1. Wheel Of Fortune Online Game
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Seven thousand episodes is quite good fortune.

Pat Sajak and Vanna White celebrated that milestone on “Wheel of Fortune” Friday, a feat they tell USA TODAY they could never have predicted.

Apr 14, 2011  How to Be a Contestant on Wheel of Fortune. Wheel of Fortune is a fun, classic game show that quizzes your knowledge, tests your luck and can win you a significant sum of money. If you want to spin the wheel, you'll need to apply.

White, 62, admits she didn’t foresee “doing the show for more than five years.”

“I thought, ‘Well, this is gonna be fun, but I can’t imagine it lasting that long,’ ' she says. “I remember sitting in the chair next to Pat saying, ‘I wonder where we’ll be in 10 years?’ … And here it’s been 36.”

'Wheel,' which airs on local stations, often paired with 'Jeopardy!,' is still averaging nearly 10 million viewers this season, a close second to 'Judge Judy' among all syndicated shows.

Sajak, 72, notes just how greatly television has changed over the years.

When 'we went on, there were only three networks,” he says. Cable was in its early days and streaming networks didn't exist. “We’re in such a different environment, and yet still succeeding. I think that’s the biggest accomplishment of the show.”

“Wheel” has also earned Sajak a Guinness World Records title for the longest career of a game-show host for the same show, which he received on Wednesday’s “Wheel.”

“It’s our 7,000th show,” Sajak says to applause at the start of Friday's milestone episode. “Could someone get me a chair?”

Later in the program, he reflects on the accomplishment, surrounded by crew members in front of the iconic puzzle board.

Motioning to White, he gushes, 'This woman and I have been together a very long time. It’s been a fabulous run, and we’ve got lots more in us, yes?”

“Yes, we do!” White assures him.

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The puzzle board won’t spell out retirement for either anytime soon.

Sajak says he doesn’t have a date in mind, but his departure will be “in the single digits” of years from now. “I’d like to leave while the show’s still popular, and I’d like to leave before people ask me to leave,” he says, “and I’d like to leave before people tune in and see me and go, 'Ooh, what the hell happened to him?’

Sajak says he's 'not quite there yet,' and adds: “When I do leave, it won’t be because I’m sick of it or burned out by it; I’ll leave because it’s time to go.”

As for a replacement, names don’t roll off the tongue as they did for “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek.

“I have no interest in that,” Sajak says. “It’s not my show, I don’t run it, I’m not producing it. I don’t own it. I’m just a working stiff here. I’m sure they will pick someone just fine, but I’ve never given that a moment’s thought.”

Sajak predicts he and White will leave together. She has no plans for retirement, either. She and Sajak renewed their contracts through 2022.

“I can’t imagine anybody else on my puzzle board,” she says with a laugh. “That’s a scary thought. It’s mine!”

Sajak calls his gig “the best job in television,” citing its fast-paced shooting schedule. The entire season is taped in about 35 days, excluding shows played away from the Los Angeles studio.

“It is work, but it’s almost like coming to your second family because most of the people that work here have been working on the show for 20-plus years, so we really are one big happy family,” says White.

She says she arrives to the studio around 8 a.m. After hair and makeup, the first of six daily shows begins taping at noon. Then the pace picks up.

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“We do three shows boom, boom, boom with 10 minutes in between, where I change dresses to make it look like the next day,” she says. “Then we have about an hour of a lunch break, and then we go back and do three more shows.” The day ends at 6 p.m.

The dresses are lent by designers; the shoes and costume jewelry belong to her. She prefers 'comfortable' frocks with some stretch.

“Some of them are beautiful, long sequined gowns, but literally you feel like you’re sewn into the dress,” she says. “You can’t breathe. But they’re beautiful, and they are fun to wear.”

Some styles are off limits. “Anything where I can’t raise my arm to the top row I can’t wear,” she says.

But strutting on the puzzle board in 4- to 5-inch heels is not a problem. “Those 5-inch shoes usually have platforms in the front of a couple inches, so it makes it a little easier.”

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Trickier moments: Dealing with contestants' cringeworthy gaffes that typically go viral.

'Sometimes I wonder why people even come on the show because, in these days of social media, the risk of that is so great,' says Sajak.

Although the game is less mentally taxing than 'Jeopardy!,' the TV lights build pressure on contestants.

'They’re nervous; there’s 300 people in the audience, there’s six cameras on them, the whole country is watching,' White says.

Despite the risk of Internet immortality, Sajak says 'Wheel,' like other game shows, offers viewers refuge from 'really dark' subject matter found elsewhere on TV.

'We’re sort of a safe-haven half-hour where nobody gets hurt, and everybody has fun,' he says. 'If I went in to pitch this show to a network today, the pitch would last about eight seconds, and they’d go, 'Thank you, next,' 'cause it’s old-fashioned. (That hasn't stopped major networks from reviving other classic game shows).

'We’re just playing hangman and spinning a giant wheel,' he says, 'and yet it’s become a part of people’s daily ritual, and it’s a nice spot to be in.'

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