Top 10 Wheel Of Fortune Puzzle Fails

We have trouble believing anybody out there hasn’t at least heard of that nifty device we use to power up our phones. After correctly putting 2 Hs on the board, and with the puzzle almost complete, Sam attempts the obvious solve. He gets two words in and pauses, however. Then this happens. One of his fellow contestants gets a kick out of it, and even Pat Sajak gets a jab in before the puzzle is correctly solved. With the way cell phone contracts are these days, though, maybe having a cell phone charter isn’t a bad idea.

You see those clues they give at the bottom of the puzzle? Sometimes – well, pretty much always – they’re important. Case in point: this puzzle, where contestant Shermian doesn’t seem to notice or remember that the category is “Things.” You see, the hint clearly means that the answer is a noun – not an action. Sadly, the contestant missed that memo, AND overlooked that the N was already there, resulting in this misstep. She may’ve started this puzzle in the right way, but she ended it in embarrassment.

Here’s what happens when you forget that “Wheel of Fortune” is a family show. After guessing the letter P, and having one appear, Joe attempts to solve the puzzle. To be fair, the words fit perfectly, but he should know that’s not the answer because there’s only one P up there. Well, that and “Wheel” isn’t known for their drug-related puzzles. Joe gets an earful from Pat, but then one of his fellow contestants makes another wrong guess, before it’s finally solved as “A Group of Well-Wishers.”

Your mind might have gone to the gutter with Joe for our last entry, but it’s hard to imagine not knowing the answer to this one. A contestant from the Air Force managed to snag the $10,000 wedge, sandwiched between 2 bankrupts, AND correctly guessed a G, but it was all downhill from there. After spinning again to the audience’s surprise and narrowly avoiding the Bankrupt wedge, she asks for the letter K. The look on Pat Sajak’s face says it all. We don’t know what an ekclusive nightclub is, but for a puzzle with only two letters left, we ekspect better.

We get it, Toss-Up Puzzles can be pretty stressful, and your mind’s gotta go into hyperdrive when all those letters appear one by one. One thing’s for sure though: if you don’t know the answer, don’t make a guess that doesn’t fit. This is advice that contestant Stephen should’ve heeded, as he mistook the song lyrics “Surf City, here we come” as… this. We’ll give him a pass on not recognizing lyrics from a 50+year-old beach song, but the entire last half of his guess doesn’t even fit – not to mention the fact that the last word is already filled in! Maybe someone needs some R&R in Surf City.

You’re in luck: this entry is 3 fails in one! While all three Armed Forces contestants do pretty well filling out the letters of the puzzle, sometimes you need every single letter to be able to solve. Okay, scratch that. We guess even with every letter on the board, it’s still kinda tough if you’ve never heard of these people. And when they finally pronounce Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa’s names correctly, our favorite host throws shade at the morning TV hosts. We’re willing to bet cable TV isn’t that popular with the military?

We can blame some fails just on nerves. This nearly completed puzzle should have been solved with the DC Comics superheroes, Superman and Wonder Woman. After successfully guessing a letter, the contestant gets a little mixed up, however. We believe he does know the correct answer, as he blurts it out right after, but it’s too late. Our best guess is that he initially thought the first word was Spider-Man, and the web-slinger stayed in his head just long enough to confuse him. Here’s hoping his teammate didn’t take it too hard.

This one takes place in the bonus round, so the stakes are high. Contestant Zach gets lucky with his chosen letters, and is only missing two to complete the puzzle. Not recognizing the second word, Zach seems to go through the alphabet until he hits the letter, even guessing non-words like “jand.” He finally gets to W and guesses “wand”!... right after the buzzer sounds. Don’t feel too bad though; despite his disappointment, he still won over $19,000.

We don’t want to know where the contestant’s head was for this one. What’s worse is the puzzle is only missing one letter. After spinning the wheel, contestant Kevin knows he has a choice between two words: “Naked” or “Named.” You can see where this is going… The best part might be the reaction from a shocked and chagrined audience member. Kevin was later invited on “Ellen,” where it was revealed that neither him nor his wife had heard of the play. He ended up the winner, though, as Ellen gave him $5,000 in redemption money after playing a game on her show.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions:
- Miners & Hoes
- The Pointed Desert x3
- Leather Mullet

This one hurts the most, because everything worked out so well for our contestant Julian, but he just couldn’t nail the finish. After obtaining the million-dollar wedge to start his journey towards obscene cash, he guesses all the letters to actually complete the full puzzle. All he has to do now is say it to solve it. And say it he does, with a ton of confidence to boot. However, it’s not accepted and when a fellow contestant pronounces it correctly, a humiliated Julian has to stand beside Pat Sajak as the host explains what happened. It’s safe to say that the Greek gods weren’t smiling down on Julian that day.