Wheel of Fortune Grinches Woman Out Of Car Over Very Stupid Rule
Did you know you can say the Bonus Round answer and still lose?
Nature is healing. Now that Jeopardy! is chugging along with a steady hosting situation and has a super champion in Amy Schneider kicking ass, we can go back to our time-honored tradition of wondering what the fuck is going on with Wheel of Fortune.
Former Jeopardy! champion Alex Jacob noted this egregious Bonus Round performance, where because Charlene didn’t say the Bonus Round puzzle in one continuous phrase, as is the explained rule to the contestants who make it to the Bonus Round, she didn’t get the prize because according to the rules of the show, she didn’t read the phrase and didn’t solve the puzzle.
Why that feels particularly shitty—other than the gobsmackingly ironic situation of choosing the right word in the puzzle “CHOOSING THE RIGHT WORD” and still being wrong—is because Charlene here did the following things, which when you lay them all out like this definitely feels like she should win a car:
- Said all the words on the board
- said all of them in the written order
- without any additional noises between any of the words
- all before the 10 second timer finished
Needless to say, thousands of astute game show watchers and social media ne’er-do-wells chimed in. A vast majority of people said she should definitely get the car, while others, presumably people who didn’t get anything at the office Secret Santa, noted that by the letter of the rules, Charlene didn’t solve the puzzle. (Those are the same people who John Mulaney notes, ‘Just because you’re accurate doesn’t mean you’re interesting.’)
UK-based adjudicator Olivia van der Werff, who watches over the fairness of dozens of UK quiz shows, shared her thoughts on the matter with BuzzerBlog on Twitter:
And they’re right—this looks VERY BAD. And Audi has capitalized to spread some late Christmas Cheer to the Internet, and they’re going to give Charlene the car she absolutely 100% won on Wheel of Fortune:
Despite all the madness going on in the world, it’s nice to know that some things will never change—like game show fans coming together to take a steamy dump on a dumb stupid judging decision.
