'Wheel' Rolls Merrily Along

Invented millennia ago, the wheel has been adapted and refined ever since.

But its steady evolution reached a major turning point with "Wheel of Fortune," the game show that's on a seemingly endless roll.

TV's top-rated syndicated series, "Wheel" is marking its 4,000th show with a special half-hour of highlights from two decades on the air. (Check local listings for time and station.)

This retrospective is part of three weeks of "Wheel" staged from New York's Radio City Music Hall — quite a grand site for a ritual that's almost ridiculously simple. (Three contestants take turns spinning a numbered wheel, then compete to guess the letters that will spell out a word or phrase.)

What, then, accounts for "Wheel's" unmatched popularity? Pat Sajak is at a loss to explain.

"There is no reason we should be sitting here," the show's host said backstage between tapings during "Wheel's" New York visit in September. "Just to be on the air this long is amazing."

The amazing "Wheel" has been on the air since 1975, when it premiered in a daytime version on NBC.

It was dreamed up by entertainer and "Jeopardy" creator Merv Griffin, who merged the word game Hangman he had played as a child with the wheel of chance often found at casinos and church bazaars.

Veteran quizmaster Chuck Woolery was the inaugural host. Then in 1981, Sajak, a weatherman on a local Los Angeles station, took it over as his first and still only game-show gig. A year later, Vanna White replaced the show's original "co-host" (or, more descriptively, "letter turner"), a future broadcasting footnote named Susan Stafford.

In fall 1983, "Wheel" began its syndicated week night edition, for which, a dozen years after the daytime version ended, there is no end in sight.

"It's the kind of family thing that people don't do enough of," said White, attempting to explain her show's apparently boundless appeal. "Even babies like to watch the wheel go around."

White recalled how she auditioned for co-host soon after moving to Los Angeles from Atlanta, where she had watched "Wheel of Fortune" every day.

"I wanted to be on TV and I was already familiar with the show," she said. "I thought it would be a great steppingstone to stardom." And she was right, even though two decades later she remains at the same job, gussied-up and clapping for each player like always.

Granted, in recent years her duties have changed slightly, thanks to automation. Rather than manually turning each letter into view as it's picked by a contestant, she now illuminates the letter by touching its video screen.

But the way she patrols that message board — purposeful, efficient and fetching — not only is unchanged but surely unimprovable.

A silly way to make a living?

"Let people laugh," said White, now 46, as she ignited her dazzling smile. "I'm laughing with 'em!"

Sajak, too, acknowledged that life at the "Wheel" isn't terribly taxing.

"We tape for two or three days, then get off for two or three weeks," he reported. "So my life is a series of mini-vacations."

His qualifications for such a plum assignment?

"You attend the University of Glib," he said, displaying his chipmunk grin, then conceded, "It's not a real stretch in terms of my craft, whatever that is."

On the contrary, it's an exercise in Sajak being himself.

"I'm pretty close to being the same person on and off the air," he said, "and after work I wind down real quickly. By the time I'm on my way home, I'm thinking about whether this is the night the trash goes out."

Even so, "keeping the show fresh is a tough thing to do. It's kind of like a successful marriage: It's easy to go out and fool around with someone else every night who's new and exciting and different. But to keep the same person happy for 25 years is a bit of a skill."

It's a skill the 56-year-old Sajak, like his co-star, plans to demonstrate awhile longer.

"As television is getting more splintered and success rates are dropping and it's harder to roll out a hit, especially in syndication, you'd have to be pretty goofy to walk away," he said, quickly adding: "But I'll go away long before it does. I don't mean to sound cocky, but I don't know what would knock this show off."

From someone in a position to know, that was no spin.