Half a Century Ago TO DAY! (January 6th)

[wdm1219inpenna]

Way back when in 1975, Wheel of Fortune hit the airwaves on NBC Daytime television.

Happy 50th birthday to Wheel, what a milestone!

[brianhenke]

WLWT didn't air the premiere. Phil Donahue was on instead.

The station would eventually move Donahue at 9 am (after Paul Dixon died in December 1974). WOF would be dropped in 1978, and it would return in September 1983.

We all know what happened next...

Brian

[BillCullen1]

I saw the last 20 minutes of the show. Ryan and Vanna mentioned the 50th anniversary. I don't believe they mentioned Chuck Woolery, but the tribute was nice.

[BillCullen1]

They also introduced a new category last night PET PEEVE. Puzzle wasCracking your knuckles.

[jjman920]

They also introduced a new category last night PET PEEVE. Puzzle wasCracking your knuckles.

We'll see if it's actually a new category. It's probably a crossword like "clue," without having to actually play a crossword on the board. Similar to what UK Wheel does with some of their categories being a more specific hint than a general category. During the six shows for the New Year Week, the US show had a triple toss up with the category of "Resolutions"

If this means the death of the Crossword, I'm mostly all for it. I appreciated when Crossword debuted because I was desperate for a stale Wheel to do anything, but once it became clear that the category was here to dump off years of unused Clue puzzles not being played, because giving out an extra $2-3K for bonus categories was apparently a massive budget hit, I was a lot less interested since I liked Clue and the other bonus categories better. Also, some of them would be stretches and I just got tired of it being a constant presence 2-3 times a week almost always as the second puzzle.

[BillCullen1]

They had yet another new category on Tuesday's 1/7 show, THE NEXT 50 YEARS. Puzzle was Solving puzzles in space. I think that's stretching it a bit.

[wdm1219inpenna]

I was myself disappointed with the Jan 6th episode.

No mention of Chuck, Pat, Susan Stafford, Charlie O' Donnell the original announcer, no mention of Merv Griffin...

But Vanna really disappointed me when she said "It was 50 years ago tonight..." as if to imply that Wheel has always been a nighttime show, which it did not start out as being. 

Also lots of Bankrupts and a bonus puzzle loss made that 50th anniversary episode very "meh" to me.


Spoiler tags added. The episode aired just two days ago. —Scott

[TLEberle]

It sounds like it wasn’t an anniversary show at all but instead a show that happened to air on the 50th anniversary of the premiere.

[Joe Mello]

It sounds like it wasn’t an anniversary show at all but instead a show that happened to air on the 50th anniversary of the premiere.

The theme of this week is the 50th anniversary. The set is filled with props and pictures from throughout the years, and there are extra gimmicks thrown in here and there. There is absolutely a Goen Wheel set pic amongst the lot.