Wheel of Fortune questions

[14gameshows]

Few questions about Wheel of Fortune?

I've always wanted to know this but how does the lighting on the wheel work?  In essence did Ed Flesh create a special lighting system that controlled the chasing pattern of the lights on the wheel in correspondence to the speed of the wheel spinning?

Should the dollar value of buying a vowel be increased?  

Could the shopping version still work today?

[BrandonFG]

The last two have been discussed before, but for question b) IMO, increasing it doesn't really add or take away anything. It would keep up with inflation, but losing a maximum of $1,250 in a round still creates a risk. If it were to ever go up, maybe make it $500, but I'm cool with it either way.

As for c) some of the shopping segments and descriptions took several minutes, which in turn takes away from gameplay.

A while ago, I came up with the idea of a shopping round, where you have to land on a space worth say, $1,000 per letter, which then goes onto a "gift card" of sorts. Solve the puzzle, and you use the gift card to "shop". No On Account or anything, just a small incentive for solving a puzzle, while going old-school. It wouldn't even have to be done everyday. There's more kinks to iron out with the idea, but I get off work in 8 minutes. ;-)

[TLEberle]

Possibly, yeah I guess, hell no.

[vtown7]

While I suspect it'll never come over here, France's early prime-time version of Wheel a few years ago had a spot called "Caverne" which allowed you a roughly 20-30 shopping spree to pick out prizes.  It worked in their frantic version - not sure it would fit in with Pat and Vanna.

R.

[Twentington]

No way in hell would shopping work now. There's just no time in the show for that. I've seen shows so pressed for time that they had to hack it to bits even with Round 4 beginning as a Speed-Up. (One of the Military Week episodes a few weeks ago ran so long that they had to cut out the special intro segment and the "retro" bonus puzzle after Round 2.)

[TLEberle]

the special intro segment

But you still watched, because you know this.

/What "special intro segment"?

[Twentington]

the special intro segment

But you still watched, because you know this.

/What "special intro segment"?

My observation that Wheel is sometimes super-mega-edited for time was not a complaint, and I apologize if it came off otherwise. Unlike a certain someone, I'm generally fine with the show in its present state. The few things that irk me about the show now don't detract from my overall enjoyment, and it was kinda stupid for me to bitch about things like contrived bonus puzzles in the first place.

Also, the "special intro segment" on the aforementioned Military Week was a roughly 20 second military montage before Jim's intro.

[TLEberle]

What I'm saying is that there's obviously some point where the lack of content is going to turn off viewers. If the winner of the $1,000 Toss-up puzzle goes straight to the bonus round, that's kinda silly, isn't it? For you personally, they're not at that point yet. For me the ship sailed a while ago, and the only Wheel of Fortune I see is the five minutes that come before Jeopardy every day. I would prefer that there was more content (by my definition, that's spinning and solving) and less stock footage of the car on offer and whoever is sponsoring the Jackpot Round.

The other thing, this is the place to complain about things that irk you. Lord knows I've made an online career out of it.

[Twentington]

The other thing, this is the place to complain about things that irk you. Lord knows I've made an online career out of it.

Even "Some of the bonus puzzles lately feel more like two random-ass words thrown together than a coherent phrase" or "80% of the Prize Puzzles seem to have the word BEACH in them"?

[TLEberle]

Absolutely.

/I think I'm going to make that a Probe variant. "Your category is Two Random-Ass Words. Go ahead and draw a card to kick things off."

[Unrealtor]

The other thing, this is the place to complain about things that irk you. Lord knows I've made an online career out of it.

Even "Some of the bonus puzzles lately feel more like two random-ass words thrown together than a coherent phrase" or "80% of the Prize Puzzles seem to have the word BEACH in them"?

"Your category for round 3 is 'seaside resort', and what a surprise, it's the prize puzzle!"

[Dbacksfan12]

The other thing, this is the place to complain about things that irk you. Lord knows I've made an online career out of it.

Even "Some of the bonus puzzles lately feel more like two random-ass words thrown together than a coherent phrase" or "80% of the Prize Puzzles seem to have the word BEACH in them"?

"Your category for round 3 is 'seaside resort', and what a surprise, it's the prize puzzle!"

My question, I guess, is there some kind of edict from the higher-ups that mandate the prize is a trip?  What's wrong with "Watching the Super Bowl on a HDTV", or "Subwoofers, Speakers, and Tweeters"?  Speaking for me personally, I'd rather have something useful than some trip to a fru-fru resort.

[clemon79]

My question, I guess, is there some kind of edict from the higher-ups that mandate the prize is a trip?

Trips are cheap, electronics are expensive. Bottom line.

[Twentington]

Easy fix: Just don't theme the puzzle to the Prize. That way you're not handcuffing the writers to the 4000th permutation of sun/sand/beach/relax/travel/suitcase.

Back when the Prize Puzzle cycled among the rounds, it made sense for the answer to be themed, to make the connection clearer. But now that it's always in Round 3, it just seems redundant to theme it. I'm sure no one will complain if they're suddenly solving something like ROASTED GARLIC TRISCUITS for another trip to the Caribbean.

[WarioBarker]

The Prize Puzzle as a whole irks me, as it seems to be just a way to give out a non-cash prize at some point during the show and seems to go against the point of "earning" what you win (I saw a few players who, with about half the puzzle still unrevealed, decided to solve with no or very little money/prizes). This isn't a problem in runaway games, but over the years I've seen several people win a close game because they won that particular prize.

Continuing from what Twentington posted about the writing, the Prize Puzzles in particular tend to sound unnatural, like things nobody would say -- especially if Google shrugs its shoulders in response.

That aside, I haven't really watched the show all that much for a couple of years now (I rarely get the station in anyway), mainly because Wheel has changed so much that it doesn't really interest me anymore minus the occasional episode or clip -- part of it being that, like what Travis said, there's just not enough content there for me.

My question, I guess, is there some kind of edict from the higher-ups that mandate the prize is a trip?

Trips are cheap, electronics almost every other kind of prize under the sun are is expensive. Bottom line.

Fixed that for you.

/c'mon, not even a boat?