Wheel of Fortune (partially lost episodes and cut material of game show; 1975-present)

The show's current logo.

Status: Partially Lost

Wheel of Fortune is a game show that debuted on January 6th, 1975 to great success, with Chuck Woolery as host. This success has only grown, with Pat Sejak hosting the current iteration of the show, and currently over sixty international adoptions to capitalize on the series' success.

Lost Episodes (1975-1985)

Woolery's run lasted from the show's debut until 1981, when he departed and passed the show off to Pat Sajak. Recordings of episodes from Woolery's run, as well as early Sajak episodes (up until at least 1985), were often taped over to be reused to record more recent episodes. Because of this, very little footage from these years remains, and what does exist mostly comes through home recordings and television archives. Unfortunately, very little of this remaining footage actually circulates online. A large, yet incomplete list of Daytime episodes that are known to still exist can be found online.

Promo from 1975 with footage for the first season.

Promo for NBC's daytime lineup. Footage from Wheel of Fortune starts at 0:17.

The Roseanne Show episode with a clip from a one hour episode at 13:09.

A clip from an episode that aired sometime in March 1978.

Contestant interview from May 31st, 1979.

Snippets of a round from June 1st, 1979.

Clip from a episode from early 1980.

Promo with a snippet from a mid 1980 episode at 0:14.

Clip of the short-lived Star Bonus round from a 1978 episode.

Clips from 3 episodes (April 24th, 25th, 26th) used in news report at 6:53.

Video with available clips from the premiere.

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  A puzzle from the first episode.

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  Another picture of the puzzle from the first episode used in a 2005 documentary.

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  A picture from the January 18th, 1978 episode.

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  A picture from the March 15th, 1978 episode.

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  Buy A Vowel wedge from a episode sometime in 1975.

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  A press photo from the December 25th, 1978 episode.

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  Then unknown Bob Bergen as a contestant from a episode sometime in 1979.

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  Press photo from a 1977 episode.

Lost Puzzles

Some episodes were not presented as originally intended. This is due to the fact that some puzzles were omitted during post-production. Reasons for this include personal troubles, national tragedies, technical faults, or just simple production errors.

VANNA'S PREGNANT

One instance of a puzzle being removed from airings was for the November 2nd, 1992 game. The round 2 puzzle was "VANNA'S PREGNANT", which was meant to announce the hostess's pregnancy. Unfortunately, not long after the taping of the episode, Vanna had a miscarriage. In place of the puzzle was a three minute, behind the scenes, look at the San Francisco filming, which is where the episode had been shot. At the end of it, Pat shows the winner and how much they won.

November 2nd, 1992 game intended for the reveal. Behind the scenes, look and round summary goes from 4:57 to 8:08.

Katrina Puzzles

There were 2 puzzles that were deleted due to Hurricane Katrina, one of which remains unseen and unknown to this day. For the original airing of the episode, the puzzles were replaced with Pat and Vanna requesting that the viewers donate to relief funds and then announcing who won the rounds. For the summer 2006 rerun, however, one of the rounds, for some unknown reason, was actually shown (The answer was "THE LOUISIANA SUPERDOME"). The other puzzle was replaced with Pat and Vanna thanking those who had donated. To this day, the round hasn't been seen by the public, and its answer has never been revealed.

Cancelled Episodes

In some cases, some episodes were never aired or never finished production. Because of this, very little, if anything, remains of these episodes besides basic information.

November 2005 Family Week

Three weeks worth of shows were planned to be shot in New Orleans, from August 26th to August 28th (At 5 games/1 week per day). However, Hurricane Katrina struck before production had wrapped up, and the crew evacuated after the recordings for the August 27th episodes had finished. This left the third week of episodes unshot, and in turn, cancelled what was intended to be a Family Week that was meant to air in November of that year. The contestants of the cancelled week were able to get their chance to play in the May of 2006.

See Also

• Wheel of Fortune "Matthew Fenwick" episode (found episode of game show; 1998)

External Link

• Wheel of Fortune History Wiki page on daytime episodes that are known to still exist. Retrieved 23 Jul '13