Don't get me wrong, I love wheel. One of the things I love most is how they seem to introduce new game elements without distracting from the true essence of the show.

That being said, I'm curious how others would try to improve Wheel more. I've always thought the toss-up rounds would be better if they were worth the same amount each time. Even better, I think they should start out with a "time bank" that would reduce for every letter shown.

Anyone else have some one-off ideas that would add a twist to Wheel of Fortune?

Bring back the ceramic dalmatian. Or, better still, have the Ceramic Dalmatians be the house band.

IMO, while each new element by itself doesn't detract from the game that much, the sum of so many gimmicks detracts from the game and show so much.

For me, there isn't just any one thing that would make Wheel watchable again. For that, they would have to turn back the clock to 1977ish (daytime) or 1990ish (nighttime).

Already planned. High five!

Agreed...

This is one game that IMHO has been "mastered" (much like how someone can "master" a pinball machine or video game) -- when there's little challenge left, it's not worth playing (or watching) anymore.

Back in the early NBC games, contestants were all over the letter board picking letters, and not saving the multiple letters for higher dollar spins. Nowadays, if you don't know that L-N-R-S-T are the first five consonants you pick in any round, it seems that the contestant coordinators will make sure you know before you can play.

You may think that there weren't many tweaks that have distracted from the original concept of Wheel, but Wheel '09 is a far cry from Wheel '7x, because there ARE too many other distractions.

Get rid of the wheel.

/Amidoinitrite?

No.

THIS!

*Rant coming, my apologies, all my personal humble opinion, as always, if you risk reading on.*

My major problem, as I've concluded over the past few years, however, I finally conclude can be summed up in one phrase: "Lack of Variety."

What!? With so many gimmicks it has now? Uh huh...

So let's look at the at the 70's through... erm... around 95 Wheel and compare some aspects to today. Again, as said before, just one of these things isn't overtly noticeable, but the whole is the sum of the parts, correct? As sayings go, it's the little things in life that'll be your biggest problems...

1. The Wheel's layout changed a bit from round to round, compared to a single layout for today.

1b. There were more non-TDV's used, i.e. 250, 750, 1500, (and 175 for Mr. Raygor), like 15 different ones on a regular basis, now only about 10 (and many used only once). How unnecessarily repetitive.

2. Contestants were chosen who could not only play the game but still also had varying personalities and interests. We're lucky for just one of the two these days.
3. Puzzles had more variety, in terms of subjects they addressed (from somewhat intellectual to pop culture to around the house-ish), as opposed to now where I can't remember the last time Title/Author, Clue, Next Line Please, or the like were used, and at least one puzzle every show, as is joked about often, is some form of "White sandy beach" and offers up a vacation.
4. The show had theme weeks, but the set changed moreso then compared to today (and didn't follow a minimalist interpretation... ever), partly because of more set pieces from then (and the existence of a thought process that a set/theme change takes more than a background change on your monitors), but also...
5. The show had a massive variety of stuff to give away, aka PRIZES. Outside of changing the theme every week, the prizes were changed out every week, giving the show that much more external variety than otherwise.

Merv originally envisioned the set of Wheel, in his own words, as "A stage full of prizes." It had glamour: outrageous pieces of jewelry, gallery-worthy art, vacations of a lifetime (or two), the biggest dream cars (Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, and Corvettes, remember?) etc. Now what do we have? Solely run of the mill vacations, some better than others (not that I wouldn't take just about any of them), but peanuts compared to some of those trips they used to offer ($30k 2 week Oriental cruises, $25k Australian/New Zealand getaways, just a couple off the top of my head), and absolutely... nothing else... No cars, no jewelry, not even any damn Sony electronics which seem like obvious crossover marketing strategies, and stuff I'm certain most any contestant would just as willingly take as a trip to X, Y, or Z. The argument that the show should also give away prizes contestants want also falls flat here, because the show (as has been argued here umpteen times) is meant to entertain viewers, earn money, and get ratings, not give away precisely what each contestant has always wanted. If that were the case, TPIR would've been sunk by the time Woolery left... *ahem*.

