While appearing on The Dan Le Batard Show in 2012, Sajak said that he and White would have “two or three or six” drinks before taping the final shows of the day. When he first started on Wheel of Fortune, Sajak and co-host Vanna White had exceptionally long dinner breaks due to producers having to shuffle prizes like cars on and off stage between tapings. HE AND VANNA USED TO DRINK BEFORE TAPING THE SHOW. It wasn’t until Griffin threatened to shut down the series entirely that the network relented. Considering him a “local” talent, they refused. The game show's then-network, NBC, was not as enthusiastic. NBC DIDN’T WANT HIM AS HOST OF WHEEL OF FORTUNE.Īfter his service, Sajak bounced between jobs in radio, as a hotel desk clerk, and as a weatherman for KNBC in Los Angeles before game show giant Merv Griffin approached him in 1981 to replace a departing Chuck Woolery on the daytime series Wheel of Fortune.
Sajak once said he probably “heard very high-level secrets,” but that most of the talk had to do with the then-pending postal strike. After that, Sajak found himself in the bowels of the Pentagon running slide projectors for military officials. Sajak enlisted in the Army in 1968 and was dispatched to Saigon, where he spoke to the troops via armed forces radio for 18 months before being assigned to a military base in Texas.
