NBC WoF Question

[jbrocato]

[quote name=\'Brandon Brooks\' date=\'Aug 3 2003, 11:34 PM\'] [quote name=\'Adam Nedeff\' date=\'Aug 3 2003, 11:14 PM\']

And yes, the price of vowels has held steady at $250 for twenty-eight years!

And given that bottom dollar on the wheel now is $300, doesn't that suggest that some kind of adjustment is in order? [/quote]
Not at all.  Vowels shouldn't break you, IMO.

Brandon Brooks [/quote]
 I would like to see more variety in the dollar spaces, bring back some of the cheapies like $100 or $150 (or better yet, $175), but also add some spaces like $1000 and $1500.

If the minimum space is going to stay at $300, then perhaps it's time to double the cost of a vowel.

John Brocato

[Matt Ottinger]

If the minimum space is going to stay at $300, then perhaps it's time to double the cost of a vowel.

Nah.  The vowel play is one of the lucky things the show sort of backed into.  There's little strategy to them anymore because they're so cheap, so the result is that contestants buy them more freely, which makes the puzzles easier to solve and makes the game move faster.  Plus you occasionally get that wonderful \"Oh, no!\" moment when a large puzzle doesn't have a single one of the vowel called for.

[hines2000]

How about a Vowel being $300 to match the lowest amount on the Wheel?

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'hines2000\' date=\'Aug 5 2003, 09:42 AM\'] How about a Vowel being $300 to match the lowest amount on the Wheel? [/quote]
 How about what the hell's the difference between $250 and $300?

[Mike Tennant]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Aug 5 2003, 03:11 PM\'][quote name=\'hines2000\' date=\'Aug 5 2003, 09:42 AM\'] How about a Vowel being $300 to match the lowest amount on the Wheel? [/quote]
How about what the hell's the difference between $250 and $300?[/quote]
$50

(Somebody had to be a wiseguy here, and I thought it was my turn.)

[uncamark]

What happened to a player who landed on Buy A Vowel and couldn't afford one?
...or for that matter, what happened if there were no more vowels left in the puzzle?
I'm guessing that that Buy a Vowel acted like Lose a Turn in those two situations.

Seems to me that the one time I saw someone land on the space without enough money, Chuck let him spin again.

You have to remember back then that no one *ever* bought vowels and they *always* played out the puzzle to the last consonant.  I still firmly believe that Lin Bolen had ordered the contestant coordinators to not encourage contestants to buy vowels or solve the puzzle early because she wanted to see greed and never giving up any money.  It wasn't until she had been gone for a while that you saw contestants regularly buying vowels and early solves--and the Buy a Vowel space disappeared after the first few weeks of the show.

[bellbm]

Now, the contestant co-ordinators stress the importance of buying vowels.  When I was on, I was sitting next to one of them in the audience, and she kept saying, \"If he would just buy a vowel, he would know what consonants to guess.  Don't forget, buy vowels.\"

[Don Howard]

Don't forget, buy vowels

I'd like to see that on a bumper sticker. Or as a campaign slogan!!!
Or at least written on the restroom wall. Where's my magic marker?

[tommycharles]

[quote name=\'SplitSecond\' date=\'Aug 3 2003, 11:40 PM\'] I disagree.  Vowels shouldn't break you, of course, but if there's going to be a premium on calling a vowel at all, it should be a premium that's worth giving some consideration.

Vowels cost a finger each. [/quote]
 And you can keep buying vowels until you can no longer spin the wheel.

[Kevin Prather]

[quote name=\'CherryPizza\' date=\'Aug 4 2003, 03:39 PM\'] [quote name=\'SplitSecond\' date=\'Aug 4 2003, 12:03 AM\']

If I were a writer on that show, I wouldn't sleep until I came up with a puzzle that included 21 \"E\"'s.[/quote]
Or you could always just have that quote from Tarzan:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

(or does that have an H in it somewhere?) [/quote]
CP, would you mind fixing that? it makes us have to scroll to the right to see complete messages. thanks.

[CherryPizza]

Don't forget, buy vowels

I'd like to see that on a bumper sticker. Or as a campaign slogan!!!

The Wheel of Fortune campaign to recruit hippies and dead-heads...

It was like woah man... there were all these trippy colours spinning round and flashing lights and this guy he like whispered to me \"Pssssssssssssssssst... wanna buy an E\"

[alfonzos]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Aug 3 2003, 09:26 PM\'] And yes, the price of vowels has held steady at $250 for twenty-eight years!
 [/quote]
 Not true! During the Rolf Benirschke era many values on The Wheel were dropped and the price of a vowel became $200. I learned this during a WoF/J! seminar sponsored by The Museum of TV & Radio.

[Brandon Brooks]

[quote name=\'alfonzos\' date=\'Aug 8 2003, 12:19 AM\'] Not true! During the Rolf Benirschke era many values on The Wheel were dropped and the price of a vowel became $200. I learned this during a WoF/J! seminar sponsored by The Museum of TV & Radio. [/quote]
 Wow, that's right.  Didn't Goen's version do this too?

Brandon Brooks

[zachhoran]

Vowels were still $250 on Rolf's version, and the dollar amounts on the WHeel were still the same as before(thought the Jackpot space in round three was dropped a few months before ROlf took over as host), when the daytime show still aired on and taped at NBC. They went down to $200 on the CBS, as did the dollar values on the Wheel in most cases(later returned back to NBC, but still taping at CBS) Goen Daytime version(soon lowered to $100). The lowering of the dollar values probably had to do with the daytime version changing from the shopping to all-cash format, as was the case on the much higher-budget syndie version two years earlier. THe Syndie version always had vowels at $250.

[J.R.]

But they also slashed the total prize amounts when Rolf came on too.

Seriously, they went from a total of $103,000 on Pat's last show on Friday to $77,000 on Rolf's first show on Monday ! I guess NBC really didn't have much confidence in him.

I believe the vowels got shrunk down to $100 around 1990 or so.
-Joe R.