Cash is easier to work with, no argument here, but the show is one step away from giving away nothing but such, which takes away any sort of glimmer of glamour and/or surprise (and thus variety) the show once had associated with such. The show was marketed as being a glamorous show, something which is comparatively rare in the TV market from what I've ever seen. It can't be advertised as such anymore I'd say. Modern: yes. Simple: mostly yes. Exciting: at times yes. But, Repetitive: yes.

Predictability and Repetitiveness in TV=bad, we know well. Wheel has become both, greatly in part because it has lost so much of the variety it once had. The basic game itself doesn't provide the genre's greatest variety, I'll be the first to admit (there are only 26 letters in English, you do the math), but it was the show's approach and inherent style during those years that gave it the variety and feel it was at least somewhat popular for. Give a show some variety, you make the show unpredictable again, you make the show surprising again, you make the show lively again, you give the show a new lease on life. This is, IMHO, what Wheel needs to get back now.

Would any of this help Wheel's ratings and/or bottom line? 50/50 maybe at best, I don't have a crystal ball, so I couldn't say either way, but from a loyal fan's view, and the views of a few Joe Schmo's he's discussed the show with before, this would not even remotely make things worse. You could do a lot worse in TV Land...

*Rant concluded, back to lurking, fanboiz mode turned back off.*

Are you saying that people do this today? Nowadays, you're more likely to get someone who already knows the puzzle to take one (more) spin, call a letter that appears once, and then solve while a letter that appears 2-3 times is ignored.

I agree to a point- the Prize Puzzles/Prize Wedges/Mystery Round prizes could be more varied, and I don't think they should have gotten rid of the cars in the Bonus Round, but sometimes being comfortable is a good thing as people know what to expect, and it's not like they don't tweak it any at all (the Million Dollar Wedge was the best thing to happen to the show in YEARS).

The big moment will be when Pat and/or Vanna decide to call it a day- which will be sooner rather than later-I'd suspect they might make a major overhaul then (maybe make it look more like some of the modern European versions set-wise).


/You know who would be a good replacement for Vanna? Joanna Krupa...You'd only have to change one letter and add another on the dressing room door...

Remember the days when the phrase, "Look at this studio, filled with glamorous prizes" actually meant something? Now the best you can say is, "Look at this studio, filled with eleventy godzillion colors of light".

Not to mention that in the shopping days, trip prizes would vary from weekend trips to nearby cities (Ojai, Palm Springs, San Diego) to not-the-first-place-I'd-think-of-for-a-game-show-trips (Wisconsin Dells, WI, Asheville, NC*, Calgary, AB,...) to the aforementioned luxury trips.

* -- The Asheville, NC trip was interesting in that the accommodations were at a motor inn (The Downtowner Motor Inn in Downtown Asheville) that, even at that time, was not exactly the "best" hotel in town...I stayed there in 1977, and the neighborhood was starting to get seedy back then.

This may be heresy, but the shopping for prizes--while incredibly charming--never seemed central to the game. Any show giving away varying amounts of cash could theoretically make you buy prizes with the cash before you leave. On "Sale of the Century," on the other hand, buying stuff was actually fundamental to the game.

I recall way back when the $5000 space first appeared and it was exciting to see someone call a letter that popped up more than once. Now there's no unpredictability. Players don't keep spinning once they know the solution. Prizes include $1000 worth of crap on a gift card, rather than $700 a letter. Returning champions gave us someone to root for or against, and now that players are uniformly (and insincerely) enthusiastic, there's no way for any to stand out.

Games do best when there's a chance something out of the ordinary might happen, and "Wheel" has distilled that away.

It's too..... round.

Randy
tvrandywest.com

Well played. I'm guessing you're not gunning to take over when Charlie O' retires in 2015. (But who will?)

I agree that Wheel has a great deal of detritus right now, but the essence is still there: Hangman with a wheel. Get money if you call a letter that's up there. Solve the puzzle. Lose the Wild Card to a Bankrupt only two spins after you get it (I swear, this happens about 75% of the time whenever someone nabs a Wild Card!). Get royally screwed when they give you a nigh-impossible bonus puzzle JURY BOX or OAK BUREAU as a bonus puzzle. Listen to Pat make sarcastic jabs at his own career. Dressed-up as it is, it's still Wheel of Fortune.

