Let’s Make a Deal BEST/WORST Moments of Season 14

Let’s go down memory lane of what has been a mostly painful 14th season of LMaD before their 15th season starts on Monday.

🙂BEST (not much)🙂

• This season started off with an INSTANT ON-TARGET BD WIN by Ure.
• We had no contestants trade away a car for a shot at the BD unlike last season!
• Ricky from Oct. 4 shockingly traded in his $14,557 worth of cash & prizes to go for the Big Deal… and it actually paid off as he moved up to a Volkswagen Taos SE worth $29,980!! This was part of a 3-0 BD stretch to start the week, which sadly ended at 3-2.
• This week of Oct. 17 started off on a hot note with two car wins on Monday and another one on Tuesday, and the Big Deal being won on both days, but sadly, it took a downturn on Thursday
• Kenneth from Dec. 14 won the cash vault BD snapping the losing skid for the BD revealing second.
• Coach Christian from Dec. 23 avoided a car game skunking on LMaD, and we also had our second ON-TARGET cash vault win second week in a row for our EIGHTH ON-TARGET BD WIN THIS SEASON averting a potential FLAMEOUT!!
• Shane averted a potential car game gooseegg for the month of January 2023 on LMaD from 0 to 80 on the 20th.
• The BD losing streak dating back to Jan. 12 was finally snapped on Feb. 3.
• Robin’s ON-TARGET BD WIN on Mar. 3 averting a BD shutout.
• We had our first PERFECT BD WEEK during the Week of Mar. 6 (which was three episodes long), although we had our 11th weekly car shutout that week.
• The BD was won NINE CONSECUTIVE TIMES between May 1-11 including the FIRST EVER FULL-WEEK BD SWEEP during the week of May 1, although we could’ve had two consecutive full-week BD sweeps if the BD was won again on the 12th.

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☹️WORST (this had more bad)☹️

• Almost immediately after that instant on-target BD win, we had BACK-TO-BACK BD KNOCKOUTS on Wednesday and Thursday. And it’s really too bad we ended up going the week 1-4 after that (all of the losses were the Small Deal). Don’t forget that Tuesday’s loss also triggered a FLAMEOUT via PD-trade-down, and a Cash Register TOTAL TRAINWRECK to go along with it.
• A pitiful 23 cars and only ONE Fabulous Car (during season premiere week) were given away this season. This is a significant drop from last season.
• A total of 22 WEEKLY CAR SHUTOUTS this season, the first one during the week of Oct. 24.
• Cars became a lot rarer during later parts of the season, presumably due to budget mode as per gameshowfan2021 on bobbymgsk.
• No $30K+ BD wins this season (all seven of them were lost).
• A total of 30 BD KNOCKOUTS and seven BD shutouts this season. Ironically, the BD that was revealed second has suffered a losing record for the first time since Season 12.
• As mentioned earlier, the week of Oct. 17 tanked rapidly and never regained footing with a BRUTAL playing of Movin’ on Up and FLAMEOUT via PD tradedown. We also had OUR FIFTH BD KNOCKOUT THIS SEASON (VIA CASH VAULT) FOR THE THIRD WEEK IN A ROW, and that was the first time it occurred on a Friday since Feb. 19, 2021.
• When being asked to guess whether the $6,735 behind the curtain in a deal on Nov. 4 was an entertainment suite, a trip, or cash, Timothy foolishly thought that would be cash… and of course it was an entertainment suite.
• Ronald’s painful bailout on the infamous Accelerator on Nov. 8.
• Couple Elliott & Bo from Nov. 29 traded away their trip to Queen Kapiolani Hotel worth $8,254 to go for the Big Deal but ended up with the Small Deal to trigger A FOURTH CONSECUTIVE BD KNOCKOUT (after April triggered a third straight one for the first time since Oct. 2017) POSSIBLY FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN THE SHOW’S ENTIRE 60-YEAR HISTORY (or at least the history of the show’s current iteration), and oh boy things were looking really bad to start the week as any perfect deals won at the point were all traded away (but thankfully the week somewhat turned around from there).
• A BIG FAT GOOSEEGG IN CAR GAMES for the entire month of November (although Jenn snapped that drought with a win on Accelerator to start December) and June.
• Although the week of Dec. 5 had no skunkings, we had three games (two car games) end in TOTAL TRAINWRECKS, and we had our FOURTH INSTANCE OF AT LEAST TWO CONSECUTIVE BD KNOCKOUTS THIS SEASON on Monday & Tuesday (second week in a row for those respective days) and a THIRD ONE ON FRIDAY MARKING THE FIRST INSTANCE SINCE MAY 2020 WHERE WE HAD THREE BD KNOCKOUTS IN THE SAME WEEK.
• Spell Out with the Worldwide Wednesday trip on Dec. 14, a two-week South American expedition (natural habitat Adventure in the Amazon & trips to Peru & Argentina) worth $39,151 in play, ended with a PAINFUL BAILOUT.
• Allison’s HEARTBREAKING MOVIN’ ON UP LOSS on Dec. 19.
• Victoria’s controversial trade of an Australian trip in hopes of going for the Big Deal on Jan. 6 triggered OUR 15TH BD KNOCKOUT THIS SEASON ALREADY. She said she made that trade because her daughter (who was in the audience dressed like a cheerleader) “had things to do”. Oh, and it that wasn’t bad enough, WE WERE SKUNKED ON CAR GAMES YET AGAIN THIS WEEK and yet ANOTHER BRUTAL PLAYING of Accelerator (but $500 was won).
• The week of Jan. 23 was painful Travis & Brandy’s brutal playing of Four Keys and back-to-back BD SKUNKINGS for the first time since the wks. of Jan 4-11, 2021 and all five of those losses (including yet another KNOCKOUT) saw a Perfect Deal get traded away. But on the bright side, we started the week with another car win, but after that, it was all downhill.
• A not-so-Fabulous Car week during the week of Jan. 30. If Tracy hadn’t saved our bacon snapping the ridiculous BD losing streak, this week could’ve been A LOT worse. If the car game skunk, brutal playing of Beat the Dealer, and a few total flameouts on LMaD weren’t bad enough, we also started the week right off the bat with OUR 19TH BD KNOCKOUT THIS SEASON.
• A heartless couples show on Valentines Day with a HEARTBREAKING BAILOUT in The King & Queen Same Suit Game.
• TWO HEARTBREAKING BAILOUTS on Spell Me a Deal and 0 to 80 on Mar. 29.
• Rachel foolishly gambles $12,945 worth of cash & prizes on Jun. 22 and ultimately paid the price.
• During the first lost episode that aired on Aug. 15, Matthew PAINFULLY LOST OUT ON A CAR because had the right key in Great Key Escape but he didn’t turn it hard enough– major ouch.

And that’s your BEST/WORST moments for Season 14 of LMaD. Let’s hope the next season will be a huge improvement over this mostly dismal season. If there are any more best/worst moments for this season that should go on here, please let me know in the comments.

The Price is Right BEST/WORST Moments of Season 51

I’ve been pretty busy for the past several weeks, but it’s better late than never.

🙂BEST🙂

• The five Double Showcase winners this season, two up from last season (info from tpirstats.com).
• On the very first pricing game of the season, Grand Game, Jennifer Davison NAILED IT for a fitting $51K in play. Markita Shahid also won big on this episode by winning two cars in Bargain Game. We also had Zachary McCall who redeemed in the showcase with $50,334.
• Big wins on the third week including Craig Dawkins ($68,986), pairs of twins Maximillian & Nicholas Weinbach and Ava & Lorretta Minett (the latter pair having escaped from the FFBC) winning their pairs of cars in their respective car games as did Jason & Ryan Harpole in the showcase, as well as Audra Sasse surviving Pay the Rent wisely bailing out with $10K.
• Iris Shapiro became the first contestant on TPiR this season to break the $100K barrier winning a MINI Cooper in Pathfinder and then winning her showcase which included a Jaguar E-PACE for a final total of $106,328 in prizes (incl. two cars)!
• Shelby Humphrey ended a 10-month drought becoming OUR FIRST DOUBLE SHOWCASE WINNER THIS SEASON AND FINALLY OUR FIRST OF 2022!!! This gave her a final total of $73,976 in prizes and a HUGE REDEMPTION!!
• Simon Hernandez from Oct. 26 won a car in Cover Up, then became the first $26K SCSD bonus winner this season and then won his showcase for a final total of $92,932 cash & prizes becoming the biggest regular-play winner this season outside of Dream Car Week.
• Nicolette Saldano from Dec. 7 winning an astounding $31,500 from five chips on Plinko, a regular episode record!
• The Ford Family from the Family Edition of TPiR Holiday Week first winning an Audi S5 Sportback worth $74,583 and other prizes on Golden Road (ending the winless drought among the Big 3 luxury pricing games) and then winning another car completing the first high showcase sweep this season (and from this season’s second Car Winners’ Showcase) for a final total of $130,077 in prizes becoming the season-leaders in winnings!!! They were also the sole winner of a luxury game this season. The other two were never won, although we had both good bailouts and busts in Pay the Rent.
• Jeremiah Meador from Jan. 3 beat the odds by guessing the correct price of the Nissan Sentra SR with just two attempts and then won the showcase being only $535 off the ARP with a final total of $61,498 in prizes.
• Socheata Vang from Jan. 4 redeemed in a big way from her bust in Money Game by winning $26K from the Big Wheel and then the showcase for a final total of $76,323 cash & prizes! A bigger redemption than anything that took place on the primetime version of the show later that night.
• Huge redemptions in the showcase by Louis Riviere and Ryan Williams (even though the former was a partial) on the Jan. 25’s Gratuity Workers’ special on TPiR At Night and the Jan. 27 daytime episode, respectively. And that sure did carry momentum in the latter half of the week as Michelle Abram also won big on Thursday’s showcase with $75,941 in prizes.
• We had a perfect PG show and fourth Car Winners’ showcase this season on the TPiR At Night Superfans Special, and a GRAND TOTAL OF $243,978!!! Unfortunately, that would be the only one of the season.
• The Stefanelli Family won both trips to Paris & Jamaica from One Right Price and then went on to win their showcase winning over $93K, the Bland Family completed a TOTAL CLEAN SWEEP in Shell Game winning $65K cash & prizes contributing to a SEASON-HIGH OF $248,777 on the Feb. 17 episode of TPiR At Night.
• We went through the three-day week of Mar. 13 (College) with no FFBC victims!
• Tony Harrison’s (he was a contestant of WoF twice) PERFECT PLAYING of 10 Chances on Apr. 19. Furthermore, we had 5 games won.
• Jacqueline Sakadjian from May 5 bid perfectly on the IUFB and rolled all 1’s and 6’s to win herself the Volkswagen Tiguan.
• Grace “Wise”ly bailed out with $10K in the luxury game Pay the Rent on May 16.
• May 29’s fifth and final DOUBLE SHOWCASE WIN made up for the skunked first half.
• We had our other high showcase sweep during the week of Jun. 19.
• A nice Farewell to Studio 33 special with a total of $149,312 given away, although we had a low showcase win.

