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'Jeopardy,' 'Wheel of Fortune' cancel audiences due to COVID-19 Fears

Pretty much every TV show that uses a live audience adds in canned applause and laughter on top of them anyway. For sitcoms especially, not all scenes are taped in front of a live audience. For Roseanne and The Conners, blooper reels showed that the scenes filmed in the children's rooms and the basement did not use an audience, which also explains why when The Conners did a live episode recently, they only filmed scenes in the living room, kitchen, and the restaurant where Becky works, since those sets all face the studio audience.

Whenever The Price is Right does Kids Week, I always hear the same "kids shouting" stock sound effect that can often be heard in playground or "crowded place with kids" scenes in 90s-present cartoons. One of the most famous uses of the sound was in Home Alone 2 when Kevin ruins the choir performance and all the kids fall over.

Even Judge Judy adds canned crowd sounds sometimes. There are plenty of times where you can hear several people laughing, but if you look in the background, you just see a few people cracking a smile at best. Also, they use the same "oooh" sound every time Judge Judy kicks someone out of the courtroom.

I've never been to a Jeopardy! taping myself, but per other fans who have, they say that the audience does not actually applaud during the credits and that it's added in later. The same is true for Wheel when the winner spins the Bonus Wheel (the mini wheel); you always hear the crowd applauding but in the studio, they do not. (I've been in the audience for more than 20 episodes of Wheel since 2013)
 
Last night Alex announced we were seeing a classic episode with one of our favorite champions. I didn't even remember any of the people, so no point in watching.

Actually, now that I think of it, I don't know whether I've seen the Saturday episodes, so there's a chance I didn't see last night's.
 
vchimpanzee said:
When do reruns with Vanna as host air?.
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10 of the 15 episodes Vanna hosted are likely never going to rerun because they were "Secret Santa" weeks. These are are special weeks during November or December where home viewers' SPIN ID's are drawn during the episode and they win whatever their corresponding contestant wins. Because this revolves entirely around a home viewer sweepstakes that is mentioned constantly on-air, they can't rerun these episodes unless they cut out all mentions of it (or add a big "THIS SWEEPSTAKES IS OVER" disclaimer, or squander hundreds of thousands of dollars adding new SPIN ID's for new winners). When GSN aired Wheel a few years ago, they did air "Secret Santa" episodes but they were severely chopped up. Most noticeably, as soon as the Final Spin puzzle was solved, they would abruptly cut to commercial before Pat would recap the final scores and bid goodbye to the two losing contestants.

The other 5 episodes don't have a high chance of rerunning either since Vanna kept mentioning Pat's surgery and updating us on his condition. I think we might see at least one of them on the Saturday reruns in the 2020-21 season, though. If that does happen, I will be sure to mention it.
 
At least three international versions of Wheel of Fortune have resumed production with added precautions.

In Greece (ΤΡΟΧΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΤΥΧΗΣ), the contestants now stand at distanced podiums behind the Wheel, and individually step forward to the Wheel when it's their turn. Two of the three pointers were removed, leaving only the one in the middle. When a contestant picks up a special wedge, it is represented by an icon on their podium's scoreboard. It appears they have no audience, but the crew members applaud and cheer.

In Turkey (Çarkıfelek), the contestants now have plexiglass dividers between them, and they also have their own spritz bottles of hand sanitizer. They also have no audience.

In Spain (La Ruleta De La Suerte), it's similar to Turkey. Dividers between the contestants, and they each have color-coded hand sanitizer pumps. Also, normally, when a contestant picks up a special wedge, the host will hand them a little marker to put in front of them. Now, each contestant has copies of every possible marker to place themselves. Unlike the other two versions and the USA, they do still have an audience, but there are light structures placed between people to keep them apart, and everyone in the audience wears masks (the contestants, host, and hostess do not).
 
WheelRob said:
At least three international versions of Wheel of Fortune have resumed production with added precautions.

In Greece (ΤΡΟΧΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΤΥΧΗΣ), the contestants now stand at distanced podiums behind the Wheel, and individually step forward to the Wheel when it's their turn. Two of the three pointers were removed, leaving only the one in the middle. When a contestant picks up a special wedge, it is represented by an icon on their podium's scoreboard. It appears they have no audience, but the crew members applaud and cheer.

In Turkey (Çarkıfelek), the contestants now have plexiglass dividers between them, and they also have their own spritz bottles of hand sanitizer. They also have no audience.

