‘Celebrity Wheel of Fortune’ Ordered to Series at ABC

Your favorite celebrities are saving up to buy a vowel! ABC announced Monday it had ordered a primetime celebrity edition of Wheel of Fortune that is expected to debut sometime in 2021. Pat Sajak and Vanna White are on board to host the spinoff, reports TVLine, which will show some of the world’s biggest names competing for the chance to win $1 million for their favorite charity.

ABC has a model for this kind of spin on the classic game show, having already premiered Celebrity Family Feud with stars like Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, Kim Kardashian and the rest of the Keeping Up With the Kardashians family, as well as the star-studded version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which premiered in April and is hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. Famous faces scheduled to compete on celebrity Millionaire included Dr. Phil, Jane Fonda, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, comedian Nikki Glaser, and actors Anthony Anderson, Will Forte, and Eric Stonestreet. Also securing their own celebrity spin-offs for the first time this season are classic game shows The Price Is Right at Night and Let’s Make A Deal.

The syndicated version of Wheel of Fortune is currently in its 38th season and is contracted through the 2022-23 season. Production resumed in July after the COVID-19 production shutdown, operating with new safety precautions in place to keep talent, competitors and crew safe.

White opened up about how much she missed her Wheel family to PopCulture in April amid the shutdown. “It’s horrible. I miss my Wheel of Fortune family. I really do,” she said at the time. “You don’t realize when you’ve been working with people for 20-30 years that you do miss them when you don’t see them. When we go to work it’s a happy place.”

Adding that Sajak is like a brother to her, White revealed that not only has Wheel of Fortune been an important force in her life, it’s also had a valuable societal impact over the last four decades. “It is a happy place,” White added to PopCulture. “Anybody that tunes in, you can tune out anything that has been going on in your life for that week or that month and have 30 minutes of family fun. You see people win, you see people happy, you solve the puzzles [at home] and you’re a part of the show. It’s just a great half-hour of escape and family time.”