Pat Sajak Stunned By ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Historic First

Back in 1975, a new game show hit TV screens. This game show was called “Wheel of Fortune.”

Some game shows come and go, only lasting a season or a few years. Other game shows last much longer. “Wheel of Fortune” has been on the air for about 47 years. That in and of itself is amazing.

One of the reasons “Wheel of Fortune” has been so successful is the co-host duo of Pat Sajak and Vanna White. The pair joined the show in the 80’s, and they are still with the show today.

Even after all these years of hosting the show, Sajak and White still get surprised when unexpected things happen. They still express their joy when contestants complete difficult puzzles and win amazing prizes.

The top prize on “Wheel of Fortune” is the $100,000 grand prize in the bonus round. It isn’t all that common for a contestant to win this prize, but two contestants this week were particularly lucky.

On Monday night’s show, a contestant named Lisa Kramer correctly answered the final puzzle. The answer was “Vultures Overhead.” Almost all of the letters were already on the board, so it wasn’t particularly challenging. Still, it was good fortune that her prize for winning was the $100,000 grand prize. That was certainly reason to celebrate.

On Tuesday night’s show, Sajak was still thinking about Kramer’s grand prize win and wondering if it were possible for another contestant to win the grand prize. He said, “On yesterday’s show, we gave $100,000 in the bonus round. I checked the rules. It can happen two days in a row. Nothing says you can’t do that.”

While it is possible for contestants to win $100,00 on back to back shows, it had never happened in the history of the show. That made it incredibly unlikely to happen again.

On Tuesday night, contestant Mark Baer made it to the bonus round. His puzzle was more difficult to solve since there were fewer letters on the board than the previous night. The puzzle looked like this: _     _ _ IC_     _LI_ _ T

Baer made solving the puzzle look easy. He answered correctly on his first try. The answer was “A quick flight.”

Then it was time to find out what prize Baer won. Sajak could hardly believe what he was seeing. Baer won $100,000! That was the first time ever that contestants had won the grand prize on back to back shows.

Sajak wasn’t the only one who was surprised at the historic win. Many people on Twitter also pointed out how unlikely this was to happen, including previous grand prize winner Robert Santoli. He pointed out that two contestants had never even won the grand prize within the same week before.