when did wheel of fortune stop shopping for prizes
Wheel of Fortune (U.S. game show) Originally, after winning a round, contestants spent their winnings on prizes that were presented onstage. At any time during a shopping round, most often if the contestant did not have enough left to buy another prize,[19] a contestant could choose to put his or her winnings on a gift certificate, or he or she could put the winnings "on account" for use in a later shopping round. However, a contestant would lose any money on account by landing on Bankrupt or failing to claim it by not winning subsequent rounds.[9] The shopping element was eliminated from the syndicated version on the episode that aired October 5, 1987,[20] both to speed up gameplay and to alleviate the taxes paid by contestants.[12] However, the network version continued to use the shopping element until the end of its first NBC run on June 30, 1989.[21]
Wheel of Fortune (U.S. game show) Wheel of Fortune ranks as the longest-running syndicated game show in the United States, with over 6,000 episodes aired. TV Guide named it the "top-rated syndicated series" in a 2008 article,[4] and in 2013, the magazine ranked it at No.Â 2 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.[5] The program has also come to gain a worldwide following with sixty international adaptations. The syndicated series' 35th season premiered on September 11, 2017.[6]