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☹️WORST☹️

• As mentioned above, only one luxury game was won just like last season.
• The 13 double overs this season, five up from last season.
• Paul Reyes made the wrong kind of history by triggering the FIRST TOTAL TRAINWRECK PLAYING OF ONE AWAY IN THE CAREY ERA, FIRST SINCE MAY 28, 1990 AND THIRD EVER. Paul, I get that mark-ups have a significant impact on this current market, but just remember that it’s the ARP that we’re looking for here, and there ain’t no way a compact CUV such as the VW Taos is gonna start at $40K+ (Just like Jacqueline in the 80s-90s thought that the Lincoln Mark VII was worth less than $30K+). He did redeem and win his showcase, however.
• Sheri Alberg and Matthew Bugaj triggered the FIRST DOUBLE OVER in only the third episode of the season.
• Danielle Cathcart & Christopher Wilson of from Oct. 3 not only lost their respective pricing games, but to make an already miserable show more miserable, THEY TRIGGERED OUR SECOND DOUBLE OVER THIS SEASON.
• The Oct. 7 episode was already not-so-pleasant when things took a drastic downturn in the second half with BACK-TO-BACK TOTAL TRAINWRECKS from Gridlock, and for the first time since Jan. 22, 2001 if I’m not mistaken, Shell Game. At least Brittnay Wilson, who won her PG, won the showcase for a decent total in prizes of $49,351.
• Skipps’ birthday episode was a disaster, which contained TWO TOTAL TRAINWRECK PLAYINGS (Cover Up (ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE the Lincoln is worth ~$28K, Robert. -___-) and Dice Game) plus a HEARTBREAKING AUDIENCE LOSS in Time is Money and two FFBC victims (although a perfect Master Key win and decent showcase win total helped ease the pain a bit)
• Underwhelming Dream Car Week with four FFBC victims.
• Albeza Elizondo’s waste in potential value of prizes of $154,059+ (for cars, a motorcycle, SCSD bonus money on the Big Wheel, and two SCs via potential DSW) on her Part 3 bust in the luxury pricing game Triple Play on Oct. 19. And you know, it’s for the better that she didn’t go to the showcase (and this episode was preempted extensively on many stations), because Osman Saleem and Alison Williams triggered OUR THIRD DOUBLE OVER THIS SEASON.
• Darwin Browne from Oct. 27 triggering the game’s FIRST-EVER TOTAL TRAINWRECK to lose out on a potential $168,237 cash & prizes.
• Sandra, Linda & Kathleen’s BRUTAL PLAYING of Triple Play on Nov. 23 because they thought a brand new KIA Forte was worth closer to $13K than $16K, which no car of its class goes for nowadays even in the most basic of configurations (Cheapest compact (C-segment) sedan is the Nissan Sentra at $20K; Cheapest car of 2022 in America is the Chevy Spark, a city car (A-segment), at $14K but will be discontinued for 2023, next cheapest is the subcompact (B-segment) Mitsubishi Mirage at $16K). I know they’re a bit up there in age (one of them has a 90 year-old sister), but still.
• Janel Zelli from Dec. 29 went all the way for the $10K in Grand Game but unfortunately went over the target price with the aluminum wrap, tumbled to $0, and as it would turn out, cost us a perfect PG show.
• Not much redemption in the TPiR At Night Redemption Special.
• Apart from the car game wins, the TPiR Grocery Store Employees primetime special really was underwhelming at best, as Stephan Choi flopped on his playing of Pick-a-Pair then lost the showcase missing out on over a potential $60K+ in prizes. Guess you could say Jeffery Scott’s BRUTAL PLAYING of, well, Grocery Game, mostly set the tone for the special.
• During the not-so-bright TPiR At Night Geniuses Special, Jordan Ellenberg had to sort any of these following items in his playing of Pay the Rent (one of two games this week to be played twice; other was Cover Up): Smart Balance chunky peanut & flaxseed oil spread (16oz), Smartfood Popcorn (6.75oz), 6 Breyers Carb Smart vanilla bars, 45 Smart Pants gummies, Nerds (5oz) & Smart Mouth breath rinse (16 fl oz). He put the Nerds in the $1K slot, and it cost… $1.89. In the $5K slot he had the popcorn and the spread, and together they cost… $12.48. Next up in the $10K slot are the vanilla ice cream bars and the mouthwash which summed up to… a whopping $19.48. Now, you would hope with such an expensive price at this level that Jordan would take it and leave it with the $10K…guess again, because he FOOLISHLY GOES ALL OUT with the vitamins in the $100K slot, and that was worth… NOT ENOUGH with $16.99, so he leaves emptyhanded (not including IUFB item, of course) — not very smart playing AT ALL, sir. -___-
• Joseph Soleno’s PAINFUL Check Game loss by $72 on Jan. 25.
• Jan. 31’s episode was a true fail-fest. Garen Zakarian went over on his showcase after letting his greed get the better of him on Temptation (although he did win $1K SCSD bonus). Carol Adinolfi who was in the audience in the At Night Redemption special and lost 1/2 Off 15 years ago failed to redeem also losing on Flip Flop. Gail Botts triggered the first instance of Lucky Seven being lost before the last digit could be revealed since Apr. 29, 2019. And Ronnie Davidson deserved being sent to the FFBC for his lousy bids early in the show even though he suffered bad luck in the latter half.
• Alexander Haney becomes the LOWEST SHOWCASE WINNER of the season with just $23,792 on Feb. 8 and costs us a perfect show that day.
• The two winless shows on Feb. 13 and 28 after going through an entire season without any.
• Disastrous Valentine’s day episode including a TOTAL TRAINWRECK in Grocery Game which contributed to a skunked second half.
• A total of seven FFBC victims during the week of Feb. 13.
• A skunked second half made worse by an unlucky SEVENTH DOUBLE OVERBID on Feb. 21. We would get another DOUBLE OVERBID just two episodes later.
• Shawn Masson from Feb. 24 causing a TOTAL TRAINWRECK with an ace resulting in a car wipeout, costing him the Chevrolet Bolt (first time since Sept. 25, 2017)
• Bryan San Pedro’s sloppy bidding on Mar. 9.
• Mar. 23’s 11TH DOUBLE OVERBID ruined what was an otherwise decent show with 5 games won. And to make matters worse, Alonzo McGee WSD’d ny $73.
• Anna from Apr. 10 causing a TOTAL TRAINWRECK in Money Game (first time since Oct. 9, 2017) although she went on to win the showcase. Tip for future contestants: for regular-priced cars, always go for values around 20-29 first since these cars are usually around $20K-$30K in value.
• Donnell Dory’s TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing of 1/2 Off on May 2 (first time since May 20, 2021).
• TWO ALL-OVERBIDS plus an unlucky 13TH DOUBLE OVERBID in the showcase on May 8.
• This series of events on May 9: Edwin Marquez didn’t push a single block over on Pushover and went way off on the ARP of the hot tub, Michealle Burke’s poor playing of Check-Out on May 9 (although she got the price of the first item of Wet Ones Singles Wipes exactly right, she foolishly thought the Dramamine Motion Sickness Relief Tablets costed just one penny when the actual price of that was $6.99- really? -___-), a WIPEOUT in Gas Money by John Cabantac (first time since Halloween 2019), and Sandra Brooks landing on $0 all four times in Plinko, although the sole PG winner L’atranee Williams went on to win the high showcase in the end.
• Donnell Dory’s TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing of 1/2 Off on May 2 (first time since May 20, 2021).
• Carolyn Victoria’s TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing of More or Less on May 15 (first time since Jun. 1, 2018) because she foolishly thought the INSPIRE IC1 costed more that $1,500- there’s no way it costs that much, ma’am. -___- She also threw away 5″ laptop + XEBEC bundle, KICK foosball, and Hyundai Elantra as a result.
• A total of FIVE dud spins on May 19.
• Erica Pagliarulo from May 22 went severely underbid on her showcase bidding $30,400 when the ARP was $46,532.
• The week of Jun. 12 was awful save for Thursday. We had THREE skunked first halves on Monday-Wednesday, partly due to Caroline Negey’s poor pricing skills on Time is Money on Monday and Geeta Radia from Wednesday triggering a TOTAL TRAINWRECK in Spelling Bee (first time since May 31, 2022), plus no pricing games won on Jun. 14 (although we had a perfect IUFB, a $5K partial win in Punch-a-Bunch, and an $11K SCSD win).
• We had two consecutive ALL-OVERBIDS on a single item on Jun. 20.
• Jessica Kuntz from Jun. 21 escaped the FFBC but caused a TOTAL TRAINWRECK in Rat Race. There’s no way a single tube of sunscreen costs $12 or a diving mask costs $450, ma’am. -___-
• Former host Bob Barker sadly passed away from Alzheimer’s disease on Aug. 26. A Bob Barker tribute special hosted by Drew Carey aired on Aug. 31 and reran on Labor Day in place of a TPiR rerun.
• Disappointing aired season finale episode this season.

And that’s your BEST/WORST moments for Season 51 of TPiR. If there are any more best/worst moments for this season that should go on here, please let me know in the comments.

Jeopardy BEST/WORST Moments of Season 39

🙂BEST🙂

• Contestants are now given a cash bonus if they sweep a category (though they don’t affect their scores).
• A total of 17 DD/FJ! sweeps this season compared to the measly 5 from last season.
• Cris Pannullo’s incredible 22-day run, netting him a total of $749,286 including two $50K+ wins on Oct. 10 and 11.
• A lot fewer unplayed clues this season compared to previous seasons. Seems like they’ve been more generous on the amount of time allotted for the Jeopardy! and Double Jeopardy! rounds. And just like last season, we had no DDs go to waste.
• Amy Schneider winning the 2022 J! ToC in a best-of-seven Finals series decided in Game 6. Cris Pannullo ranks right up close going into another weekend as reigning champ, now up to a 15-day total of $526,544 when regular-play resumed Tuesday, which included a new SEASON-HIGH single-day score of $71,821 (25th best all-time and 5th highest non-Holzhauer score) on the Thanksgiving episode. Tuesday also saw a new SEASON-HIGH combined Coryat of $45,800 and SEASON-LOW $1K Coryat lost to just one incorrect response in the entire maingame (which, of course, was a Daily Double).
• Ray Lalonde ending his 13-day $386,400 run on J! Tuesday with his name on the 2023-24 Tournament of Champions roster.
• We had a rare TRIPLE STUMPER-FREE game (with 4 rebounds) on Jan. 12 (first one since Feb. 25, 1998), largely thanks to Yogesh Raut!
• Troy Meyer bagging up $152,202 during the week on Jan. 23 ($214,802) and a spot in the next ToC, and he was consistent enough to help build up a new SEASON-HIGH in weekly combined Coryat ($212,800). He also became the 7th contestant in the Sky’s The Limit era to pick up a runaway in his first four games.
• Justin Bolsen winning the High School Reunion Tournament.
• Ben Chan’s return on May 15 after testing positive for COVID on Apr. 17 was a huge one. We had a DD & FJ! sweep (which was unfortunately the last one this season) with Ben racking up $41K before FJ! and scoring $60K in the end, giving him a 4-day total of $129,001! His run would last a total of 9 days.
• We finally had a FJ! sweep on Jun. 28 which helped save the month from having a FJ! sweep shutout thanks to a relatively easy clue.
• Towards the end of the season, Lucas Partridge helped save the final month of the season from having no 3x champions.
• Jul. 14 helped end a long drought on DD sweeps with a combined pre-FJ! total of $47,200.

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☹️WORST☹️

• Ken Jennings got in HOT WATER with fans for allowing Luigi de Guzman to correct his phrasing from “it’s” to “who’s” before his otherwise correct response, yet ruling against Harriet Wagner’s own correction from “Angela Le Guin” to “Ursula Le Guin” when he already began ruling when she started making her correction on Sept. 14. He later got in trouble AGAIN after deeming Emmett Stanton’s FJ! response correct despite it being illegible which gave him the win after the other two were incorrect.
• Luigi was denied the weekly champion sweep to start the season.
• April Marquet from Sept. 12 intended to wager $14,801 in Final Jeopardy! as she took to Reddit, but it got MESSED UP due to a transcription error and she instead ended up wagering $1,801 which ended up costing her the win over Luigi de Guzman.
• Three FJ! triple stumpers (one as a consequence of being a multi-part FJ!) on Week 3 that resulted in the first regular-play FJ! losing week this season.
• J. Scott Gabrysiak’s correct FJ! response was unfortunately DQ’d due to him not completing the last word of “neighbors” (He had “neighbo”) which cost us a total clean sweep across Daily Doubles and FJ!.
• Game 2 of Semifinals 1 of the J! Second Chance Tournament was abysmal, and it saw some SEASON-WORSTS and near-SEASON-WORSTS. Same could be said for Game 2 of Finals 1.
• Here were the scores after Game 1 of the Finals round in this week’s Second Chance Tournament — Rowan Ward (30K), Sadie Goldberger (4,800) & Jack Weller (3,400). Scores going into FJ! — Jack: 29,400/Rowan: 20K/Sadie: 5K. Jack needed to be right on FJ! and for Rowan to be wrong in order to win after wagering at least 5K but no more than 19,399 (Andy Saunders erroneously said 17,999 for the maximum bet) to at least guarantee second should Rowan be correct and/or Jack is incorrect. Well, bad news for him was that this brutal FJ! clue was a TRIPLE STUMPER, but what does he do? Instead of guaranteeing $10K more in this scenario by limiting his wager to that maximum to finish second over Sadie Goldberger, he FOOLISHLY WAGERS EVERYTHING AND BUSTS OUT TO NOTHING (along with Sadie), so it is instead Sadie who takes the silver based on the Game 1 scores — Jack, what were you thinking man?! Did you even pay enough attention to the format of the tournament or how these games even work?! -___- Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, he came up with a dumb answer of “Meese” (instead of “Moose”) in the category of “Plurals That Don’t End In ‘S’” on Tuesday’s show.
• Back-to-back SEASON WORSTS in Coryat lost to incorrect responses on Nov. 7-8 (the latter can be excused for the fact that nothing was at stake in the exhibition match which resulted in an unusually-high number of random guesses and lack of incentive to strategize wagers) and ended off with the usual Friday FJ! triple stumper which was a triple blank-out.
• Jessica Stephens finishing a whopping 5,800 points in the red on Nov. 7 during the Tournament of Champions.
• Alex Wang went deep into the red on J! with a score of -$2K before FJ!
• A total of $14K Coryat lost to incorrect responses on Jan. 31.
• We had our first DD & FJ! WASHOUT all season long on Apr. 3, right when I thought we’d go through the entire season without any. We would get our second washout less than two months later on May 24.
• During the week of Apr. 3, we had FOUR triple stumpers in one week (first time since the S33 finale week as well as our first 1 for 15 in the Final week since July 1999 during the final week of the program’s 15th season).
• Devin Lohman from Apr. 19, 2023 winning with a dismal $1,200, the lowest winning total for one day.
• Worst weekly winnings of $62,797 on Week 33, including the third repeat champion skunking and three FJ! triple stumpers (including two unnecessary ones).
• On May 23, Ben’s guess of Benedict for FJ! (which was a multi-part final) was deemed UNACCEPTABLE, which ultimately prevented him from reaching the double-digit territory. And things really took a deep nosedive after his defeat.
• The month of June (especially the second half) was almost as brutal as that from last season for the most part. We had a SEASON-WORST LACH TRASH of $27,800 from a whopping 23 triple stumpers on the 7th, a SEASON-WORST CORYAT SCORE of $11,800 on the 19th, CONSECUTIVE DDSs on the 19th and 20th (first time since Oct. 25-26, 2021) plus an easy blown FJ! clue resulting in the fourth WASHOUT of the season.
• An even worse 4th of July episode than last season. We had a dismal Coryat score of $17,600, and a Lach trash and Coryat lost to incorrect responses of $18,200 each with 16 triple stumpers. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Elliot Kim was PAINFULLY DQed FOR ADDING AN EXTRA LETTER FOR AN OTHERWISE CORRECT RESPONSE (hence he said “baked Alaskan” instead of “baked Alaska”). And that ultimately sealed the fate for not only the unlucky seventh DDS, but also the SIXTH AND FINAL TOTAL WASHOUT on both Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy! correct answers.
• Alex Gordon from Jul. 10 making a very foolish wager on one of the Daily Doubles which ultimately cost him the 3x champion title.
• A frustrating Jul. 12 episode even though we had two DD correct answers and a FJ! sweep.
• Taylor Clagett from Jul. 25 threw away an easy victory and missed out on becoming the first 3x champion since Ben Goldstein from 6/16-23 by only writing down the second part of the compound word, not paying attention to the category; therefore, he had “star” instead of “superstar”).

