The ‘Wheel’ of Time: 12 Big Moments in ‘Wheel of Fortune’ History

Dan Clarendon February 24, 2022, 9:00 am

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Wheel of Fortune - Vanna White — Sony Pictures TV/Courtesy: Everett Collection

Having aired for four decades and thousands of episodes, Wheel of Fortune has “solved the puzzle” of word-based game shows, succeeding where others like Scattergories and Boggle have failed.

And the show has evolved along the way. Twenty-five years ago, for example—on February 24, 1997, to be exact—Wheel of Fortune introduced its touchscreen puzzle board. That upgrade meant Vanna White only needed to touch the board to reveal a correct letter that Pat Sajak had solicited from a contestant, instead of spinning a trilon. (After revealing the new puzzle board in that game-changing episode, Sajak joked, “I’ll betcha a dollar it don’t work.”)

Here are other notable dates from Wheel of Fortune’s history…

September 19, 1983: The current syndicated version of Wheel of Fortune, with Sajak and White continuing their hosting roles from the NBC daytime version that was still airing new episodes, debuts.

February 10, 1994: Sajak gets his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with White receiving hers 12 years later. In a Hollywood Chamber of Commerce blunder, however, Sajak’s plaque originally had a film camera instead of a TV set.

April 1, 1997: As an April Fool’s Day prank, Sajak and Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek swap places for the night. On the Wheel episode, Sajak and White play as contestants, while Sajak’s wife, Lesly Brown, works the puzzle board.

September 13, 1997: Wheel 2000, a short-lived kid-centric Wheel of Fortune spinoff with a CGI co-host, premieres on CBS.

June 19, 2011: Wheel of Fortune ties with Jeopardy! for Outstanding Game/Audience Participation Show at the 38th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, with then-executive producer Harry Friedman becoming the first producer to tie with themselves in an Emmy category.

May 24, 2013: Guinness World Records honors Vanna White with the “most recent clapper” record, estimating that she has clapped at least 3.48 million times across the 30 seasons the show had aired.

May 8, 2019: Guinness World Records hails Sajak as the new record-holder for the longest career as a game show host for the same show, besting Bob Barker’s reign on The Price is Right.

May 10, 2019: The 7,000th episode of Wheel of Fortune airs. “It’s our 7,000th show,” Sajak told the audience at the start of that episode. “Could someone get me a chair?”

December 9, 2019: White starts a three-week stint as temporary Wheel of Fortune host while Sajak recovers from emergency intestinal surgery.

January 7, 2021: Celebrity Wheel of Fortune debuts on ABC in primetime, with Leslie Jones, Chandra Wilson, and Tony Hawk spinning the wheel for charity in that inaugural episode.