Pat Sajak Snaps At Wheel Of Fortune Contestant For Taking Over Hosting
Wheel of Fortune Pat Sajak snapped at a contestant for reaching for an envelope before he could.
Wheel of Fortune’s Pat Sajak has been called out his fair share of times over his illustrious career hosting the game show. It seems that the constant call-outs and the antics of dumb contestants may be getting to him. According to an article from The Sun, Sajak unceremoniously snapped at a contestant on Monday’s episode.
When returning contestant and fan-favorite Christian grabbed one of the Wheel of Fortune cards and handed it to Pat Sajak instead of letting him do it for himself, the host gruffly rebuked the player in a tone that gave the audience pause. Sajak relented, “In fairness, we used to do it that way; the player would pick up the thing,” before emphasizing to Christian, “Don’t ever do it again.”
Although the interaction with Pat Sajak elicited nervous laughter from the audience, it did not seem to shake Christian’s nerves. Christian had been leading all competitors during the episode of Wheel of Fortune and had been pushed forward into the bonus round and the infamous bonus wheel. Provided with the bonus letters, R, S, T, L, N, and E, Christian ended up winning big on the night, taking home a whopping $64K and a brand-new car.
The episode was one of a number of fan-favorite-themed Wheel of Fortune episodes which will be running all week. Pat Sajak and Christian were joined by other fan-favorite contestants, Caitlin and Blair. Although the rest of the show went relatively smoothly, it was a reminder that even Pat Sajak is human.
Wheel of Fortune aired on NBC almost 50 years ago after its creation by Merv Griffin, and show hosts Pat Sajak and Vanna White have been around for the vast majority of those episodes. Over the decades, Sajak has certainly had to deal with a lot, so it’s certainly understandable that he might have been irritated by the infraction from Christian.
Although Pat Sajak is known for his humorous and warm hosting, this isn’t the first time the host has broken character. Fans are usually the first to scrutinize Sajak for perceived mistakes and dalliances. Fans have recently called out Sajak for a number of perceived mistakes, including mishearing correct answers and making misleading remarks which they feel mean Wheel of Fortune owes contestants large sums of money.
It does seem that the host has been doing it with more frequency in recent years, or at least the proliferation of the internet has made it even easier to catch any missteps during Wheel of Fortune’s episodes. Still, Pat Sajak has been hosting Wheel of Fortune since 1981. It would be ludicrous to expect someone to be perfect for over 40 years on the job, and slip-ups, mistakes, and tone breaks are bound to happen.
Most viewers couldn’t imagine having thousands of people scrutinizing them at work and analyzing their performance for any little mistake. Pat Sajak has been dealing with this work environment on Wheel of Fortune for decades.
Even if his harsh tone with Christian felt uncalled for, viewers are not always privy to everything happening behind the scenes and what past experiences or current off-camera events could have contributed to Pat Sajak’s breaking character. For fans of Wheel of Fortune, it might be hard to imagine anyone else hosting the long-running game show. More likely than not, this was just a blip in the sprawling career of one of television’s most long-standing game show hosts.