Not that modern-day Wheel is perfect. I would start by adding a couple more four-digit figures on the Wheel — not for the sake of throwing Mo' Money™ to the contesti, but for the sake of adding an easier way to catch up in case some yutz manages to nab a $2500 S in the puzzle SHE SELLS SEASHELLS BY THE SEASHORE. Even a solitary T at, say, $1750 can mean a world of difference if someone gets a metric buttload of cash early in the game.

I wouldn't mind seeing more than just trips and lots of $$$ offered, but at the same time I understand why they no longer offer anything else. Cars, jewelry, electronics, etc. can all be a huge tax burden. If you win a large prize but only a small amount of cash, you'll probably burn up your (already heavily-taxed) winnings just paying for the insurance on even that nearly featureless $15,000 car, won't you?

Naw, not remotely heresy, at least in my book. Your summary on it matches my opinion pretty well too. It was cute, it did provide the variety I liked, but the show was ultimately better without it, in my view. It wasn't like the show didn't had a wide range of other fabulous merchandise on it the next ten years though... :)


Lack of returning champs are number 2 on my mental WOF complaint list, and you hit one of the big reasons why. Ken Jennings run wasn't exciting because it was just Jeopardy, or because he had the most incredible personality in the world (sometimes, quite the contrary), it was exciting because of his ongoing establishment and his great run of skill/luck/knowledge/*oh my* Fortune. The same could apply to just about any well-crafted game show with such a rule in place. Distilled is a rather good way of describing things at this point.



Just remember back to TPIR circa 2007. I'm not sure how crazy they'll get (also depends if Friedman is still kicking on there then), but if they do too much, that ole alienation factor could come up. I just hope Sony/CBSTVDist spend more time in finding their replacements then was done on TPIR. Pat and Vanna's contracts, IIRC, go through 2014, so I'm waiting to hear an interesting announcement from them both around that time. It will all be interesting, nonetheless. I have to say though, there are a lot of arrows pointing towards much of the success of that show being because of Sajak, in particular, so if that's especially the case, the gang better have their act together when he decides the give the show the wave.

However, again, I could be very wrong. I was very vocal of my non-support for the MDW when it was first announced. And while my approach on including a $1kk top prize on the show, IF I was told I absolutely had to, would have been inherently different, I can't argue against the great buzz and publicity its inclusion brought the show these past two years, along with the bit of ratings spike the show has also had thereafter. So I had a tiny bit of crow come my way, won't be the last time, but hopefully it won't become a trend.

I would like to see more variety in the Prize Puzzles. Let's say a Prize Puzzle is BUILDING A NEW LAWN DECK, and Pat says, "You won a gift card", then Charlie says that the contestant has won a $5,000 gift card from Lowe's.

Brian

I don't think that even buys a bottle of Coke. :)

No, let's not. Really. A huge turn-off for me has been the "coined" puzzles that aren't anything. If I was in charge, I would slash and burn the category roll. Variations on Person (which does NOT always mean proper name), Place, Thing, Phrase are acceptable. What Are You Doing?, Around the House et al are SO gone.

How is this even interesting? What the hell am I going to do with five grand at Lowe's?

Buy materials to build your own GS set in the basement? I think that's what most cable game shows do. And they still have $4750 left over afterward!

In all seriousness, I can understand why they don't do it, but I would also love to see more variety in the prize puzzles. Prize puzzles grate on me since they're all some convoluted variation on "I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand", invaribly leading to a tropical vacation. Once in a blue moon you might see some variation on "Damn, is it cold up here, eh?" leading to a Canadian trip, but that's all the variety you get in Prize Puzzle land. Looking through old recaps, I've found that they once offered more than just trips in Prize Puzzles (one was GIZMOS AND GADGETS, leading to a Sony® branded Sony® electronics package courtesy of Sony®). At the very least, go back to having Prize Puzzles only once or twice a week, so the beach bum puzzles are fewer and farther between.

The gal that lives in the condo beneath me would like a word with you...

