‘Wheel of Fortune’ contestant repeats wrong answer 3 times — even Pat Sajak couldn't help but roast him
After decades of reigning on TV, ‘Wheel of Fortune’ has seen its fair share of wild and weird guesses, but this one guess by contestant James Trahan has gone down in history as one of the most cringeworthy ones. Trahan, a social media strategist, competed on the show in January 2015 with Kelly Vander Meer, a special ed. teacher from Chicago, and Lindsay Hoffman, a financial consultant from Maple Valley, Washington State. According to Andy Nguyen's blog, Trahan started strong, solving the first Toss-Up Round by nailing the puzzle “Beef Stroganoff,” and pocketing $1,000 right off the bat.
But in the following rounds, his game took a nosedive. In the first round of the ‘Before and After’ puzzle, Trahan faced a tough break after choosing the wrong letter. Moving to the next round, he picked up $700 but immediately lost it all to a Bankrupt, giving his opponents the lead, with Hoffman at $14,750. Vander Meer, who was at the same level as Trahan with $1,000, gained steam after solving the puzzle, ‘Stuck in the Middle With You,’ in the Mystery round’s Song category.
During the Speed-Up round, things hit peak frustration when all three contestants were faced with a three-word puzzle that read, “ The _ _ _ NTED DESERT.” Hoffman made the first attempt with “The Pointed Desert,” but lost. When host Pat Sajak asked Trahan to answer, he repeated Hoffman’s wrong guess and said, “The Pounted Desert,” but obviously, no letters were turned. Noting that he still had the time, Sajak asked Trahan to make another attempt. Yet again, he repeated her wrong guess, leaving viewers face-palming. Confused, he asked Sajak if he could still solve it. After Sajak gave him a nod, Trahan went, “A POINTED DESERT,’ prompting Sajak to say, “It’s not ‘Pointed Desert,’ no matter how many times you say it.”
The clock ran out for Trahan, and Vander Meer took the lead and blurted out the correct answer, “The Painted Desert,” advancing to the Bonus Round and walking away with $12,550 cash and a trip to Aruba, as reported by Patch. At the end of the round, Sajak told the viewers, “I was going to give him a point for Desert, he was so insistent to do it.” Fans online also expressed their frustration. On a Reddit thread titled, "Wheel of Fortune contestants have trouble solving the puzzle," fans didn’t hold back at a chance to mock Trahan. A viewer said on the post, “I was watching this with my Dad the other night, and we cracked up at their stupidity.”
Echoing the sentiment, another viewer said, “I saw this while eating dinner and gave myself a hard-ass facepalm. Never thought that I'd see something this cringeworthy in front of my eyes.” Noting the player’s attempt, a netizen added, “I found it funny to just watch the girl (Kelly) who guessed it. You can see her go through so many emotions as the other contestants guess incorrectly and the buzzer keeps going off. She is trying so hard not to just spit it out.” Meanwhile, defending the contestant, another Reddit user said, “It's difficult to make an on-the-spot dicespin like that.”