Pat Sajak Has Emergency Surgery; Vanna To Step In

[bigblue999]

Vanna did an alright job tonight. She looked uncomfortable in the beginning but got better as the show went on.

[RatRace10]

I could tell she was having a rough start with how nervously she was looking at the cards and the monitor off-camera that shows who buzzes in on the Toss-Ups, and when she said "The category is 'Crossword'..." before the first round. Some "um's" and awkward pauses here and there, but she was wonderful. I just smiled the whole time seeing her standing next to the contestants. Minnie seemed unnecessary if she wasn't actually going to touch the letters.

What I found interesting was that all the Toss-Ups began with the last letter even if it wasn't the rightmost letter. For example, the puzzle SOUTHEAST ASIA, normally, the first letter revealed would be the last T, but in this case, it was the last A in ASIA. I remember an episode recently where Vanna was touching the "wrong" monitor and the puzzle wouldn't start, so I always thought Toss-Ups absolutely had to start from the far right.


The best part of her first episode by far was when she thought she landed on Bankrupt for the Final Spin because she was looking at the yellow player's podium (whereas the Final Spin is always decided in front of the red podium), then reached down to spin again before the producers started yelling from offstage and she said, "How do you do this show?" I'm so glad they didn't edit that out.

[Roadgeek Adam]

To have to be thrust into a position you've basically not been in for 37 years is really tough. I can understand being incredibly nervous and stiff. Vanna will probably get better for her couple weeks and we'll see the best. The decision to have no audience (canned applause) was the right decision. To have to do this for the first time (we know this is not her first taped episode) in front of people cannot be easy.

Unfortunately there are going to be people saying a woman can't do this job. Vanna is not a television presenter. She is a hostess. Her job for 37 seasons has been to touch letters, chat with Pat, congratulate contestants and be a good presence on camera. She is a great woman with full independence in her personality. She is understandably nervous and deserves a lot of credit for this.

[pricefan18]

The best part of her first episode by far was when she thought she landed on Bankrupt for the Final Spin because she was looking at the yellow player's podium (whereas the Final Spin is always decided in front of the red podium), then reached down to spin again before the producers started yelling from offstage and she said, "How do you do this show?" I'm so glad they didn't edit that out.

She mentioned recently that there are a few times of stuff like that mentioned on air, be curious to see what else is. And yeah she wasn't bad, clearly nervous but did ok. I will admit I missed Pat early though when there was no follow up on the 77 year old mother playing tennis. I know Pat woulda commented about that. But like has been said Vanna is all new to this role, so is understandable she didn't.

[BillyGr]

Minnie seemed unnecessary if she wasn't actually going to touch the letters.

I'd suspect one of a couple reasons for this:

First being the same issue that people have where they can't make "touch" devices work when wearing gloves (which would likely be even worse given the size/thickness of the ones that the characters wear).
Additionally being that sometimes the characters have fairly obscured vision (this comes from one of the Disney books, where the author had a chance to try out being Goofy - in that case he could only see downwards).

They probably just figured that as long as the characters were already there they would have one stay by the board to make it look more "normal" (and it has been mentioned on the Wheel boards that the 3rd week will have someone else doing the letters, though they can't reveal who it is).

As to Vanna's hosting, in addition to the usual nervousness anyone would have doing something different (even if you have watched it from the other side for all these years), you also add the fact of trying to do the tapings while also thinking about your co-worker of so many years being in the hospital and having surgery and what could happen with that.

[RatRace10]

What I love most about this whole thing is that, even though it's unfortunate that the result of it was a medical emergency, people are actually talking about Wheel in a positive way again. Since Wheel doesn't have champions or tournaments to get the media abuzz like a certain guy on Jeopardy!, any media hype Wheel contestants do get don't really bring any incentive for non-fans to tune in by the time they're aware.

The only time we usually see people talk about Wheel these days is when there's a funny missolve, a "controversial" ruling, a brief joke in a contestant interview, or when joking about how it's "the stupid people's Jeopardy!". It's wonderful seeing the #WheelOfFortune tag on Twitter have a good chunk of actual show commentary and discussion instead of just jokes about how nobody under 80 watches, especially since Wheel doesn't even really showcase its social media presence like Jeopardy! and other game shows do. Vanna's feedback is not 100% positive, but I think many agree that it's charming just to see her up there for a change and to finally say more than just "bye-bye".

[Teddy]

I'm already imagining the show dubbing in a voiceover from Pat stating the reason for his absence at the beginning of Vanna-hosted episodes when the reruns air next summer.

