‘Wheel of Fortune’ host was impressed — until this teacher fumbled a phrase everyone knows and lost $50K
‘Wheel of Fortune’ contestant Janie Hart faced an ironic loss after guessing an easy puzzle wrong. Bonus Rounds allow contestants to win a fortune, and while some puzzles can be mind-bending, others are comparatively easier. Hart was one of the few lucky players to get a very common phrase during her Bonus Round. Unfortunately, she still couldn’t get it right! Host Ryan Seacrest was impressed by her puzzle-solving skills until the final round. The contestant had defeated her fellow players to reach the Bonus Round, where she made a silly mistake and lost a huge prize.
Hart picked the ‘Phrase’ category and chose ‘F, D, H, O’ as additional letters. After her final guess, the puzzle she was left with read: “‘_EE_’ ‘_ _’ ‘THE’ ‘_OOD’ ‘_OR_’.” Seacrest started the 10-second timer for her to solve the puzzle and guess the phrase, but the buzzer went off before she could figure it out. The correct answer was revealed to be: ‘Keep up the good work.” Viewers couldn’t help but point out the irony of fumbling such a common phrase, that too by a teacher, and reacted to the epic fail. “Omg how she ain't get that,” one fan said, as per Daily Express.
“Sadly, she didn’t KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK in the bonus round and lost 50k,” another social media user commented. “Janie is actually a teacher so how did she forget keep up the good work,” a third wrote. Hart was disappointed when the host revealed that she could have won $50,000 if she had guessed it right. Nevertheless, she seemed to have enjoyed the experience. It was an unfortunate loss, considering the puzzle was an easy one, but Hart still went home with a $19,200 winning amount from previous rounds. “I’m very happy,” the teacher declared while hugging Seacrest.
‘Wheel of Fortune’ fans are known to be sensitive when it comes to goof-ups that cost the players a big amount. Since stepping into the role of a host and replacing veteran Pat Sajak, Seacrest has faced the heat several times. In one game round, contestant Oleh Voloshyn guessed the puzzle correctly but lost the cash because players were only supposed to guess letters in that round. Although it was a silly mistake, viewers couldn’t help but slam Seacrest for not explaining the rule clearly. At the time, he was fairly new to the hosting gig, and the show’s die-hard fans weren’t welcoming at all.
“Can’t believe what I just saw…” a fan reacted to the blunder on a Reddit thread. Another user pointed out that Sajak would have reminded the player of the rules. “Pat [Sajak] would have reminded him to guess a letter before solving,” the fan added. “We were screaming at the screen!” a third wrote. Viewers seemed extremely frustrated at this situation, with one netizen writing, "Could Ryan not say something???" Others argued that even though it was not explicitly the host's job to point out these things, Sajak would have made it a point to do so in the same situation.