If there are any more best/worst moments for this season that should go on here, please let me know in the comments.

Wheel of Fortune BEST/WORST (and WILDEST) Moments of Season 40

Just like last season, the Ruby Anniversary season of Wheel of Fortune was a true roller coaster. Here are the BEST/WORST and also WILDEST moments that happened this season.

🙂BEST🙂

1. Most of the changes enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic were reverted. Studio audiences were reinstated (albeit with a few exceptions), the “White Things” retired, Pat was once again able to walk over to congratulate the big winners, the BRs were mostly staged as they were prior to S38 (although Pat was still the one grabbing the envelope), and Pat, Vanna, and the winning contestant no longer stayed six feet apart during the closing. Despite these changes, the widened contestant railing is retained.

2. The XL Weeks were the best weeks for obvious reasons. The XL Wedge replacing $850 allowed contestants to earn more by acting as a second top dollar wedge, in addition to giving them a chance to win an additional $40K in the BR if the BR Puzzle was solved. Furthermore, the adjustment of the MDW rules allowed contestants to have double the chance of winning $1M (although it was still never won), every Round 1 puzzle used all four rows of the puzzle board, and an additional $5K was offered with the Prize Puzzle Trip.

3. The idea of Fan Favorites week bringing back the most (in)famous contestants to play America’s Game for a second chance. There were four contestants from the current season who returned for a second time, including the two contestants achieving a TOTAL CLEAN SWEEP. For the first occurrence, this even led to a rare all-male winners sweep for the first time since S38’s Show You the World.

4. Six contestants winning over $100K+ (two of which were outright $100K grand prizes on Jan. 19 and May 29).

5. The return of the audience beginning on the fourth taping season (in this case, California Coast, which aired Week 2).

6. We finally went a whole season without anyone adding “AND” in the Crossword Round.

7. The return of team weeks for the first time since Feb. 2020 along with a same-sex couple competing during a couples’ week for the first time in the show’s history.

8. Not one, but TWO TOTAL CLEAN SWEEPS this season.

9. The first appearance of FAMILY for the first time since May 13, 2019.

10. ON THE MAP finally returned to the BR menu (albeit only once this season).

11. Adam Alam visited the Culver City to attend the tapings for Great Escapes. However, that week wasn’t that really on his side.

12. The top three highest maingame record this season had some hallmarks, all of which would go on to win their BR: Michael “Mike” Bell on the mayday episode (opening on the start of the fourth and final XL week), with $58,298 cash and prizes before winning another $45K in the BR. In another XL episode, Praveen Pamidi won $52,384 cash & trips in the maingame before winning another $45,070 Lincoln Corsair to become the biggest non-six figures winner this season. If you do not want to count the XL weeks, then Laura Fagan (start of the second Disney sweeps) had this record with $52,190 cash & expedition followed by another $40K in the BR.

13. Credits to Friendship Feed for the idea on the opening for Star Wars Galactic Celebration. And that text really had references which Andy did not want to include it too directly, such as “Fallen Troopers” (Memorial Day) and the “’You’ve Hit the Jackpot’ meme lives forever” (referencing Autumn Erhard’s $1M win 10 years ago).

14. This edition of Hawaii Week on the week of March 20 made a nice improvement after that DISASTROUS outing of that of the previous season.

15. Sept. 14’s XL REBOUND FROM YESTERDAY’S XL DISAPPOINTMENT with Ryan Zsiga winning the $51K+ BMW plus the $40K bonus from the XL wedge in the BR!

16. The great match among all three contestants on Mar. 9.

17. The intense match between Nicole Griep and Cory Houser on Mar. 22 which ended with the latter winning the $55K+ Ford Mustang in the BR.

18. Not only did Andy’s site turn ten this season, but the team also achieved the milestone of providing more than 6000 recaps in April! It’s a shame that the milestone episode on Nov. 15 did end with a $100K loss (and I also recalled that the 2017 one, the fifth anniversary, did have a $1M loss as well).

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☹️WORST☹️

1. The five grand prize losses (including Alane Dolensky’s $1M LOSS on Sept. 27).

2. A dubious record of SIX Toss-Up TRIPLE STUMPERS.

3. John Lauderdale retired as stage manager and Robert Ennis is retiring as director.

4. Unlike the last two seasons, we sadly did not get a PBRW this season. The worst part was on Dec. 16 when Michael Brown blew the perfecto by adding an unnecessary Y in his BR puzzle of APPLYING OURSELVES, costing him $50K.

5. There have been quite a few bad BR misses, including the two worst episodes on Dec. 29 and Feb. 8. The fourth America’s Game on Andy’s show anniversary week really took the cake and contributed to a SEASON-LOW skunking of about $167K.

6. As Friendship Feed mentioned, the new themed weeks are much of a “bad omen”, and that would be the case of WWE Wheel of Fortune Tournament (a SKUNKING despite the return of Friday Finals), HSN/HSN+ Shopping Spree ($100K loss), and Grand Getaways ($40K sweep and some average maingames). The first five episodes of Star Wars Galactic Celebration had a $100K win, and the rest of the week was a roller coaster going 1-4. Fun & Games and Fan Favorites, however, each had two BR wins.

7. A handful of blunders this season went viral for the wrong reasons, and there were controversies such as the Sep. 16 episode that had the “EENIE MEENIE MINY MOE…” puzzle. Likewise, there were some NSFW moments such as Krystal Gratta’s crash with B on EXPRESS on Feb. 7 when the answer was CATCHING SOME WAVES and Tracina Jones’ blown solve of PLAYING WITH BALLS. I thought it was like playing with toy balls, but it turns out it was a NSFW answer.

8. Not many retro clips this season unlike S30 and there wasn’t even a dedicated milestone week like Celebrating 40.

9. This was the PP/Express Round puzzle layout on Feb. 20 (the first episode of the solo version player of Teen Week) with only one letter remaining…

F R E _ H
T R O P I C A L
F R U I T

You Would Expect: Khushi Talluru either lights up the last consonant of S or just simply solves the puzzle.

Instead: She thought the last consonant was G and a “What?!” was briefly heard from the audience.

10. This was the PP/Express Round puzzle layout on Jan. 5 (recapped by me on Andynwof)…

I N C R E D I B L _
B E A _ T I F _ L
L _ C A T I _ N

You Would Expect: David Bise solves INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL LOCATION for $11,850 plus the $11,190 trip to Barbados.

Instead: He NEVER realizes that the NMC beeps DIDN’T sound and BLEW THE FIRST WORD with INCREDIBLE and looked very shocked and confused about this error. Definitely one of the most horrific EXPRESS crashes of all time.

11. Andy and I gave not one but TWO episodes a rating of 1. First, the Dec. 29 saw a NEW TRIPLE TOSS-UP ERA RECORD LOW GRAND TOTAL set at $20,150. If that wasn’t bad enough, Bree made the grave mistake of picking THING and failed miserably, sending her home as the lowest-winning champion this season with a dismal $10,500. The other one was that chaotic Feb. 8 episode which I covered on Andynwof. We had a SEASON-WORST BANKRUPT TRASH of $30,200 including an unnecessary and PAINFUL BANKRUPT by Benny Varughese in Round 1, which deprived him $5,500 and the $13,900 Alaskan Cruise. To make matters worse, he BOMBED OUT on the EXPRESS thinking D was the last missing consonant in the word UNAVAILABLE. Unable to recover from the mishap, I had no choice but to give him the DESERVING label as a result.

12. Angela Dao’s painful $21,350 BANKRUPT on Apr. 25. It also didn’t help that she was faced with this WHAT ARE YOU DOING? puzzle in the BR after she chose MHDO…

_ O _ N _ N _
T H E / _ R _ _

The answer was JOINING THE FRAY, but she guessed JOINING THE CRAP– this is a G-Rated show, ma’am! 😡

13. On Oct. 12 (Skipps Largo’s birthday), five penalty spaces were landed on consecutively (three BANKRUPTS and two LaTs).

14. Sept. 22’s Mystery Round was a trainwreck and it didn’t help that Stephanie shockingly declined the chance at the $10K MW. And after she landed on $3,500…

S _ E A T _
P A L M
T R E E S

…she BOMBED OUT with K- where did that come from, girl?! -__- Lauren then mercifully solved SWEATY PALM TREES for the house minimum.

15. Though it was worth the wait for Lisa to become champion even after panicking 40 years ago, this episode was a slogfest all around and she needed the PP to make it to the BR, which proved to be bad news and it really showed after she didn’t realize we were SOLVING PUZZLES.

16. We unfortunately got SKUNKED for the first time on Veterans Week in all the times we’ve seen this theme and this taping day was a TOTAL WASHOUT.

17. Secret Santa unfortunately got a GRINCHING for the first time in history on the week of Dec. 5.

18. The Dec. 23 episode was a true LUMP OF COAL even though we had an ALL-MALE SWEEP for the first time since Show You the World from S38.

19. Brandie’s awful playing from Jan. 23.

20. The INTERNATIONAL GATE LINE incident from Mar. 8.

21. This season’s Margaritaville Week to end April was less than stellar.

22. Neil on the May 31 STAR WARS episode had the WORST luck on the show especially losing $23,250 early in R1.

23. This series of events on Mar. 1: biggest BANKRUPT of the season by Nina Lance in Round 1 depriving her of $13,250, the $11,099 EUROPE trip, and the XL wedge, a bad missolve by Angie Gautney saying LOW instead of LOX for the second unfilled word, and such a huge puzzle being solved for just the house minimum after a SPINGLE. Plus another blown solve by Nina in the Prize Puzzle for not counting the T’s carefully in A MAP OF THE RESORT and an uncommon word in the BR resulting in a car loss.

24. This was the first season in the play-for-cash format to have no six-round games.

25. Skipps Largo sadly had to leave the game show community for good after that chaotic Feb. 8 episode and the negative moments that made a serious impact on his mental health.

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🤪WILDEST🤪

1. While also mentioned by Friendship Feed, all but one of the weeks (that offered cars) had at least one BR car landing on the car, which broke the S30 record (with the exception of the sole week being Margaritaville), as well as $40K sweeps (the sole week being Grand Getaways). Interestingly, none of the weeks offered a Winnebago RV of any kind at all!

2. The solo Teen week for the first time since 1995 was one of the wildest weeks I have seen this season.

3. Despite Kellen’s conservative playing in his first appearance on Nov. 25, he still won a nice $22K cash & St. Martin trip. However, his second appearance was improvement though ended up in second place with an all-cash total of $19,350.

4. We went for at least 47 episodes before someone picked the dreaded THING in the BR, though OCCUPATION and SHOW BIZ were both never offered at all this season. And towards the end of the season, Andy and I had to label WHAT ARE YOU DOING? orange in the BR pick in our recaps due to the recent $1M and $100K losses being this category (and its high number of losses).

5. Apr. 4 saw something that has never happened since Apr. 15, 1999 in S16- Dane Christensen, did a re-spin during the Final Spin on air. After he spun LaT twice in a row and the BANKRUPT near $650, Pat came to his podium and asks for his dad Curt (a former S36 contestant) phone number- LOL! A similar Final Spin moment happened not long after that on Apr. 11.

6. Robin Cayetano from the season premiere spun only once during the entire game, calling a wrong letter on $600 in the Mystery Round. Even so, she solved that round’s puzzle along with Round 3’s, the second of the Triple Toss-Ups, and the Speed-Up.

7. During the postgame chat on Sept. 22, Pat showed the proper pronunciation of Antigua on his cue card.

8. During the postgame chat on Sept. 23, Pat read a letter from a viewer who sent him a “frayed knot” (a worn-out rope tied in a knot), which was a pun on the term “afraid not”.

9. On Oct. 11, for the first time since 1985, the BR was the longest puzzle.

10. After flipping a MW to find a BANKRUPT on the other side, John Salvetti tossed it behind him, only to notice the bag behind the podium too late. Pat then joked that a stagehand was decapitated.

11. Pat incorrectly stated during the post-game chat on Jan. 2 that the 21st century will be one quarter over in two years. As he says this, the following statement appears on screen: “Actually, he’s wrong. It will be 3 years, not 2. Please don’t tell him we did this.”

