The show runners were wise to keep her on when they went electronic. People don’t tune in to watch letters on a screen; they tune in for Pat, Vanna, and contestants.
The Show Runners Were Wise To Keep Her On When They Went Electronic. Don't Tune In Watch Letters On a Screen. They Tune In For Pat Vanna And Contestants. They Could Easily Have Had a Pa Do The Same Thing Out Of Sight Behind The Puzzle Board. Vanna Was There As Eye Candy And For Chemistry With Pat.
THE SHOW RUNNERS WERE WISE TO KEEP HER ON WHEN THEY WENT ELECTRONIC. DON'T TUNE IN WATCH LETTERS ON A SCREEN. THEY TUNE IN FOR PAT VANNA AND CONTESTANTS. THEY COULD EASILY HAVE HAD A PA DO THE SAME THING OUT OF SIGHT BEHIND THE PUZZLE BOARD. VANNA WAS THERE AS EYE CANDY AND FOR CHEMISTRY WITH PAT.
They're TV presenters. Literally paid to stand in front of a camera, look pretty and say the next line on the teleprompter. Deep down we're all jealous of those jobs 😂
Not to be trite, but a man could never have done it as well. The job took speed and dexterity. Women tend to have that gift. Her job took a certain finesse; certainly nothing to be looked down upon.
I get goosebumps and a little bit Terry watching anything Wheel of Fortune. For me being a kid in the seventies and eighties. Wheel of Fortune what is as much family in our house. as me and my brother were my mom and Dad would watch it. Faithfully every night great nostalgia it's sad to think both my parents are gone now but a lot of memories were around the television watching Wheel of Fortune as a child
Vanna White, has walked the equivalent of two marathons across the show's puzzle board, or about 52 miles. As of 2019, she had walked more than 2,000 miles on stage revealing letters. White also holds the Guinness World Record for most frequent clapper on television. She claps around 606 times per episode, and over the course of the show's 41 seasons, she has clapped an estimated 3,721,446 times. In 2022, an updated estimate suggested her number of claps had grown to more than 4.5 million.
Okay, the puzzle boards are neat, but it’s almost more fascinating seeing the hair and clothing styles change through time and trying to estimate the year based on that.
I also found it funny that at one point on showing one of the updated boards with TV screens he tries to reveal a letter and it doesn't work and she says only she can do it. Sometime after that they're showing a new screen and he asks if he can do it and she says you can and he reveals a letter. Then, AFTER THAT, showing off a new board, he tries to reveal a letter and she says only she can do it.
I love how she embraces how silly her job is. But she's an American icon! They can upgrade the board all they want... But the show would tank of they ever got rid of Vanna.
She has no choice but to take it with gentle good humour. Logically, what alternative does she have? To call out one of her bosses on HIS show for being passive aggressive and condescending? She'd lose her job in a second if she said anything. Just look at the sexual assault allegations against Bob Barker. They had to go along with it (allegedly) or they would have been fire. I always did figure Bob was screwing the models when I was a kid. I used to joke about it with my friend. Like he was some sort of swinger playboy.
I can't believe they don't complain that they're objectifying women with this job. She's literally just eye candy. Tasteful eye candy, but that's totally her job. These days that's socially illegal.
I love toward the end how they showed Vanna explaining the electronic board to Pat several times, seasons apart. This is of course really a teaching moment for the audience, but edited together like this it makes it look like he completely forgets how it works every few years, and she has to bring him back up to speed 😄
@@JamesLettetman They had offered it to the smithsonian, but it was rejected due to how big it was so it's widely believed to have been destroyed. All that's left is one of the trilons which is on display at the Wheel of Fortune Studio
I'm glad that they didn't get rid of Vanna when they modernized the board. She's literally America's classiest Grandma and we invite her into our homes five nights a week.
I remember watching the last episode with the analog board and then they modernized it. I was 6 at the time. As much as I'm glad that Vanna has been on the show for as long as she has, it's only a matter of time before she steps down for good. Just like Pat. So, enjoy her time on the show while you can. Things change over time. I'm afraid that's just how things are.
In the Russian analogue of this program, "Field of Miracles", the girl who turns over the scoreboard is also almost a member of the family of the show's staff. For some time, she even went out to turn over the letters while pregnant, and she was not replaced.
This is definitely one of those jobs that looks easy af but once you do yourself you realize all the little things you have to take into account and be mindful of.
To do it quickly, efficiently, and gracefully while making it look effortless is truly a skill. It reminds me of how amazing Mr. Rogers was at putting on a cardigan. It looks simple but to do it perfect requires way more practice than you'd think.
They look like Sony Trinitron tubes. Getting the color correction on all of them to match like that had to be incredibly expensive, probably $15k - $20k each.
@@RelativisticVelocity Trinitron is actually a very nice choice for this use (well, for any use...) because it's only curved in one direction. If they were bulbous in both directions, it would have looked a lot jankier.
Just assembling that thing the first time must have been an all-day project. Fifty-two sideways-mounted CRT's, many of them having to be lifted a couple of feet off the ground, all cabled together into the display system... 😯
I know, what never seems discussed (because it was a near-unnoticeable change) is that when Wheel first moved to HD (I think 2007) the CRT monitors were replaced with flatscreen monitors so that probably changed a lot of electronics on the opposite side of the board.
@@TheKeyboardKing1 Wheel started using HD cameras since 2003 (the exact same time the gold spiky borders changed to blue LED borders), but the final output was still SD. The transition to HD wasn't complete until 2006. I.e. 2006 was the year the show went completely into HD. But the puzzle board (and the scoreboards) didn't get flat monitors until one year later (2007).
