Name: Pat Sajak Talks "Wheel Of Fortune" And Vanna White | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-06-13T22:00:20.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Pat Sajak Talks "Wheel Of Fortune" And Vanna White | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-06-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Pat Sajak Talks "Wheel Of Fortune" And Vanna White | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-06-13. Transcript available.

Ladies and gentlemen, 42 million television viewers, 42 million, watch my first
guest
program every day.
Please welcome the host of The Wheel of Fortune, Pat Sajak.
Hi, Pat, how are you?
Nice to see you, sir.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Have a seat.
What a heart.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Now, nice to see you.
You too.
Now, how long has the show been on the air, first of all, in its various incarnations?
In its various, since 12th year.
Yeah, it will not die.
Yeah, now, but when you took over the program, it had been on how long?
It was in a shambles when I took over.
Somehow we got it all together.
It had been on about eight years.
Seven years.
Seven years when you took it over.
But when you took it over, it really started to go through the roof.
Yeah, it was just a dinky little show before I took it over, and then it's
amazing what's
happened to me.
Gangbusters.
So what is your theory behind the success of the program?
I don't have the damnedest idea.
It's strange.
You know, we have three adults who stand there and spin a multicolored wheel to
try to win
major appliances, and 42 million people watch that.
But, and we're grateful for every one of you out there.
I don't know.
I really don't.
I don't know how you explain something.
Now, is it, the show's on here on NBC every morning.
Yeah.
It's on syndicated all, is it just in the United States or around the world?
United States and I think a small portion of Singapore, and that's it.
Those are the only two places you can actually, yeah, there's a small clique
there that enjoys
our show.
What, servicemen or something?
Yeah.
Sort of an underground thing, yeah.
And also, is it true that they're talking about putting it on, go ahead, say it.
What's that?
Are they putting the show on in prime time?
I've heard that rumor, and I, you know, like 11 times a week is not enough, you
know.
We need it 12th time.
Merv needs to buy an extra lunch.
Oh, yeah.
I don't know.
He's busy.
We're the wealthiest man in North America.
I don't know whether we'll do that or not.
We're on a lot.
We're on a lot.
Yeah.
Does, you've been doing it four years, and I guess you, what, tape like five or
six of them
in a weekend or whatever?
We're taped right now through the fall of 1997.
Yeah.
We're taped way ahead.
Now, do you ever, you ever stand there spinning the, you actually only get to
spin it a couple
of times.
Yeah.
That's too bad.
Darn it all, huh?
Yeah.
But do you ever say to yourself, what the heck am I doing here?
You get a little buggy with this?
There, there are days if you, if you're very, very quiet in the studio, you can
actually
hear my brain cells die and hit the ground.
No, you know, it's, it's, the show's always a little different, and you have
different people
with different hobbies.
How is it a little different, Pat?
Well, some weeks you'll have three people whose hobbies are bowling.
Sometimes their hobbies are macrame.
There's a lot of, uh...
And you have teen week?
We've had people without hobbies.
Those are, those are really interesting.
But you have teen week, you have college week?
College week, yeah.
Anybody ever been hurt on the wheel?
We, no, we keep waiting in a little, you know, you like it to be exciting.
We keep waiting for a little old lady not to let go and to impale herself.
We think visually that would be nice.
Jerk right over the rail, yeah.
But no, nothing's happened.
Or a guy to get his tie caught in there and be Isadora Duncan to death or
something.
Uh, and, uh, what is a, uh, lovely parting gift?
Uh, what are those?
These people have a right to know!
Boy, there's a little Mike Wallace in you, isn't there?
Well, thank you, thank you very much.
You're really getting to the bottom of this, aren't you?
You must be very proud.
So, uh, so what are they?
If you can uncover this, you, uh, yeah.
Uh, generally toilet bowl cleaner and rice.
Yeah, that's, yeah.
And what do they amount to?
Cheerios.
Like how much money?
Cheerios.
We give Cheerios a lot.
Uh, but not a box.
I mean, like a case.
What's, now, people don't win, uh, they don't win money, they win prizes, right?
Yeah, you have to.
What's the, the largest cash equivalent somebody's hauled out of there?
About 60 grand, but generally it's in the $20,000 to $25,000.
I mean, these are great prizes.
They have nice prizes, and then you have some that aren't so nice, like, uh,
you know, some
kind of oil on, uh, velvet painting.
And, and I see, do you, do you ever sometimes have trouble not snickering when
they choose
something just ridiculous that you know they're never going to use?
Uh, yeah.
I think the, I think the gold pendant we had in the shape of Joe Garagiola amused
me a little
bit.
I did snicker a little bit.
And somebody said, that'd be perfect for the den, and snatched it up.
Um, we have, you know, you've been on this show before, and I guess you know
that.
We used this.
Oh, I must have blacked out.
No, I'll explain it here in a second.
We have to do a commercial, and then we'll be back with the tie-less Pat Sajak,
ladies
and gentlemen.
Hi there.
Pat Sajak is here, and, uh, we got a great show.
Peter Frampton is here.
Harry Shearer is here.
It's one of the two shows in America with a dress code.
Well, I just, I don't know.
It seemed to me like you need to have a tie on there.
We always see it, see it dressed up.
I look like a banker on that show, don't I?
No, you look great.
You look fine.
