Pat Sajak and the world of conservative game show hosts…

Interesting, though brief, article by Daniel D’Addario for Salon.com regarding Pat Sajak, host of the still popular Wheel of Fortune, who recently made some rather …provocative… twitter posts regarding -of all things!- Global Warming and his apparent lack of concern regarding the same:

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/20/pat-sajaks-vicious-climate-change-denial-and-the-world-of-conservative-game-show-hosts/

I wasn’t too surprised to see Mr. Sajak’s comments, though they were so over the top I can’t help but wonder if he maybe regrets them now.  I was aware that he was a hard right conservative, though I don’t recall where I first read that.  I was a little more surprised to read that several other game show hosts are also very conservative in their ideology.

A strange coincidence?

Not according to Mr. D’Addario, who examines Mr. Sajak’s twitter posts and notes how several other popular (and not quite as popular) game show hosts also share a right leaning.

A number of years ago, probably going on twenty or more, The Wheel of Fortune was in town and somehow I obtained a pair of tickets to see the filming.  I was never, ever, a fan of the show but I was curious to see the process.  So, my wife to be and I headed out to the studio and, along with a large-ish crowd took our seats and watched the “magic”.

The “magic”, it turned out, was rather dull, if only because the crew really had the show, and all it involved with it, so completely nailed down.  In some ways, you couldn’t help but admire the cold efficiency of the routine.  Nonetheless, I missed the lack of any spontaneous reactions from anyone but the show’s winners.  Every word uttered by Pat Sajak appeared scripted, every smile and movement well rehearsed.  As much money as he is/was surely making off the show, I wondered if I could work on something that stripped me down to, basically, a marionette.

The staff, crew, and contestants filmed several episodes in a row, stopping in real time for “commercial breaks” -and using that time to relax or unwind- and at the “end” of the episodes everyone on the stage disappeared, only to reappear a few minutes later when filming was about to resume with a change of clothing obviously designed to give the appearance, when the shows were eventually aired, that an actual day had passed between episodes when it obviously hadn’t.

I don’t know how many episodes were filmed in a row as we were so bored with the proceedings that we left after the “second” episode was finished, but it would not surprise me in the least if at the end of that day and after perhaps not much more than three or four hours of taping they had a week’s worth of episodes.

Hollywood magic.

Gotta love it.