4 ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Puzzles That Left Us Screaming at Our TV

Wheel of Fortune has given viewers plenty of nail-biter victories and special moments during its four-plus decades on TV — but nothing is more memorable, perhaps, than the hilarious (and frustrating!) moments in which contestants completely did not understand the assignment.

From NSFW guesses to some totally unexpected answers, here are four Wheel of Fortune puzzles that left us absolutely screaming at the TV and totally baffled former host Pat Sajak.

“Right in the…”

Tavaris Williams made headlines in 2024 with his hilariously incorrect guess during a toss-up round, throwing out “right in the butt” for a puzzle that turned out to actually read “this is the best.” Williams’ response shocked the audience at the time, prompting even one of his fellow players to gasp, “What?!”

Williams took the blunder in stride, however, later saying on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, “I have never used those words in sequential order a day in my life.”

A spicy twist on a classic

Kevin Haas put his own twist on a Tennessee Williams classic during a 2017 episode of Wheel, guessing that the play A Streetcar Named Desire was actually titled A Streetcar Naked Desire. Haas later said in a statement, “I am happy I brought so many smiles to you all, and so I will smile with you and look back onto this moment and join you in the laughs. That my friends, is the naked truth.”

An A-chillus heel

Indiana University freshman Julian Batts made his own mark on Wheel of Fortune history back in 2014 when he lost out on $1 million by pronouncing “Mythological hero Achilles” like “A-chillus” with a hard “A” sound. Despite his pronunciation error, Batts told The Indianapolis Star that he was familiar with the Greek hero, but simply froze when the pressure was on.

“It’s the Wheel of Fortune. Crazy stuff happens all the time. It’s a crazy game,” Batts, who ultimately ended up winning the episode anyway, told the paper at the time. “With those puzzles that I didn’t solve, you have to keep moving forward. You don’t have a lot of time to stop and mourn that you’ve lost the earnings that you could’ve won.”

Let me take a “self-potato”

Lolita McAuley invented a new kind of selfie back in a 2009 episode of Wheel, guessing “self-potato” instead of “self-portrait” in a toss-up round guess that she told the New York Times even she knew was “stupid” at the time.

“Once [Sajak] called on me, my mind went completely blank. Because I did know the puzzle. Self-portrait. And when he called me, my mind went completely blank,” she told the paper. “And I looked up there, and I said, ‘Self-potato.’ Even after it fell out of my mouth, I wish I could just go and hide. I wish they could somehow say, ‘Oh, we’ve got to re-tape that.’ You’re like, if this could go away, I would be all right now. It came out of my mouth, I couldn’t take it back.”