Tim on Wheel of Fortune - $36,830 win! (Part 2)

This is part 2 of my appearance (Round 3-4) on Wheel of Fortune's Florida Week, Tape Date 9/9/2004, Original Air Date 10/19/2004.

One of my lifelong dreams became a reality as I became a Wheel of Fortune contestant and champion. I was also one of the youngest contestants ever on a regular episode of Wheel, at only 18 years and 7 months.

The audition process was tough, first there were 1,500+ at the Wheelmobile audition where I waited for 6 hours just to have a chance to get on stage to play a two-minute speed round game of Wheel, and also a thirty-second interview with the "host". After the folks upstairs decided I had proved my worth at the first audition I had to compete against about 100 more contestant hopefuls at the Final Audition where you did interviews, played mock games and had to take a grueling written test - 5 minutes to solve 16 word puzzles! After that torture they made another cut from 100 to about 20, and only about 3 or 4 of those original 1500 that attended the first audition would even be invited to be on the show. I clearly overcame incredible odds to make it all the way, and what you are about to see is the culmination of a lot of practice and dedication to my dreams.

I came into the show with a plan, and I executed it to perfection - with a little bit of luck and a lot of skill, I was able to dominate the game. I had the time of my life!

Thanks for watching and best of luck if you ever try out for Wheel of Fortune, and I'll be glad to answer any questions you have about the show or the audition process.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Wheel
• of
• Fortune
• game
• show
• Tim
• Watanabe
• big
• win
• Vanna
• White

[crazyovergreen]

no offence but i was laughing at the clay tennis court part. i thought that was obvious. anyway. congratulations! (: and i absolutely love the lion king.

[lionking300]

@crazyovergreen Oh no I don't blame you one bit :) I can't believe I drew a blank on that one for so long (I played tennis in high school too!) and I was extremely fortunate that the other contestants were just as befuddled. Obviously it was huge for me since I could cash in that $5,000 spin from earlier.

[Ninlego10]

They don't have the free spin anymore...

[lionking300]

@Ninlego10 Yep, and I think one of the main reasons is to prevent what I ended up doing in this episode. WOF thrives on turn changes to give everyone a chance to play, and I parlayed my free spin into running a puzzle for over $9K. It's kind of sad since the free spin has been a part of the game for so long (remember when players could rack up MULTIPLE free spins?). I'm not a fan of the FREE PLAY myself, which was supposed to replace the free spin.

[lordofhope]

why are you clapping your hands alll the time at wheel of fortune??

[lionking300]

Contestants are required to clap just about the entire time while the tape is rolling - when the wheel is spinning, after selecting a letter, during intros and before going to commercial. The explanation they gave is that it helps keep what they referred to as the "juice" flowing, which is the excitement and energy required to keep the show running on its highest level. It did get tiring after a while but it just got ingrained into our minds so well that clapping just became a habit.

[13brent]

Lol at the very beginning it skips. It sounds like it's saying treetreetreetree. Lol.

[00puppet00]

paula is hot

[RenegadeFury]

very impressive

[cheatmasterbw]

SM06754... THATS MY NUMBER!!!!

Time to go and get mah prize!

[KerryDoan]

@13brent LOL yuppp

[Ninlego10]

@lionking300 Y'know, they shouldn't get rid of old things and introduce new stuff to replace them. BTW, thanks for the multiple free spin fact.

[0nemest0]

that fat women was so unlucky

[CianThEfuR]

omg thats insane! good job!