Especially driving a truckload of individual monitors, it must have been a rats nest back there, with a rack or two to generate all those separate video signals.
Chyron graphics generators drove the monitors. The same industry-standard tech used for generating onscreen graphics like lower-thirds titles and tickers which was so widely used that "chyron" became the genericized term for any on-screen graphic. 1:53 shows the custom board management software used to control the lighting in the original analog board. A later version of that software was used to trigger the Chyron generators instead of the analog lighting.
The most amazing thing about this is how much effort and expense they went to so that Vanna is really in control of the letters. It would be so much easier and cheaper to just have an intern press a button offstage to turn on the letter.
I have a feeling it wasn't as simple to do automatically back in the 70s...and then they were locked to the concept/look and getting the timing right so it looked real was probably harder than just having her control it.
@@kray3883 True, but they still could have had someone behind the letter board doing the turning. However, I think it was customary back then to have a pretty faced cohost or cohosts, thinking of The Price is Right, Let's make a deal and Classic Concentration. So, why not!
@@RabbleInArms In retrospect having a co-host just makes sense, even if you just give them some make-work task they still provide continuity... But another comment said they were trying to automate it and just couldn't get it to work, so I wonder if they just didn't think of putting someone behind the board, haha.
The touch-sensor edges and the laser detection all seem a bit overboard. It's likely that the controller software backstage is still controlling the entire screen. The controller has just updated with the times, from the button-board with the puzzle letters written on masking tape, to the light-pen controlled system, to a more modern one, where they are likely using a tablet with wi-fi to communicate with the board.
I wonder if it's just a giant MIDI keyboard controller? Since these: Support accurate timing along with other studio equipment. Have a large amount of inputs that are all digital. Have a large amount of outputs that could be used to light the letters and control the display of what letters are active for the operators. There are 52 white keys on a 88 key piano. 52 letters on the board. That leaves 27 keys for the alphabet and 9 keys for control of the board or other miscellaneous functions. MIDI interfaces are cheap and common, even being built into sound cards in the past.
She has probably the most redundant job in the world. And it was made even more redundant when they updated the puzzle board. But she was part of the show at that point, so much so that getting rid of her would have been like taking away the wheel.
Yeah, by automating that puzzle board, they really proved she's 100% useless at this point. If the puzzle appears automatically when solved, she does not in any way have to be there to touch each letter. I wish they would have left it alone, turning the letter was more "interesting".
I hope she sells her likeness so they can use a Vanna hologram when she retires. Too bad they didn't do that for Pat Sajak as well. Ultimately it would be a money saver and protect us from douchebag hosts
People are pretty condescending about Vanna's job being "easy," but honestly you could say the same thing about Pat's job, or many of the other crew members. It's that way because the show is well designed. What's difficult is showing up to the same job for year after year with a smile and a good attitude. I'm sure she had some days where she wanted to be anywhere else in the world, but as an audience member you'd never know. She's always such a calming presence on the show, and in my view is as iconic as the board itself.
There's really no need to pretend certain jobs are hard. I did system programming for 30 years and nothing else. Then finally started doing 100% unskilled outdoor work instead. If someone tried to tell me my job was difficult i'd think they were a dishonest moron.
They could replace her with a video board that lights up on its own but it just wouldn't be the same without her. It's the conversation and banter between her and the host during the show that you don't get with a video board. You gotta have a person there. It's makes a difference. 🫶
The cool thing about having a computerized puzzle board is that the puzzles don't have to be manually loaded during commercials, so they can transition from one puzzle to the next instantly. That allows them to have more puzzles on each episode. Also, they can do toss-ups where the letters come up automatically without Vanna having to run around and turn them. She could never keep up!
maybe for the rare live show, but these are taped, so any length of time it takes to change out the board the old way, doesn't matter. the entire board could breakdown and the TV audience would never know
I love how Vanna kept the joke up the entire time about the CRTs being "touch activated!" And finally with the video wall it actually is again! Well, kinda, seems like its just a grid of lasers, but still better than a person backstage!
This makes me wonder about the technology behind the 52 CRT setup, if it's just a bunch of switches between logo, blank, highlighted, and letter, or a bunch of low-end computers running , say, 8 monitors each
It looks like the CRT board was introduced in 1997, by which time computerizing it would have been pretty trivial. If it had been introduced a decade earlier I would have instead guessed it was just switches to some sort of Video Floppy-style analog video generator.
Generating 52 video feeds in 1997 would have been overly complex, it was rare for computers to generate more than one or two images. I suspect they just used 52 frame buffers and one computer to generate the image. The frame buffers "remembers" a single image, displaying it continually. They only ever reveal one letter at a time, so the computer just outputs the next letter and they latch it into the correct framebuffer when the touch sensor is activated.
@@phirenzyou could easily send a network message to 52 separate boxes who’s only job is displaying letters and route the management of those network messages from one machine.
The CRT Board must have been Sony Trinitron's. That's the era I grew up on. I remember every evening my parents and I would sit around the TV eating food while trying to solve the board. Screaming at the TV like idiots. It was that and then Jeopardy right after. I miss those nights. I miss you Mom
This is SO cool! Being an electronics nerd I wondered about this ever since I was a little kid. I remember having a discussion with my dad when I was like 6 wondering how they got the letters to appear on the CRTs when she touched them 😄
Its goofy thay they did the same "Vanna explains how the puzzle board words to naive Pat" at least three times. And never did Vanna say, "they're heat activated, but I guess you're just not hot enough, Pat."
