So, Mr. and Mrs. Goody Two-Shoes of television used to get hammered before tapings of Wheel of Fortune, huh?
I always wondered how Vanna could keep that smile on her face just walking back and forth across a stage all day.
According to an interview with ESPN2, when the show first started, Pat Sajak and Vanna White could tolerate throwing a few back in between tapings. Although, he confessed, he had a little trouble “recognizing the alphabet.” Their drink of choice? Margaritas. While the prizes were being set up on the stage for the show, Pat and Vanna would head over to the nearby Mexican restaurant in Burbank, California set and enjoy themselves.
Nowadays, the pair can’t quite hold their liquor the same way that they used to be able to. Sajak explains that being a bit older has sobered up his hosting duties for Wheel of Fortune. In the interview, he says, “Now, if I were to inhale the cork and a bottle of wine I would probably keel over.”
And of course, like any other morning-after-the-drunk-fest situation, Pat Sajak is promptly coming out with how much he exaggerated that story. He now claims while talking to ABC News Radio that it was really only a few times that ever happened. And like a lot of the posturing and bragging that guys seem to love to do, he was trying to make it “sound more exciting than it was.”
Yah, sure.
He did confess though that there were often dinner breaks for the cast and that would usually result in a couple of glasses of wine.
Pat is now marveling about how much of a trending topic it is now and says, “Let’s all enjoy it!”
Vanna has stayed noticeably silent throughout this fiasco as Pat scrambles to dig out of a very, very deep hole he has managed to put himself in.
And if I ever happen to do get on the show, I do plan on saying, “Can I buy a shot?”
