Part of the joy in watching game shows is showing off one's intelligence when getting answers correct, even if there's no one else around to witness it. The rest of that joy comes from watching contestants completely and shamefully blow it on national television. One recent episode of Wheel of Fortune offered fans the rare event where not just one but two different contestants bungled puzzles in ways that likely made audiences holler uproariously at their TVs. Check out one of those mega-mistakes below.
For much of this round, the contestant Nimota Nasiru was killing it, especially after she picked up 5 Ds on a $700 spin. Everything looked perfectly set up for Nimota to solve the puzzle, only her just-boosted confidence was apparently making decisions for itself without necessarily checking in with the rest of her mental facilities.
Nimota sounded like she knew exactly what she was doing whenever she told host Pat Sajak that she wanted to solve the puzzle in the clip above. And yet, whenever it was time for her to voice her guess, she faltered before landing the last word, laughing to herself. Had she just let the buzzer cut her off, it might have just seemed like an ill-timed solve attempt. However, Nimota entered Bad Guess Avalon by making an official guess, mistakenly saying "bandstands" instead of the correct word, "handstands."
Perhaps the strangest detail to come out of this episode is that there are apparently lots of people out there who have never heard of a bandstand. Several viewers took to Twitter to question whether Nimota's guess was even a real word or not. It would seem that many of those folks would be too young to remember the Dick Clark-hosted series American Bandstand, which aired from 1952 until 1989.
Not to be outgunned where bad guesses are concerned, fellow contestant Wendy Goetz also dropped the ball in a forehead-smacking way. The video below makes it appear that Wendy doesn't have much interest in the stock market.
To Wendy's credit, at least she didn't mispronounce the words "Sesame" or "Street." Not that she tried to solve the puzzle, but at this point, Wendy needs all the face-saving help she can get.
Not grasping that the Wheel of Fortune puzzle masters were looking for "Wall Street," Wendy guessed for a D in the puzzle, as if "Dall Street" were a commonly cited location in the world. Here's a sentence no one will ever say again: "You know, it's that one street named after longtime Poison guitarist Bobby Dall."
Wendy almost comes out ahead here, since she tried to guess a letter rather than putting it all on the line with an erroneous solve. But then her "D" guess actually made less sense than Nimota's "bandstand" answer, so I guess viewers are the real winners here. Oh, and the contestant Nate, who did actually win the show.
Which of these Wheel of Fortune fails was your favorite? Let us know below and don't forget to tune into the widely popular game show every day in syndication. Check your local listings to see when and where it airs in your area.