As for Vanna, she's doing surprisingly good on the other side of things, even if it feels weird not to see her at the puzzleboard. I'll admit I miss Pat, but most of her lines sound a lot like what he would say if he were there.

Funny I should say that, because while these are the first full episodes with Vanna as host, there's the one episode where she and Pat switched positions for the Bonus Round because he suddenly lost his voice near the end of the show:

[pricefan18]

I'm already imagining the show dubbing in a voiceover from Pat stating the reason for his absence at the beginning of Vanna-hosted episodes when the reruns air next summer.

Do you imagine they'll reair them? I'd not imagine so though might be wrong, especially week 3....depending who they are using as the puzzleboard woman.

[RatRace10]

Do you imagine they'll reair them? I'd not imagine so though might be wrong, especially week 3....depending who they are using as the puzzleboard woman.

They may re-air Week 3 since it's not Secret Santa (I don't know if they'll add in anything explanatory about Pat's absence, though).

However, these two weeks right now will 99% surely not be re-aired, so treasure them. Wheel never reruns Secret Santa episodes in the summer or on Saturdays. If you watched Wheel when GSN aired it over the past few years until recently, you'd see why. There are so many comments about people winning at home and they're not going to add in new SPIN ID's, and said throws to the SPIN ID's can't be edited out very well. GSN did air Secret Santa episodes, but they whitewashed the whole "Secret Santa" names (they even took it out of the TV listings so that the episode was only titled "Wheel of Fortune" instead), and they would just cut off the show right before Pat would throw to the SPIN ID. After the Final Spin, Pat would announce the round winner's final total, and then it would cut right to commercial and we wouldn't even see Pat bid goodbye to the two losers, and after the Bonus Round, they would cut straight from Pat announcing the final total to Pat and Vanna's chit-chat. It was all really sloppy.

Also, any episode with a $100,000 win is guaranteed to get a rerun at some point... but the one that happened during Secret Santa (back in late 2016) did not rerun at all, per the rerun schedules on Buy a Vowel Boards.

[JayC]

Vanna's first show was rough but she's gotten better the last two shows. To me what's more off about the shows is Minnie and Mickey just standing and motioning at the board rather than moving around to the letters. Of course it's more difficult for whoever's in the suit to do that, but it just looks really strange.

[Reloaden]

Vanna wasn't that bad like other's said she touches the board she has no reason to try to host the show. If Alex wasn't sick it would of been cool if he stepped in and guest hosted.

The Brazilian version of Wheel has no co host touching the board so it's pretty awkward watching the puzzle board light its self up. Minnie/Mickey added nothing just advertisement for Disney.

[RatRace10]

There's no audience for Vanna's episodes. I understand that, but it's kind of depressing hearing those overzealous laugh tracks at the beginning and end of the show, and how nobody's there to cheer when people land on the $2500/3500/5000/Million wedges.

[COINBOYNYC]

Slightly OT but are any of Vanna's episodes on YouTube?

Vanna's first episode - 12/09/19

Vanna's second episode - 12/10/19

Vanna's third episode - 12/11/19

[brosa0]

I don't watch much WOF and the last Australian version was in 2008 (and cancelled after 5 weeks), so was interested to watch this week.

Some general observations:

- Vanna got better as the week went on.  Quite often it sounded like she was saying lines clipped from a video game version of the show, but that added a weird charm to it all.  I've never warmed to Pat so would gladly watch more of Vanna hosting, even if she wasn't "great".  I liked how she was genuinely rooting for the contestants.

- Why do all the contestants yell their guesses at the top of their lungs and overenunciate?   It just comes across as fake and over the top.  Probably the biggest issue I had with it and enough to make me reluctant to watch.

- It was interesting to see how quick the wheel spins were.  On the Australian 2008 series the wheel took forever to finish spinning (17-20 seconds every time) which made for a very slow pace and lots of dead airtime.   One of the reasons it was a flop, I suspect.

- Some of the puzzles are a bit of a farce, particularly in the bonus round.  Is "Quiet Boulevard" an actual place, or just a random generation of two words?

- The set is so lovely to look at.

[priceguy]

- It was interesting to see how quick the wheel spins were.  On the Australian 2008 series the wheel took forever to finish spinning (17-20 seconds every time) which made for a very slow pace and lots of dead airtime.   One of the reasons it was a flop, I suspect.

I'm pretty sure they've been editing spins for time in last few years. Although I don't think the US wheel has ever taken 17-20 seconds to stop spinning.