I mean seriously though. Efficiency improvement plan: just keep the board in place and load it from the back out of view of the contestants. Avoids all the unnecessary movement of (probably) very heavy objects. 🙄👌
@@user-is7es There was no reason it could not have been done in place. Yes, if the back is open why not do that. all it would take is to have a accessible back or even have a drop down curtain to cover the board as the crew changes the tiles.
Watching these clips just gave me a wave of nostalgia. Every evening after watching the Newshour on PBS followed by more news on NBC; my family would tune into Wheel of fortune and Jeopardy
There was a certain charm to turning the letters. Next they go to holograms, but they have to be turned when an IR laser detects the hand movement. Then they could show all sorts of nifty graphics on the board.
I don't know how close they are off-set but they had really great chemistry during the whole run. I grew up watching them on Wheel (the CRT era and newer) and every playful ribbing Pat gave Vanna just seemed like that, like friends pickingbat each other. I'm going to miss him now that he's retired. Show just doesn't feel right anymore.
Vanna White has been turning sentences for over 40 years since she began spinning letters in December 13, 1982. Respect for her diligence and job dedication
@@K-s1-f6u even for a very popular syndicated show at that time, I'm sure the studio would just take any piece of equipment they could find, as long as it still works.
hand over from old crew to new crew, crew from cbs working on it at now nbc, maybe did not even change the studio at all, just sold the studio and sound stage.
@@WhitfieldProductionsTV besides, the cameraman probably thought the CBS jacket was pretty badass to wear at work. Since there isn't a real conflict of interest, who would give him shit for it...Unless the studio wants to give him free merch, you know, like a new jacket :D .
i think the craziest thing is being there to see all those changes, how many people come and go and the people who been there the longest to see all the changes
2:40 The videotape joke is cool because, of course, where else would you see a clip about how puzzle boards work? On your phone, a video compilation about puzzle boards uploaded to a website full of videos, living in an information highway? Don’t be silly! 🤭
That was also a dig on how pretty much every PBS show offered you the option of buying it on VHS to watch again. And my usual response would be a something along the lines of oh shucks I forgot to hit record I guess I'll have to buy it!
@@imark7777777PBS is a non-profit. They stay on the air through donations and sales of VHS/DVD/Bluray/etc. They were asking you to help keep the programming you liked on the air.
. . . . . Congrats to the newlyweds on their win! It's not anyone's fault, but I feel like they had a built-in advantage of being much younger than the other couples (practically half the other contestants' ages).
I like that they kept the brief pause between each letter instance (which used to be a necessity due to the old interface). I feel like it actually adds to the show. Having all the instances light up at once wouldn't be as fun or engaging.
I don't watch Wheel of Fortune regularly, but I'm definitely aware of it and watch a few minutes here and there. It never even registered to me that they had switched from the rotating puzzle board to the digital puzzle board until watching this. I also looked up when they switched, and it was 1997. I'm surprised it took them that long to go digital.
It was because of the original staff that they had on the show didn't want the show to change that much and then in the mid 90s a lot of them got fired because of the Megaword fiasco and the new people who were brought in wanted to bring changes to the show.
You know, it's not all sunshine and roses. It's not JUST turning the letters, it's conducting yourself in a manner that looks good on camera. When the cameras are rolling, you have to be "on" until somebody yells "cut." It's not trivial. It's not rocket science, sure, but it's not as trivial as most people think it is.
I wonder if the letter board (And operator board before it.) was just a giant MIDI keyboard controller? Since these: Support accurate timing along with other studio equipment. Have a large amount of inputs that are all digital. Have a large amount of outputs that could be used to light the letters on the board. Could also control the display of what letters are (in)active for the operators. There are 52 white keys on a 88 key piano. 52 letters on the board. That leaves 27 keys for the alphabet and 9 keys for control of the board or other miscellaneous functions. MIDI interfaces are cheap and common, even being built into sound cards in the past.
I never realized before, but when the turning board was replaced, it looks like they used CRT monitors and eventually switched to LCD monitors. Makes sense considering LCDs weren't really mature at the time.
I wonder what happened to the old slide-in letters from the days before the electronic puzzle board. Those would have been amazing collector's items...
@@davidmccoyjr8147 The missing of the clips were Pat turning letters one in 1989 and 1996. And another clip Vanna having trouble touching the letter "I" in 1997, just 3 months after the touch screen puzzle board was introduced.
That's why it's Vanna Spin me a letter, by the New Millennium, I hope The Smithsonian got The Old Board. The Board was computerized with touch screen letters making her job easier, so all she had to do was touch a blue square to get the letter. Pat knew the puzzles too. Well now it's 2024, And Vanna is still spinning letters, Pat has retired. The Evolution of the board is awesome And I saw it all from 1983 at the age of 7 to 2024 at the age of 48.
Starting from the series premiere on January 6th, 1975, Vanna would have to walk and turn the panels to reveal the letters of the Puzzle Board. 3:35 The last show to feature the Original Puzzle Board since 1975 which was for sale. 5:13 The First Show to feature the Heat Activated Touch Puzzle Board which was used at least until Season 39. 10:02 Starting With the 40th Season, The Puzzle Board is now Digital using laser technology. The series originally aired on NBC TV from January 6th, 1975 until June 30th, 1989, and then again from January 14th until September 20th, 1991, then it aired in syndication from September 19th, 1983 all the way up to the present day, then it aired on CBS from July 17th 1989 until January 11th, 1991, and then again for Wheel 2000 from September 13th, 1997 until February 7th, 1998 (it also aired on the game show network), then it aired on ABC for the Celebrity Edition from January 7th, 2021 all the way up to the present day.
