WarioSajak
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Co-Owner of Karen's Pool Tables
Daniel, lover of classic "Wheel".
Posts: 1,892 
SPIN ID: DB2986720
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Post by WarioSajak on Apr 19, 2012 22:44:12 GMT -5
There really isn't much to say. I personally find her viewpoint, and most of those commenting, considerably off...although despite all the stuff I've said about Wheel, I'll praise them for not going the "tell us your sob story" route. This comment by "Lemonjello", whose wife won over $30,000 on the show, is quite interesting -- apparently, the producers demand that players not only don't show their sadness on TV, but constantly smile and clap. That same person says the producers do the same thing with the audience, which several users here have supported. What do you folks think?
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Post by woffan4ever on Apr 19, 2012 23:23:07 GMT -5
This article is just rude and insulting. And, over half of the people who commented don't even watch the show and never have. So, how can you can a valid opinion? The show is NOT the same as it was in the 80s! Were they offering a million dollars every night back then? I don't think so. Many changes have been made since then, many for the better...some, not so much. Nevertheless, it's still the #1 show in syndication with over 20 million viewers weekly. I've watched it proudly since I was three, and I will continue do so until it goes off the air or I die, preferably the latter than the former....If it's been going strong since 1975, then they must be doing something right.
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Post by stardf29 on Apr 20, 2012 5:33:02 GMT -5
The fast-paced-ness of Wheel has absolutely no effect on how much I wince when someone loses a ton of money on Wheel, either by Bankrupt, blowing a solve, or not getting the $100,000 in a BR. And boy, do I wince a lot watching this show.
Nope. Nothing casual at all about the money here.
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Apr 20, 2012 9:50:31 GMT -5
As if I didn't need more reason to hate Salon... Despite her overall negative attitude with the show, she does make some good points. She notices the sometimes-terrible puzzle writing, but one thing she brought up is something that I wonder myself. She talks about how Wheel "takes a back seat" to Jeopardy! and Price in "buzz" despite beating both in viewers. Concerning Price, the reason is obvious: lame "celebrity" stints and its appeal to college students. But I've noticed that despite Wheel beating J! in ratings consistently, J! seems like it has a bigger following. Jeopardy becomes a US trending topic on Twitter at least once a week (though never for too long), while Wheel rarely does. I believe the last time it did was the whole "Pat admits to drinking" incident, and we all know how most of Twitter reacted to that. ("duhhhh drunk is the only way i can watch wheel o ffortune")  I will definitely be checking to see if Wheel at least trends in Portland when those shows air. But why does J! seem like the more popular and more liked show? There are a lot of people who love J! and hate Wheel, but hardly anybody feels the other way around. I've seen a lot of people tweet various things about that night's J!, then as soon as it's over, they say things like "I f****** hate wheel of fortune". The two shows are not rivals; they're supposed to be equal with each other. It seems like any source that brings up Wheel has to turn it into a WOF vs J! fight. Check out this A-hole in the comments... I've noticed that Wheel outshines J! in some things, and vice-versa in other things. For example, Wheel gets more viewers, and the Wheel THQ video games sold more copies than J!'s (according to vgchartz.com), but J! seems to be discussed more on the internet, but I bet it has a lot to do with one thing that Wheel shouldn't have gotten rid of: champions and tournaments. That's pretty much all that article has going for it. She clearly should have done more research first rather than assuming things based on watching like two episodes. A lot of the commenters are pretty rude, too, and did that guy HAVE to post the link to the "CLAM _IGGER" video? -_- But it's nice to see some details people pay attention to on the show. And why do so many people bash Pat's hair? |
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StrangerCoug
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The Professional
Stranger Than You!
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Post by StrangerCoug on Apr 20, 2012 18:38:11 GMT -5
I stopped reading the article a third of the way through. It seems like a pointless rant.
The complaint about there being no rules explanation comes off unjustified. There was no rules explanation in the nighttime premiere; the two reasons for this that makes the most sense to me are that most viewers at the time also watched the daytime version and therefore didn't need a rules explanation and that Wheel of Fortune is a relatively easy game to learn.
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WarioSajak
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Co-Owner of Karen's Pool Tables
Daniel, lover of classic "Wheel".
