WoF question

[1978-Jeopardy]

About when did they stop giving away furs? I think I've seen a few given away on the reruns on GSN, but I'm not sure. They seem to have given them away abundantly in the mid-eighties.
Also, what were some of the stranger prizes given away on WoF? I heard they once gave away an airplane and a hot-air balloon. Is this true?

[That Don Guy]

Didn't they used to have "seven acres of buildable land in Maine" as a somewhat regular bonus prize offering?  (To show how serious they were about giving it away, on one episode, Pat asked the contestant, "So, what's it going to be, the land in Maine or the log cabin [another rather esoteric prize that day]?"  Needless to say, that contestant went for the $25,000...

(I don't know about WoF, but TPIR gave away an airplane (not a microlight one, but one where you needed a pilot's license - the prize included 100 hours of lessons), and the Dannis James version occasionally offered trips to San Francisco by train, where you got to keep (at least) one of the train's cars.)

-- Don

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'1978-Jeopardy\' date=\'Apr 10 2004, 11:47 AM\'] About when did they stop giving away furs? I think I've seen a few given away on the reruns on GSN, but I'm not sure. They seem to have given them away abundantly in the mid-eighties.
Also, what were some of the stranger prizes given away on WoF? I heard they once gave away an airplane and a hot-air balloon. Is this true? [/quote]
 Around 1990 they stopped giving away furs(furs are offered as round two/four special prizes on the season GSN currently reruns). Chuck W., after he left Wheel , mentioned in a 1987 interview(appeared in the Sams/Shook WOF paperback book) that they offered  a small airplane early in the show's run.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' date=\'Apr 10 2004, 01:19 PM\'] Didn't they used to have "seven acres of buildable land in Maine" as a somewhat regular bonus prize offering?  (To show how serious they were about giving it away, on one episode, Pat asked the contestant, "So, what's it going to be, the land in Maine or the log cabin [another rather esoteric prize that day]?"  Needless to say, that contestant went for the $25,000...

(I don't know about WoF, but TPIR gave away an airplane (not a microlight one, but one where you needed a pilot's license - the prize included 100 hours of lessons [/quote]
 They did indeed offer the land in Maine as a bonus prize, they called it "Estate in Maine". THis was in the 1988-89 season as now seen on GSN. They offered the Log Cabin as a bonus prize when they were still in the shopping format on the syndie run IIRC.

Davidson TPIR did offer a micro-light airplane in one Showcase but I don't think it was won.