As a kid my grandma told me that the board worked because the woman that would reveal the letters was an android that used to be wound up every 10 minutes during break...I believed her for a few years until I realized that made no sense lol
I remember when they first replaced the board with TV's. I always thought it was surprising that they still kept her on the show; she no longer needs to even do anything, they could drop her role at any time.
I remember watching them dismantle the old board and replace it with the touchscreen one. Touch screens weren't common back then, so there was a lot of hype. I loved the show even though I was too young to have the knowledge needed to predict most of the answers.
What'd Pat say? 5:20 Vanna touches the spaces that light up, so what happens in any round when a contestant solves with one or more vowels or consonants left? And what happens when a contestant solves or refuses to solve in the bonus round?
The show runners were wise to keep her on when they went electronic. People don’t tune in to watch letters on a screen; they tune in for Pat, Vanna, and contestants.
They could easily have had a PA do the same thing, out of sight, behind the puzzle board. Vanna was there as 'eye candy' and for chemistry with Pat.
The Show Runners Were Wise To Keep Her
On When They Went Electronic. Don't Tune In Watch Letters On a
Screen. They Tune In For Pat Vanna And Contestants.
They Could Easily Have Had a Pa Do The Same Thing
Out Of Sight Behind The Puzzle Board. Vanna Was There
As Eye Candy And For Chemistry With Pat.
I tune in for the word puzzles, but Vanna has been there since I was one year old.
Not me. I wanna see the puzzles.
THE SHOW RUNNERS WERE WISE TO KEEP HER
ON WHEN THEY WENT ELECTRONIC. DON'T TUNE IN WATCH LETTERS ON A
SCREEN. THEY TUNE IN FOR PAT VANNA AND CONTESTANTS.
THEY COULD EASILY HAVE HAD A PA DO THE SAME THING
OUT OF SIGHT BEHIND THE PUZZLE BOARD. VANNA WAS THERE
AS EYE CANDY AND FOR CHEMISTRY WITH PAT.
She knew her job wasn't rocket science. Vanna is no fool. She knew her job was easy. But she made it look so smooth.
They're TV presenters. Literally paid to stand in front of a camera, look pretty and say the next line on the teleprompter. Deep down we're all jealous of those jobs 😂
Not to be trite, but a man could never have done it as well. The job took speed and dexterity. Women tend to have that gift. Her job took a certain finesse; certainly nothing to be looked down upon.
@@TVHouseHistorian I agree. Doing it smoothly is hard.
Heck she did it with poise and elegance! Not to mention have you ever looked up what she’s paid for each episode!!!!! Holy crap!!!!!
I get goosebumps and a little bit Terry watching anything Wheel of Fortune. For me being a kid in the seventies and eighties. Wheel of Fortune what is as much family in our house. as me and my brother were my mom and Dad would watch it. Faithfully every night great nostalgia it's sad to think both my parents are gone now but a lot of memories were around the television watching Wheel of Fortune as a child
Vanna White, has walked the equivalent of two marathons across the show's puzzle board, or about 52 miles. As of 2019, she had walked more than 2,000 miles on stage revealing letters.
White also holds the Guinness World Record for most frequent clapper on television. She claps around 606 times per episode, and over the course of the show's 41 seasons, she has clapped an estimated 3,721,446 times. In 2022, an updated estimate suggested her number of claps had grown to more than 4.5 million.
Her feet are probably all jacked up... Can you imagine walking from roughly Maryland to Arizona in heels? 2000k miles is insane.
Okay, the puzzle boards are neat, but it’s almost more fascinating seeing the hair and clothing styles change through time and trying to estimate the year based on that.
She looks like she got younger too, not older.
She's a vampire @@janetslater129
And how long Vanna will clap
I love how Pat pretended like he'd never seen the updated board every time they showed people how it worked.
😂 Yes
I also found it funny that at one point on showing one of the updated boards with TV screens he tries to reveal a letter and it doesn't work and she says only she can do it. Sometime after that they're showing a new screen and he asks if he can do it and she says you can and he reveals a letter. Then, AFTER THAT, showing off a new board, he tries to reveal a letter and she says only she can do it.
I miss him on the show. Ryan's awful.
@Angie2343 Vanna White should have taken it
I love how she embraces how silly her job is. But she's an American icon! They can upgrade the board all they want... But the show would tank of they ever got rid of Vanna.
She has no choice but to take it with gentle good humour. Logically, what alternative does she have? To call out one of her bosses on HIS show for being passive aggressive and condescending? She'd lose her job in a second if she said anything.
Just look at the sexual assault allegations against Bob Barker. They had to go along with it (allegedly) or they would have been fire. I always did figure Bob was screwing the models when I was a kid. I used to joke about it with my friend. Like he was some sort of swinger playboy.
so how are you going to react when she retires?
@@VoidHaloof course Bob banged all his models
@@VoidHalo I can't imagine you really talk with any people irl.
I can't believe they don't complain that they're objectifying women with this job. She's literally just eye candy. Tasteful eye candy, but that's totally her job.
These days that's socially illegal.
I love toward the end how they showed Vanna explaining the electronic board to Pat several times, seasons apart. This is of course really a teaching moment for the audience, but edited together like this it makes it look like he completely forgets how it works every few years, and she has to bring him back up to speed 😄
Every few years the actual game play would run really short, and this was the padding they put in.
I love Vanna! She took time out of her day one sunny southern California day to talk to my paraplegic wheel chair bound mom and I in the late 1970s.
