These are the rules to which Charlene Rubush agreed. Contestants are given the letters R, S, T, L, N, and E, are allowed three more consonants plus a vowel, and then 10 seconds to give the answer. While the history of these changes is documented quite thoroughly on the Wheel of Fortune History fan wiki, the basics are: The contestant spins a wheel for a potential prize. In the Bonus Round, the competition is eliminated and the rules change.
Rubush had come through them smoothly, moving into the Bonus Round with $16,500. Rubush had made it through the initial competitive rounds, where three contestants try to spell out words against each other. Or so contestant Charlene Rubush thought. What matters most in Wheel of Fortune, beyond getting good spins, is extrapolating full words and phrases from a few scattered letters. Originally spun out from creator Merv Griffin’s games of Hangman on the road as a kid, it’s a word-guessing game broken down into individual letters. Wheel of Fortune is a relatively simple game, which is likely why it’s been on TV in one form or another since 1975.
