Wheel of Torture

Time for my once in a while rant.Do the producers of "Wheel of Fortune" specifically go out of their way to choose the dumbest, ditziest and brain dead individuals to appear on the show. It is like, before they even spin for a second time, "Can I buy a vowel". For Jeebus sake brainfart! There are twenty-one consonants in the English language, take a plunge and guess the obvious ones before you buy a vowel. In my experience, the consonants should be choosen in the order of S, T, R, M, N, H, F, C, P and so forth if their is clearly not the word "the" on the board. If there is clearly the word "the" on the board it then would go S, T, H, R, M, N, F, C, P. And anyway half the time a word will form before you even get through half of thoses letters and you can easily use another letter instead.Like today, in the live-from-Philadelphia special edition the dumb-fuck brothers brought a vowel after only spinning once. And what did they buy? A "U" for crying out loud! At least you could of brought an "E" since the word "The" was clearly on the board!I remember an episode of "The Golden Girls" where Dorothy couldn't get on a game show (was it "Jeopardy"?) because she was deamed 'to smart'. I guess this is the same. Of course "Wheel of Fortune" only requires a basic grasp of the English language to begin with and some of these people don't even have that!Per Exampla:Board: _RIDE AND _REJUDICEPat: Contestant #1, a letter please.Conestant #1: A "Q".Pat: NO!Contestant #2: Can I buy a vowel - an "A" pleasePat: No! The "A" is already on the board you dumbfuck!Contestant #3: I would like to solve it, is it "Bride and Brejudice"Pat: What did I do in a past life to get all these yokels?Okay, I might be exagurating a little there (though barely) but I have to say it sometimes feels like it. I remember watching "Wheel of Fortune" alot when I was a kid. Where I lived it was on at the perfect time of the afternoon (5.30pm), just after you had done all your homework, but before my dad took control of the television to watch the six o'clock news. And back in the late 80s/early 90s, Australian television only ever had 3 commerical channels and the ABC to choose from (well also SBS, but what 10 year old would watch a foreign language news report?). If the ABC was playing something cool like Degrassi or anything with Rik Mayall (who is a GOD!) then. I would watch that, but normally it showed lame cartoons that I couldn't even stand at that age. Thus "Wheel of Fortune" it was.Thus growing up on "Wheel of Fortune" I had it all mapped out, planning what I would do the day I got my chance to appear on it. I would spin big in the first round taking all the chances (since there is/was only one bankruptcy on the wheel during the first round) and then blow all my money in the gift shop. I would save all my free spins until the final post-buzzer period, thus if the host spun up the jackpot, I could do two or three 'free turns' getting letters for the jackpot.Oh... the dreams of a child...But I did have a plan mapped out. I knew which letters to ask for first, to solve the simply and/or obvious words first and hope another word had the same letters in it and only buy a vowel if all else fails AND it obviously would help out (thus more likely an "A" or "E" and not an fricking "U").But seriously? Admittedly I grew up on the Australia, not American version of "Wheel Of Fortune", but I was familar enough with the American version. What happened to the gift shop? Now the bloody contestant can rake in a small fortune, and instead of blowing it all in the gift shop, he/she has to choose between crappy and crappier 'prizes'. Would you like a waffle maker or cordless iron. Argh! This is the sort of crap you'd expect to see on PAX television!And may I ask about Vanna? (Isn't she like 100 now?) What the heck does she even do on the show anymore? In the old days she use to turn the letters, but now she just presses a button and a computer screen lights up. PLEASE! A trained chimpanese can do it (and better). Fire her surgically enhanced arse and use that money to bring back the gift shop!