For an April fools episode they should roll out the old manual analog puzzle board.
Does Wheel do anniversary episodes? That would also be a good excuse to break out an analog board!
I hope the old board is in a museum some day to see it up close.
@@JamesLettetman They had offered it to the smithsonian, but it was rejected due to how big it was so it's widely believed to have been destroyed. All that's left is one of the trilons which is on display at the Wheel of Fortune Studio
They did an episode where Vana played the game with both hosts from Jeopardy.
@@tad2021 april 1, 1997
I'm glad that they didn't get rid of Vanna when they modernized the board. She's literally America's classiest Grandma and we invite her into our homes five nights a week.
I remember watching the last episode with the analog board and then they modernized it. I was 6 at the time. As much as I'm glad that Vanna has been on the show for as long as she has, it's only a matter of time before she steps down for good. Just like Pat. So, enjoy her time on the show while you can.
Things change over time. I'm afraid that's just how things are.
She looks so different up close. Of all the years watching WoF, if I saw her walking down the street I would have no clue who she was! 🤣🤣🤣
In the Russian analogue of this program, "Field of Miracles", the girl who turns over the scoreboard is also almost a member of the family of the show's staff. For some time, she even went out to turn over the letters while pregnant, and she was not replaced.
0:32 The backstage puzzle board has "Wheel of Torture" written at the top 😂
lol! Nice catch!
It does!!😂
Reminds me of The Real Ghostbusters a bit.
Mandela Effect
Thank you for your service.
This is definitely one of those jobs that looks easy af but once you do yourself you realize all the little things you have to take into account and be mindful of.
The people behind the scenes that make it all work have a way more difficult job for lots less money.
yes shes a rocket engineer.
To do it quickly, efficiently, and gracefully while making it look effortless is truly a skill. It reminds me of how amazing Mr. Rogers was at putting on a cardigan. It looks simple but to do it perfect requires way more practice than you'd think.
To be honest the original letter turning always has a place in my heart.
Vanna White catches a lot of shit, including from Sajak, for having a simple job, but that's what she was hired to do and she does it elegantly.
She was hired cos of her looks 😂
Pat's job is also easy as fuck so idk why he was such a jerk about it
@@jakobzilinski6273He isn't a jerk about it. They tease each other and make fun of themselves as well.
@@StarShadowPrimal plus she makes more money a year than what 99% of the world will ever make in their lifetime.
@@itsthehumor95 It's TV. They all were. Still are.
That crt monitor puzzle board must have weighed a ton that I like to imagine when it required it’s own semi trailer just to move it around 😂
It may have been powered at that point, not having to move much it could be electrically driven fairly easily on batteries.
They look like Sony Trinitron tubes. Getting the color correction on all of them to match like that had to be incredibly expensive, probably $15k - $20k each.
@@RelativisticVelocity Trinitron is actually a very nice choice for this use (well, for any use...) because it's only curved in one direction. If they were bulbous in both directions, it would have looked a lot jankier.
Just assembling that thing the first time must have been an all-day project. Fifty-two sideways-mounted CRT's, many of them having to be lifted a couple of feet off the ground, all cabled together into the display system... 😯
@@ThreePointOneFou I hope they got someone who enjoys cable management for that job
We've gone from manual, to CRT, to LCD, to LED to a giant LED video wall.
I'd really love to see what actually drives the monitors
I know, what never seems discussed (because it was a near-unnoticeable change) is that when Wheel first moved to HD (I think 2007) the CRT monitors were replaced with flatscreen monitors so that probably changed a lot of electronics on the opposite side of the board.
@@TheKeyboardKing1 Wheel started using HD cameras since 2003 (the exact same time the gold spiky borders changed to blue LED borders), but the final output was still SD. The transition to HD wasn't complete until 2006. I.e. 2006 was the year the show went completely into HD.
But the puzzle board (and the scoreboards) didn't get flat monitors until one year later (2007).
Especially driving a truckload of individual monitors, it must have been a rats nest back there, with a rack or two to generate all those separate video signals.
Chyron graphics generators drove the monitors. The same industry-standard tech used for generating onscreen graphics like lower-thirds titles and tickers which was so widely used that "chyron" became the genericized term for any on-screen graphic. 1:53 shows the custom board management software used to control the lighting in the original analog board. A later version of that software was used to trigger the Chyron generators instead of the analog lighting.
The most amazing thing about this is how much effort and expense they went to so that Vanna is really in control of the letters. It would be so much easier and cheaper to just have an intern press a button offstage to turn on the letter.
I have a feeling it wasn't as simple to do automatically back in the 70s...and then they were locked to the concept/look and getting the timing right so it looked real was probably harder than just having her control it.
@@kray3883 True, but they still could have had someone behind the letter board doing the turning. However, I think it was customary back then to have a pretty faced cohost or cohosts, thinking of The Price is Right, Let's make a deal and Classic Concentration. So, why not!
@@RabbleInArms In retrospect having a co-host just makes sense, even if you just give them some make-work task they still provide continuity... But another comment said they were trying to automate it and just couldn't get it to work, so I wonder if they just didn't think of putting someone behind the board, haha.
The touch-sensor edges and the laser detection all seem a bit overboard. It's likely that the controller software backstage is still controlling the entire screen. The controller has just updated with the times, from the button-board with the puzzle letters written on masking tape, to the light-pen controlled system, to a more modern one, where they are likely using a tablet with wi-fi to communicate with the board.
I wonder if it's just a giant MIDI keyboard controller? Since these:
Support accurate timing along with other studio equipment.
Have a large amount of inputs that are all digital.
