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After 41 years and more than 8,000 episodes, Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak, 77, will sell his last vowel on June 7. We’ll miss Sajak’s dry, deadpan wit, his refreshing lack of used-car salesman smarm, his sunny demeanor and dad jokes. And we’ll miss his affectionate banter with Vanna White, 67 — the rare onscreen couple who still seem to genuinely enjoy one another’s company after all these years. White will remain on the show, turning letters alongside Sajak’s replacement, Ryan Seacrest, who turns 50 on Christmas Eve. No disrespect to Seacrest, but something will be lost on a new, Sajak-less Wheel.
As we contemplate his final spin, we decided to pay tribute in a way that diehard fans might appreciate: by using the show’s six free bonus-round letters (R-S-T-L-N-E) and the four most popular ones chosen by contestants (C-D-M-A) as our jumping-off point for what has made Sajak such an pop-culture institution.
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(Left to right) Vanna White and Pat Sajak
Herb Ball/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
R: Ratings
Sajak became the permanent host of Wheel of Fortune on December 28, 1981. It was watched by 40 million people a night, five nights a week. “We became, in this strange way, part of people’s lives,” he said in a funny, revealing interview for the Television Academy. “It’s kind of like the sunset: You might not go out and watch it every night, but it’s nice to know it’s out there.” And with 60 international versions, the sun never set on the Sajak empire.
S: Sajdak
The host was a charmer from the start. His actual name is Patrick Leonard Sajdak, pronounced “Sadgedak” (it’s Polish). He always had a sense of being different, a self-guided missile headed for television. Other kids would watch cartoons; he’d sneak out of bed to watch his idol, Jack Paar, the quirky, irascible, brilliant Tonight Show host who wound up being his close friend. Ninety percent of his schoolmates were Black; at home, he said, “Sometimes I feel I was left on the doorstep by gypsies.” Today, he’s a rare staunch conservative in liberal Hollywood.
The irrepressible humor that later made Wheel of Fortune creator Merv Griffin hire him showed early. At school, he’d submit two versions of tests, one with real answers, one with funny answers. He got his first broadcast job at a tiny 250-watt radio station housed in a vast former Cadillac showroom owned by Polish-American Congressman Roman Pucinski. When he broke into TV as a witty weatherman in Nashville, he used his real name in private and “Sajak” on air, dropping the d. “If you see an extra d, it’s mine,” he told the Academy. At first, Wheel winners chose goodies from an onstage showcase of prizes (bedroom furniture, Jet Skis, Turtle Wax). They switched to cash prizes to make contestants’ taxes less complicated. People often ask if Wheel is fixed. “Fixing game shows is now a Federal crime,” Sajak told the Academy. “I’m not going to prison so somebody can win a refrigerator.”
The premiere episode of "The Pat Sajak Show" on Jan. 9, 1989. Pictured from left is announcer Dan Miller, Chevy Chase, Joan Van Ark, Naomi Judd, Wynonna Judd and host Pat Sajak.
CBS via Getty Images
T: ‘The Pat Sajak Show’
In 1989, he got his own late-night CBS talk show, The Pat Sajak Show, while still hosting the syndicated Wheel. He had a ball, interviewing Chevy Chase, Joan Van Ark, and baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth, and feeding straight lines to George Burns and gunning to beat The Tonight Show’s ratings as Johnny Carson approached retirement. ‘’I was very taken with his warmth, his wit, his ability to interview and his grace in handling people,’’ said CBS exec Michael Brockman. “I also liked that his humor didn’t come at the expense of other people.”
But the ad industry and TV execs were (and remain today) foolishly convinced that only viewers under 50 are worth having. “Game shows skew older, and we have an older audience,” Sajak told the Academy. “It was my natural audience. They weren’t happy with that.” They killed his show in 1990.
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