My experience on Wheel of Fortune

My fascination with words began, presumably, as soon as I left my mother’s womb. I believe I may have been peering beyond my blankets to read the brand name of the scissors cutting my umbilical cord.

My parents read me books. They bought me blocks and toys with letters on them. My room décor included one of those classroom alphabet banners that showed the letters A through Z in capital and lowercase form. It was hung on the wall opposite my bed; I could see it every night before I fell asleep.

When I was old enough to watch television, Electric Company was one of my favorites. What better way to learn sounds and spellings than to have two silhouetted, eventual Oscar winners whispering syllables to me.

The show also highlighted the nuances of spelling while identifying my first favorite superhero: Letterman! He was the animated hero who swooped in to correct the spelling transformations the evil Spellbinder foisted upon innocent civilians. The villain would change a citizen’s tub to a tube, trapping him in a toothpaste container before Letterman – voiced by the late Gene Wilder – came faster than a rolling o to save him.

It all combined to mold me into a wordsmith who seized every opportunity to show his worth. When I was four years old, I was with my parents and grandmother as we visited a facility endowed with a foul odor.

“This place smells like C-R-A-P,” my grandmother said to my parents.

“That’s crap, grandma!” I replied with gusto.

No one ever spelled in front of me again unless I asked for clarification on a big word I was putting into a story. Most of my elementary school years were spent crafting written works; I wrote prose, but I also enjoyed poetry, which by my definition, had to rhyme. The earliest sample I saved was a series of poems I typed onto square pieces of Post-It size notepaper. You can’t help but admire the genius of each.

If I weren’t scribbling stories or penning poetry, I was cracking crosswords or wrestling with word searches. The toys I asked Santa for each Christmas were letter-leaning. Hangman, Scrabble, Upwords, Boggle, just to name a few.

It stands to reason that the first time I laid eyes on Wheel of Fortune, I cracked open my piggy bank to see if I could afford a vowel. By the time I reached puberty, the show was as much about the amount of cleavage Vanna White was showing as it was about the game, but I always strived to solve each puzzle before the contestants.

And I almost always did… even when I was barely conscious.

For most of a year after my sixteenth birthday, I was in and out of hospitals, being treated with chemotherapy to fight off bone cancer in my left leg. The medicines knocked me out for over a day; I would wake up to eat, urinate, or see if it was all a dream and if I was back home.

One evening, my mom was watching Wheel of Fortune on the wall-mounted television while I slept. I woke up in a groggy state, turned my attention to the show, solved the puzzle, and went back to sleep.

From that day forward – or maybe, from the first day I was healthy again moving forward – I knew I had to someday be a contestant on the show.

The chances of that happening increased when I moved to Los Angeles to attend graduate school. I did not immediately pursue the show, as I was focused on my studies and craft as a Screenwriter. But after graduating, I dialed the contestant line. I learned the show was overbooked and that I should try back in “about a year.” One full year!

What was I going to do while I waited? How about going on Scrabble, “the television version of America’s favorite game”? It offered a similar challenge to Wheel of Fortune, only I’d be guessing words with missing letters instead of phrases. I also liked how the clues to each puzzle were creative uses of homonyms. I was a pro at piecing together word puzzles, but these clues provided me a head start.

The result? I was a three-day champion, totaling nearly $10,000 in winnings.

I found that playing word games for money put me in my natural element; I was so confident, so capable… and so ready to go on another show! I kept checking with Wheel of Fortune until they had a new call for contestants. It took over five years, but I pounced on the opportunity when it arrived.

The audition process felt like a cattle call where only so many bovines could get branded. There may have been as many as five hundred people there; they broke us up into rooms of maybe a hundred each, where we sat in rows of chairs facing a stage of producers and contestant coordinators.

The first task was a written test. We were given #2 pencils and then a clipboard with two orange pieces of paper attached. There were twelve puzzles of various difficulties across the pages.

“You will be given ten minutes to complete the test,” we were told. “Don’t forget to put your name on the top of it.”

That sounded like something I’d heard in high school, which was unfortunate because I wasn’t the best student. But this was no Geometry exam. Like my time on Scrabble, solving Wheel of Fortune puzzles put me in my element. One by one, I knocked them out. They never showed us our scores, but I know I aced it.

Next up, the all-important “energy” test. Everyone in the room would get a turn standing up and pretending to spin the wheel. We were told to cheer it on the same way we’d do on the show and then call out a letter. It seemed silly when the red-haired woman in the front row went first. She leaned over nothing and hurled her body in conjunction with an imaginary wheel. She clapped and jumped up and down like she landed on a million-dollar wedge.

“Give me a T,” she screamed. I knew she had already blown her chance. The producers had previously advised us not to say, “Give me a…”. We were only supposed to call out the letter.

My nerves ratcheted up as names were called without one of them being mine. It was too much time to be rehearsing in my head instead of just doing it. Couldn’t my A+ test be enough? Did I have to play pretend too?

“John Bennardo,” the God-like voice from the stage called.