Have a large amount of outputs that could be used to light the letters and control the display of what letters are active for the operators.
There are 52 white keys on a 88 key piano. 52 letters on the board. That leaves 27 keys for the alphabet and 9 keys for control of the board or other miscellaneous functions.
MIDI interfaces are cheap and common, even being built into sound cards in the past.
She has probably the most redundant job in the world. And it was made even more redundant when they updated the puzzle board. But she was part of the show at that point, so much so that getting rid of her would have been like taking away the wheel.
Well it lets her keep adding to her Guinness World Record for clapping.
Yeah, by automating that puzzle board, they really proved she's 100% useless at this point. If the puzzle appears automatically when solved, she does not in any way have to be there to touch each letter. I wish they would have left it alone, turning the letter was more "interesting".
I hope she sells her likeness so they can use a Vanna hologram when she retires. Too bad they didn't do that for Pat Sajak as well. Ultimately it would be a money saver and protect us from douchebag hosts
@@RobertHustwick LOL!
@@mm_xx8827 She's always been there for eye candy.
this video should live in a museum
I ALWAYS love these end-of-show banters they have after the game's over. These are great!
I'm 41 years old and have wondered about this off and on for years!😂😂
People are pretty condescending about Vanna's job being "easy," but honestly you could say the same thing about Pat's job, or many of the other crew members. It's that way because the show is well designed. What's difficult is showing up to the same job for year after year with a smile and a good attitude. I'm sure she had some days where she wanted to be anywhere else in the world, but as an audience member you'd never know. She's always such a calming presence on the show, and in my view is as iconic as the board itself.
There's really no need to pretend certain jobs are hard. I did system programming for 30 years and nothing else. Then finally started doing 100% unskilled outdoor work instead. If someone tried to tell me my job was difficult i'd think they were a dishonest moron.
It's just a joke because her job is easy. Looking that beautiful every night isn't easy, don't get me wrong though.
Wow! I did not know how fascinating this puzzle board really is til now. Technology has advanced so much over the years!
Wow, I remember that broadcast when they switched to the video monitors for the first time. It was a big deal back then.
Wheel would not have worked anywhere near as well without her. She was a great cohost
They could replace her with a video board that lights up on its own but it just wouldn't be the same without her. It's the conversation and banter between her and the host during the show that you don't get with a video board. You gotta have a person there. It's makes a difference. 🫶
The cool thing about having a computerized puzzle board is that the puzzles don't have to be manually loaded during commercials, so they can transition from one puzzle to the next instantly. That allows them to have more puzzles on each episode. Also, they can do toss-ups where the letters come up automatically without Vanna having to run around and turn them. She could never keep up!
So true.
Yeah, her job was so stressful, it's a good thing they made it easier on her before she became an alcoholic.
Thanks for your riveting analysis
maybe for the rare live show, but these are taped, so any length of time it takes to change out the board the old way, doesn't matter. the entire board could breakdown and the TV audience would never know
I mean, you do realize these shows are edited for time, right? lol
It was also interesting to see the fashion changes over the years.
I love how Vanna kept the joke up the entire time about the CRTs being "touch activated!"
And finally with the video wall it actually is again! Well, kinda, seems like its just a grid of lasers, but still better than a person backstage!
The CRTs were still touch-activated.
I was today years old when I finally understood UnderRated's bar where he says he was "flippin' every word like Vanna White." 🤯
Rip my childhood wheel of fortune puzzle board 1984-1996
5:49 - I remember this part vividly. I never thought I'd see it again.
This makes me wonder about the technology behind the 52 CRT setup, if it's just a bunch of switches between logo, blank, highlighted, and letter, or a bunch of low-end computers running , say, 8 monitors each
I want to say it was the latter one. It was all operated by a computer backstage.
It looks like the CRT board was introduced in 1997, by which time computerizing it would have been pretty trivial. If it had been introduced a decade earlier I would have instead guessed it was just switches to some sort of Video Floppy-style analog video generator.
Generating 52 video feeds in 1997 would have been overly complex, it was rare for computers to generate more than one or two images.
I suspect they just used 52 frame buffers and one computer to generate the image.
The frame buffers "remembers" a single image, displaying it continually. They only ever reveal one letter at a time, so the computer just outputs the next letter and they latch it into the correct framebuffer when the touch sensor is activated.
@@phirenzno it wouldn’t have. You could even do it without a computer using an analog text generator if you really wanted to.
@@phirenzyou could easily send a network message to 52 separate boxes who’s only job is displaying letters and route the management of those network messages from one machine.
The CRT Board must have been Sony Trinitron's. That's the era I grew up on. I remember every evening my parents and I would sit around the TV eating food while trying to solve the board. Screaming at the TV like idiots. It was that and then Jeopardy right after.
I miss those nights. I miss you Mom
I really wanna just experience the 80's in america
Same at my house. “No, you idiot!! It’s…!”
It would be cool to have some information on the wheel
Great historical compilation!
This is SO cool! Being an electronics nerd I wondered about this ever since I was a little kid. I remember having a discussion with my dad when I was like 6 wondering how they got the letters to appear on the CRTs when she touched them 😄
As a child of the 80s I’m fascinated by this. Very cool.
I grew up on Wheel of Fortune. This is amazing!
Its goofy thay they did the same "Vanna explains how the puzzle board words to naive Pat" at least three times. And never did Vanna say, "they're heat activated, but I guess you're just not hot enough, Pat."
The amount of "OHHH SNAAAP" from the audience would cause _the entire board_ to light at once if she did that! 🙃
40 CRTs matrixed together is an insane set design.
The CRT puzzle board was so cool.