You know, I guess maybe by now people know this, but perhaps some don't, that
before you
were on the Wheel of Fortune, you were a weatherman on Channel 4, KNBC in Los
Angeles.
Yes, I was.
And a very popular weatherman.
Thank you.
And very, very, uh...
Did you people know that, or are you just bored silly?
They're just fans of meteorology in general.
But you were very, very funny, and you had quite a following from that show.
It was fun.
I didn't know anything about the weather, but I did, uh, we did the weather for
a while
back there, and, uh...
Yeah, but you, you really did.
You did a very nice job with it.
Yeah, yeah.
I knew that cold fronts, we colored blue, and the warm fronts, we colored red.
What about the occluded fronts?
What would you do with that?
They're something, aren't they?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, you got your hands full there.
When those fronts get occluded, it just can ruin your day.
Did you ever, uh, have any, uh, second guesses about, second thoughts about
going from, uh,
a comfortable situation in Los Angeles to being a, a game show host?
Yeah.
Now, you say that with a certain, uh, sound in your voice.
Well, I, I think for some people it may have a connotation that is less than...
You didn't say game show host.
You said game show host.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, when you write that on your 1040, you do feel silly.
There's no doubt about that.
Uh, I don't know.
It's, it's a fairly dignified position.
But boy, it's worked out well.
But we're, you know, game show hosts are okay.
We're all, uh, in the same, uh, you know, all game shows live in the same, uh,
condominium
actually.
Well, that's, that's the way it should be.
Wink does breakfast.
Um, now, uh, speaking of what people write on their 10, 10 W 40, or that's oil,
isn't it?
That's oil now, yeah.
On their 10 40.
Um, but, and, what does, uh.
It's also one of our lovely parting gifts.
What, what does, what does your friend Vanna write on her, uh.
And what, what, what does she do on the show?
Well, Vanna, uh, turns, uh, turns letters.
Uh, and that's what she writes on her tax report.
And there aren't many universities where you can actually go and learn that.
So she had to start from scratch.
Yeah.
Um, no, she's, that's what she does.
Yeah.
But she's proud of it.
Does a good job.
And much to her credit, despite that somewhat limiting sounding job description,
she's gotten
quite a following, as you heard from that massive, uh, ovation.
And I'm guessing eventually she would like to direct, right?
I, uh, direct, yeah.
Um.
See, no, she gets, she gets more mail than I do.
You get a lot of mail.
Yeah.
You're a big star.
Sure.
You're a major, major star.
Thank you very much.
Uh.
Much of it has dried spittle on it, but we, we get it.
Have you, have you ever had a situation where people don't, uh, uh, guess the,
uh, the phrase
right away?
Yeah, yeah.
We, you know, our players are varying, uh, talents.
Sometimes they're, uh, they're better than others.
Yeah, uh, yeah, we've had that happen a couple of times.
You want to, should we look at this tape now?
Do we have time to show the tape or not?
Yeah.
We do have time?
All right.
Uh, this is, uh, this was when you helped us out.
One night we were doing viewer mail and, uh, the question was, uh, I don't know.
You said that we, you were, you were a puzzle on the show.
Yeah, okay.
And here's some, some footage that, uh, Pat and his friends at Wheel of Fortune
were kind
enough to put together for us.
We're looking for a famous late night talk show host.
He's on NBC at 12.30 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays.
Here we go.
Should be easy.
That's a famous late night talk show host.
Late night.
Here on NBC.
Rhymes with Betterman.
Very funny young man.
Anybody, anybody want to buy a vowel?
Okay, there it is.
Now, we, uh, do you want to introduce your friend?
Do you want to bring, uh, you want to bring her out here?
Should we go in looking for her?
What do you want to do?
It'd be fine with me.
Pat's, Pat's friend and the, the co-hostess, the host of the show.
They find out she's here.
There could be a riot.
Yeah.
So what should we do?
Bring her out or go in there with her?
Let's go get her.
Let's go.
That's a great tie, by the way.
How much time do we have here?
Paul, cover me here with a little music.
We have just a little bit of music.
Wheel of Fortune theme, maybe.
Walk right there.
Oh, that would be nice.
Yeah.
Walk right this way.
We're going into the, uh, green room.
We're doing a video on that.
Look at people run.
Boy, you bring a camera out here.
They just run for their lives.
Like rats on a ship.
How do you do?
Nice to see you.
Hi.
Look at this, Pat.
All the ice you need right here.
This is very nice.
Just like the men's room.
Yeah, so this is...
Ice in the sink.
Here she is.
The lovely, the talented, the letter-turner of your dreams, ladies and
gentlemen, Vanna White.
Vanna?
Hey, everybody.
You weren't supposed to do this.
Vanna White, ladies and gentlemen.
Are you in Pat traveling together?
We are, yes.
Woo!
Is that right?
On business.
On business.
Oh, on business.
What business do you have here?
Uh, well, I had to, uh, take care of his wallet while he was out there on your
show.
I guess.
I don't know.
Ladies and gentlemen, one of the greatest letter-turners in the business and
one of the
most terrific game show hosts.
Is that better?
Yeah, game show host.
Game show host.
Thank you.
And, uh, a gentleman and a fine television personality, Mr. Pat Sajak, with a
new tie.
We have to pause here for station identification.
We'll be right back.
Woo!
Oh, my God!
What was that?
Thank you.