Viewers Were Cringing After Latest ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Contestant Struggle

One of the most popular game shows on TV, Wheel of Fortune, began in 1975. Mostly everyone in the world knows how to play the game: There’s an unknown phrase or word up on the board that falls into a certain category, and you guess letters until you can figure out what the word or phrase are.

Naturally, the more letters you guess, the easier the puzzle gets. However, there are some puzzles that simply don’t click for some contestants—even if the puzzle is just missing one single letter.

Case in point: A huge cringe-worthy moment in a recent episode of the show. The contestant just had one letter left in a sentence that read “Renting a peda* boat.” His first guess was “Renting a paddle boat,” which we can all kind of understand—he probably got overly excited and didn’t realize that, though similar, “paddle” didn’t match up with the letters already on the board.

However, the series of guesses that happens after that is certainly reason to be questioned. The contestant after the first failed guess guessed an “m,” which would make the final puzzle “Renting a pedam boat.” That was obviously wrong. Then the next contestant guessed a “w,” making it “Renting a pedaw boat.” A…what?

Finally, the original contestant who guessed “paddle” had his chance again—and this time he knew what to guess. When he finally got it right, you could sense the wave of relief wash over host Pat Sajak and the rest of the crowd in attendance.

This weird sovle comes one week after a similar gaffe that contestants were equally baffled by. The board had read. “Another feather _n yo_r _a_” and it took three contestants eight turns and 10 attempts to solve it. Some of the guesses included “Another feather in your map.” “Another feather in your lap,” and “Another feather in your hat.” The correct answer, of course, was  “Another feather in your cap.”

What’s going on here—is there something in the water? Are the stars not aligned in the night sky?

Because of the multiple struggle puzzles, fans were shocked at what happened during the pedal boat incident.

“What is with #WheelOfFortune lately?? Again!! ️” someone wrote on Twitter.

“Another cringe-worthy night on #WheelOfFortune!” another person agreed. “These are becoming far too common. ,” someone else posted along with the video of it happening.

In case you missed it, without further ado, here’s the video of the eye-covering mistake(s)!

Did you know what this puzzle was at first glance?