I wonder if it was harder to edit back then. The day I taped Jeopardy they retaped the scores when they marked someone’s answer incorrect when he was right, and they recorded Alex resaying words he messed up the first time. So I suspect it is easy today.
And backwards. 
Here’s how I remember it (although given what’s happened to my memory in the past few years, I’m prepared to be corrected):
White started out on Wheel and immediately became a media darling … She’s so beautiful! … She should do more than just turn letters (she actually turned them back then) … She could be the next big thing! You couldn’t pick up magazine without seeing an article about her.
Then she did her first non-Wheel project, a made for TV movie in which she played Venus, the Roman goddess, who somehow shows up in what was then the modern day. I think it was on CBS, and that David Naughton starred opposite her.
She was terrible. Like really, really terrible. Like, I saw my daughter’s high school play last weekend, and there was only one kid in it who was as bad as she was as Venus.
My then-girlfriend and I were watching whatever was opposite this movie, and on a commercial, we flipped over out of curiosity. We heard her deliver one line (“You cannot defy the goddess of love!”) and we were so embarrassed for her that we couldn’t flip back fast enough.
There were a couple of reviews/articles about how bad it was, and then she was no longer being featured in media everywhere.
And she was still under contract at Wheel, so leaving her day job wasn’t an option yet, fortunately.
I never saw any more of the Venus thing than the promos (which basically consisted of White in classical garb smiling and waving, so not too different from what she does on Wheel), but I do remember it flopping horribly.
She did a spread in Playboy, but she didn’t really show anything, except through clingy, gauzy fabric. (IIRC, the camera lens was heavily smeared with Vaseline, too.)
Around the same time, she “penned” a book called Vanna Speaks, in whch she offered beauty and lifestyle tips. One I seem to remember is pushing down your cuticles while you’re in the shower.
Mercifully (I guess) I had completely forgotten about the ***Venus ***thing until now.
One of my housemates at the time was a big Vanna fan. We watched it. It was horrible. The woman just could not act. A complete embarrassment.
To clarify - in 1987 Playboy published photos that had been taken before she was cast on Wheel. She objected (apparently she knew Hef), but they published them anyway.
Sort of like what happened with Vanessa “First Black Miss America” Williams and Penthouse. :eek:
I cannot say anything bad about Vanna’s job. That she managed to make turning (and lately, “turning”) letters into a lifetime, highly-compensated career is great. Good for her!
But the fact that the job exists is insulting. TV’s continuous use of beautiful women as props is as anachronistic as buggy whips (or should be). Look at Deal or No Deal!
But it seems American audiences still can’t accept women in authority. Why isn’t Vanna (or someone like her) running the show? Why isn’t a woman hosting Jeopardy!? Because the ratings would fall. American women would probably not watch Wheel if a woman hosted full time.
But the industry knows its formula. You could play Wheel or Deal or Millionaire in a quarter the time, if you removed the fluff, but no one would watch it most likely.
This is a gross exaggeration. There have been a number of game shows with female hosts, and they’ve done just fine in the ratings. On the other hand, numerous studies have shown audiences prefer a male/female format in any genre (e.g., game, talk, news) when the situation calls for it. Vanna may not contribute much verbally to Wheel, but her role is indispensible.
I remember when that happened. Seemed to me like the reaction (at least from the WOF fanbase) was “So what?”
Yeah; the photos were actually quite nice, if not particularly erotic. I suspect they actually boosted her image, the way Madonna’s previously unreleased nude pictures did for her around the same time.
The simple reason why White isn’t always hosting is that Sajak still has the job, and there’s no reason for him to lose it. I dunno, maybe you can complain that new game shows, as a whole, still skew towards male hosts. I haven’t looked at the statistics on that.
I heard on TV that the shows where Vanna White is hosting begins airing on Monday, December 9th. In ccse you are interested in watching.
Thank you for this I just noticed now its also elsewhere in the thread). I’ve been hearing about this since forever (in terms of the inverse of my interest in WoF in general) and I kept asking my mother, “How’d it go?” And she hadn’t seen it yet to describe for me.
I feel that way about stand-up comedy whenever I see him doing one of his bits.
When she is hosting, does she turn the letters, or is someone else doing that? (or is it just done automatically)
Brian
I watched the first part of her first show. They had Minnie Mouse as a guest that turned the letters. Actually, the letters “magically” turned without being touched. Minnie did little dance moves to celebrate that they got letters correctly.
And because of opening night jitters and/or lack of experience it didn’t flow right. She would constantly look at the card with the answer to see if the guess was right or wrong. I assume Pat Sajak looked at it discretely and memorized it. The interviewing and announcement of “two i’s” seemed sort of mechanical.
But, I guess we need to give her time. And they need to adjust to her style, like don’t have the camera on her when she peeks at the answer.
She was very nervous. Minnie not moving in front of the board messes up the Final Spin round, because the time is supposed to start when Vanna moves from in front of the board - but Minnie never moves. (I suppose the person inside can’t see well enough.)
They also botched the scoring on the Final Spin round. The amount was $1500, but the player on the right wound up with $3,000 total which included a won on the third tossup for $2,000. I assume they fixed it after the show, since it didn’t affect the outcome.
According to the Times, Pat is out 3 weeks which would be three days of filming. Since Jeopardy filmed 2 days a week, one week of shows per day, I assume this means Pat had his crisis after the first day. She had only one dry run, so you can’t blame her for being a little rocky the first show.
The Times also said that Minnie stays for two weeks, then a surprise turner come in for the third week. And that Vanna doesn’t wear her heels behind the podium.
Minnie was turning letters (actually dancing) on Monday.
Mickey had the honor on Tuesday.
I find her hosting very patronizing. She talks to the players like she is talking to an 8 yr old.