‘Wheel of Fortune’ Player Misses $40,000 Win After Disney Disaster

Wheel of Fortune contestants whiffing their bonus puzzles is nothing new, but on December 4’s episode, a player came up short on a $40,000 puzzle that left fans joking that she may never want to visit a Disney theme park again.

The game show’s latest big miss involved Vandana Patel, an Indian fusion food expert from Chicago. She won the episode and proceeded to the coveted bonus round with $20,600, a trip to Florida, and the selection of “What Are You Wearing?” as her category.

Joined by host Ryan Seacrest and the off-side support of her waving mom, daughter, and husband, she faced the two-word puzzle. Choosing a “DMH” and “A,” Vanna White added a mere “H” to the first word. “We want more!” Seacrest chanted. With that tough break, the 10-second timer began. The puzzle read as, “‘_ H _ T E’ ‘_ L _ _ E S.’”

A stern Patel did her very best to concentrate on cracking it, successfully saying “White” was the first word. But she couldn’t figure out the second word, and the timer ran out. The full puzzle was unveiled, “WHITE GLOVES.”

Seacrest revealed the gold envelope contained the $40,000 amount and put a consoling arm around Patel’s shoulder. “This was on your bucket list!” he told her. “It was,” she replied.

The game show shared the big miss on Youtube, where fans reacted to the loss with the top comment being about how the contestant will likely never want to see Mickey Mouse, or Mario of the Nintendo games, again given their white gloves.

“Now she never wants to see mickey or mario again,” the fan wrote scoring 20 likes.

“Or the keeper of the Stanley Cup,” replied another.

A third fan wrote, “I knew it said WHITE GLOVES and I even solved it before the timer was displayed.”

A fourth penned, “Don’t worry, Vandana, I was stumped too. I got the first word, but not the second. That’s alright, you’re a winner regardless. $20K is nothing to sneeze at. Great job!

A fifth said, “I knew gloves from the initial and her h got me white. Tough puzzle

“Wow. At least it wasn’t the hundred thousand dollar wedge,” wrote one more.

Meanwhile, Seacrest, of course, had huge shoes to fill replacing the legendary Pat Sajak after four decades for Season 42. His debut month was the strongest ratings month for WoF in the past three years, and viewers were already treated to a viral moment (via a round of sausage). That said, there have been some questionable hosting moments.

In September, Seacrest suffered what fans dubbed his “first blooper”, involving a prolonged reaction to rewarding a bonus round. Fans also called out the host for ruling against another player before the timer was up. Most controversially, last month,  fans called out the host for not reminding a player to pick a letter, leading to him losing the game in a misunderstanding and by a mere $147.

This past two weeks, a more puzzling issue has come to light, which is that there has been a mere one bonus puzzle win out of the last eight episodes, many fans blaming the players and not the host.