Wheel of Fortune has had a lot of Bonus Round fails recently, and fans have complained that the puzzles have been too tough to solve. Now some viewers think they know why Wheel has had all of these losses.
On May 9, the Bonus Round contestant lost out on the chance of $1 million after he couldn’t figure out “Our Yearly Bash.” Compared to most puzzles lately, that wasn’t so bad, but Andrew Leachko still didn’t get to take home a big bucks jackpot.
Now, Reddit users are speculating why the latest Bonus Round puzzles have been so hard. “What is up with these hard bonus round answers?” one user asked. They listed some of the puzzles including “On the Jukebox” and “Buzzing Around.”
“F**king ‘Accomplished Aviator’. That was brutal,” another fan said of the Thursday, May 8 puzzle.
“Don’t forget some of the last weeks too ‘kind of vague,’ ‘aquatic birds,’ ‘acting quirky,’ ‘rummaging in the backyard,” replied one fan.
“I think they must have a random puzzle generator. Pick an adjective. Pick a profession. Bam! Bonus puzzle,” one an explained.
“I presume that there is no prize budget left. I’ll make a bet that for the rest of the season, it will be winless,” wrote another.
“For the same reason the lowest prize hasn’t moved up from $40,000 in several seasons: They aren’t pulling in the money like they used to. Plus, if you ever see when they run the full credits, just look at how many people work on the show. Add Vanna’s big raise and it wouldn’t surprise me if each episode cost an average of $250,000. Every time they keep someone from winning the bonus round saves them a ton of money,” another agreed.
Another Reddit user started a thread that said they also think the Wheel of Fortune is “running out of money.” “End of Season final rounds. My husband likes to joke that they’re running out of money for the season so they’re giving all the contestants a super hard final puzzle – for the last like week we’ve seen all the final puzzles include multiple letters that are least likely to be guessed (like j, k, z, x, u). How are the puzzles determined? Like, how far in advance are the puzzles chosen for the final round, or do they just like pick a puzzle at random based on the category the contestant chooses?” they wrote.
“I was honestly just coming to see if anyone had mentioned how ridiculous the final puzzles have been this season! Like tonight’s final puzzle (which I won’t spoil) but how is anyone supposed to guess with the ridiculous hints!” a fan replied.
According to Wheel of Fortune with Andy Nguyen, a recap blog, the final show of the season appears to be on June 6, so Season 42 is quickly winding down. This was Ryan Seacrest‘s first season after Pat Sajak announced his retirement.
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