The Jackpot was one of the gameplay elements on Wheel of Fortune.
History[]
The original Jackpot Wedge.
The second Jackpot wedge.
The third Jackpot wedge.
The fourth Jackpot wedge.
The fifth Jackpot wedge.
The sixth Jackpot wedge.
The seventh wedge.
The eighth wedge.
The final Jackpot wedge.
The nighttime version of the Jackpot appeared from September 16, 1996 to June 14, 2013.
A cash prize which began at $5,000 and had the value of each successive spin added to it. An onscreen display throughout the round showed how much was in the Jackpot. To claim it, the contestant had to land on the wedge, call a right letter, and solve – all within the same turn. A display at the upper left-hand corner of the screen, shown only during shots of the board, would indicate how much was in the Jackpot.
The wedge was originally over the orange $300, moving to the green $500 in 1998 and the red $300 in 2008 (changed to $700 in 2012). Initially, the Jackpot was in Round 3, but moved to Round 2 from May 1-12, 2000 during the WheelOfFortune.com sweepstakes (a change that became official at the beginning of Season 18). In Season 27, it moved to Round 1.
From February 7, 1997 until the retirement of the Friday Finals, the Jackpot started at $10,000 on Friday Finals episodes. Beginning in Season 24, the wedge acted as a $500 space: letters called on the wedge were worth $500 each plus a flat $500 towards the Jackpot; previously, letters called on Jackpot had no value.
When the Jackpot was won, fireworks exploded across the top of the screen. Prior to 2004, fireworks "exploded" on the Jackpot display before transforming into twinkling stars.
The first Jackpot win was on September 26, 1996, at the base value of $5,000, and the last one was on June 10, 2013, at $7,600. The largest known Jackpot is $23,250, offered (but not won) on September 19, 1997; the largest known win is $17,450 on September 9, 2002.
The Jackpot wedge had twelve distinct appearances over its lifetime, more than any other, with four designs in its first season and three more in its second; the eleventh design (its last before it recycled the housing of the Big Money Wedge) can be seen at Sony Studios' Wheel Hall of Fame.
- When the Jackpot debuted on September 16, 1996, its wedge was sparkly red with "Jackpot" written on it in Cooper Black with gold letters. This design returned during the week of January 6, 1997, suggesting this week was taped out of order.
- On December 9, 1996, the wedge became solid red, with the word "Jackpot" written vertically in yellow; above it, the word "Jackpot" appeared again in curved text and underlined, with a black shape appearing at the top.
- On January 13, 1997, the top of the wedge became the same greenish shade of brown used by Prize wedges at the time.
- On May 5, 1997, coinciding with the Jackpot round now having a sponsor, the curved "Jackpot" text and underline were replaced by the logo of that week's sponsor. As the week of September 1, 1997 did not have a sponsor, the previous design returned for that week only. This design was also used during the Best Friends Week of November 24, 1997.
- On September 29, 1997, the wedge became light blue, with the word "Jackpot" now appearing in a red semicircle logo at the top, and the sponsor's logo underneath.
- On October 7, 1997, the wedge reverted to sparkly red, but its design remained otherwise identical to that of September 29. It is not known what caused the wedge design to change on a Tuesday instead of a Monday.
- On November 10, 1997, the semicircle logo had blinking lights added around it.
- At the start of Season 19, the sponsor logo was removed from the wedge.
- In Season 21, the wedge's logo changed to a golden, downward-pointing triangle with a star in its center and "Jackpot" written in the Tahoma font along the triangle's base.
- On October 24, 2005, the wedge changed from red to silver (similarly to the $5,000 wedge), with the logo introduced in Season 21 changing to red.
- On October 23, 2006, The wedge changed to having a red border with the gold word "JACKPOT" on the thick top of the border, and the triangle changed to a gold star in the middle.
- In season 26, the wedge adopted its final design, which recycled the housing of the Big Money Wedge. This was an electronic wedge with "Jackpot" in red text, a silver dollar sign, and five vertical rows of blue dots underneath.
The on-screen Jackpot display also changed multiple times:
- The first version used black Avant Garde Gothic numbers on a pastel background which matched the category chyrons in use at the time. While initially static, the graphic began scrolling the numbers upward as the value increased on September 23; this behavior remained for all subsequent variants of the graphic.
- On November 11, the Jackpot readout was changed to a red semicircle with "Jackpot" in gold letters along the curve, and the total in white numbers underneath. This graphic was usually in the Impact font.
- In Season 19, the display was made smaller and darker red, and the font changed to Impact. Also, the sponsor's logo began appearing on the display instead of on the wedge.
- During the weeks of November 3-17, 2003; December 29, 2003; and February 9-23, 2004, the Jackpot display was in the lower left-hand corner for no discernible reason.
- In Season 21, the Jackpot display changed to a gold rectangle against a gold triangle with a star in its center, matching the logo added to the wedge at this point.
- In Season 22, the display was changed to silver, with a yellow border around the rectangle.
- In Season 23, the font changed from Impact to Trade Gothic; this changed again to Alternate Gothic on October 24, 2005.
- In Season 24, the display became a rectangle with a gold star underneath it, with the text elements in red; "Jackpot" was changed to Cosmos Bold, and the readout itself to Arial. In addition, a chime now played when the graphic appeared.
- In Season 27, the display became a blue rectangle with "Jackpot" written in red above it.
If a cycle of three consecutive lost turns from all three contestants (also known as a "null" cycle) occured in the Jackpot Round, the edited-out spins would usually be deducted from the Jackpot in post-production unless it was won. This could sometimes be discerned until Season 19 by the Jackpot display font sometimes changing fonts and/or size.
Although never seen on-camera, the Jackpot total was displayed to contestants via the off-screen scoreboard.