12. During the postgame chat on Jan. 27, Vanna claims that Brandon Broda, who was a hypnotist, hypnotized Pat after the BR. Vanna then conducted an experiment where Pat would do anything she asked of him. Every time she whispered in Pat’s ear, he silently gave her money.

13. On Mar. 2, contestant Devin Colbert Hall pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes every time he landed on BANKRUPT.

14. On Mar. 7, Pat pulled Santa Claus impersonator Greg Weichert’s beard during the interviews.

15. Pat gave Shawn Ham a fish prop as a souvenir on Mar. 9.

16. Pat jokingly pretended to wrestle Fred Fletcher-Jackson after he solved the Bonus Puzzle. In a highlights video posted on the show’s social media pages, there was apparently an alternate take of Pat covering Fred’s mouth with his right hand and Fred biting him. However, this take was not used in the broadcast version of the episode.

17. On Apr. 26, Pat and Jim switched places in the BR.

The Price is Right BEST/WORST Moments of Season 50

Like always, here’s the list of best & worst moments of this milestone season.

BEST

-Two new pricing games were introduced this season, Back to ’72 (exclusive to this season to celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary) and To The Penny, the latter of which is similar to Penny Ante.

-During the premiere week, one game per day was played for $1 MILLION.

-A two-hour primetime 50th anniversary special w/ high-value prizes in play and showing highlights from the Barker era was aired on September 30th.

-Robert Strupczewski on the premiere made a wise move to bail w/ $100K in Pay the Rent

-Stephen Brennan on 9/15 won a mountain house worth $131,765 from Secret X which was the highlight of an otherwise ugly episode.

-Alexis Gaube made her modeling debut in the 9/17 episode.

-Nat Nehdar played perfectly in the debut playing of To The Penny.

-Gisela Nersesian, former showcase winner from 3/7/2005 (won $37,229 to be exact), stayed on the winning side in her return on the 9/23 episode by winning Side-by-Side but did not advance to the Showcase this time

-Longtime TPiR co-producer Stan Blits retired after the 9/24 episode and made a brief appearance before the second showcase showdown.

-Thomas Story nailed it in his playing of Magic # on 10/8 as the show’s only PG winner, and then he went on to win the showcase.

-Ralph Valencia on 10/15 not only became THE FIRST DOUBLE SHOWCASE WINNER OF THE SEASON he came SO CLOSE to make it a TRUE DSW ($100 or less difference).

-During showcase bidding on the 12/15 episode Megan Monroe made this hilarious remark on buying boats after grieving over her low bid: “Have you ever bought a boat? Have you ever bought a boat? Neither have I. (Strangely, my father has, twice.)” LOL 🤣

-The week of 12/20 was unmerry for the most part (incl. our THIRD DOB THIS SEASON on the daytime 12/22 ep.), but that all changed ’twas the night before Christmas — Tristan Caley risked it all for $100K in Pay The Rent… AND WON THE BIG ONE (sadly, that was our only luxury PG win this season)!!!! Not only that, Peter Wetzel was the second contestant this season to win $26K SCSD bonus money and then went on to win the showcase for a final total of $67,559 cash & prizes, and that was THE SECOND OF THE TWO PERFECTOS!! Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas, indeed!

-A three-way bonus spin-off occurred on 12/29 w/ Theresa Howe becoming $26K winner #3 to go to the showcase, Katherine Martin winning $11K and Debra Pivko did not land on $1 again and took $1K.

-Melinda McIntosh became the first contestant to end the year of 2021 AS THE THIRD (& final) DSW WINNER THIS SEASON since Brooke in 2004.

-Eugenia Ingino went on a road to redemption on 1/5 — From being a victim of a skunked first half after losing Most Expensive, to winning a $11K SCSD bonus to winning a high-value showcase for a final total of $50,721 cash & prizes.

-George Williams in the First Responders primetime special that aired 1/12 went against the odds and won the infamous Gridlock and then the showcase to land in the top three (as of the OAD) in season winnings w/ $98,773. Carly Torkel & Selena Laniel (the latter is an American Ninja Warrior alum) also had big wins in their PGs during this special.

-Lucas Carvalho on 1/20 MASTERED One Away w/ a perfect playing.

-It may not have been much in terms of winnings, but “The Talk” primetime special that aired on 1/20 was still pretty entertaining to watch, and we also have that “TπR” joke on the board in Do The Math.

-Lucas Carvalho on 1/20 MASTERED One Away w/ a perfect playing.

-The 2/1 episode saw the first instance of having three perfect IUFB bids in one episode since Season 43.

-A new record in celebrity charities was set on the Valentine’s Day primetime special as a whopping $125,567 collected by newlyweds Justin Hartley (This is Us) & Sofia Pernas went to Operation Therapy!!! Also, Lorraine & Mark Mendiola went against all odds and won a difficult setup of Cliffhangers & went to face the eventual winners, the Yuns, in the showcase w/ $55,526 (both couples were car game winners, BTW; the latter couple won for a total of $84,547 cash & prizes).

-Patricia won $25,414 in prizes in the early ’90s after winning a showcase that included a boat, and she did it again over 30 yrs. later on 2/16 this time w/ $48,197 cash & prizes!!!

-Angela Heslop on 2/18 NAILED IT at her playing of Race Game and took the win in ten seconds.

-After a very strong start in Dream Car Week during the wk. of 2/21 (sans TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing of Triple Play), this week quickly started to tank (Days 3 & 4 were the low point), until we got to Ten Chances during Day 5 where Melissa Parrigo WENT AND WON ALL PRIZES INCLUDING THE FEATURE DREAM CAR, THE AUDI E-TRON, AND AT THAT MOMENT SHE’S THE NEW S50 LEADER W/ 125,616!!!!!!! But she wasn’t done here, because she picked up a $1K SCSD bonus and WON HER SHOWCASE to bring that total up to $159,040 to put her as this season’s biggest showcase winner and the 5th biggest winner in the show’s history!!!!!!!!

-The week of 3/21 had three 4-for-6 PG shows.

-Ester Campbell on 3/25 put together a perfect playing of Bonus Game.

-Robert Devaughn on 4/8 stole the spotlight by helping w/ calling down contestants from the audience to Contestants’ Row and presenting showcases, even though he lost his car PG of One Away.

-Despite its rough start w/ the IUFB all-overbids the wk. of 4/11 was solid for the most part w/ two $54K+ winners and 19-of-30 PGs won for the week.

-Quincy Hughes on 4/21 displayed good sportsmanship for his Shell Game loss and then went on to win his showcase.

-This show was inducted into the  National Assoc. of Broadcasters Broadcasting HoF on 4/24.

-Although he made a bid that we weren’t so sure about in the showcase of the 4/25 primetime special (but thankfully he came here to explain it) 7-time game show veteran Hans von Walter won the bigger showcase for a total of $65,270 cash & prizes (and w/ a whopping $33K+ difference off the ARP) redeeming from his Money Game loss.

-Eleda Matorin on 4/26 came THREE DOLLARS SHY of a DSW.

-Katherine Americano who has a cool last name won two cars on the episode airing 5/13, one from Pathfinder and another from the showcase for a final accumulated total of $59,330 in cars & smaller prizes.

-Christopher Munoz on 5/16 killed it w/ his playing of Any Number and then winning his showcase for a total of $61,597 cash & prizes.

-Garland Williams on 5/17 managed to win Bonkers in eight seconds.

-Scott, Drew, Devin & Rachel’s high-stepping improv and Emily Seagondollar’s showcase win for a final total of $50,972 were the highlights of a 5/31 episode otherwise not worth talking about.

-Despite a somewhat slow start, the week of 6/6 gradually got better and went on to become the BEST WEEK of the season w/ seven cars won and four winners going over the $50K+ mark, and all w/out the help of luxury prizes! Wednesday & Friday were the highlights as the former had a $26K SCSD bonus win as well as a Gas Money win, and the latter went 5-for-6 in PGs, all of the first six were called up to play games, and we had a car winners’ showcase for the lucky seventh and final time this season.

-Marcus Ramsey came $4 shy of a perfect playing of Cliff Hangers during the Summer Beach Party special airing 6/20.

-Even though he wasn’t the showcase winner in this year’s TPiR 4th of July military special, Nathaniel Novak, a pediatric nurse in the Navy, tee’d off from Hole in One and was the top winner w/ $42,630 in prizes including the car.

-We had a Car Winners’ Showcase in the following episodes: 9/21, 10/19, 11/17, 12/27, 2/14 (primetime), 2/21 & 6/10.

-Six $26K SCSD bonus wins in these following episodes: 9/29, 11/1, 12/24, 12/29, 1/4 & 6/8

-Two perfect PG shows (10/19 & 12/24).

-Double overs (8) were down half from last season, and it’s a good thing we didn’t experience a repeat of the barrage of double overs from late last season.

-Notable showcase winners throughout the season: Anthony Parthner (50th Premiere Week; Sept. 17, ’21; $87,986); Lanora Driscoll (Regular Play Week; Dec. 6; $86,730); The Ramos Estrada Family (Holiday Family Night; Dec. 22; $51,773); George Williams (First Responders; Jan. 12; $98,773); Whitney Stevens (The Talk; Jan. 19; $42,499); The Yuns (Valentine’s Day Special; Feb. 14; $84,547); Hoa Mary Tran (Baby Shower Special; Apr. 4; $48,795); Kayden & Ashlyn Roxas (Siblings Day Special; Apr. 18 (should’ve been the 8th); $39,164); Hans von Walter (Rachel Brosnahan charity; Apr. 25; $65,270); Renee Werner (Teachers Appreciation Day Special; May 3; $29,327); Laura, Lisa & Tiffany Weldon (Mother’s Day Special; May 6; $50,455); Anna Dorfman (Beach Party Special; Jun. 20; $43,069); Berlyn Hernandez (Fourth of July Military Special; Jul. 4; $40,526); Nathan Graeser (50th Anniversary Daytime Special; Sept. 5, ’22; $42,192); Melissa Parrigo (Dream Car Week; Feb. 25; $159,040; Biggest showcase winner of the season).

WORST

-Only one luxury pricing game win this season as mentioned before.

-Too many SCSD dud spins compared to previous seasons, and there were two instances of having seven of those in a single week (wks. of 9/20 and 2/7). Spins are getting weaker, so I really think they should loosen up the big wheel for next season, so instead of contestants (especially those physically disadvantaged) trying to spin as hard as they can just for the wheel to go around once they could control the strength of their spin in hopes of trying for the $1.00 spin, thus creating strategy as Adam Alam said on his “How to Improve Wheel” post on Andynwof’s site about loosening up the Wheel in Wheel of Fortune in order to reduce predictable penalty spins and increase the chances of $5K FS landings.

-There were only three double showcase wins compared to the eight of last season, and none so far in the year of 2022.

-Seven WSDs (over by $250 or less) on these following episodes: 10/18, 12/9, 1/26, 3/3, 3/16, 4/7 & 5/4.

-We still have contestants make the dreaded mistake of saying “FALSE” four times in a row on Five Price Tags (Contestants guilty of making that move: Arehly Arroyo Alvarez (10/22), Lisa Ivey (1/21),).

-Daisy Nwosu suffered a heartbreaker coming up just short of winning the car in Pocket Change on 9/29.

-Kiana Moreland made on the daytime 9/30 episode made the fatal mistake of switching out the car price in Switcheroo.

-Hampton Clarke may have denied the perfect PG show on 10/7, but it turned out that he was actually off the hook (sort of.. maybe not…) for that…BECAUSE WE HAD OUR FIRST DOUBLE OVER THIS SEASON despite that Hampton himself was part of it.

-Kelly Mayer on 10/27 TOTALLY BOMBED HER PLAYING of the same game right above, but she redeemed herself winning the showcase.

-A skunked show ended up being avoided on 11/3 by a playing of the beloved Plinko.

-Minus Dice Game, things began to crumble in the second half of the Veteran’s Day episode, and the downfall was complete when WE HAD OUR SECOND DOUBLE OVER THIS SEASON — That’s not honorable AT ALL. -___-

-Servio Ivan’s range in Range Game PAINFULLY FELL SHORT OF THE ARP BY A LOUSY SEVEN DOLLARS on 11/12.

-The week of 11/22 shortened for Thanksgiving was, quite frankly, not very thankful at all. Monday, two painful car losses but we did go partial on Golden Road,. Then on Tuesday we have Gabrielle Williams who won $17,478 cash & prizes on 8/31/1977 incl. a Chinook RV, who has discovered that time has caught up to her 44 yrs. later and she failed miserably at her playing of Ten Chances. And then finally on Wednesday, we not only had a skunked first half, speaking of skunked, we had our first & only weekly car game SKUNKING this season. Furthermore, the outcome of the showcase was SPOILED in the promo (but Drew did a good job covering up the total & prizes). And to make matters worse, only 7 of this week’s 18 PGs were won. And that is all we had this week. Total thanklessness.

-Laura Koens upped the ante w/ Hampton and Kelly on that game on 12/9.

-Allaine Benson is this season’s lowest showcase winner of the season coming out of there w/ a measly $23,587 on 1/25. Yeah, this week was just abysmal which also included Nadine McDaniel-Allen’s WSD by $131 and three TOTAL TRAINWRECKS.