Aw hell, do it anyway. Maybe she'll become a convert.

I could see why though they're more cash oriented. When watching TPIR, some of the prizes I see I'd be saying "wow I'll keep" if I won, but most of the time it'd be "would I be able to sell this on eBay to pay the taxes and get some money." Where cash you don't have to worry about and most trips people will take anyway.

In the past, BUILDING A NEW LAWN DECK would have shown up under the "Event" category, along with a bunch of other things you might do that aren't really events.

(I would have wanted to set an April Fool's Day "Event" puzzle of TAKING A LONG SATISFYING DUMP or somesuch.)

Sheldon? His name is SHELDON? Huh. Never woulda guessed that.

Nice to see he'll be back, though.

That would still work under the What Are You Doing? category.

Ditch two of the tossups...the first and the third. Interview the contestants left to right, play a $2000 tossup for control and start spinning. Might actually get more wheel spinning during the show, and not have round 4 start speedup all the time.

The wheel itself: I'd add a $2500 space in round 3 for wheel balance, bring back the free spin *space* (but you'd still have to call a letter to get it, but the space stays on the wheel all the time).

Prize variety in the bonus round. Yeah, cash is nice, but how about some really glamorous trips? TPIR/LMAD has been offering some really upscale trips recently...why can't Wheel? Bring back the cars too. Keep the million - didn't like it initially, but the chrome is fine.

Person/People, Proper Name(s), Place, Thing(s), Phrase. That's it. I'm all for it.

I think that's a fairly recent development. Seems like there was a contest.

There's also a lot about Sheldon's "bio" that doesn't exactly ring true. I certainly don't remember anybody going straight to the ceramic dalmatian before buying more valuable prizes. Also, "the staff named Sheldon in honor of the man who ran the kennel where Sheldon was born"? Excuse me? Sheldon is an inorganic, non-metallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

More often than not, it doesn't. When they're on location, have paired contestants or have to spiel for a long amount of time, that's when R4 starts in speed-up.

Buy a snowthrower, buy a new shower stall, get a power washer, fill the garage with power tools and lawn care equipment... I could easily drop $3000 right now at Lowe's. $5000, though, is a bit much for me.

/So says the person who has owned a house for two months.
//My, spending other people's $5000 Lowe's gift cards is fun!

Agreed. In the past few weeks, they've had at least two games where they played two full rounds and at a speed-up, and several more where R4 was played in full. I don't think they've started R4 as a speedup at all in the past couple weeks. Granted, there have been some fairly sharp players this month.

I can understand why they go to speed-up every day. It crams in another puzzle if R4 (or R5, if they're really zipping through them) was played in full, and it gives an extra chance at shelling out $6K a letter. Not that I'm a big fan of Mo'Money (is he 5K's cousin?), but I digress.

But is it really necessary to go to speed-up when you have PEPPERO_I PIZZA on the board? Just play it out and don't do a speed-up. Even if someone is dense enough not to call the N (and Lord knows they do occasionally get contestants that dense), or if they have the misfortune (no pun intended) of hitting two or three Bankrupts/Lose a Turns in a row, it'd still take less time than all the speed-up preparation.

There was, but the winning entry was something completely different.

/The one WOF went with anyway is better than the ultra-cheesy entry that won though.


Yeah, isn't the Ceramic Dalmatian's punch line the fact that nobody wanted it and was only purchased by force?

Ceramic Dalmatian:WOF::Flokati Rug:PYL

I've always wondered if during the last 10 years of network game show revivals if WoF was ever considered a viable option. Seems like this would play out well in a prime time one hour shopping format(heck it worked during the special hour week 30 years ago). Go ahead and bump up the dollar wedge values(that's a given these days) and load the studio w/ high dollar cars and trips. It would be the ultimate gambling game if you're sitting on $50k and staring into the face of a bankrupt. Turn the Ceramic dalmatian into gold and have it sponsored by Cash4gold. The possibilities are endless. Just some random thoughts.

If it worked 30+ years ago, why hasn't it been done since?

