If the category is “What Are You Doing?,” then the answer to the puzzle – for the past 50 years – is “Watching Wheel of Fortune.” Inspired by the pen-and-paper “Hangman” games he’d played as a child, Merv Griffin created the now-classic game show in 1975 with host Chuck Woolery at the helm and “hostess” Susan Stafford as a beta Vanna White – the latter took over in 1982 and has never left.
By design, Wheel of Fortune has felt consistent and unchanging, but in reality the game show has taken many forms in many time slots over the years. NBC passed on the disastrous pilot called Shoppers Bazaar – where contestants bought prizes with the cash they earned. But Griffin renamed and rejigged the show, and then convinced the network to try Wheel of Fortune in a daytime slot. When it proved a ratings hit, they expanded it to an hour (another disaster). Then Woolery left during a contract dispute in ’81, leaving his job open for unknown radio host and TV weatherman Pat Sajdak, who dropped the too-Polish-sounding “d” when he hit the big time.
Cancellation loomed many times until a scheduling mastermind rolled Wheel into the empty half-hour slot before Jeopardy! in 1983. Cue four decades – and more than 8,000 episodes – of game show gold, with Sajak’s show acting as a less-intimidating warm-up to Alex Trebek’s stuffier stage. For every PhD and professor who appeared on Jeopardy!, Wheel featured everyday people who routinely made boneheaded blunders. And together, this odd couple of game shows topped the ratings as a duo, with nine million viewers tuning in every night.
Sajak retired gracefully at the end of last season at age 77, making way for the ubiquitous Ryan Seacrest to guide hopeful contestants in spinning the wheel or buying a vowel. While he might seem like an innocuous latter-day Dick Clark, the American Idol host has been key to seismic changes in the television landscape – after all, he’s the one who brought us the Kardashians. Only time will tell if this fox in the henhouse will shake up our game show status quo or if Vanna and her fans will keep this Wheel steady in its lane.
A version of this article appeared in the December 2024/January 2025 issue with the headline ‘Letter Perfect’, p. 104.
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