I stood, calling on some pantomime lessons I learned in grade school to give the wheel a good go. I clapped my hands together, shouting, “Big Money! Big Money!”

“D!” I called out when the wheel came to a stop.

“Thank you,” said God.

That was pretty much it - a written test and ten seconds to act like a fool. But I felt good about it, and sure enough, I received a phone call a week later that I was chosen as a contestant.

Now for the bad news: because I lived in Southern California, they could not schedule a date to appear on the show. Precedence had to be given to whoever flew in from out of town. Locals only got their chance when a spot opened. With the backlog of players they had, that could be as much as, you guessed it, a year!

How would I fill this waiting period? It wasn’t going to be on another game show. As a word guy, I knew I’d have no chance on Jeopardy or any other quiz show. I also had too much self-respect to go fend off Whammies on Press Your Luck. Instead, I spent the time getting to know a lovely young lady I was set up with. We went on our blind date, hit it off, became an item, moved in together, and eventually got married. At my wedding, a popular conversation topic was my inevitable appearance on Wheel of Fortune, but the call never came. When I rang their offices to check on my status, they informed me I was still in the loop and would “get on eventually.”

That “eventually” still hadn’t arrived by early 2002. It was cause for concern because my wife and I were planning a move to Florida. If I didn’t get on the show soon, I’d have to fly back in for my appearance. If only I’d thought of that “excuse” earlier! As soon as they understood my circumstances, they booked me for a day in late July, which was right around when we planned on leaving.

Fast forward to summer. My tape date was the same day I had to turn in the key to my apartment. While my wife slept at her sister’s house further south of the studio than where we lived, I slept on the floor in an empty unit, with only a pillow and the next day’s suit among my possessions. I showered in the morning, got dressed, turned in my key, and never set foot in that building again. Wheel of Fortune, here I come!

Having done the Scrabble thing almost a decade earlier, I knew what to expect. Game shows tape five episodes in a day to reduce production costs, so there’d be many people there, waiting their turn. On this day, they’d be shooting six shows, meaning there were eighteen contestants plus two reserves in attendance. We were treated like tourists, the producers our tour guides. We were moved from room to room on a schedule and given more information about what room we’d be moved to next.

At one point, a producer arrived with a basket of numbered ping-pong balls. We all drew one to determine which show we’d be on and who our opponents would be. I drew #6, as did Mary, a senior citizen who liked dancing, and Lisa, a college student. That meant we’d have to sit in the audience for five full shows before getting our turn. It was a blessing in disguise, though, as the time spent watching everything from above settled me down and de-mystified the atmosphere. By the time they got to my show at around 5:30pm, I was ready to conquer the world… or shall I say the wheel.

I was assigned the middle position, the one with the yellow scoreboard. Taking my place, I was surprised that this set that looked so glamorous on TV was anything but beyond the sight lines. Behind my score panel was a mishmash of plywood and sloppy wiring that reminded me of the times I tried to build a TV stand from Ikea. The wheel sparkled, but upon closer review, it was nothing more than cardboard wedges with stenciled numbers and some glitter glued on.

Still, it was a bit daunting. I mean, I was about to be on Wheel of Fortune! Pat Sajak would be asking me about myself, and Vanna White was going to be flipping letters that I called! I began to wonder what the heck I was doing there. My eyes scanned for the nearest emergency exit. If I didn’t have to work my way around Lisa to get off the stage, I might have bolted.

Then the music started.

Suddenly, all was right with the world. Suddenly, I was back in my element. Playing my favorite game for the chance to win money? Bring it on!

What a thirty minutes it was. I got off to a slow start, but things picked up for me midway through the show and never let up. I even solved one puzzle where I picked up an extra $3,000 just for filling in a blank. Rather than share all the details in this article, here’s a video chronicling everything I went through.

Now let’s talk about that bonus game! It still haunts me to this day. Not so much because I lost, but because I know I’d seen that exact puzzle before.

“A Fair Shake.” Yeah, I’d definitely seen it. For months before I taped my show, I practiced on a Wheel of Fortune game on my home computer. I saw hundreds of puzzles in both the regular rounds and the bonus game. But “A Fair Shake” stood out because it was the exact puzzle I learned a valuable lesson from, one I forgot to apply when I had $25,000 at stake: Even if you know a particular letter is there, call for it anyway. When I played it on the computer, I knew the first letter was “A,” so I went elsewhere, trying to find another vowel. Turns out there were three As, which would have been a big help. On the real show, I made the same boneheaded gaffe… and I know I did so on the same damn puzzle; I realized it weeks later. What were the odds I’d get a puzzle recycled from the home game? I don’t know, but I should be $25,000 richer.

As it was, I left with nearly $13,000 and one of the more memorable days of my existence. To a large extent, it was a dream fulfilled. I took my love of words and the skills I had with them and was a champion on not one but two game shows! I retire from the game show world an undefeated champion.

Of course, Wheel of Fortune is still on the air. If you’re good with words and have made it all the way through this article, I’d encourage you to become a contestant. It’s a wonderful experience that stays with you forever, win or lose.

If only I had Letterman there to share my experience with me.