Which, as others have stated, the show shouldn't give a crap about. If Joe Blow has to pay $8,000 in taxes on a new car, how does that hurt the show? It's still more interesting to the home viewer to see more variety in prizes than just cash, cash, and more cash. At least IMHO.

Unless they use a wider variety of prizes, ditch the Prize Puzzle.I'm not a big fan of someone getting a $5-8K boost in score just because they solved the puzzle- even more so because the puzzle always mentions a hammock, a tropical drink, an ocean, or a foreign food every single time. At the very least, use your friggin Sony backing for something other than showing a full movie preview for the R1 prize.

I liked it when the mystery wedge offered a car. I wouldn't mind seeing that again.

Other than the mystery wedges, the only four digit money spaces are top dollar spaces. I would like to see the $1000, $1500, and $2000 spaces come back.

Inflate the vowel price....although I imagine this would have already been done if contestants actually bought all the vowels right away.

I think Kenny Chesney is writing some of these puzzles, honestly.

Speaking of which, that reminds me of one other Wheel pet peeve: Quit telling us who the person is in Proper Name puzzles, unless it's a title commonly associated with them (e.g. "United States President Barack Obama"). I know it gives them extra letters, but do we really need to be told that it's "Country Singer" Kenny Chesney, as if there were another famous person with that name? If they want a bigger puzzle, then use one that's bigger naturally, and save Kenny for a Toss-Up.

I hate that too. You would think they'd wanna save money by not putting as many letters in a puzzle. Then again, it balances out because it means longer puzzles, which means not as many rounds.

I'd improve Wheel by tightening up with the puzzle writing. A SPECTACULAR POOLSIDE VIEW is not a "Thing", and I don't give two brown nuggets whether it fits the Prize Puzzle trip to Jamaica, it sounds stupid as hell. Ditto for BUYING A NEW CAR being considered an Event.

With the average half-hour show having only 19-22 minutes of content, including intro and closing, I don't see Wheel offering shopping for the whole show. However, I wouldn't mind them bringing it back for a round (say round two). To "shop", you have to land on a special space marked with a $2,500 "gift card". Land on the space and solve the puzzle without hitting Bankrupt, and you go shopping. To eliminate the possibility of long prize descriptions, perhaps make it so that the cheapest prize is at least $500 or $750. It's a slight variation of a "Retro Week" they offered about 10 years ago.

Only drawback is it might take almost as long as another puzzle. To that, I say, eliminate the $2,000 Toss-Up. Hell, eliminate all three of them for all I care.

These would probably only work if there was a daytime companion, but if I magically became EP and didn't care about viewership dwindling because the show became challenging, interesting and all that happy crap:

The first player to solve three puzzles wins the game and moves on to the solo game. That means that a match can carryover into another episode. If you solve a puzzle, you keep what you win.
FIXES: I don't care much for someone winning because Pat landed on $5,000, or in some cases, didn't.

The winner of a tossup gets control of the wheel to start the puzzle. No dollar value.
FIXES: The tossups merely distribute control haphazardly, and throw around extra money.

Wheel with top values of 2000-1500-1000, down to 100, coupled with a regressive jackpot that starts at $whatever, and decreases through the round.
FIXES: Players drawing all the money out of the puzzle after it has become obvious to everyone, hopefully this would keep things moving at a decent clip.

One prize added to the wheel each round.
The second round of the show is the Special Round; the Jackpot, the sliver space, Mystery, Big Money or Prize Puzzle
FIXES: When every round has a special theme, they are no longer special.

Bonus has N solves in a minute; reduce by one for each trip to the bonus, determine what to play for by spinning the big wheel.
FIXES: The bonus round as presented currently is either ten seconds of armpit farting, or there's no suspense because the puzzle is revealed after the four extra letters.

So were you actually taking notes during part of that conversation you and I were having the other day? ;)


I think I hit on most of those same points in my original rant, but they could've easily gotten lost in the fanboiz moment, heh. Nevertheless, have a newsletter/blog/opinion column I can subscribe to, read weekly, link to whenever? I'd love to hear more.


Considering they already have a $1000 gift tag to www.*insert something here*.com or www.*retail giant*.com, if you did that, you might as well bring back shopping and all the Gucci Gift Certificates...

