Wow…where has the time gone?
After I formerly worked on SONY’s message board and the BaV one, I launched this personal project of mine originally on the blogger platform, you know the site that ends w/ .blogspot.com. It was a way for me to get away from the hassles on a message board and I actually had some experience covering my favorite game show. I started experimenting on making the perfect recap in the appropriate format. As usual, start with the EPISODE # and the theme and then document on how the maingame went. Even though I don’t have a DVR, I used help from Bobby McBride’s old Game Show Kingdom site that was also on blogger as inspiration. As time went on, I learned to use coloring to make my posts stand out. On the old blogger platform, I’ve colored in certain things to look like those I saw on the show such as BANKRUPTS, the top dollar value, the WC, and the MDW. For example, on BANKRUPTS, I used white text on a fill black text background to look like the actual BANKRUPTS on the show (too bad WordPress doesn’t have the text background option). And I also started coloring in names of contestants in the middle of S31. Before blogging each episode, what I always look for are contestants that stand out from the rest. Those who not only have fun, but also actually have watched the show before coming out and play the game smartly and also have good strategy. Someone special I know appeared late in S32 on June 2, 2015 was a high school classmate of mine back in the suburbs of Chicago! Though I felt really bad after her WC backfired on her in R3, she made a nice comeback and ended up in second place with 19 grand.
I’ve gained some followers on my site on the platform including a contestant from S31 (he appeared on New Year’s Day 2013 and was the big winner that night) and my current follower and fellow admin @jpgenius, which would last until the middle of S33 when I saw trolls attacking Bobby’s old GSK site (I got attacked too), and so I decided to follow suit and move every single one of my posts on a brand new platform, which I use today and that is of course WordPress. My follower count didn’t carry over, however.
This blogging platform I use today is where I started to hit my stride. As usual, before blogging each episode, I judge which contestants stand out from the rest, those who not only are here to have fun, but also have actually watched this show and play the game smart and also who’s likeable. I try very hard to keep it cool until that fateful day, January 20, 2016. This particular episode really put a serious dent in my enjoyment. A certain lady in the yellow position was acting very strange the whole show and Pat was really annoyed by this woman on not knowing how the game works. I did not think I would be attacked, but she did do so against me and the other commenters regarding our opinion of her personality and less-than-stellar gameplay. I had no choice, but to defend myself and fight back. Yes, that foul-mouthed Christine Kennard. Honestly, she won the game out of dumb luck. And I didn’t check twitter that day, but years later, I found the ugly truth about her — according to one twitter user, she said on the air during that tape date she NEVER watched the show before. How did this lady make it past the auditions if she didn’t know what she was doing? This still haunts me to this day. I had to put her as one of my worst on my BEST/WORST MOMENTS of S# (it’s a tradition I have been doing since S30 when a season ends).
Fast forward to late S33, whenever I had to step out and have someone cover an episode when I can’t, I had to invite that person as an admin, and @jpgenius was the first one I invited. His first recaps in his career on my site were “Wheel Around the World” and the last America’s Game V week. As time went on, more people joined my team such as @SkippsLargo who started his career w/ a late S35 episode during Tennis Week. Next up was Adam Alam who got started in S36 w/ a team week called Girlfriend Getaways. And in Feb. 2020, @nickskapower got his career started. @dannymargulis is also an admin, but he has been a little rusty in recapping, and so he creates the schedules for current seasons and also summer reruns.
Anyway, as time went on, my popularity has been growing. My parents think nobody would read my site, but needless to say, look how far I’ve come since I began this site. To date, I have 136 followers since I started the continuation of my recap site on WordPress in early 2016 (this includes some past WoF contestants). 80 of em are followers on WordPress, 18 of them are on email, and and 38 follow me via twitter (Adam created this to attract more attention).
Today, I have a very good team of six people on the team with me, including newest member Jerry Liu. Some of us are currently editing past recaps that haven’t been edited in a long time to give them cosmetic changes (right now, I’m nearly done in giving all S31 recaps cosmetic changes while Jerry’s working on S30). My site now has hundreds of recaps including complete classic seasons such as S15-18. We have never done any of the daytime WoF episodes, the WHEEL 2000 episodes, nor any international versions, but we plan on doing them in the future.
Once again, I would like to thank all of those people who have read my blog during all this years. By doing so, I have been friends with people that I never thought I would come in contact with. I also would like to once again thank various sources including bobbymgsk to help me composing the near perfect recap of every episode. If it weren’t for these various sources before and after my appearance on WoF, then this site would not have existed.
Again, thank you to all these people for reading my site all these years. Past contestants and everyone else, PLEASE help in wishing me a happy anniversary of my site.
-Andy
WHEEL OF FORTUNE XL II
WHEEL of FORTUNE with Andy Nguyen 