Harry Friedman stepping down after Season 37

Best wishes to Harry, but this should have happened a long time ago. It became clear in recent years that Wheel was not getting the same love it got under Merv or Nancy. Next year, hopefully Jeopardy! and Wheel will once again be respected equally by Sony and the public. No more people calling Wheel "Not Jeopardy!, the other one."

If Mike Richards is the replacement, I see many good things for Wheel's future. Not sure if Jeopardy! really needs any shake-ups. It's definitely not lacking in culturally-relevant material and references unlike Wheel. That's the first thing that's got to change.

Interview with Harry: www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jeopardy-wheel-fortune-boss-opens-up-stepping-down-25-years-1228562


Some excerpts...

While I'm sure he's right about this, he failed to mention that Wheel is way more stereotypically popular with the elderly crowd than Jeopardy!, and vice-versa, with the daily trendy clue stills young people post on Instagram as they watch. I vividly remember Lady Gaga once posted a video on her Instagram of herself watching J! and laughing after a contestant gave a correct response "What is shade?" (in the context of "throwing shade")


And yet Harry let Wheel rot while all of that was going on...


While ignoring that the team weeks are often a mess with even more unbalanced game stakes than the regular weeks.


While I doubt this decision has anything to do with Harry and/or Pat's personal views, I'm pretty sure Harry is well aware that many of Wheel's viewers are conservative (especially with Pat's political outspokenness on Twitter), and Wheel is probably afraid of mass backlash or a ratings drop (too late for that) by having a same-sex couple compete on a couples week. We saw the various reactions on social media on that one January 2017 episode where a gay man kissed his fiancee on camera after winning the Bonus Round. But honestly, I think a same-sex couple is due to happen and it would bring much more good publicity than bad for the show (as long as they ease up on stereotypical puzzles; Girlfriend Getaways is bad with those). We did have a same-sex couple on Millionaire and nobody complained (though probably because Millionaire was just too under-the-radar for it to be even noticed, honestly).

Jeopardy should not be messed with, especially if Alex is still there after Harry leaves. Wheel probably could use some changes, as many here and elsewhere have talked about. MIke Richards may or may not get a job on J! or WOF in 2020. Perhaps Maggie Speak or Rocky Schmidt could get promoted to EP for Jeopardy, though they are about 60 years old. Harry became WOF producer late in the 1994-95 season(Pat introduced him as the new producer on that season's last week of shows), replacing Nancy Jones, so he will have 25 years with Wheel around the time the new season ends taping, but he didn't join J! until the start of the 1997-98 season, replacing George Vosburgh.

Until Harry (or maybe someone else) came up with the bright idea to change the cash minimum every year to the point that nearly every Bonus Round is played for either that or a less-expensive car, to the point that only 45 and 50K remain among the in-betweeners, and the amount of times they get won each season can be counted on one or two hands.

The season minimum was arguably Harry's biggest mistake during his tenure.

Harry has done a lot for Wheel: the electronic puzzle board, theme weeks, toss-ups, launching the Wheel Watchers Club, Million Dollar Wedge, Wild Card, Wheel’s base and puzzleboard adorned with neon lights (used since Season 21) and when the show began broadcasting in High Definitionin 2006.

Harry made a lot of changes to Wheel in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s.

The thing I will miss about Harry Friedman is every year on April 21, Pat Sajak says it’s his wife Lesly’s birthday and Harry’s wife birthday. Season 37will be the last season Pat will say their wives birthdays are on the same day.

Maybe the new EP will bring a lot of changes to Wheel just like Harry did in the late 1990s.

The resistance to featuring same-sex couples is disquieting to hear about. We are moving well beyond the point in American society where you can get away with sitting the fence on that front. I'm guessing it's some kind of worry about the reactions of the traditional older crowd that is seen as a buoy to Wheel's numbers but I think the number who would actually quit watching over it is pretty small, and Wheel really needs to be working more on what the younger generations think of it anyway.

Same sex couples were on Love Handles, a Canadian relationship show, circa mid 90s. Randy Amasia reported on Usenet that they appeared on other Canadian game shows using two member teams, probably referring to Talkabout, Bumper Stumpers and the first two years of Geoff's Chain Reaction. THe most recent run of Newlywed Game on GSN, a Sony-owned show, had George Takei and partner on circa 2010.

Many thanks to Harry for his years of dedication, but this was overdue for failing to successfully modernize the show to fit within the television landscape of today.


I think this might need to be put on ice. I'm not sure how it would be development for him moving from being the EP on Price and Deal to J! and Wheel.

The Sony deal called for him to develop and produce his own shows on a variety of platforms, so I would expect him to do that going forward instead.