Pat and Vanna have opened up their pocketbooks, big time. Starting next season, Wheel of Fortune contestants will have a chance to win $1 million, but they'll need some spinning skills and some lady luck.Broadcasting & Cable says during a regular puzzle-solving round, a player will have to land on a newly-placed $1 million wedge and go on to solve the puzzle. If a contestant wins enough cash to make it to the bonus round — without landing on "Bankrupt" at any point during the regular rounds — he or she can spin a "bonus wheel", which determines what the final puzzle is worth. The player will have to land on a $1 million wedge on that wheel, and then solve the bonus round puzzle.Currently, the largest cash prize a Wheel player can win is $100,000. Not a bad step up from the ceramic dalmatians players often won in the early days.Wheel — which has notched 24 consecutive seasons as TV's top-rated syndicated series — will join Who Wants To Be a Millionaire as game...
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Wheel of Fortune (syndicated; check the TV Guide Network or TVGuide.com for listings) has been celebrating its 25th anniversary this month. We sat down with host Pat Sajak and Vanna White to talk about their — gulp — quarter century (!) turn around the Wheel.
TV Guide: Did you have any idea this would have this kind of longevity? Vanna White: When I first joined the show, we were sitting in makeup chairs next to each other and I said to Pat, "Where do you think we'll be in 10 years?" I'm sure he said something funny. Pat Sajak: I say funny things as often as not, so it's hard to narrow it down. I do rememb
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Patrick Dempsey: The E! True Hollywood Story premieres Tuesday at 9 pm/ET.... Jimmy Kimmel Live drew its largest-ever weekly audience — averaging 2.05 million viewers — when Jimmy pulled double duty with his late nighter and as Regis & Kelly cohost.... Wheel of Fortune celebrates its 25th anniversary with a series of themed weeks, beginning today with "Best Friends".... Similarly, Family Feud this week pits WWE superstars such as Ric Flair and Batista against divas like Candice Michelle and Queen Sharmell.
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Game-show bigwig Merv Griffin, 82, died of prostate cancer early on Sunday. His family issued a statement explaining that his recurrence of prostate cancer, for which he was hospitalized earlier in the week, progressed quickly.The veteran talk-show host created a multimillion-dollar empire in the entertainment industry, most notably by producing Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Wheel host Pat Sajak tells the Hollywood Reporter, "The loss of a dear friend has made it difficult to focus on Merv's enormous contribution to the world of entertainment. I'm dealing with deep sadness and the realization that I will never hear that wonderful laugh of his again. He meant so much to my life, it's hard to imagine it without him."Former first lady Nancy Reagan remembers Griffin as "a dear, dear friend," telling the trade, "He was there for me on some of the hardest days when Ronnie was fighting Alzheimer's." "To say that working with Merv Griffin was the highlight of our careers is an understatem...
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Merv Griffin was the anti-Trump. No matter how many riches he amassed through creating the formidably successful game-show phenom of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, this band singer turned talk-show host turned entertainment mogul turned hotel/real-estate magnate never projected an air of arrogance or entitlement. Publicly affable to the end, Griffin (who died Sunday at 82) was one of those rare talents whose success only a grinch would begrudge — in part because the ubiquitous shows he's best known for continue to provide so much pleasure on a nightly basis. That lilting, nagging Jeopardy theme? He wrote it. That alone is enough to ensure him a place in the annals of TV history.But he also had a long, profitable run as a talk-show host, primarily in syndication. He was never the coolest or funniest (that would be Johnny Carson), he was never the most trenchant (that would be Dick Cavett), but he was an effortless entertainer who put the audience at ease even as he occasionally...
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