Disastrous first half of the wk. of 2/7 — Card Game heartbreak by $85 and low showcase win on Monday; First IFUB all-overbid of the season, more Switcheroo disaster, skunked first half (One Wrong Price ended up saving us from a skunking in the second half) and another low showcase win on Tuesday; Not-so-great show on Wednesday, but a car win in Any Number salvaged it. A $50K+ showcase win on Thursday picked up a little bit of momentum the rest of the way, but even then this week was forgettable at best.

-Susan Kowalski let greed get the better of her in Pay The Rent on 2/17…and watched all of what she had won up to this point explode in her face.

-March came in like a lion for Victor Velez as he WIPED OUT on the Big Wheel during the first showcase showdown of that episode (spinning 5 then 100).

-The 3/3 episode saw no PGs won but a partial averted a skunking. We also ended the episode w/ Stephanie Heipie WSD’ing by $151.

-William Freeman on 3/4 not only denied a perfect PG show he also went over on his showcase.

-The week of 3/7 was plagued by TRAINWRECKS (three of them this week incl. two in a row on 3/9 (first time that happened since 5/8/2017)), and let’s not forget about Michael Jaeger’s $20 Card Game heartbreaker (any other card would have done it).

-Nicholas Garabedian (CSUF) on the Spring Break ’22 special airing on 3/14 aka Pi Day made a dumb bid on his showcase, and he was over by a whopping $17,843 in what has to be one of the STUPIDEST OVERBIDS in the show’s history — Nicholas, if you come here and see this, I hope you have a good explanation on that, man. -__-

-Christy Snider was living in a world of hurt on 3/16 right before the St. Patrick’s Day break as not only was she part of THE FIFTH DOUBLE OVER OF THE SEASON, SHE WSD’d HERSELF BY $34!!! UNBELIEVABLE! JUST UNBELIEVABLY UNLUCKY!

-And to make it worse at the beginning of that same day, Ryan Thompson suffered a similar fate as Nicholas Garabedian on his playing of the luxury pricing game Pay The Rent, foolishly taking the risk for $100K, showing no understanding of the pricing of the items or the odds against him…and paid the ultimate piper for it crashing all the way back down to nothing. Just, why? -___-

-Grant Davis on 3/25 missed out on the $82K Maserati in Golden Road, but he did win both of the minor prizes.

-Ryan Sans on 3/29 blew it BIG TIME in the second round of Cover Up by thinking the $25,348 Hyundai Ioniq Blue hybrid hatchback was worth $20,685 — You clearly haven’t been following the hybrid market, man. -__-

-Arianna Ibarra in the Grammy’s Special that aired on 3/31 foolishly guessed 0 on the last digit on Lucky Seven — Why would you pick that there, girl? -__-

-Hoa Mary Tran in the Baby Shower Special airing 4/4 TOOK A PAINFUL BAILOUT OF $10K WHEN GOING ALL IN WOULD’VE WORKED OUT.

-Holly Gibson on 4/5 was a deserving FFBC victim thank to her overly-conservative IUFB bids.

-Not only did Genevieve Ott on 4/6 put together a TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing of Make Your Move, SHE WAS AMONG THE BIDDERS IN THE SIXTH DOUBLE OVER OF THE SEASON.

-We had not one, but TWO IUFB ALL-OVERBIDS in the 4/11 episode.

-The Siblings Day Special aired ten days late (4/18 instead of 4/8).

-Katherine Weiss on 4/22 struck out on 3 Strikes w/out getting a single number up on the board, but it’s not a total trainwreck playing (the first three draws would all have to be strikes which hasn’t happened since the ’80s).

-We had a car game wipeout in the 4/25 primetime special featuring The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel star Rachel Brosnahan.

-Melanie Silvernail on 4/28 really disappointed me by losing at Five Price Tags despite having three picks. Furthermore, we NARROWLY escaped the clutches of Pepé Le Pew w/ a win on the sixth and last PG.

-The 4/29 suffered big from TWO TOTAL TRAINWRECKS IN THE FIRST HALF (& not surprisingly, it was a skunked first half for the second day in a row) w/ the fifth game of this episode also averting a skunked show.

-During the Teachers Appreciation Day special airing 5/3, middle school math teacher Jeneen Stubblefield spelled out P for PAINFUL $3K BAILOUT, and, ironically enough, Amy Hull, being a jack-of-all-trades HS teacher, lost at her playing of Do The Math (I guess Math isn’t her strong suit…).

-Melinda Carney on 5/9 foolishly risked her $8K in It’s In The Bag and then lost it all.

-A good day for both Telesia Glenn and Michael Rich was ruined on 5/12 BY OUR EIGHTH AND FINAL DOUBLE OVER THIS SEASON.

-Evelyn Hirshberg’s IUFB bidding on 5/13 was just not good. None of them even came close to being realistically right.

-Kenneth Perkins the troll making false double over announcements whenever Bobbymgsk didn’t post his recap in time.

-Showcase for 5/19 was underwhelming after a 4-for-6 PG performance.

-We were on track for a perfect PG show on 5/23, but then things crashed hard w/ a painful Shell Game loss by Elizabeth Rivera. And, although Joe Smith spared Elizabeth the embarrassment of costing us a perfect show w/ a Line ’em Up loss of his own, he ended up becoming the loser who won the showcase w/ a total of a dismal $28,659 in prizes.

-Mackenzie Price of the 5/25 episode just could not get her last name right w/ her lousy IUFB bidding landing her a deserving send-off to the FFBC.

-Alejandra Gomez-Murillo set the tone for a disastrous 5/26 episode and rest of week w/ A VERY BRUTAL TOTAL TRAINWRECK PLAYING OF THE LUXURY GAME TRIPLE PLAY, losing out on a potential $140K in cash and prizes, including 4 cars (3 in 3xP and 1 in the High SC), and $25K on the Big Wheel had she won her $1K and nailed the Bonus Spin.

-For the second time this season in the wk. of 5/30, and first & only in a full week, the lower-SCs swept the board.

-Genevieve Ispas on 5/31 put together put together what is possbily THE WORST TOTAL TRAINWRECK PLAYING of Spelling Bee.

-It took Renee Nettles on 6/14 a whopping 27 guesses to figure out the first item in Clock Game, and then Drew goofed by saying “LOWER” at $440 when he meant to say “HIGHER”, resulting in the timer to be paused and reset at :11.

-And then we had this in the showcase — We’re not even sure if Jason Grant even paid attention to what he was bidding on. His showcase, “Flashy Prizes”, contained the following: 2022 Black Denim Harley-Davidson Iron 883 (883cc engine, 5-speed transmission, helmet), designer Jewelry (Ring Come True: 14kt white gold criss-cross ring with moissanite gemstone and 3 rows of lab diamonds; moissanite tennis bracelet set in 10kt white gold) and a trip to Paris (RT Coach to Paris, FR for a 6n stay in a fully-furnished rental apartment courtesy of Feels Like Home in Paris + 1 dinner at Eiffel Tower, sighstseeing Seine River cruise). The ARP…. $23,957. His bid… $41,200, over by a whopping $17,243.

-For the first time since 2013, the TPiR 4th of July special showcase was won by a loser.

-Nathan Graese PAINFULLY went over the ARP of the camper by just $11 in Range Game in the daytime 50th Anniversary special serving as the season finale.

And that is your BEST/WORST moments for Season 50 of The Price is Right. Report anything I may have missed, whether it’s other highlights not listed here or typos.

Wheel of Fortune Top 25 Moments of the 40 Year History

We are counting Down to the Big Milestone on Wheel. We are entering Season 40 in September.  Before the New Season Begins, Let’s Look back at the Top 25 Moments from the 40 year History.

25. The Shopping Format appeared in Nighttime Wheel of Fortune, Contestants that Solved the Puzzle can Spend on Prizes until they can put it in Account or on Gift Certificate (1983-1988)

24. The Old Puzzleboard where Vanna White reveal the Lettters by turning the Tritons that was in use until 1997. It was Retired for the New Puzzleboard that is Currently in use where Vanna Touches the Tritons when it lit up Blue

23. The Bonus Wheel debuted in 2001 along w/ the $100K envelope replacing the five W-H-E-E-L envelope system.

22. LCD score displays replaced the eggcrate displays in 2002.

21. The Million Dollar Bonus Round made its debut in 2008 where the $100K envelope gets replaced w/ a $1M envelope should a contestant successfully hang on to the Million Dollar Wedge and win the game.

20. The $25,000 Envelopes were in Used until 2010.  The $25K Envelopes made their return for Celebrity Wheel

19. Infamous Missolves such as: A GROUP OF PILL-PUSHERS From 1999 causing Pat to yell “THIS IS WHEEL OF FORTUNE, JOE!” which resulted in going Viral like Julian Batts Infamous Missolve from 2014. And don’t even get us started on the likes of the Not Safe For Wheel BRIDAL & GOLD SHOWER and ELECTRIC COFFEE DRINKER.

18. San Francisco Episode from 1992 where in Round 2 when Vanna had a Miscarriage.  That resulted in Showing how they Getting Prepare for the Show.

17. Pat gets his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with Vanna receiving hers 12 years later. In a Hollywood Chamber of Commerce blunder, however, Pat’s plaque originally had a film camera instead of a TV set.

16. As an April Fool’s Day prank in 1997, 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.

15. Wheel 2000, a short-lived kid-centric Wheel of Fortune spinoff with a CGI co-host, premiered on CBS on 9/13/1997.

14. 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.

13. 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?” We were unfortunately SKUNKED for the second of four consecutive weeks that day.

12. Vanna started a three-week stint as temporary Wheel of Fortune host on 12/9/2019 while Pat was recovering from emergency intestinal surgery, with the first two taking place during the Disney Secret Santa Sweepstakes w/ Mickey & Minnie Mouse taking turns at the puzzle board, and the third week featuring Maggie Sajak over there (and past highlights of Maggie from childhood shown during the closing segments of those episodes). A week of reruns was also shown during that time.

11. 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.

10. Aurora DeLucia (aurora on BaV) from the 4/21/2020 episode has a meltdown after her BR loss and said that she’s a big loser and she hopes no one was watching this, and she “gave birth” to “twins”.

9. There were instances after 2001 of $100K+ being won the hard way w/out the help of that coveted envelope, including Chad Ruter ($100,623) in 2015, Sheri Blank ($110,100) in 2015, Dave Andrade ($113,055) in 2020 and more. There were also several instances of that amount being won before 2001.

8. Scott Kolbrenner on 3/18/2021 became the biggest male winner in show history w/ $145K! He donated all of his $138K in cash winnings (remember, he won a $7K trip to Costa Rica) to charity.

7. Laura Trammell became the first contestant to EVER WIN A HOME IN THE BONUS ROUND (choice of a house in Watersound, FL; Daytona Beach, FL; or Hilton Head, SC) worth a staggering $375,000! That makes Laura the biggest known non-million winner EVER w/ $398,690 CASH AND PRIZES!!!

6. Sarah Manchester took home $1M from the Bonus Round to take her grand total to $1,017,490!!!

5. Michelle Loewenstein was the FIRST-EVER $1M winner on the show and her grand total of $1,026,080 was the all-time highest until…

4. …Autumn Ernhard became the second contestant to ever win the $1M grand prize to make her the ALL-TIME BIGGEST WINNER IN THE SYNDICATED VERSION OF THE SHOW w/ $1,030,340!!

3. We had a record six grand prize wins during Season 30 (incl. Autumn’s $1M win), and then that mark was tied in Season 38 (incl. the first-ever house win) and then broken in Season 39 w/ a lucky seven (all were $100K which also sets the record for most wins for that amount)!

2. During the week of 2/7/2022, we had the first-ever instance of not two but THREE CONSECTIVE $100K WINS as well as the first-ever instance that it was won that many times in a single week! This caused Pat to jokingly storm off and say “Who’s gonna book my trip to Vegas?!” — LOL 🤣

Now before we complete the countdown, here are a few honorable mentions:

-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.

-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.

-The dominating maingame performances from contestants like Robert Santioli, Amber Kain and Amy Smith.

-Three famous celebrities were in costume and played for charity (there weren’t any prizes involved) in the special 11/2/2000 episode of Halloween. Celebrities in disguise: Shakespeare: fitness guru Richard Simmons; The genie: former figure skater Tara Lipinski; Osment: “JEOPARDY!” host Alex Trebek. Too bad the episode itself was underwhelming gameplay-wise, but still, it was fun to watch, and the gameplay was mostly for laughs similar to Celebrity Wheel.

-LaToya William’s tiebreaker win late in S33 resulted in a $100K win.

And now here’s the #1 greatest moment of the 40 year history of Wheel of Fortune…

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Melissa Joan Hart on the 10/17/2021 episode of Celeb Wheel BECAME THE FIRST-EVER CELEBRITY MILLIONAIRE GIVING HER A TOTAL FOR THE FIRST HALF OF THE EPISODE OF A STAGGERING $1,027,800 ($1,039,800 grand total after the second half)!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jeopardy! BEST/WORST Moments of Season 38

Here’s the highlights (& lowlights) of this historic season (feel free to add suggestions and report any uncaught typos/goofs):

BEST

-Just like on WHEEL, we had a new music package (incl. re-orchestrated versions of cues from the prev. package though “Thinking Time” was unchanged).

