom on crafting the puzzles.
which just insults the intelligence of everyone reading it.
