I have big problems

... with Wheel of Fortune. Problems I'd like to share with you.

First off, the producers are cheapskates. They go out of their way to make sure contestants don't get to take home all that much coin. In support of this thesis I offer the following particulars:

1. Prize placards cover the dollar values on too many of the wheel's wedges. A contestant gets to pluck the placard if he or she calls a letter that's in the puzzle, but receives zero dollars for doing so. A big ouch! when there's like five T's.

2. There are way too many BANKRUPT spins. This not only holds down the cash awards by regularly erasing accumulated sums, but makes contestants leery of trying to spin their way to big bucks. They routinely jump straight to solving for fear of losing even the meager monies amassed to that point.

3. Eighty percent of the time, spinning the bonus wheel at the end of the show yields the bottom-level prize ($25,000 or $30,000 depending on how recent the episode). That's because, even though they make the bonus puzzle ridiculously difficult with off-the-wall solutions like ZINC COATED, the producers urgently want no one to win more than the minimum cash award if humanly possible. Which turns out to be very humanly possible, in most cases, for those relatively rare, uncommonly creative thinkers who can indeed sort out ...

_ _ N _

_ _ATED

... within ten seconds.

Next, the contestants themselves. My main problem with the contestants themselves, apart from the intimidating (and therefore excitement-extinguishing) effect all those BANKRUPT spaces have on them, is that even when they obviously know a puzzle's solution they'll frequently go ahead and buy another vowel and wastefully shave another $250 off their potential haul. Or worse still, they'll call a letter that appears just once in the puzzle instead of an equally obvious letter appearing two or three times, thereby earning only a thousand dollars, say, instead of two thousand or three thousand for the spin. In other words, they too often shoot selves in feet.

Finally, my biggest Wheel of Fortune beef of all: THE INCESSANT, POINTLESS CLAPPING.

Man! Every damn time a contestant spins the damn wheel they all stand there clapping like trained seals until it stops spinning. Clapping for what? FOR WHAT? I ask. Why do you clap, people? WHY? Why not pop and lock until the spinning stops? The Pavlovian clapping would be delightfully bizarre were it not so freaking annoying.

As for Vanna White, I have no problems at all with Vanna White.

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