-The Jeopardy! stage at SONY Pictures Studios was renamed “The Alex Trebek Stage” w/ a new background graphic.

-Three instances of tiebreakers this season (one during Game 3 of the Semifinals of the National College Championship).

-Much more long-term champions this season compared to especially last season.

-Two true clean sweeps on Daily Doubles where contestants wagered everything (or wagered the max available in the given round) on all three DD clues and were correct on all of them.

-Two instances of a champion’s first two wins having the same exact score going into FJ!.

-Early season-bests in weekly winnings, combined Coryat, Lach trash (triple stumpers) and more set during the first three weeks of the season which of course proved to be anomalies, showing the prowess of Matt Amodio.

-After the previous week’s miss we scored a PERFECT DD WEEK on the wk. of 10/4 with that Friday’s episode featuring a SEASON-BEST COMBINED CORYAT SCORE of $51,200!!! Would’ve had a clean-sweep there too if Max Godnick hadn’t come up w/ the twisted incorrect response of painting & stitching a horse into a zebra, but we did have one on that Tuesday.

-Matt Amodio’s run from late last season carrying well into October finally concluding his 38-day $1,518,601 run (becoming the show’s FOURTH-EVER MILLIONAIRE including a non-Holzhauer record for highest single-day score of $83K set on 10/4; This run was the second-longest of all time until it was surpassed by Amy Schneider w/ 40 a little later into the season) on the 11th, being unseated by Jonathan Fisher who would go on to become an ultra-champ himself on an 11-day $246,100 run, the best run ever by a “giant-slayer” (and first to pull such a feat), overshadowing Buzzy Cohen. Oh, and by the way, Matt’s demise was not spoiled in advance by the media like w/ Ken Jennings or James Holzhauer, which was very surprising.

-Kate Kohn finally got on the show in November after two delays forced her to wait.

-Andrew He, Amy Schneider’s immediate predecessor, set a record for highest first-day score w/ $52,001 on 11/10, and their combined efforts resulted in the first-ever instance of two consecutive champions winning $100K throughout their first three games.

-We had the first-ever Jeopardy! Professor’s Tournament run 12/6 through 12/17.

-Cory Anotado, the founder of BuzzerBlog (formerly gameshownews.net), got on the show January 13th during Amy Schneider’s reign.

-Amy Schneider made all kinds of history during her run on the show — The show’s FIFTH MILLIONAIRE AND FIRST WOMAN MILLIONAIRE, first openly-transgender contestant to qualify for the Tournament of Champions and taking it all the way to 40 days w/ $1,382,800 along w/ many other records!!!

-From 1/17 to 1/28, the Jeopardy! Explore Alaska Sweepstakes was held. To enter the JEOPARDY! Explore Alaska Sweepstakes, viewers were invited to tune-in to JEOPARDY! every weekday and enter the daily Final Jeopardy! category on the sweepstakes entry webpage, sweepstakes.jeopardy.com. Then, they would be entered for a chance to win an expedition for two exploring authentic Alaskan coastal wilderness from the unique vantage of a small ship. Each winner and their guest would receive round-trip coach-class air transportation from the winner’s closest major gateway airport, $1,000 US spending cash, as well as all shipboard accommodations, meals (excluding alcoholic beverages), and activities for travel valid in 2022 or 2023.

-A fun fact about the 1/25 episode: There was a “SEE LIFE” category in the J! Round, a “”C” LIFE” category in the DJ! Round & “SEA LIFE” was the category for FJ!.

-The Jeopardy! National College Championship hosted by Mayim Bialik went underway Tuesday, February 8th primetime (8pm-9pm ET) and ran Tuesdays through Fridays until February 22nd. There were two games per episode.

-The Finals (especially Game 2 of it) of the NCC was a happy ending to a sad story as Game 2 was a tremendous improvement in gameplay quality (which is to be expected, especially given the quality of the Quarterfinals) and enjoyment (not to say Game 1 wasn’t enjoyable too despite the lackluster Coryat scores in that game).

-Amy Schneider had gotten engaged to girlfriend Genevieve Davis announced via an Instagram post towards the end of February.

-Being a breast cancer survivor, Christine Whelchel ditched her wig on the 2/28 episode in a move to normalize cancer recovery.

-Starting on 3/21 and taking inspiration from the NCC, previews of the next day’s contestants were shown at the end of each episode.

-The unaired 1964 pilot of the show was livestreamed on YouTube as part of the show’s 58th birthday.

-Mattea Roach put together another historic run this season w/ a 23-day total of $560,983, becoming the winningest Canadian in the show’s history, youngest ultra-champion at 23 and another LGBTQ+ representative for the ToC along w/ other records! Although it was kind of easy to predict when her run would end based on declining performance and fatigue in the last days.

-Ryan Long’s rollercoaster 16-day $299,400 run.

-Leigh Jahnig and Robert Won were some of the most competitive pair of challengers we had seen in quite some time. In their encounter on 7/8, they had a tight match going between them w/ Robert going into FJ! w/ $23,700 and Leigh w/ exactly $16K and no incorrect responses between them. They both came up w/ the correct FJ! response and Robert emerged as the winner BY $1 over Leigh w/ a score of $32,001 while outgoing champion Brian Ahern busted out w/ the sole incorrect FJ! response (his fourth overall incorrect response in the entire episode, in fact) even though he had virtually no chance of winning anyway. Sadly, Robert was O&D’d out the next episode.

-Even though the game itself was terrible no thanks to a category relating to Herman Wouk tripping up the panel resulting in an awful J! round, we had our first clean sweep in DDs and FJ! on 7/18 since 3/24, and as it turned out, we were $1 AWAY from having a TRIPLE TIEBREAKER.

WORST

-Mike Richards was fired as EP of this show and WHEEL in the wake of sexist scandals.

-Announcement of Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings becoming permanent hosts for next season not being announced until the final days of this season.

-Fans unfairly judging and even flat out ABUSING Mayim Bialik on social media.

-Only five DD and FJ! clean sweeps vs. 11 last season.

-Quite a few instances where clues that shouldn’t have been triple stumpers were triple stumpers.

-“Countries of Africa” and “Historic Geography” were the categories of the two toughest FJ! clues of the season (possibly all-time).

-Two instances of going an entire month without a FJ! sweep (December and May, the latter of which took place during the longest FJ! sweep drought in the show’s history which lasted 59 episodes).

-Matt Amodio has been known to set many records on this show, but on 9/21, he set a wrong kind of record for largest-known dollar amount lost in a Daily Double wager since October 2004 ($15K).

-Just like at some points late last season there was another instance of Matt Amodio crossing out a correct response on 9/23 which cost us a clean sweep on this episode.

-Fans bullying Matt Amodio and making unwanted remarks about how he pronounces his answers (“What’s [response]?”) which was deemed perfectly acceptable EVEN BEFORE Alex Trebek’s passing as well as calling his opponents “subpar”, some of which had stats worthy of an average champion trapped in a buzzsaw.

-One missed Daily Double on 10/1 ended up denying a perfect DD week on the wk. of 9/27.

-Shoddy gameplay and lack of strategy from the women challenging Jonathan Fisher on 10/19 led to an all-around disappointing episode.

-Erin Coningsby’s overly-conservative playing on the 10/21 ultimately proved to be costly for her.

-At the end of Jonathan Fisher’s run, we were SKUNKED on Daily Doubles in back-to-back episodes (10/25-10/26; first two times this season) for the first time since December 23-24, 2019. Oh, and by the way, the end of Fisher’s run signaled the end of a 9-week streak of weekly champion sweep alerts that dated back to late last season.

-After unseating Jonathan Fisher, Nancy Donehower was one-and-done just like the Nancy that dethroned Ken Jennings all the way back in 2004, ending the streak of 2+-time champions. Not to mention the following week started off on a bad note w/ a Daily Double SKUNKING for the second week in a row, and it was a losing week for returning champions for the first time this season starting 2-0 then finishing 2-3.

-Matt King joined unwanted company on 11/23 tied third w/ Christy Gibson (-$6,400 in 2012) for lowest score in the show’s history, and that was the second consecutive episode where a player missed out on participating in FJ!.

-Ugly second game of the Semifinals round of the Professor’s Tournament and lackluster second week.

-Promising J! Round on the Christmas Eve episode but then the episode took a sharp downturn afterwards.

-Some stations hinted at Amy Schneider’s demise by airing the promo for the episode *multiple times* throughout the day (along w/ her appearance in talk shows). Also, Washington Post and the New York Times got themselves in a TON of hot water w/ J! fans as they SPOILED HER LOSS via PUSH NOTIFICATIONS!!

-Rhone Talsma, another giant-killer who’s a Chicago librarian just like Emma Boetcher, pulled a Nancy Zerg becoming one-and-done one day after dethroning Amy Schneider by BUSTING OUT in FJ!. Safe to say this week took a deep nosedive after that.

-Ben Sloat wagering nothing in FJ! on the Groundhog’s Day episode costing him the win.

-The Quarterfinals round of the National College Championship was nothing but a FLUNK-FEST especially during the second week (and especially in the last three games) — While Anna Muthalaly, a junior at Duke University from Game 10, played sloppily and deservingly flunked-out from participating in FJ!, the behavior by some fans towards her because of her posture was TOTALLY unacceptable. Dave Rapp who was the reigning champ at the time on the regular series had been doing the same thing but hadn’t gotten a single word for it. That was and STILL IS SEXIST and RACIST and gives the rest of us a bad name.  Meanwhile, the last pair of quaterfinal games were DEFINITELY the worst of them all where Game 11 fell apart right at the end of the J! Round where we had a SEASON-WORST 19 TRIPLE STUMPERS (later tied on 3/11) and then of course FJ! was a triple stumper. Well, speaking of worst, the final game of this round WAS THE WORST OF ‘EM ALL! SEASON-LOW (to date) combined Coryat score of $18,600, a SEASON-WORST OF $21,200 CORYAT LOST TO INCORRECT RESPONSES along w/ our eighth overall DD SKUNKING this season, and the winner of this game, Megan Sullivan, advanced to the semifinals w/ a score of a dismal 8,401. Game 12 of the Quarters broke me in a way none of the others could in this PAINFUL round of games.

-Disaster episode on 2/24 where we had our sixth regular-play DD SKUNKING this season and ninth overall and we barely escaped from having a total washout w/ only one correct FJ! answer, and don’t forget about a dreadful $17,400 of Lach trash from 17 triple stumpers.

-The week of March 7 was truly one of the MOST PAINFUL weeks of Jeopardy! I have ever covered in my four years of blogging about game shows.

It never started on the right foot as on Monday, Clay Cooper was knocked out of FJ! eligibility w/ a negative -$2,400 score, a regular-play-worst $18,200 Coryat lost to incorrect responses, the multi-part FJ! was a triple stumper and Maureen O’Neil won with a lousy $2,200 (season-low winning-score to date).

Tuesday didn’t really fare any better as we had our seventh regular-play DD SKUNKING and tenth overall this season.

Wednesday, SEASON-WORST in Correct/Incorrect responses and a NEW SEASON-WORST LACH TRASH of a whopping $20,400 from 16 triple stumpers.

Although Thursday (aka Mario Day) was the only decent day out of this week for this show, that really didn’t help soothe the pain of this week, and it didn’t help that Maureen’s FJ! wagers that week were overly-aggressive, but she only made it that far w/ a shot at sweeping the week because she was lucky and her opponents weren’t that strong.

Moment of truth for Maureen came Friday….ABSOLUTELY NOT BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T EVEN GET A CHANCE TO DEFEND HER TITLE AS SHE WAS SENT HOME BEFORE FJ! w/ a score of -$2,600. Just brace yourselves….. there was also ANOTHER SEASON-WORST FOR CORRECT/INCORRECT RESPONSES RESULTING IN A SEASON-WORST FOR THAT CATEGORY WEELKY FOR THIS WEEK, SEASON-WORST COMBINED CORYAT OF $15,400 WHICH RESULTED IN A DESERVING SEASON-LOW IN THE WEEKLY CORYAT ($129,200), ANOTHER SEASON-WORST LACH TRASH OF A PITIFUL $22,600 AND MATCHING THE LOW-MARK OF 19 TS’s (also triggered a SEASON-WORST here too in the weekly stats until Week 35), and then another $14,600 lost to incorrect responses securing a SEASON-WORST FOR CORYAT LOST TO INCORRECT RESPONSES IN A WEEK. Didn’t help that new champion Matt Glassman finished w/ a dismal $8,900, making this week THE WORST for weekly winnings until it was surpassed in Week 41 (Week 42 was not too far behind passing this mark too). I almost thought of going on vacation after that wreck, but I just soldiered on.

-Lach trash of an unlucky $16,600 from 18 triple stumpers on the St. Patty’s Day episode, but the FJ! wagers were strategically good.

-We may have had a clean sweep on DDs and FJ! on 3/24, but on the week of 3/21, we were SKUNKED on returning champions for the first and only time this season, not to mention 3/25 containing an instance of an easy FJ! clue ending up as a triple stumper. Didn’t help that Jackie Kelly came out of that w/ a dismal $7,500.