😮😮😮😮 All these years I had no idea they actually moved the puzzle board between games.
Their explanation makes sense. Moving the puzzle board out of view of the contestants while the new letters are being loaded into the board.
I kinda figured it out then.... It's how they set it up that what I'm trying to get at the time.
I thought they loaded it from the back
I mean seriously though. Efficiency improvement plan: just keep the board in place and load it from the back out of view of the contestants. Avoids all the unnecessary movement of (probably) very heavy objects. 🙄👌
@@user-is7es There was no reason it could not have been done in place. Yes, if the back is open why not do that. all it would take is to have a accessible back or even have a drop down curtain to cover the board as the crew changes the tiles.
Vanna ain't no fool. She knows she has a cupcake job and is living for it. I would too.
One that she gets paid millions for and asked for a pay raise when her contract expired. 👌
@@user-is7es Damn straight. As she should.
Wow! I barely remember as a kid watching wheel of fortune but do remember the board, it’s amazing how far it has evolved.
She's so graceful.
Vanna white has the world record for the longest walk on a game show history.
Watching these clips just gave me a wave of nostalgia. Every evening after watching the Newshour on PBS followed by more news on NBC; my family would tune into Wheel of fortune and Jeopardy
She has arguably the greatest job on the planet.
You just have to be beautiful Vanna White. She aged so wonderfully 🌹
Her voice seems to have had changed significantly when she got to the puzzles where she touches the right side.
Awww that’s so cute, “is the puzzle ready?”
There was a certain charm to turning the letters. Next they go to holograms, but they have to be turned when an IR laser detects the hand movement. Then they could show all sorts of nifty graphics on the board.
And then I guess we're right back down and around to actually turning letters again just holographic. HAHAHA
I don't know how close they are off-set but they had really great chemistry during the whole run. I grew up watching them on Wheel (the CRT era and newer) and every playful ribbing Pat gave Vanna just seemed like that, like friends pickingbat each other.
I'm going to miss him now that he's retired. Show just doesn't feel right anymore.
Was more fun seeing Vanna manage to get more beautiful with each decade?! Incredible ❤
It's nice to see how the board has evolved over the years.
This show has always been 100% class, fun, family friendly and educational. It's one of a kind.
Vanna White has been turning sentences for over 40 years since she began spinning letters in December 13, 1982. Respect for her diligence and job dedication
Vanna is so classy. She really does float.
And I'm over here thinking, "How many miles do you think she's walked back and forth in front of that board?" 🤔
Probably to the moon and back. 😊
@royfugate put a comment on this video with all those stats.
has there ever been a spelling error on the board?
From what I've heard, it's only happened once, in the 70s I think.
If there was they edit it out of the taping and replace it with the respelling.
Right. Since it’s not actually live and prerecorded in advance so they can do multiple episodes without having to get people to actually come back.
Yse.
0:25 dude is wearing a cbs jacket but operating a camera with the nbc logo on it.
Shows are sometimes filmed by one network and sold to another
@@TJP1983I'm sure they are sometimes.. he using NBC equipment wearing CBS lol
@@K-s1-f6u even for a very popular syndicated show at that time, I'm sure the studio would just take any piece of equipment they could find, as long as it still works.
hand over from old crew to new crew, crew from cbs working on it at now nbc, maybe did not even change the studio at all, just sold the studio and sound stage.
@@WhitfieldProductionsTV besides, the cameraman probably thought the CBS jacket was pretty badass to wear at work. Since there isn't a real conflict of interest, who would give him shit for it...Unless the studio wants to give him free merch, you know, like a new jacket :D .
She doesn't age ❤
Even Glücksrad always carry on turning letters in 2023 and 2024. But they never get old.
i think the craziest thing is being there to see all those changes, how many people come and go and the people who been there the longest to see all the changes
First time seeing this video. And I didn't know they updated the board this last time. That's pretty nifty. Technology is come a long long way.
Vanna looks soooo much younger than i have ever seen her its amazing
0:33 "Wheel-Of-Torture"
I can confirm
Interesting
I bet that was a backstage in-joke based around an unsolved puzzle like [WHEEL O_ _O__U_E]
2:40 The videotape joke is cool because, of course, where else would you see a clip about how puzzle boards work? On your phone, a video compilation about puzzle boards uploaded to a website full of videos, living in an information highway? Don’t be silly! 🤭
Yeah, because now is now and then was before. How could you ever now if you weren't at before.
That was also a dig on how pretty much every PBS show offered you the option of buying it on VHS to watch again. And my usual response would be a something along the lines of oh shucks I forgot to hit record I guess I'll have to buy it!
@@imark7777777PBS is a non-profit. They stay on the air through donations and sales of VHS/DVD/Bluray/etc. They were asking you to help keep the programming you liked on the air.
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Congrats to the newlyweds on their win!
It's not anyone's fault, but I feel like they had a built-in advantage of being much younger than the other couples (practically half the other contestants' ages).
7:22 Good Job Pat Sajak!! He finally touched his first letter!!
I like that they kept the brief pause between each letter instance (which used to be a necessity due to the old interface). I feel like it actually adds to the show. Having all the instances light up at once wouldn't be as fun or engaging.
I don't watch Wheel of Fortune regularly, but I'm definitely aware of it and watch a few minutes here and there. It never even registered to me that they had switched from the rotating puzzle board to the digital puzzle board until watching this. I also looked up when they switched, and it was 1997. I'm surprised it took them that long to go digital.
