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Post by pakman on Mar 26, 2019 21:00:10 GMT -5
I'm working on recapping all the episodes I have in my collection that have not been recapped on this forum. Most of the episodes I can figure out the original air date, but there's a couple that I'm unable to pinpoint when they aired. I thought I might post my information on these episodes and see if we can figure out when they aired.
Season 10 Episode The first episode I'm looking to identify aired in Season 10. I suspect this episode aired in April 1993, as the set is decorated to look like Easter (there's even an Easter bunny behind Pat). Easter in 1993 was on April 11, which means this episode probably aired before then. But I can't tell if it aired during the week prior (which according to the wiki was Teen Week) or the week earlier. My episode starts off towards the end of Round 1, so I don't have anything in terms of contestant introductions. I can tell you that all three players looked to be on the younger side, but I can't confirm if they're teens or not. Something else of note is that there doesn't appear to be a returning champ. Pat makes no mention of one, which could mean one of two things; one, there was a three-day champ who retired on the day before, or, two, if this was Teen Week, they may have adopted the Friday Finals format instead.
Season 13 Episode This episode is one I've actually already recapped. I believe this episode to be from February 1, 1996. My evidence comes from the wiki, which identified the week of January 28 as offering three trips in the Bonus Round to London, Paris and Italy. Those three trips are offered in this episode. The issue is that January 28 is a Sunday, which means this should actually be the week of January 29. In the episode I have, Pat tells winner Carolyn, "We have four prizes. Three of them are trips." This implies to me that the $25,000 has already been won. I'm unfortunately missing the Bonus Round, so I can't confirm this 100%, but the evidence suggests that it's been won. This means my episode is not January 29. Furthermore, my episode has contestant Cindy who is on her third and final day. Pat says during her intro, "We can't crack the Bonus Round, can we, Cindy?" Obviously Cindy has not won any of her Bonus Rounds, which means the prior two days were Bonus Round losses. With this information, we can assume this episode is not January 30 or January 31. And not once during the episode does Pat mention that it's Friday, which he usually does. This led me to believe it was February 1, 1996. However, there have been some questions as to whether this is actually true. In particular, I was reading the listing of theme weeks, and the theme week listed for the week of January 29 is Mexico, which this episode has no reference to. I know the follow-up to this episode is in circulation among traders, and at one point it was available online, but I'm pretty sure it's since been deleted. I don't know if that episode provided any clues as to the air date.
I've got a couple more episodes where I'm unsure of the air date, but those ones are a bit easier to figure out (they're from Big Money Week in January 2000). Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2019 21:19:27 GMT -5
The Season 10 episode of Wheel of Fortune you mentioned originally aired during the week of April 5-9, 1993. That week also happened to be Teen Week. I know this because the April 9, 1993 Teen Week Friday Finals episode used to be posted on YouTube & yes that episode was decorated to look like Easter. If you could tell us what day of the week the episode aired on we might have a better idea of the airdate.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2019 12:57:46 GMT -5
Sorry to double post! But I have information that might help you with the original airdate of the Season 10 episode you mentioned. I just remembered that on the 4/9/93 Teen Week Friday Finals episode(which is from the week you mentioned) every Bonus Round Prize was won that week except for the $25,000(this wasn’t even won the Friday Finals). Hope this helps!
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Post by pakman on Mar 27, 2019 15:40:02 GMT -5
It helps narrow it down! The episode I watched featured contestant Gerard winning an Easter trip to Italy in the Bonus Round. It came with a large supply of fancy chocolates, if I recall correctly. The episode also featured the least-expensive wheel prize I've ever seen; a camcorder with $1,100. I'm at work now, but when I get home I'll rewatch the episode and see if any other BR prizes had already been won.
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Post by aaaa on Mar 27, 2019 16:21:58 GMT -5
The least expensive special prize on the Wheel for syndication was a Video Camera worth less than $500 in the first syndicated season, and a $500 cash prize in that season with a big dollar sign on the special prize space denoting it. But for 1993, $1100 is about as low priced a special prize as there would have been,
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Mar 27, 2019 16:29:53 GMT -5
One of the 1992 San Francisco shows had a $1,000 gift certificate as the Round 2 prize, basically the Gift Tag before the Gift Tag.
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Post by pakman on Mar 27, 2019 17:56:17 GMT -5
Yeah, I haven't seen very many pre-1992 episodes, but I'm not too shocked to see low prices on those prizes, simply given the era. But in 1993, that seemed especially low.
I just went and double-checked my April 1993 episode, and two BR prizes had already been won before Gerard won the Italy trip, which means this is either the Wednesday or the Thursday show.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2019 18:21:12 GMT -5
Yeah, I haven't seen very many pre-1992 episodes, but I'm not too shocked to see low prices on those prizes, simply given the era. But in 1993, that seemed especially low.
I just went and double-checked my April 1993 episode, and two BR prizes had already been won before Gerard won the Italy trip, which means this is either the Wednesday or the Thursday show.
I can confirm that this was a Wednesday episode as the $25,000 prize was the only remaining Bonus Round Prize left in the Bonus Round on the Friday Finals that week. Meaning that the original airdate for this episode is 4/7/93. |
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Post by pakman on Mar 27, 2019 19:27:52 GMT -5
Thanks for all your help! I'm glad we were able to figure it out! I have a couple other episodes on this tape from 1993, but all of those have been recapped already, so I was able to determine when they originally aired.
Now if I could only get that pesky Season 13 episode identified, I'd be golden.
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Mar 27, 2019 19:37:40 GMT -5
Another good way to determine dates is to pay close attention to commercials or local news teasers.
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Post by pakman on Mar 27, 2019 21:45:08 GMT -5
^ Unfortunately, I'm out of luck on that front. Not only was the episode recorded from an April 1997 weekend rerun, but I also did not record commercials.
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Mar 27, 2019 22:59:26 GMT -5
Just wondering, not that it helps narrow down dates, but what station do your tapes come from?
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Post by pakman on Mar 28, 2019 1:54:26 GMT -5
WLS-TV in Chicago. It's the ABC affiliate.
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Post by aaaa on Mar 28, 2019 6:00:55 GMT -5
Also if there's a promo for a network series or a made-for-TV or made-for-cable(found out dates of USA game show rerun broadcasts this way) movie, Googling the synopsis of the episode will help you find the airdate the show originally aired, if it is promoting the original broadcast and not a later rerun.
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Post by pakman on Mar 28, 2019 7:25:12 GMT -5
That's actually how I was able to figure out the airdate of another episode on that tape from 1993. I figured out, without looking at the already-added recap, that it was the March 12, 1993 episode. Two clues led to me figuring that out. One, a commercial for a movie that came out March 24, which told me this episode couldn't have aired later than that. Then, a local news brief revealed two bits of information that ultimately helped me figure it out; one was an escaped drug kingpin finally being extradited back to Chicago (a Google News search narrowed this time frame to mid-to-late March) and the other was a big storm that was scheduled to hit the southeast starting that day (Google came to my rescue again, revealing the Great Flood of 1993 started on March 12). It also helped me confirm that an episode of English Countryside Week I had was the Tuesday show and not Wednesday (they aired commercials for their Wednesday night lineup and when the commercial closed, the announcer said something like, "All-new episodes this Wednesday!" If that date had been Wednesday, he would have said "tonight.")
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