-Here is the FJ! clue under the category “Singers” in the opening episode of the skunked week of 3/21: “In 2021 at 95 this singer achieved a Guinness World Record for the oldest person to release an album of new material.” Well, both Karen Johnson and outgoing champion Finn Corrigan caused social media to GO MAD by responding w/ “Who is Diana Ross?” while new champion Margaret Chipowsky had the correct response of “Who is Tony Bennett?”. Karen and Finn took to Twitter to apologize to Diana Ross for this incident.

-We had a single-player FJ! on 4/20 (first time since 10/13/2020) w/ Loni Lewis and Sean Wong both missing out on FJ! w/ -$600 and -$1,600, respectively w/ Mattea Roach being the sole survivor in this case.

-Claire Dozier, husband of Jason from the not-so-merry 12/23/2019 episode where we had the first of two straight Daily Double LUMPS OF COAL back then, didn’t really fare too much better than her husband and finished second in a buzzsaw of $2,399 in a Mattea Roach runaway.

-The week following the end of Mattea Roach’s run was NOT a good one AT ALL, especially as far as Lach trash goes, and that resulted in a new SEASON-WORST LACH TRASH for the week. I ended up taking the following week off. Ending of this week did see the start of Ryan Long’s run, however. First half of the next week didn’t do too well with the Lach trash, either.

-We had not one but TWO TOTAL WASHOUTS on the week of 5/23. The 5/26 episode, which featured the second of those, was the WORST EPISODE OF THE SEASON. Combined pre-FJ! score was a pathetic $17,600, and of course a low Coryat score, very high Lach trash and so much Coryat lost to incorrect responses. There was NOTHING good about this episode, and I’m saying this even if it took place during Ryan Long’s reign. The brutal difficulty of the multi-part FJ! didn’t help, either. This week just never gained traction.

-The following took place in what was quite possibly THE WORST MONTH IN THE SHOW’S HISTORY in June — Tom Philipose foolishly wagered everything in FJ! on the 2nd and ended up busting out along w/ fellow challenger Maya Sudarsana even though it didn’t matter w/ Ryan Long’s wager; Mayim Bialik and the show faced backlash for apparently “bullying” Michael Toughill in regards to his FJ! response on the 7th; Ryan Long was alleged to have THROWN his last game but denied those claims; The FJ! clue on the 17th under the category of “19th Century Contemporaries”: “Congratulating her on the 1869 release of her biography, Frederick Douglass wrote, ‘I have wrought in the day –you in the night’”. The correct response was “Who is Harriet Tubman?” All three players came up w/ the correct response…but the problem is, Sadie Goldberger was DQ’d FOR LEAVING OUT THE LAST LETTER OF THE RESPONSE MEANWHILE SHE ADDED AN EXTRA ‘T’ TO THE FIRST NAME. So instead of her dethroning current champion Megan Wachpress w/ a score of $17,300 and finally putting an end to the ridiculously long FJ! sweep drought, that fatal mistake dropped her all the way down to $2,300 in last place and allowed Megan to extend her run to then a 4-day total of $51,601; On the 20th, Megan Wachspress’s win of $401, which was the lowest-scoring win this season, triggered bad history in her breaking Donald Burgo’s record from April 1986 for lowest 5-day score in the history of this version of the show (Burgo won $26,180 when the dollar values were half of what they are today; that translates to $52,360 — $358 more than what Megan has won), and then she was lucky enough to bring that run into one more day, albeit w/ yet another low score after yet another lackluster game, on the same day that Mayim Bialik announced she had COVID (Disclaimer: This was during the airing, NOT taping, of this day’s episode). and then when her run ended the next day, we had a dubious 14th (overall) DD skunking this season (possibly a record); Megan Wachpress won w/ a margin of $2 three times, but not exactly under good terms, but if that’s what she wanted, we go with it; Jeopardy! faced more backlash regarding the spelling of a FJ! answer; Marina Hays on the 28th made a middling FJ! wager that eliminated any chance of her winning the game; Halley Ryherd went viral for her incorrect response on the clue about Public Enemy where she confused that hip-hop group w/ Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch on the 29th. Two consecutive instances of a contestant setting a season record for lowest departure score (even though the latter of which took place on July 1st); Hoa Quach on the 30th overwagered BIG TIME which proved to be costly in this low-scoring game.

-Disappointing 4th of July episode.

-This is where things started going wrong for Jake Marvin of the 7/5 episode — We have this clue… “This word means lateness in loan payments & can lead to another “de” word, default”. Correct response… “What is delinquency?”, but Jake was DQ’d for using the wrong form of that word (delinquent). Even more infamously (and he went viral for this), after landing the first Daily Double… “Your standard phonograph record until the 1950s, or the age Diana Ross turned in 2022.” Remember the incident relating to Diana Ross’s age back in March that caused an uproar on social media? Well, IT HAPPENED AGAIN when he incorrectly guessed her age to be 90 when it’s actually 78. And to make matters worse, here is the clue for Final about national historic sites… “Less than 100 yards north of the J. Edgar Hoover Building is this notorious location”. Jake TOTALLY FORGETS THE CATEGORY and comes up w/ “What is Watergate?” which is a scandal and not a location (maybe he was thinking of the Watergate complex or Watergate office building), zeroing out and cementing his dishonor as among the season’s WORST CONTESTANTS.

-Trailing in a lock-tie situation (having exactly half the score of the leader) on 7/12, Ben Coller foolishly didn’t go all in on his FJ! wager effectively eliminating any chance to push for a tiebreaker or in this case taking advantage of leader Steve Clarke getting FJ! incorrect after wagering $1 in order to avoid a tiebreaker w/ Ben. Steve would be done the next day after foolishly thinking Corpus Christi has any remote chance of being connected to 3rd century B.C. ancient Greek philosophy.

-Long Islander and game show veteran Alfred Guy didn’t have much to add to his résumé from his latest game show appearance on this show.

-Here is the $600 “You Call Yourself A Fan?” clue of the Thursday episode of the finale week: “The ‘Cameron Crazies’ are students who show undying support for this university’s Blue Devils basketball teams.” Eventual champion Katrina Hill caused a STIR in the college sports world by referring to that fanbase as UNC fans when that nickname actually belongs to the fanbase of decades-old rival Duke. I’m sure both of these fanbases facepalmed hard at that oh so very wrong response. That would have been even more embarrassing had she not won.

-Mathematical errors in FJ! wagers somewhat plagued the final week of the season.

And that’s your very long list of best and worst moments of Season 38 of Jeopardy!.

Let’s Make a Deal BEST/WORST MOMENTS of Season 13

Like I said, this season was much larger-scale both in terms of length and overall budget compared to last season, so to compare and contrast the two wouldn’t really be fair, although I gotta say after a mostly brutal first half (minus those on-target BD wins revealed second) things picked up considerably towards the end, after reassessing & re-looking through all of this season’s episodes (& correcting mistakes that I missed before). Here’s the best and worst from it all (feel free to shoot us some suggestions on what to add to those lists, as well as some reports of typos that may have gone unnoticed).

BEST

-This season introduced Mega Money Monday (ft. Drew Barrymore) where $10K is in play hidden in any deal, and Fabulous Car Friday where a game (or two) is played for a luxury-valued car.

-More primetime specials.

-Debut of new games such as Trader’s Court.

-On target BD win record (revealed second) improved SIGNIFICANTLY vs. last season (and a handful of those averted total ep. flameouts (including the otherwise unlucky St. Patrick’s Day episode) and snapped long losing streaks).

-Back-to-back on-target BD wins to start the wk. of 9/20 (not including the preempted 9/21 episode which was rescheduled to 11/4) and those were the first two of the season.

-Yancy on the 10/22 episode started her marriage off the right way by picking Door #1 and averting a BD skunking.

-Brendan received $10K as part of Mega Money Monday on 11/1 from Tiffany for bringing a guitar pick, which was the BIGGEST QD WIN TO DATE!

-The Big Deal was revealed second for three days in a row from 3/1 to 3/3 (was won on the former two but was sadly LOST on the third day and for the fourth week in a row).

-Long time LMaD veteran Armida made her third appearance on the show on 4/15 after previously appearing in the 1963 pilot and in 2020.

-The 4/18 episode was a banger — Not only was the three-week BD drought SNAPPED, we had four perfect deals, two car game wins (0 to 80 and Cash Register), and the BD was REVEALED SECOND (fourteenth such win this season)! Now if only there were fewer Zonk victims, then I would’ve given this episode a PERFECT 10.

-The budget for the Mother’s Day episode was quite generous (four perfect deals w/ one being disguised as a Zonk).

-Recklessness went very good for Zakia during the 6/1 primetime special celebrating National LMaD Day, trading her Jeep Cherokee for…

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…A 111-DAY, 6-CONTINENT & 48-PORT WORLD CRUISE (incl. 10 on-shore excursions) WORTH $76,006!!!!!!! Hopefully, that expensive cruise doesn’t get forfeited, because that gutsy trade did consequently result in a car game SKUNKING this week.

-This season ended w/ a PBDW (whether intended or not).

WORST

-Our struggles still continue w/ Accelerator (including the TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing for the first Fabulous Car, a Porsche Cayenne worth $77,420, and same thing in the Zonk Redemption special (the originally intended S.F.) for a Ford Mustang GT Fastback worth $40,420 which was the last Fabulous Car offered).

-Also a fair share of heartbreaking bailouts & losses of car games, like usual, most notably Jazlyn’s Timeline heartbreaker in the 4/4 episode.

-Not nearly as many perfect aired Quickie Deal weeks compared to last season.

-Multiple lengthy car game droughts throughout the season.

-Only four Fabulous Cars were given away.

-A high number of preemptions due to soccer, the capitol hearings & other special reports.

-PBDW was denied at the end of Week 2 in the Tony Awards special that was originally supposed to air 5/12/2020, paired along w/ an unaired QD skunking.

–TOTAL FLAMEOUTS in these following episodes: 9/30, 10/8 (incl. a TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing of 3 of a Kind for that ep.’s Fabulous Car, a BMW 330i worth $46,770), 10/19 (via PD trade-down), 11/12, 11/16 (via PD trade-down), 12/9, 12/15 (incl. an Accelerator TOTAL TRAINWRECK), 1/5 (incl. a BD KNOCKOUT multiple times in a week for the first time this season, and we were also immediately SKUNKED on BDs this week to start 2022, and we also saw that SD streak extend all the way to 1/12), 1/18 (incl. a contestant making the dreaded mistake of saying “BLACK” five times in a row in Red or Black), 1/31, 2/9 (during what was the WORST WEEK OF THE SEASON (skunked in both car games and Big Deal (starting w/ our sixth BD KNOCKOUT this season, 11 Zonk victims during the week and a tie for SEASON-WORST at the time w/ just three PDs), 3/21 (via PD trade-down), 3/21 (via PD trade-down and that was the second week in a row that started w/ a QD SKUNKING) 3/24 (via PD trade-down and incl. a Ca$h Train WRECK), 4/11 (via PD trade-down and incl. the first TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing of Go For a Spin since 11/5/2019), 4/22 (via PD trade-down & incl a Beat the Dealer TRAINWRECK and Monica stupidly thinking that there was a movie based on “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” which cost her the Fabulous Car of the Day, a ’22 Lexus RX 450h worth $53,840, and it’s a shame because of how this week went up to this point), the 6/8 Costume Spectacular primetime special (but that wasn’t all that bad because of the prizes won in the minor deals) & 6/28 (via PD trade-down), and that’s not including the flameouts containing Medium Deal wins.

-These following prizes went to waste in a TOTAL TRAINWRECK playing of Keep on Rollin’ on 10/7: Round Viking Spa + pair of contemporary rocking chairs ($5,551), Island Windjammers cruise ($10,318) and a Nissan Kicks.

-Karen foolishly traded away a KIA Forte FE in hopes of going for the Big Deal in the 10/11 episode…and that backfired when she ended up w/ the Small Deal, a reqteq grill/smoker & All Spice Cafe sauces ($2,248). And to make matters worse, we had an unaired QD SKUNKING. And ironically enough, a different Karen went on to win the Big Deal two days later.

-We suffered our second car game skunking of the season during the scary Halloween special.

-Jason on the 11/3 episode intentionally settled for the home theater pkg. in his deal to go for the BD, but it backfired as he ended up w/ the Small Deal (Bike/Inline Warehouse roller skate pkg. ($2,950)).

-These following prizes went to waste in a Five Card Wayne TOTAL TRAINWRECK on 11/19 (the episode featuring Jay Leno): Balenciaga accessories ($6,305), Dine W/ 9 party ($4K) & $15K.

-Thanksgiving week wasn’t very thankful — Not only we had our first BD KNOCKOUT this season ending a seven-episode winning streak in this order to start this season, we had our first BD SKUNKING this season the following day.

-Kala on the 12/16 episode was infamous for this reason — She won a ’22 Hyundai Elantra SE in 0 to 80, but you’d think there wasn’t much hope Kala would go for it? THINK AGAIN- SHE BLEW IT IN WHAT HAS TO BE THE MOST FOOLISH BD OF THE DAY GAMBLE OF ALL-TIME (her family said they would kill her if she didn’t go for it, but maybe they will now (ended up w/ the SD (DISRUPT surfboards + Lucky Jack drinks)). It’s also unfair to those who didn’t win as much on this show that would’ve loved to go for the Big Deal. And I STILL HAVEN’T FORGIVEN HER for this stunt she pulled there, and humiliating her family on national television in the process. SO STUPID AND INCONSIDERATE OF YOU KALA! 😡 😡 😡

-We started the new year w/ a BD KNOCKOUT for the first time since 2012.

