Your weird childhood Wheel beliefs

I thought that if Pat landed on either penalty space, no one would score in the Final Spin round.

Also, I thought that Pat spun Free Play and they went with it on one episode.

EDIT: Yay, my 500th post!

I've been a fan of Wheel since January 1993 when I was just two-years-old. When I first got into it, I was under the impression that the show was taped outside. As I said here a few years ago, that's one thing I miss about the show: having the environment look roomy, spacious, and welcoming almost as if the game was indeed being played outdoors (although this indeed would happen when the show taped in Hawaii). Another thing was after the Final Spin, I didn't see the Puzzle Board's border. So I was left to believe that they removed it solely for the Speed-Up. Playing around with my Wheel of Fortune board games from Pressman, I removed the Puzzle Board's border to emulate this.

Then you have the Wheel. Back in the nineties, I actually wasn't used to Prize wedges, tokens, or four-digit values being placed adjacent to non-cash spaces, particularly Bankrupts. So the Round 4 Wheel at the time seemed quite odd to me at first: a Prize placed next to Lose A Turn and $1500 next to Bankrupt. Then you have the intro layouts used from 1992 to 1997 that had $2500 next to Lose A Turn. There was also $3500 next to Bankrupt in Round 3 of the SNES version as well as $5000 next to Lose A Turn in my Live Play game. Today, in an ironic twist, all that is actually why I have $2500 and $5000 next to Lose A Turn and $1500 and $3500 next to Bankrupt on my own custom layouts.

I was also unused to two spaces of the same value or color being separated by only one space or no spaces, although I now know that has been happening quite often. Nevertheless, I make sure that two wedges of the same value are separated by at least two spaces and make sure that any $500 spaces are at least three spaces away from Free Play on my custom layouts. My daytime layouts had $300 at least three spaces away from Free Play since as I made $300 the face value for that wedge.

Then you have the values that I never thought I'd see: $650, $850, $950, $2000, two-digit-values, values ending in 25 or 75, and of course $1250. Then certain values in certain colors. I'm sure all of us including myself could go on and on with that, but I think I'm better off restraining myself here.

I remember for several years I thought Pat and Vanna were husband and wife, and it wasn't until Leslie was on an episode with Pat and he introduced her as his wife that I realized Pat and Vanna weren't married.

I don't know if this counts as weird childhood beliefs, but when I was a kid, I always thought the padded top of the podium (where contestants rest their hands) looked so soft. I have always wanted to feel the top of the podium and squeeze.

I'll tell you what. When I first saw the $10,000 space, I thought it was pink. Before the nineties came to an end, however, I realized it was gold.

Another belief I had was in regards to the overhead views as the Wheel was slowing down. When I was younger, I thought there was a person up there. Even so, I heard recently that was actually true when the 1974 pilots were taped.

Similar to how I thought in regards to how Puzzle Board looked during the Speed-Up Round (read above). Interesting.

Now as you mentioned the pegs, that itself reminds me of something else. Sometimes, it looked as if the pegs were pointing outward from the Wheel rather than upward from it. I didn't know perspective, line-of-sight, and other stuff like that until later on as my toddler-aged mind was still trying to develop.

i may have faulty memories of a Free Spin wedge that acted like a bridge between the original design and the later token

I thought the same thing! WABC didn't start carrying the Saturday reruns until July 1999 at the latest (wheelfan82 recently found a tape of one with a NY Lottery drawing dated such, predating my earliest recollection of the start of the 1999-2000 season), so I definitely remember them having the new board, then the old one temporarily "returning", and I was so happy because I loved the old border design so much more than the new one, then was sad after a few more months and it never came back.

I wonder when the last trilon board S14 Saturday rerun was. Surely some trilon board episodes must have aired outside GSN in Summer 1998.