When it comes to watching game shows on TV, it’s easy to assume that if given the opportunity to play the game ourselves, we would win big.
But maybe that belief is just part of the on-couch-advantage, because watching people solve riddles and puzzles from home is completely different than being in front of an audience trying to solve them under pressure.
At least that’s what we hope was the case for the contestants on Tuesday night’s episode of Wheel of Fortune, who completely fumbled a puzzle in a way that has left the internet in absolute disbelief and fury.
The show’s three contestants — Laura Machado, Christopher Coleman and Thomas Lipscomb — had to finish solving a puzzle that read “Another feather _n yo_r _a_.”
Anxious viewers watched as the contestants guessed wrong answer after wrong answer, with Coleman going bankrupt after guessing zero correct letters and Machado missing an unbelievable three times by guessing the last word was hat, lap and map (though she did figure out that the third and fourth words were “in” and “your”).
Lipscomb finally guessed the correct phrase, “Another feather in your cap,” a popular figure of speech used when someone is graduating, but did so after two incorrect guesses.
Leave it to Twitter to rip into the contestants for what is now being called a “brutal” round of word guessing.
America is doomed.
— Neil Nawaz (@NeilNawaz) March 2, 2022
I’ll cut them some slack b/c it’s probably stressful being up there and on national television. That said, I thought I was watching a SNL skit.
— Please Arrest the Coup Plotters (@mfredericks1x) March 2, 2022
The woman on Wheel of Fortune got not one but TWO chances to solve this. First time, she said “…in your LAP.” Second time, she said “MAP.”
I am in utter disbelief. #WheelOfFortune pic.twitter.com/MtM3qD7pj6— Blake Oestriecher (@BOestriecher) March 2, 2022
My husband and I were in hysterics watching this tonight. I give Pat a lot of credit for not busting a gut. I would have been on the floor.
— Jan (@JWinCT) March 2, 2022
Tonight’s Wheel of Fortune. I can’t. That round was brutal pic.twitter.com/VQOKxgolZY
— Barley Jane (@barleyjane424) March 2, 2022
That was painful to watch between her nonsense “solves” and the other guy’s random letter picking.
— DH (@TheAceGambit) March 2, 2022
I was hoping they’d just cancel the show for the day and walk off laughing
— Jake Bryant (@PantalonesB) March 2, 2022
This was brutal. I just kept gasping “noooooo” at the TV.
— boodro (@Boodrogirl) March 2, 2022
This is painful!!!
— Emily ™ (@emily_tweets) March 2, 2022
“This was brutal,” one Twitter user wrote. “I just kept gasping ‘noooooo’ at the TV.”
“I was hoping they’d just cancel the show for the day and walk off laughing,” Jake Bryant bluntly said.
Host Pat Sajak defeatedly said “There you go” upon Lipscomb finally solving the puzzle correctly, but the internet still did not seem pleased.
One Twitter user called the “random letter picking” by Coleman and Lipscomb “painful” while another compared the seemingly mindless guessing to an “SNL skit.”
“Tonight’s Wheel of Fortune. I can’t. That round was brutal,” one user even Tweeted alongside a meme that appears to be of Jesus saying “Start the rapture.”
Because Lipscomb went bankrupt before correctly solving the puzzle, he did not in fact earn any money from his win.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/421210