Pat Sajak was drunk on early episodes of ‘Wheel of Fortune’

Posted by Chris Spags on January 26th, 2012 at 12:30 pm

Today was not thematically planned as a day where we’d have multiple Wheel of Fortune posts, but so be it. On the latest episode of Dan Le Batard’s interview show Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable, Wheel host Pat Sajak reveals that he used to host the show hammered on margaritas.

Transcribed from the interview:

“When I first started and was much younger and could tolerate those things … We had a different show then. You didn’t win money, you won fake money with which you could buy cheesy prices. A turntable would go around and housewives from Teaneck would say, ‘uhhh for a $100 I’ll have the lamp. No, I’ll have the… ‘ It was the most boring two minutes of television. But because we had all those prizes, we had endless time between shows. Our dinner breaks would be two-and-a-half hours long while they drove in new cars and boats and gazebos and stuff. At NBC at Burbank we had a place called Los Arco’s across the street, which is Spanish, as you know, for the Arcos…and they served great margaritas. Me and Vanna [White] would go across and have two or three or six, and then come and do the last shows, and have trouble recognizing the alphabet. They’re really good tapes to get a hold of.

“The average number was cuatro.”

You can see the full interview with Sajak embedded below.

Honestly, kudos to Pat Sajak. As someone who’s occasionally indulged in a margarita or nine, I’m amazed he was still standing, let alone able to watch a spinning wheel full of theoretical prizes. Watching dizzying objects while meandering housewives prattle on about a pressure cooker sounds like it’d be high on the list of worst ways to spend a buzzed evening.

Pat Sajak Used to Get Wasted During Wheel of Fortune Tapings [Grantland]
Pat Sajak’s hosted ‘Wheel of Fortune’ drunk [CNN Marquee]

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Chris Spags "Internet Heartthrob" Chris Spags is a former comic and the founding editor of Guyism.com. In addition to overseeing all Guyism content and business development, he covers Humor for the site daily. He was recognized on the street once and it was awesome.