‘Wheel of Fortune’ Contestant Missteps on Christmas-Themed Puzzle Answer
Who doesn’t enjoy a classic “Wheel of Fortune” blunder? This holiday season has gifted us a memorable one.
In the Dec. 17 episode of the beloved game show, contestant Phil McManus from Palmer, Massachusetts, attempted to solve a puzzle from the “Same Letter” category. The board displayed “Chocolate Chestnuts & Chi_ne_s.”
After Ryan Seacrest, the host, asked if he preferred to solve the puzzle or spin again following his purchase of an “I,” McManus decided to take a chance and guessed “Chocolates, chestnuts and chickens,” which turned out to be as incorrect as adding prune juice to egg nog.
The accurate response, provided by another contestant named Matt, was “Chocolates, chestnuts & chimneys.” Unlike McManus, it’s likely that you recognized how amusing his wrong guess was to the audience.
“That was my shopping list last weekend,” someone joked.
“When I think of chocolates and chestnuts, the next thing that pops into my head is chickens,” another commenter quipped.
“It’s the Christmas episode of Wheel of Fortune! And this was the contestant’s guess. I love Wheel of Fortune, but where do these contestants come from?” someone else commented.
“I laughed so hard that my deaf dog jumped out of her bed,” another person shared via Instagram.
This contestant’s amusing error follows closely on the heels of another moment from a month earlier, when a player named Will attempted to answer the puzzle “Give yourself a round of applause” with “Treat yourself a round of sausage.”
“I must say, when the lights are on, and you’ve got the stars and Ryan Seacrest and Vanna White, my mind just went blank,” he told Maggie Sajak, the show’s social media correspondent and daughter of former host Pat Sajak. “But if your dad, now in retirement, happens to be watching this show and cracks a beer while having a laugh, it was worth it.”
Earlier this year, before Sajak’s retirement, contestant Tavaris Williams made a blunder by guessing “Right in the butt” while trying to solve a phrase. His unexpected response was so surprising that it landed Williams on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“Pat was incredible! He made me feel great about it during the break,” Williams recalled. “He said, ‘We’ll find a tactful way to edit this. I don’t know how, but we’ll make it work.’”
About a week after that episode aired, another contestant named Rufus prematurely celebrated by giving fist bumps to his fellow competitors after he guessed “Don’t look away” during a toss-up phrase, leading Sajak to intervene and stop his cheer. The correct answer was “Can’t look away,” a puzzle none of the contestants managed to solve before the buzzer sounded.
Once the puzzle was revealed, Sajak couldn’t resist joining in on the fun.
“Everyone’s congratulating each other, and we get to keep the money!” he jested, drawing laughter from the audience.
