No matter how a player handles it, it often provides the audience with plenty of entertainment. Take Matt, for instance, a contestant on Wheel of Fortune who just made what might go down as the worst mistake in the show’s history. Despite this, he still managed to win $23,350, so he’s probably not feeling too terrible about his error.
But such a big blunder tends to overshadow the entire episode. In this particular round, the goal for the three participants was to solve a word puzzle as quickly as possible. The puzzle had three words in the category of “people.” Participants had two options: they could guess a single letter or the entire phrase. Matt asked if the phrase contained the letter “N.” It did, and here’s what the puzzle looked like: N_ T – _ N _ R _ T _ _ N TH_
It took him a moment to figure out what the term might be. To everyone’s surprise, he responded with a term that didn’t contain an “N.” “The Greatest Buttercut,” he pronounced. It’s not entirely clear what Buttercut meant to say, but it was obvious that his answer didn’t fit the puzzle! The correct answer was THE NEXT GENERATION. You can see the amusing error here:
But Matt isn’t the only Wheel of Fortune contestant to make a memorable mistake. Since the show’s premiere in 1975, there have been several notable blunders. Kevin, a contestant in 2017, approached a word puzzle where he just needed to fill in one letter. The puzzle was “A STREETCAR NA_ED DESIRE,” the title of a play. After he picked a consonant, Kevin decided to say “Naked,” much to everyone’s surprise and amusement. Of course, the correct answer was A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.
In 2009, Lolita McAuley from Sacramento, California, was participating in a speed round where letters would appear on the board at random intervals. The winner was the first person to buzz in and guess the entire answer. Lolita was faced with this puzzle under the “Thing” category: S_LF-PO_T_ _ _T. McAuley buzzed in and said, “SELF-POTATO,” another puzzling and entertaining response. The correct answer was SELF-PORTRAIT.
More recently, in 2014, Julian, a student at the University of Indiana, was on track to win $1 million following several lucky spins. He just needed to say “mythological hero Achilles” to access a unique version of the game meant for college students. Unfortunately, he mispronounced it as “AY-chill-es” instead of “AH-kil-ies.” Then, when faced with filling in the blank “WORLD’S FASTEST A,” he chose “c” even though “man” was the final word. And when he reached the “things” area, he had to make a “on-the-spot decision.” His guess of “On-the-spot dicespin” was the weakest one he made.