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Little is likely to change in the meantime; little ever does. Game-show contestants are, as always, relentlessly peppy; bedroom sets and trips to Bermuda still bring squeals of ecstasy; hosts are still genial, well manicured and almost exclusively white males. Sets have, however, grown more lavish over the years, and cash prizes have mounted. The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime, which debuted last month, is so proud of offering "the biggest prize in television history" that it displays the cash in bundles stacked on a pedestal at center stage.
The next twist in TV games may be home-audience involvement. Two new shows planned for next season, Banko and WinAmerica Sweepstakes, will offer big cash prizes to viewers who play along at home with game cards to be distributed nationwide. The innovation could catch on, though the game-show community is wary. "You don't buy audiences with huge amounts of giveaway money," contends Mark Goodson, producer of such classics as To Tell the Truth and + Password. Chuck Barris, who has made a fortune as creator of such shows as The Dating Game and The Gong Show, is not so sure. "Two-way involvement may be a way we could go in the future," he says. "I'll be in St. Tropez mulling it over."
While there, he might also mull the phenomenal success of Wheel of Fortune. A fixture on NBC's morning schedule since 1975, Wheel was on the verge of cancellation in 1982, when a small distribution company named King World decided to create a night-time syndicated version. The show (now seen twice each weekday in most cities, in both network and syndicated editions) soon became a major hit, and this season generated $70 million in gross revenues. "If Wheel continues to hang in there," says King World Chairman Roger King, "it will do better business than Star Wars."
What accounts for its amazing popularity? Partly it is the elementary but engaging word game (many puzzles are devised personally by Creator Merv Griffin, who also wrote the show's theme music), partly the hypnotic allure of the wheel itself. It may also be a function of Host Sajak, whose low-key, faintly ironic style is a welcome break from most game-show gush. "As a game- show host, there's always the temptation to do a parody of one, to do a rapid- fire delivery and smile a little more," says Sajak, 39, who was a weatherman for KNBC in Los Angeles before hopping aboard Wheel in late 1981. "But that's not my style."
Then there is White, "part of the mystery of the show," as Sajak sees it. A native of North Myrtle Beach, S.C., she drove to Hollywood in a U-Haul in 1980, landed a couple of movie bit roles, and was hired as Wheel's tile- turning hostess in 1982. "Turning letters isn't a hard job," admits White, 29. "But you do have to use your peripheral vision and listen to everything." White is quite proud of her performance: "I've never turned over a wrong tile." Indeed, her only major gaffe was the time she tripped and fell off the platform behind a contestant's new Mustang. "I wasn't hurt," she recalls, "but my ego was bruised."