My answer to both? No...

One of umpteen ideas I had to possibly "improve" the prize puzzle idea, and sorta kill two birds with one stone (in making it seem the contestants *might* have to work a little harder to earn the prize, and eliminate the white sandy beaches predictability) was to have it be played in the mystery round with the category not revealed. The category's a mystery, and the puzzle doesn't need to relate to the prize at all, it could just be any puzzle that would fit in any other category they have (or maybe they can use puzzles they, for w/e reason, somehow don't know exactly how to categorize), while expanding upon the R3 "Mystery" theme (which is one of the better ideas, IMHO, the show has had the past few years). It would also somewhat appease a number of people I heard a few years ago saying how they seemed to like the idea of R3 being a sort of "catch-up round" for the show.

YMMV, of course...

I'd like to see exactly two toss-up puzzles, one to start the game and one before the fourth round.

Nothing newer than the introduction of "Before and After" except the toss-ups; bonus is played for the contestant's choice of remaining prizes, 5 consonants and 1 vowel, but each is revealed before the player picks the next.

Other than "jacking up the prize budget," how do you feel this will improve the show?

1. Y'know, I actually like that idea. It rewards the puzzle solving over lucky spins of the wheel. I'd disagree if these were the Woolery days, where it was actually fun to see someone spinning in Round 3 or 4, knowing they still needed a couple thousand to win, but we don't get that anymore.

2. That would cut down a lot of the gimmickry. Love it.

3. I really don't like this. I'd say keep the current bonus round, but give the player an extra consonant for each failed trip.

Although I do think you might be putting the idea of puzzle solving way too far in front of the wheel, I like your concept.

And when the wheel goes from $100 to $1500 or $2000, even a few thousand dollars can be overcome with good spins and prudent letter calling. But when there's a $4,100 maw between TDV and Next highest dollar value, $20,000 looks like it may as well be a million. And I'd rather the game be won by the person who solves more puzzles, not the person who won when the wheel was most burgeoned with money.

Wheel of Fortune has had some really good things. The problem is when half of the spaces on the wheels have stuff you can pick up, I think that's too much.

Here's the thing; you're not really "solving" the problem of the bonus round: that it really isn't ever exciting. And by golly, if you're playing for a Porsche, I think it SHOULD be edge-of-your-seat. And even with the $1m and $100,000 bonuses, it just isn't. Final Jeopardy typically has a clever clue that requires some thought, some overlapping of lists, and allows 30 seconds to come to a happy conclusion. And usually the game hinges on being right or wrong.

I think the wheel should be a vehicle to get to the puzzle solving, and it shouldn't be the deciding factor of who goes on to the solo round. After all, you can spin $5,000 all day but if you don't pick the letters or solve, that cash goes poof.

It would make the choice of letters more interesting. As for the prize budget, they'd simply have to adjust the puzzle difficulty. My alternate idea is to start with the same 5C+1V, but have puzzles where there are exactly three other consonants and one other vowel uncovered. That way, every player has the same chance of filling the puzzle in completely.

I am already thinking of a few things:

1. Stop offering trips all the time as prizes. TPIR knows that. (e.g. CARS)

2. Double Play worthwhile?

3. Raise the top prize to $200,000.

It would also slow the endgame down to a crawl. And I posit that in order even out for the prize budget the difficulty would have to be increased enough that the choice of letters would no longer be interesting, since the majority of the time it would be something along the lines of "Hell, I dunno. N."

I think the bonus round as fine as is. Sometimes I think they could stand to make the puzzles a bit easier, but after some absolutely asinine bonus puzzles in most of the past 15+ years, they do seem to be reining in the difficulty a bit. Well, there're still SQUEAKING BY (which they've used before) and HAZY MORNING to contend with. Besides, I think the randomness is part of what makes it work: if they made it ascending difficulty, you'd automatically know the $100,000's every time just because the puzzle is something asinine like QUIZZICAL LOOK.

/HAIR DYE is possibly the easiest puzzle that's ever thrown me
//and DUBUQUE IOWA possibly the hardest that I've nailed on just RSTLNE

When was it brought down from $1,000,000?