Posts: 1,892
SPIN ID: DB2986720
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Post by WarioSajak on Apr 20, 2012 22:34:18 GMT -5
J! seems to be discussed more on the internet, but I bet it has a lot to do with one thing that Wheel shouldn't have gotten rid of: champions and tournaments. Yeah, I've said before that returning champs and tournaments give an incentive to watch -- hence why Ken Jennings' streak gave Jeopardy! big ratings (and I think edged out Wheel). Crosswords really suffered from not having champs, and hence played Format Hopscotch...but not even having champs means the episodes will air in order -- Temptation didn't, and neither does Family Feud. (Also, five days on both was/is way too strict, but that's not entirely relevant.) The woman writing this article said that the show is stuck in the 1980s; lady, if Wheel was stuck in the 1980s, it'd be a higher-quality production with an actually-colorful set and music that doesn't sound like it came from an infomercial. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2012 20:03:56 GMT -5
The woman writing this article said that the show is stuck in the 1980s; trust me, if it were stuck in the 1980s, it'd be a higher-quality production with an actually-colorful set and music that doesn't sound like it came from an infomercial. Hence the reason Nancy Jones was fired and Harry Friedman put in her place. While Friedman has contributed a lot of positive things to the show (the electronic puzzleboard, the $30,000-$50,000 and $100,000 Bonus cash prizes, Free Play), some of the other stuff leaves a lot to be desired (removing returning champions and taping every week out of order, "Vanna for a Day" was only for two rounds, editing out bad Final Spins and vowel calls on the Wild Card (which means no more Pat saying stuff like "I'm gonna have to spin again, because the host can't get a Surprise, he has enough of those"), among various others) I find it very strange that Friedman removed returning players from Wheel, yet abolished the returning champion limit altogether from Jeopardy! While Pat's statement about "best puzzle solvers not always the top winners" may be true, that reasoning doesn't hold much water as a defense of the removal of returning champions. MarioGS's statement on what Wheel shouldn't have got rid of (tournaments and champions) is right on the mark. So it's pretty much take your pick: Would you rather be watching a show that's tired and dated, or a show that's dull, stale, and uncaring? |
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WarioSajak
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Co-Owner of Karen's Pool Tables
Daniel, lover of classic "Wheel".
Posts: 1,892
SPIN ID: DB2986720
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Post by WarioSajak on Apr 22, 2012 3:43:41 GMT -5
So yeah, "stuck in the 1980s" was an extremely-bad choice of words by the article's author. Supposedly. According to Friedman, that was what Sony thought of Wheel around May 1995...and hence why Nancy, who had been with the show since at least 1974 and its only producer after Rhineheart got promoted by NBC in '76, was dismissed. |
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MarioGS
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Posts: 14,659
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Post by MarioGS on Apr 27, 2012 18:39:26 GMT -5
But why does J! seem like the more popular and more liked show? There are a lot of people who love J! and hate Wheel, but hardly anybody feels the other way around. I've seen a lot of people tweet various things about that night's J!, then as soon as it's over, they say things like "I f****** hate wheel of fortune". Exhibit A...  Is she talking about contestants or viewers?  |
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Post by wheelwatcher89 on May 6, 2012 0:10:49 GMT -5
I can kind of see where this blogger is coming from. I strongly believe the show began losing viewers and got it's "for the elderly" reputation in 1995 when Sony hired Harry Friedman to make the show hip. It became more about fixing what wasn't broke by using stupid gimmicks to pander to an audience that doesn't give a damn about game shows. Combine that with dated big band music, bad edits, time consuming toss-ups, an LED lit set that sometimes leaves a dark cold feel, winner predicable prize trip puzzles, a broken wheel template layout, and a overall serilized corporate feel to the show. It wasn't as fun anymore. But Jeopardy! is pretty much the same show and that's why more people nowdays like it better than Wheel. The woman writing this article said that the show is stuck in the 1980s; lady, if Wheel was stuck in the 1980s, it'd be a higher-quality production with an actually-colorful set and music that doesn't sound like it came from an infomercial. If anything, the show looks more like the 70's with a boarderless puzzleboard, lack of red/yellow/blue backdrops, and Alan Thicke inspired "Wheels" music. And speaking of the music, the big band sound is tired and belongs to the 90's. For a Sony and Friedman complaining about the show being "tired and dated" under Nancy Jones, they are using a theme music style that hasn't been popular since the late 90's. And that AWFUL 07 opening music sounds like it came from the 1950's So it's pretty much take your pick: Would you rather be watching a show that's tired and dated, or a show that's dull, stale, and uncaring? If that's the choice tired and dated. Though I have to wonder how those people that felt that way about Wheel in the mid-90's but still like Jeopardy! even to this day. If anything was "dated" about wheel in the 90's was Pat reminding contestants they were "playing for cash" to begin Round 1. |
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