Is anybody officially credited with the title of EP?

From what I'm hearing, Michael is technically the EP, but is not present at tapings, so rulings and other matters in the studio are handled by the remaining producers (Steve Schwartz, etc.) and Pat. Take this with a grain of salt, but it would explain not only why he's not being credited, but also the fact that he hasn't acknowledged Wheel at all since he first got the gig for the two shows.

And just like Harry, only the other game show is getting all the creativity put into it this season and Wheel is running on autopilot again. Wheel needs Mike back. The only reason he got fired was because of the power J! fans and alumni have on Twitter, and how much that vocal fanbase influences the show. Nobody cared enough when he was with TPIR/LMAD, and nobody would have if he had tried to take over hosting Wheel.

Mike got fired because he's a piece of shit. He did it to himself.

It's really not that big of a surprise that Michael Davies is giving Jeopardy more love than Wheel. After all, what game show was he best known for producing for many years? The original US version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Which of the two Merv Griffin-created shows produced by Sony is more similar to WWTBAM? Jeopardy, of course. To the point that several Jeopardy alumni have also been on Millionaire.

Sony probably should have gotten two different people to replace Harry when he retired, one to produce Wheel, the other to produce Jeopardy. Maybe they could've hired Mike Richards as Wheel's producer, and Davies as Jeopardy's producer. Then all that BS that got Mike fired would never have happened because he would've been focusing on just Wheel. But given Sony's financial troubles the past decade, I'm not surprised they wanted to hire just one person to replace Harry.

If they do get a new EP for Wheel, they need to get someone who really truly loves the show and cares about it's future. Because if it keeps running on autopilot like this, who knows how much longer the show will last.

From the reports I read last summer, Mike's presence was very uncomfortable for the staff of Jeopardy!, and I would assume that since both shows share several employees it would have been a very awkward and tense workplace with him sticking around. Gifted at his profession or not, Mike Richards is simply the product of his own undoing.

All that aside, I must say that Sony has a penchant for poor decision-making, particularly its hiring practices both behind-the-scenes and on-camera. Having control of multimillion dollar properties requires sound judgment, yet the company treats them like they're an afterthought. By all accounts, Michael Davies is doing a spectacular job in his role as interim EP next door. Why can't the company afford to do the same for Wheel? The more I think about it, it seems more like a Sony problem than a Davies problem. Remember this when the time comes to find Pat and Vanna's successors.

Because some of you continue to forget this...



I'm not the only one tired of reading it, and it's dragging the reputation of our community (and everything we've worked so hard to build) through the mud. As such, if it continues, we will be suspending accounts.

Final warning.

I don't think it's the fact that J! isn't capable running without an active EP, it's that the last EP left the hosting situation in such a huge mess that it needed more care in the short term to right the ship.

I appreciate the fact that Wheel has done some changes, but eh. The major problem with Wheel for me is that the show feels incredibly stale. None of those changes that you mention really garner any excitement for me, and I think it's largely due to the fact that the show kinda aged along with its target audience, and it doesn't feel as bombastic as it used to be. Hell, while I like the fact they're using Changing Keys again, I argue that the rendition we got is actually worse than the previous theme they were using, because that one had some real pulse to it, while the Changing Keys rendition plays to the lethargy that plagues the show. The last change the show made that actually excited me was when they changed the Bonus Round so that you could have your choice of three categories, because it really broke the monotony of having to see people lose utterly ridiculous Thing or Phrase puzzles every night. And now that variety is starting to fade again, so they messed that up too.

I've been mentioning to several people that the Wheel of my childhood (late 90s-early 00s) was the show's peak, and don't worry, I'm not one of those fanboys that wants every single little minute detail of it back (even though my fake shows are heavily inspired by that era). But there are two major things I'm fond of from that era that the producers really should embrace and bring back:

• The pacing. I don't know exactly what Wheel was doing 20 years ago to make the show feel like it was moving along, but they sure as hell were doing something correctly about it. I don't know if it was necessarily lack of sponsorships either, because Wheel had plenty of those back then (although I guess they didn't have to devote a bunch of time to the Prize Puzzle copy, but I digress). But it seemed like that pace slowed down over the 2000s, progressively got worse in the next decade, and is all but dead now.
• Pop cultural relevance. The show really seemed to have a finger on American pop culture and it was reflective in the prizes being offered and the cultural puzzles were a great reflection of the times. Now all the puzzles seem plucked right out of a travel brochure. The first season of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune was such a breath of fresh air because even though the game itself was super broken, everybody just seemed like they were having fun, from Pat and Vanna to the contestants to the people writing the puzzles (we need more of that stuff, please).

Mike seemed like the guy who was going to give Wheel the breath of fresh air it desperately needed; it was certainly showing signs of life again, but then he had to be Icarus on a different game show, and now all the progress he tried to make seems half-done at best. Wheel can certainly coast for now while the hosting situation at Jeopardy! stabilizes, but they really need an EP that's going to come in and clean house sooner rather than later, especially as the show approaches a major anniversary season.