It was because of the original staff that they had on the show didn't want the show to change that much and then in the mid 90s a lot of them got fired because of the Megaword fiasco and the new people who were brought in wanted to bring changes to the show.
I've watched Wheel since I was a little kid, always Pat and Vanna, even if they get new people, it will not be the same.
Dang, can there be more jobs like this? I dont wanna stress everyday going to work and earning so little 😭😭😭😭
You know, it's not all sunshine and roses. It's not JUST turning the letters, it's conducting yourself in a manner that looks good on camera. When the cameras are rolling, you have to be "on" until somebody yells "cut." It's not trivial. It's not rocket science, sure, but it's not as trivial as most people think it is.
@@ryano.5149 you still get paid more than 99% of the world which is nuts.
I remember watching the last episode of the manual board live like it was yesterday. I was a little kid back then too.
I wonder if the letter board (And operator board before it.) was just a giant MIDI keyboard controller? Since these:
Support accurate timing along with other studio equipment.
Have a large amount of inputs that are all digital.
Have a large amount of outputs that could be used to light the letters on the board. Could also control the display of what letters are (in)active for the operators.
There are 52 white keys on a 88 key piano. 52 letters on the board. That leaves 27 keys for the alphabet and 9 keys for control of the board or other miscellaneous functions.
MIDI interfaces are cheap and common, even being built into sound cards in the past.
I never realized before, but when the turning board was replaced, it looks like they used CRT monitors and eventually switched to LCD monitors. Makes sense considering LCDs weren't really mature at the time.
Susan Stafford's puzzle board back in the '70s had three rows of 13 trilons each.
Wonderful video.
I wonder what happened to the old slide-in letters from the days before the electronic puzzle board. Those would have been amazing collector's items...
The show is cool
They had a good run
I wonder where it is. Way more satisfying than thr current touch screens
Vanna White looks great for 67
So who purchased the original puzzle board?
Exactly what I was thinking
@@violetzitola8385same here
Someone else's said it's in a museum in DC.
someone else said someone else said its in a museum
Most likely it was scrapped. They wanted to sell it to the smithsonian but they wouldn't take it cause it was too big.
Man ive been watching wheel since the late 80s..
Now that Pat Sajak is retired I hope they don't ruin it like they did with Price is Right and Jeopardy. 🫢
4:30 😂😂😂 Very clever vana
Were there detents to stop the pieces in a flat position, or did she have to carefully leave them that way at the end of every turn?
The old board should have gone to the Smithsonian! It was warm and welcoming, the touch boards are too high tech and cold feeling.
52 crt tv's all running I bet was warm. Lol
@@kmyerslp85 Plus the studio lights
I kind of agree with you on that. It's a piece of American pop culture.
The Smithsonian has a bit too many exhibits already 😂
It actually did. Part of it is on display.
This is the old turning letter puzzle board I remember.
The new puzzle board is touch screens
@@davidmccoyjr8147 The missing of the clips were Pat turning letters one in 1989 and 1996. And another clip Vanna having trouble touching the letter "I" in 1997, just 3 months after the touch screen puzzle board was introduced.
@@davidmccoyjr8147 Actually, the new board is a no touch screen.
That's why it's Vanna Spin me a letter, by the New Millennium, I hope The Smithsonian got The Old Board. The Board was computerized with touch screen letters making her job easier, so all she had to do was touch a blue square to get the letter. Pat knew the puzzles too. Well now it's 2024, And Vanna is still spinning letters, Pat has retired. The Evolution of the board is awesome And I saw it all from 1983 at the age of 7 to 2024 at the age of 48.
Man, did this show cast the absolute RIGHT PEOPLE for this game show!!
Neither one of them had any controversy in over 40 years
That’s rare!
Starting from the series premiere on January 6th, 1975, Vanna would have to walk and turn the panels to reveal the letters of the Puzzle Board.
3:35 The last show to feature the Original Puzzle Board since 1975 which was for sale.
5:13 The First Show to feature the Heat Activated Touch Puzzle Board which was used at least until Season 39.
10:02 Starting With the 40th Season, The Puzzle Board is now Digital using laser technology.
The series originally aired on NBC TV from January 6th, 1975 until June 30th, 1989, and then again from January 14th until September 20th, 1991, then it aired in syndication from September 19th, 1983 all the way up to the present day, then it aired on CBS from July 17th 1989 until January 11th, 1991, and then again for Wheel 2000 from September 13th, 1997 until February 7th, 1998 (it also aired on the game show network), then it aired on ABC for the Celebrity Edition from January 7th, 2021 all the way up to the present day.
As a kid my grandma told me that the board worked because the woman that would reveal the letters was an android that used to be wound up every 10 minutes during break...I believed her for a few years until I realized that made no sense lol
Tatsächlich sehr spannende Informationen! 😮
I remember when they first replaced the board with TV's. I always thought it was surprising that they still kept her on the show; she no longer needs to even do anything, they could drop her role at any time.
That's...that's pretty fascinating! :D
I remember watching them dismantle the old board and replace it with the touchscreen one. Touch screens weren't common back then, so there was a lot of hype. I loved the show even though I was too young to have the knowledge needed to predict most of the answers.
My favorite video in all of UA-cam ❤️
Thank you!
What'd Pat say? 5:20
Vanna touches the spaces that light up, so what happens in any round when a contestant solves with one or more vowels or consonants left? And what happens when a contestant solves or refuses to solve in the bonus round?
He said, "I'm all Goosebumpy!"
The board's fully computerized, so it can just be commanded to reveal all of them at once on its own.
Vanna looks so gorgeous in this first clip!