In Spain (La Ruleta De La Suerte), it's similar to Turkey. Dividers between the contestants, and they each have color-coded hand sanitizer pumps. Also, normally, when a contestant picks up a special wedge, the host will hand them a little marker to put in front of them. Now, each contestant has copies of every possible marker to place themselves. Unlike the other two versions and the USA, they do still have an audience, but there are light structures placed between people to keep them apart, and everyone in the audience wears masks (the contestants, host, and hostess do not).
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In all these versions there's still something to touch to spin the wheel, so what do they do between spins?
 
frankberry said:


They probably use hand sanitizer.
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In at least Turkey and Spain's versions, there are three bottles of hand sanitizer on the railing in front of the contestants, and the latter version even colors them red, yellow, and blue to match the podiums. I didn't notice any on Greece's version, but I would imagine everyone uses sanitizer during commercial breaks or between rounds.
 
ssetta said:
It looks like starting July 20, Jeopardy! will be airing episodes from the very first season.

http://buzzerblog.com/2020/07/06/je...C3sO1Ip3R-Cg3pAet331iG9mQMs-eMQ37aLf4vwY6tUfg
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Now that will be worth seeing. I saw the very first episode when they did a rerun some years back. But at that time, I remembered how boring the Art Fleming version was, and if I saw anything at all, it was Final Jeopardy in the apartment I was living in at the time with several roommates.

A Charlotte Observer reporter was a contestant in 1986. I've been watching ever since. I later found out they made the material easier.
 
I wonder if Wheel could do the same thing. Something like 'The Best of Wheel' with classic episodes through both the puzzle-turning days and current. Shows with funny answers, $100,000 wins, etc.

And speaking of game shows, I am curious as to why Fox continues to keep Beat Shazam off the schedule. They taped season 4 in late Feb/early Mar before COVID lockdowns became the norm around the world...and it's always been a summer series. ABC is showing all the game shows they were able to tape before the pandemic including PYL. CBS is showing Game On! with Keegan Michael-Key. Where is Fox?
Albeit, it is so weird to look at a CBS schedule and not see Big Brother. Logistically impossible to do even with social distancing. Surprised CBS hasn't gone the route of ABC and their Best of Bachelor on Mondays, by showing best of moments from previous seasons of BB.
 
crainbebo said:
I wonder if Wheel could do the same thing. Something like 'The Best of Wheel' with classic episodes through both the puzzle-turning days and current. Shows with funny answers, $100,000 wins, etc.
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Knowing how both shows are treated these days, I doubt it. Besides, Wheel's reruns are known through the rest of July and all of them range from 2016-17.
 
vchimpanzee said:
Now that will be worth seeing. I saw the very first episode when they did a rerun some years back. But at that time, I remembered how boring the Art Fleming version was, and if I saw anything at all, it was Final Jeopardy in the apartment I was living in at the time with several roommates.

A Charlotte Observer reporter was a contestant in 1986. I've been watching ever since. I later found out they made the material easier.
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There was very little, if any, pop culture in the original daytime Jeopardy. Now you are at a marked disadvantage if you don't know the music, movies or television -- and their performers -- of the current day or the very recent past. I don't even recall sports categories coming up often, whereas now there's usually one every other show. It's still a tough quiz, but it hasn't been immune to the dumbing down of America.
 
CTListener said:
There was very little, if any, pop culture in the original daytime Jeopardy. Now you are at a marked disadvantage if you don't know the music, movies or television -- and their performers -- of the current day or the very recent past. I don't even recall sports categories coming up often, whereas now there's usually one every other show. It's still a tough quiz, but it hasn't been immune to the dumbing down of America.
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Knowing the world around you including current culture is not “dumbing” anything.
 
joebtsflk1 said:
I've been a longtime fan of Wheel and Jeopardy, but it looks like we are entering an endless summer of reruns. It's sad. I just don't know if it can be sustainable.
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Realistically, it will be sustainable because there aren’t a slew of alternatives available for the same reason this is happening. Other shows are mostly spoken for with contracts. Not much off-net of value in the pipeline.

Some stations could add news as a stopgap, but contracts are contracts and Sony, rightly, still is entitled to its money. And plenty of smaller stations don’t even have that option if they wanted it.

It could well pose long term complications, but this is what it is for the time being.
 
And happy 80th to Alex Trebek.

I can't believe they all lost everything yesterday. When the episode was introduced we were told it didn't happen again for more than 30 years.

The show seems so different and so much more fast-paced.
 
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