Wheel of Fortune

Wheel of Fortune is a television game show originally devised by Merv Griffin which runs in local editions around the world. It involves three contestants competing against each other to solve a word puzzle similar to Hangman. The name of the show comes from the large wheel that determines the dollar amounts and prizes won (or lost) by the contestants.

Wheel 2000

In September of 1997, a children's version of the American version was created and aired on CBS every Saturday. Former Roundhouse star David Sidoni was the host, and instead of a real-life hostess, a virtual one took over. The on-screen fictional character was named Cyber Lucy, and the moves and voice were those of Tanika Ray. Game play was very similar to the nighttime version, only that contestants got to choose the puzzles for each round among three categories, like "Globetrotter" (which is Place/On The Map on the regular show), "Just Stuff" (Thing on the regular show) and "VIPs" (Proper Name on the regular show).

Related Topics:
CBS - Roundhouse - David Sidoni - Tanika Ray

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Contestants played for points rather than money, so if they solved the puzzle, instead of having their points turned into money, they got a prize such as a Game Boy. The top point value in each round increased 1,000-2,000-5,000; the remaining wedges did not change. The speed-up round was played as normal (one episode had the speed up round played at the end of the second puzzle.) After each solved puzzle, a short video clip would be shown that related to the solved puzzle.

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The Wheel was redesigned with brighter colors and different names for various spaces:

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• Bankrupt became "The Creature". It would come up from under the wheel and eat all of the player's points for that round,
• Lose a Turn space was renamed "Loser."
• The 750 point wedge allowed a home viewer to win a Wheel 2000 t-shirt and cap if the in-studio contestant managed to choose a correct letter in the puzzle.
• A 500 point space could become 1,000 points if a puzzle-related question was answered correctly; if not it was still 500 points.
• Three 250 point spaces became six-peg wedges, and the first person to hit it was to play a stunt to receive three random letters at the same time. They had to do some sort of simple stunt, like feeding a mechanical dinosaur, matching shapes on cubes or picking up phones and guessing what famous person was on the other line. Every time they completed a part of the stunt, they got a letter chosen randomly. When they got three letters, or when time was up (they had 60 seconds) the stunt was complete. They went back to the wheel and had the option of seeing if the letters that they earned are in puzzle or choosing to spin the wheel and choose a letter of their own, meaning that the stunt only took up gameplay time. The 'stunt' wedges then became regular double-wide 250 point spaces.

The bonus round was like the adult version, except that the contestant had only a choice of two secret prizes to choose from, rather than the regular five.

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The show did not catch on with viewers, and was cancelled after one year on CBS's Saturday morning lineup. Reruns continued to air on Game Show Network (now GSN), which had been rerunning the show concurrently with CBS, for several years.

Related Topics:
Game Show Network - GSN

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