-Janelle on the 1/21 episode FOOLISHLY gives up $15K in hopes of going for the Big Deal…and that was indeed a HORRIBLE MOVE (won rec teq grill, Margaritaville machine & Nick’s ice cream ($2,249) (SD)).

-We had what was the MOST PAINFUL AND EXPENSIVE TOTAL TRAINWRECK PLAYING OF ONE DIE GALAXY WITH A LAMBORGHINI HURACAN EVO SPIDER WORTH $347,093 IN PLAY in the 1/26 primetime special that aired on Bobbymgsk’s birthday (Andre did receive consolation money, though, but still, that did nothing to heal the intense pain of this event).

-There were two car games (Go Big or Go Home and Pair-a-Dice) ending in TOTAL TRAINWRECKS during the 2/7 episode.

-Speaking of the wk. of 2/7, which was the WORST WEEK OF THE SEASON, the wk. of 2/14 really didn’t fare much better, as we suffered our SEVENTH BD KNOCKOUT OF THE SEASON during the not-so-romantic Valentine’s Day episode, and we also had back-to-back BD SKUNKINGS. That’s because the 2022 Winter Olympics wasn’t kind to the program.

-The BD was KNOCKED OUT RIGHT OFF THE BAT five weeks in a row February-March and three of the five weeks during that stretch started that way.

-The wk. of 3/28 ended on a very BRUTAL note as on 3/31 (ft. country music singer Jimmie Allen) CASH REGISTER ENDED IN A TOTAL TRAINWRECK and DICE DUEL ENDED IN A HEARTBREAKING BAILOUT, and what’s even more unfunny is that we had a DOUBLE TOTAL TRAINWRECK during April Fool’s (Ca$h Train and Keep on Rollin’; Prizes gone to waste on the latter: PRO-FORM elliptical trainer & TEMPO gym, Furn. Town Plus D.R. + dinnerware, flatware & serving board and Fabulous Car Porsche Macan), and on top of that, we were SKUNKED on the Big Deal for the sixth time this season as well as on car games for the eighth time this season. Didn’t help that we also had a DOUBLE SKUNKING back-to-back the following week as well as THREE STRAIGHT BD SKUNKS for the first time since May 2015 and before Easter for the first time since 2018.

-A lackluster one out of five Quickies were won on 6/8.

-The eighteenth on-target BD win of the season (& back-to-back in unintentional aired order) was ruined by an aired QD SKUNK.

And that’s your list of BEST/WORST moments of Season 13 of Let’s Make a Deal.

Wheel of Fortune BEST/WORST Moments of Season 39

As we’ve said before, this was probably the wildest season we’ve ever seen. And as usual, the best and the worst. Feel free to tell me what I should add to those lists.

BEST

-Albeit on a limited basis, WHEEL was once again open to contestants outside of Los Angeles and surrounding areas!

-Changing Keys returned as the theme song for the first time since S17.

-The category strips were redesigned for the first time in thirteen years.

-This season broke the record for most grand prize wins at seven (w/ an astronomically rare instance of the grand prize being won not once, not twice, but THRICE in a row!)

-We were FLIPPING OUT when Michael DiTommaso and Calvin Lee just beat THE FINAL BUZZER despite no help from their extra letters (AKA pulling an Emil de Leon, though in the latter’s case, he left out THE in his response).

-We had a PBRW on “Margaritaville Home Sweet Home” though we didn’t have a house win this year.

-Despite Kayla Giebler on Dec. 17 only spinning once during the entire maingame, she still won $10K from the Triple Tossup, meaning she has the record for most money won by such a player.

-On the week of January 17 (Collette Show You The World), four contestants in a row won $10K from the Triple Tossup.

-On January 27, Alyssa Boekel finished in third-place w/ an all-cash total of $19,250. But the highest third-place total in the show’s history is set by Tyler & Adam Jones on February 27, 2017. Interestingly, Shiela Dudley won $24,140 cash & prizes in R3 alone.

-Between February 10 and February 14, three contestants in a row won two trips (by claiming the Wheel Prize and solving the Prize Puzzle).

-We continue the streak of both the season premiere and the season finale having BR wins at 3.

–Amber Kain’s dominant performance on Dec. 9 winning $44,014 cash & Disney plus she won $45K in the BR for solving FOUNDING MEMBER to become the temporary S39 leader.

–Frank Villalobos from Dec. 27 gives us the first $50K win all season long after two losses in the season.

–Patrick Mehler may not have won the BR, but he put up an excellent performance w/ a new season-high maingame total of $51,740 cash & Barbados.

–Michael Iliopoulos was a great player on Feb. 1, 2022 and what’s nice is that he provided a video about maximizing your moment on the show…

–Roman Luko and Stacy Sheeran had an intense match w/ the latter winning $26,350 cash & GC. And she helped averted the SKUNK THREAT by solving BAMBOO GROVE for the Ford Escape SEL.

WORST

-Karen Griffith retired from the show for good. And Mike Richards was fired as EP of this show and J! in the wake of sexist scandals.

-Overhead shots were occasionally not used during spins.

• The CC used guesswork for the spelling of contestants’ surnames, resulting in many of them being misspelled or misinterpreted.

–Shewta Balasubramanian only spun twice during the entire maingame on October 1.

-We had five $100K losses in the season and in regards to one of them, we were IN AN AWKWARD POSITION on October 4, because David Marsella BLEW THE EASY $100K.

-On September 22, 2021 (the start of autumn), Debbie Broadnax made a costly S repeat, costing her $4,650 right after she picked up the MDW. That wasn’t the only bad thing…Julee Levine threw away $3,400 plus an $8,250 trip to Vermont to the MW BANKRUPT near $650. Is there any reason why you wanted to gamble the trip, ma’am? -__- The latter lady ended up in second place w/ $7,700, but would’ve won the game had she swept the Triple Toss-ups.

-On December 15, the Speed-Up puzzle read…

F L _ _ C _
_ A R M _ F F S

Daryn Friedman BLEW IT w/ FLEECE ARMCUFFS — don’t think they even exist. Latrice Slader then lit up four E’s…

F L E E C E
E A R M _ F F S

She still got the answer ONE SECOND TOO LATE! UGH. -__- Michelle Harrell then FINALLY stole FLEECE EARMUFFS.

-Former director Dick Carson passed away at age 92 after a brief illness.

-On December 21 in the BR, Charlene Rubush chose GDHI, which all made the puzzle…

_ H _ _ S I N G / T H E
R I G H T / _ _ R D

She’s incorrectly CHOOSING THE RIGHT CARD before she’s CHOOSING THE RIGHT WORD…but the problem is that she’s been DQed for taking a long pause between the last two words, so she lost the Audi Q3. To make matters worse, Audi still gifted her w/ the car, meaning WHEEL is still doing this malarkey involving “technical wins”.

-There weren’t any acknowledgements on Pat’s 40th Anniversary of becoming the host of the show.

-A dubious FOUR TRIPLE STUMPERS.

-Only one maingame went to R6.

-Not one, not two, but THREE infamous (and very tedious) rounds took place.

The first happened on March 1 in R2 where Laura Machado COMPLETED A TRIFECTA OF EPIC FAILS by botching the last word w/ HAT, LAP, and MAP. Furthermore, EIGHT consecutive turns were lost and none of them were edited out into a null cycle. Of course, the answer was ANOTHER FEATHER IN YOUR CAP.

On March 16, the R3 puzzle read…

R _ N _ I N G / A
P _ D A _ / B O A _

Crystal Alstot blew the solve w/ RENTING A PADDLE BOAT, not noticing the A was close to the P. If that wasn’t bad enough…

R E N T I N G / A
P E D A _ / B O A T

Seann Brown foolishly repeated the same wrong answer Crystal said. After both ladies BOMB OUT w/ M and W, respectively (Michele Kuperus laughed at his missolve before spinning — that’s NOT very nice, lady! 😡), he FINALLY gets RENTING A PEDAL BOAT for $750 and a FlighGuru trip to Hammock Cove Resort & Spa in ANTIGUA worth $10,300.

And finally, in the EVERYONE IS INVITED Speed-Up fiasco on the unlucky St. Patrick’s Day episode, the only three consonants that weren’t selected were Q, X, and Z.

-During Scott Ingwersen’s interview on March 9, he reveals that he had his big toe chopped off at the age of twelve (he fell off riding a ten-speed bike, completely cutting off the top of his toe; a couple of paramedics saw this and reattached his toe with some laceration, a word that freaked him out back then). However, Pat said that was the most pointless thing he’s heard in his life — that’s NOT very nice, sir! 😡

-Here’s the Crossword puzzle from April 7:

•               L E A T _ E R
•               A           O
•               C           R
• _ T O R E           _

Just before Kristine Thompson was buzzed out, she said the F-Word under her breath — this is a G-Rated show, ma’am! 😡 Leah Fulton then got the last remaining word of HORN.

-Vanna’s cat named Stella passed away on April 25.

-Hawaii Week was one of if not the WORST week of the ENTIRE SERIES. PERIOD. Some of the bad playings include KC Crain’s foolish K and J calls and unnecessary LaT leading him to get a DESERVING $1K GOOSEEGG from us, and Jennifer Thomas’ HORRIBLE L call in M U _ _ I N for the crossword of _______ PAN. And listen to this explanation from Tenaya Maxwell from February 23 who went viral for that NSFW and PATHETIC guess of JURASSIC PARK BODIES that went viral. What’s shocking is that she has seen all the Jurassic Park movies. -__-

-In the PP Round on March 30, Shannon Moore crashed on the EXPRESS late w/ D when the board read…

_ R O _ E N
C O N C O C T I O N

If that wasn’t bad enough, Chris Davidson was DQed for adding “a” in front of the answer (we heard a man in the audience groan at that mistake and Chris tried to correct himself, but wasn’t allowed to do so), so Carol Majewski will enjoy a FROZEN CONCOCTION on her trip to the Wyndham Rio Mar in PUERTO RICO from the Margaritaville Vacation Club by Wyndham worth $8,363. His $50K loss in the BR was the rotten cherry on top for this whole episode.

–Robyn Brewer from April 26 lost $18,900 cash & Alaskan Cruise to BANKRUPT to TD. While we felt bad for that penalty spin, her trajectory the rest of the way was unbelievable — first, she thought F would work for the down across word of _OOT when the crossword clue said “ON YOUR FEET”, costing her $12,500. Second, she chose M for mistake in the next round to lose $5,400 and the PP trip of Belize, allowing Sheida Karami to SPINGLE for a $500 B and solve to win that PP trip. And finally, in the Speed-Up,

A / _ E S T
_ O _ / L _ _ E

Robyn just missed this one w/ A NEST FOR LIFE. and Sheida solved A ZEST FOR LIFE for the house minimum. It weren’t for her two Toss-Up solves, she would have been given the DESERVING $1K GOOSEEGG. I even commented that her search for a husband just got harder after that embarrassing performance.

-Things were going fine on April 29 until the chaos beginning in the Triple Toss-Ups — Marlon Buie didn’t remember the category of THING and thought of BEACH HAT (that’s WAYW?) and BRAD PITT (that’s a PROPER NAME). He also said REVISE IS WISE in the next round of RHYME TIME, when it was actually REFUSE TO LOSE.

-Late in R1 on May 3…

_ E L _O _ E
T O / F A B U L O U S
L A S / V E G A S
N E V A D A

You Expect: Katie Tansey to remember the famous sign since the prize wedge all week long was to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Instead: She thought H would go up there, costing her $6,150.

-Disney Ultimate Princess Celebration on the week of November 1 was disenchanting for the most part. Some notable misplays included Sharon Bowers’ AND addition on the crossword clue of WHAT A PRINCESS!, costing her the $10K MW (she did get the lost money back by sweeping the Triple Toss-Ups) and John O’Brien’s EPIC BOMB-OUT of D in the crossword of ALL ABOARD when the second down word read C R E _ , costing him $10,400 (he redeemed himself by solving CUTE JACKRABBIT for $39K).

-Late in the R1 on May 25…

S T U N N I N _
_ A S T – S E C O N D
_ I C T O _ _

You Expect: Somebody to call L, because it makes sense to say LAST-SECOND.

Instead: Derrick Muhammad and Meaghan Ferneau both FLUNK OUT saying P and F are up there while they’re each on the FLORIDA trip — PAST?! FAST?! -__- Derrick squandered $7,300 cash & GC after that mistake.

–HORRIBLE first half on the start of Gone Fishin’ on May 30.

-tjdygks57 gets BANNED for spoiling the set info and prize in Andynwof’s June 6 placeholder recap.

And that’s your BEST/WORST moments for Season 39 of Wheel.

25 Words or Less BEST/WORST Moments of Season 3

BEST:
57 $10,000 Winners of the Season totaling $570,000
Melissa Peterman & Amber Stevens dominated the Game which resulted in New Champions or Repeating Champs
Best Team: Jimmy Lee & Marianne who won Over $50K in Cash & Prizes

WORST
5/27 was indeed the Worst Episode of the Season due to Incomplete rounds & BR Loss
6 Skunkings This Season
118 BR Losses (Most Ran out of Time & Some said the Word on the Screen) (Most ended up with Vacations)

Hopefully we get a Season 4