Yet another odd WoF observation

[Twentington]

Back in the trilon days, I noticed a stretch from about late 1992 to mid-1995 where, for no particular reason, any two-line bonus puzzle was put on the top two lines of the puzzle board instead of the middle two. There were also at least two puzzles I saw in that same timespan where they'd do like they did in the 80s and put each word on its own line, even if it could fit on just two (e.g. CHANGE | OF | HEART instead of CHANGE | OF HEART).

I thought this looked very awkward, myself, and I don't even have any ex-recto guess as to why they'd do it. Just an attempt at doing something different, like so many of the other oddities they threw at us in the same timespan (Megaword, Foreign Word/Foreign Phrase, red letter puzzles, etc.)?

[Kevin Prather]

Or perhaps it was simply at the whim of the director, or whoever was setting up the board?

[J.R.]

God commanded it.

[BrandonFG]

Here's an example from 1994...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqKDvzPeRnc&playnext=1&list=PL3382DC97CACC6A7E

I doubt there was any rhyme or reason, but it does look a bit odd.

[Twentington]

Before 1992, I've only seen one case where a bonus puzzle was noticeably misplaced. Page o' Clips has a 1984 episode where a one-word bonus puzzle is on the third row instead of the second. At least this one has a logical reasoning behind it — the previous round had a trilon light up prematurely and refuse to turn off, so maybe it was still malfunctioning come the Bonus Round.

I can't say I've seen any "misplaced" puzzles on the electronic board, but I've both heard and seen of it glitching a couple times (apparently on one episode, it puked on a bonus puzzle and came out with a garbled mess of letters). Still, gotta love mechanical props for all these wonderful little oddities that screens just aren't capable of.

[TheLastResort]

Looks like they did it to allow for the 2-line Chyron and the picture-in-picture at the bottom.

[Jeremy Nelson]

Looks like they did it to allow for the 2-line Chyron and the picture-in-picture at the bottom.

Yeah, but normally, they just zoom out to show more of the board, and keep the two lines in the middle rows.

In the end, it's probably just director's preference, and nothing more.

[Kevin Prather]

Another example is a three-line puzzle being on lines 2, 3 and 4 rather than 1, 2 and 3.

[Twentington]

Yeah, but normally, they just zoom out to show more of the board, and keep the two lines in the middle rows.

In the end, it's probably just director's preference, and nothing more.

Agreed. I've seen 80s and 90s episodes where they've had "FICTIONAL / CHARACTER / RSTLNE" taking up three lines of the chyron, and still had room for both the contestant overlay and the puzzle in its "normal" position on the middle rows.

(As an aside, I wonder how often Fictional Place has been used in the Bonus Round? I would actually bet real cash money on "once", as ultra-rare as that category is.)

Another example is a three-line puzzle being on lines 2, 3 and 4 rather than 1, 2 and 3.

I usually see that only when the first word in the puzzle is too long for the top row. In fact, the 1984 game I mentioned with a trilon malfunction had FRANKFURTERS AND SAUERKRAUT in Round 3, and "frankfurters" was on the second row for that very reason.

I've also seen that at least once with the electronic board — if I remember correctly, the puzzle was something like COMMEMORATIVE QUARTER COLLECTION, and "commemorative" obviously doesn't fit on the top row.

[Mr. Armadillo]

On an unrelated note after watching that clip...$2,800 was a winning total?  

Man, Mo' Money's spoiled us.

[Twentington]

I just realized that all the "top row" bonus puzzles I've seen have involved the separate board for road shows. Specifically, the oldest episode I saw that on was from San Francisco in November 1992 (the same episode where they had to edit out the R1 puzzle VANNA'S PREGNANT), and the newest episode I saw it on was one of the ones taped on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in mid-1995. I do know they went back to the more conventional middle two rows by the Hawaii episodes in February 1996.

On an unrelated note after watching that clip...$2,800 was a winning total?  

To be fair, that was low even for 1994. I've seen very many 1990s episodes where the champ was headed for Bonus Land with a total well north of $10K. And this was way the heck before Mystery Wedges or Prize Puzzles, remember.

Still a far cry from 1984, where you'd see someone play the bonus round for, say, a $3500 hot tub.

[Craig Karlberg]

I can't put a date on that clip but it was quite common for a sub $5K winning total in the pre Toss-up days.  $2,800 sure seems like nothing these days.  You're never gonna go with < $5K as a winning total anymore thanks to those Toss-ups.

[Twentington]

I can't put a date on that clip but it was quite common for a sub $5K winning total in the pre Toss-up days.  $2,800 sure seems like nothing these days.  You're never gonna go with < $5K as a winning total anymore thanks to those Toss-ups.

May 3, 1994.

For the record, the lowest winning total I've found in the Toss-Up era is $6,550.

[Kevin Prather]

For the record, the lowest winning total I've found in the Toss-Up era is $6,550.

Is that lowest winning for the whole day? I know one $100k winner won only $5,500 in the front game.

[wheelloon]

The main reason I've seen and figured for this (and note, this was really only the case back in the old puzzle board days) was, provided they could space the puzzle out accordingly so all the letters fit (the first four-line puzzle board was 11-13-13-11 useable, now it's 12-14-14-12 as reference), so that certain puzzles could be seen better by the ENTIRE studio audience (as was touched on earlier, this was common practice when they were on the road). Having the puzzles up higher meant the people in the very back of the large audience sections of the theaters could have a better view of the puzzles, with the cameras and other audience members blocking their sight path that much less (which I can testify firsthand, can be a legit problem).

This became a common practice when Wheel first went to Disney World in the 1989-90 season. I can't remember for sure if they did it their first time at Radio City (and all the Youtube videos to check such have been taken off), but I'm leaning towards it not being the case. However, the two episodes I have in my collection from their first Orlando trip (the first two episodes they taped there) had two-line puzzles, and both were on the first and second lines of the puzzle board.