Anyone who reads this blog to any extent knows I don’t spend much time watching television. I do watch movies and my few vices, but for the most part I don’t spend a whole lot of time surfing for shit to watch. Tonight while I was at a relative’s house they had on Wheel of Fortune. I almost forgot this sorry excuse of a program was still allowed to be broadcast.
This is surviving from the golden age of game shows. You know, back when you had your large list of different game shows to choose from in case you thought you had a chance to be a contestant; but more likely just a casual observer. I don’t know if it went as far back as Let’s Make a Deal or anything, but it’s an older show, that’s for sure. Nowadays there aren’t too many game shows out there, unless you consider eating a fucking pig spleen to be a good premise for a game show. Yes, reality TV is nothing more than the game show’s retarded step cousin that we apparently can’t stop from breeding. Of course, I have ripped reality TV enough in the past so I will give it the night off and get back to what I was bitching about in the first place: The Wheel of Fortune. Sure, if you tune into it nowadays, then you would just think it was a prize filled show with a very easy task. Spin the wheel and take a chance. That and be able to solve a goddamn puzzle. Other than that there really isn’t anything too hard to the game, as most of it relies on luck and the common sense of a third grader (which at least one contestant a night does not possess.)
You see though, when I was a youngster and I would be forced to watch this game show it was totally different. First off Vanna (wtf kind of name is that anyway?) didn’t just touch the letter, she actually had to earn her huge ass salary and manually turn the letters. They still lit them up for her so she didn’t fuck it up and accidentally turn the wrong letters, but she actually had to push one of the sides until it started turning and then completely spin the letter box around. I believe that was the practice until somewhere in the year 2000 when unknowingly to fans of the show Vanna caught her hand in one of the letter R’s as she was spinning it for the puzzle FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Due to that unfortunate accident that almost ended her career as the premier letter turner in the United States, drastic changes were made. From that day forward letters were no longer turned, instead a multi-million dollar touch screen system was put in, that in all honesty can run itself. However out of guilt and to avoid a lawsuit, they are keeping Vanna around for a while longer, at least until her tits start sagging some more.
The other thing that is totally different on the show is the prizes. Back in my old days of watching this slop, they didn’t win prizes, they won money. Sounds good doesn’t it? Well, hold onto your hats kids, it gets worse. After each puzzle was solved, the poor Jeopardy contestant reject was then forced to spend the money they just earned on “prizes.” Ah, the illustrious catch… because they never got to bid on anything really nice, it was always lame shit that only dumb fuckers that lived in California would ever want to even own. The poor contestant would win $650 in the round then be forced to waste it on a stupid fucking ceramic Dalmatian. First off I know that piece of shit Dalmatian was never worth as much as they were saying, and I also know that had there been anything better that nobody would have bought half that shit. From what I understand, the reasons that they used to have the shop segment to buy all of those stupid bullshit prizes was because it was Merv Griffin’s way of having a garage sale. He had all of these lame ass trinkets just lying around his house and he thought maybe he could donate them to charity or maybe try to sell them and then it dawned on him. Sell it to those stupid fucking contestants. What a better way to get rid of your crap that even Goodwill wouldn’t take than to give someone money and then say, it’s only good to buy this shit.
Ahh, the old days when Wheel of Fortune wasn’t such a lame piece of shit.