Each is unique, and never to be repeated. We review obscure gems of TV shows that aired for one season (at most) before getting canceled.
Most of us wouldn’t recognize–or, indeed, accept–Wheel of Fortune‘s Pat Sajak without his magnificent color wheel or offers to purchase vowels. But for a time, he did come out from behind the podium and the lighted puzzle board to, like so many before him, host a late- night television show.
It’s an Official Television Event– Betty White is there: The Pat Sajak Show. Via
I continue to wonder why so many sports stars, comedians, talk show hosts and game show pundits continue to ram their hairsprayed heads against the great wall of late night. The witching hour has sucked up and spit out such bona fide comedy pros as Chevy Chase and Jay Leno, and yet here’s Dennis Miller and Sajak, adopting a three-point stance and taking a run at the brick facade. It usually ends as expected.
Sajak’s ill fated turn took place on CBS from January 1989 to April 1990 (yes– one ratings period– although that’s longer than others can boast.) He cut his Wheel of Fortune duties in half, sticking only to the night time version of the show and ducking out of the daytime version. He got a soundstage and a staff and a contract and really, life was looking quite balmy for the former weatherman.
I shan’t neglect to tell you that the ill- fated first guest was the one and only Mr. Chase. There were couches and a jazz band and genial Hollywood banter and really no one missed it when it went.
The Pat Sajak Show, it must be noted, wasn’t aggressively bad; it was just boring. And in the age of Arsenio Hall and David Letterman in his prime, that was an unacceptable blank in the puzzle lights.
