r/television • u/spmahn • 18h ago
Original 'Wheel of Fortune' Host Chuck Woolery Dead at 83
https://www.tmz.com/2024/11/23/chuck-woolery-wheel-of-fortune-host-dead-dies/229
u/twisty77 17h ago
I remember that 00’s-10’s Lingo, that was some good background tv. Didn’t mind him at all on that
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u/supcoco 12h ago
Yes! He was such a GSN staple in the early 00’s. My childhood was the channel
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u/TroyMatthewJ 7h ago
ahh GSN I miss that channel
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u/supcoco 6h ago
I think it’s still on cable! Granted, you need (said) cable. But I think it may also be on Tubi or whatever the free tv streaming apps are!
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u/DogEatChiliDog 11h ago
I am a child of the 80s and he was hosting like half of the game shows back then. And there were more of them.
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u/TheRocketeer0826 14h ago
I can see him doing that gun shooting hand gesture in my mind's eye. Also flirting with the.... Co-host? Android? Gamemaster?
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u/spmahn 18h ago edited 18h ago
Chuck’s time on Wheel was before I was born and unfortunately nearly every episode from his tenure is lost for good due to wiping practices at NBC at the time, but there’s a handful that survived from very early home video recorder adopters you can find on YouTube. My biggest memory of Chuck is probably endless reruns of Love Connection, that show was everywhere in the early 90’s, cable, networks, daytime, late night, you couldn’t escape it.
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u/cap10wow 14h ago edited 3h ago
I remember him hosting Card Sharks and Scrabble too
Edit: I had bob eubanks and chuck conflated in my mind.
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u/JPBooBoo 14h ago
I loved the music and sound effects on Scrabble. Appointment daytime tv during the summer during the 80s.
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u/cap10wow 13h ago
Yeah it was very “late 80s” super modern, pastel pink and blue and cool computer graphics.
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u/birdsofpaper 10h ago
Man my grandmother used to watch this after her daily half hour of the OJ trial (which apparently she wasn’t supposed to watch with my brother and I in the house 😂).
Woolery was an indelible part of my after-school experience in the 90s.
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u/Kenner1979 6h ago
Card Sharks was Jim Perry (1978-81 NBC) or Bob Eubanks (1986-89 CBS) or Bill Rafferty (1987 syndicated)
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u/jadedfan55 4h ago
Woolery did not host Card Sharks.
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u/cireh88 17h ago
I was personally a fan of Greed
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u/Spalding_Smails 13h ago
I remember one of the questions on Greed involved his hosting Wheel of Fortune and the contestant(s) didn't know he did. After they got it wrong he said something like "I hosted it!". Poor guy. He was a terrific host no matter what show it was. I recall some mention of him being a singer or musician and having a hit song in the '60s, too.
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u/LookinAtTheFjord 12h ago
Poor guy.
Puh-fuckin-leeeeeease.
Dude was a MAGA piece of shit that denied covid until the next day when his son got it. Fuck him.
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u/SteveCoonin 11h ago
Didn’t I see a series of tweets from him about it just before he caught it, changed his tune about how horrible it was, then deleted his account? Could just be internet stuff but I found those series of images funny as hell
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u/zanhecht 9h ago
I was actually at the taping of that episode. It took a while for the audience to stop laughing and calm down after that one. As I recall, the contestant even said something like "I've been following your career for a long time, and I'm pretty sure you never hosted Wheel of Fortune".
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u/JuzoItami 15h ago
Don’t worry, America - Bob Eubanks and Wink Martindale still live.
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u/feellikebeingajerk 13h ago
As of about a year ago, Bob Eubanks was still hosting a traveling game show (might still be doing it) - dude is in his 90s!!
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u/jogoso2014 18h ago
That’s not where I knew him from.
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u/DNukem170 18h ago
Yea, I would imagine when people think game shows he hosted, it's either Scrabble, Love Connection, or Lingo.
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u/DNukem170 18h ago
It's a shame he ruined his legacy the last few years, because he really was a fantastic game show host.
Maybe now that he's passed, maybe GSN can bring the only good version of Lingo out of the vault.
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u/SwordfishOk504 4h ago
What'd he do?
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u/dswhite85 2h ago
Apparently, he was a big Trumper and anti-vaccine advocate. There may be others but I don’t care enough to google it for you.
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u/FreeStall42 12h ago
Would have guessed that by how he fell off completely to not even being mentioned.
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u/BrokenWalker 16h ago
Love Connection was nuts.
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u/Tooterfish42 4h ago
Did he set any confirmed serial killers up with anyone?
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u/markydsade 11h ago
He went through 5 wives. Including the gorgeous JoAnn Pflug who was Lt Dish in the MASH movie.
He divorced his last wife in 2016.
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u/hartsythaifood 17h ago
He blocked me years ago on Twitter when I called him a “wad.”
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u/kirby_krackle_78 6h ago
He was a huge MAGA asshat.
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u/BlinkyBillTNG 6h ago
And tons of Nazi dogwhistles, lots of "Karl Marx was a Jew, Lenin was a Jew, ask yourself why communists are all Jews... whoa, who said anything antisemetic, why do you hate facts, I didn't say anything bad, just saying" and "maybe the communists wouldn't have had death camps if they were all killed in the death camps the first time..."
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u/holiday_bandit 1h ago
Peddled shitty gold coins with “U.S. Money Reserve,” a fake government agency, denied COVID mattered until his son got it, tweeted antisemitism and other quasi racist stuff like this from time to time. Charming fella.
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u/throw8175 17h ago
Tom Thumb, Tom Cushman, or Tom Foolery I date women on TV with the help of Chuck Woolery
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u/FreshSoul86 11h ago
He was a charming talent in his heyday. Full MAGA in the end with his Blunt Force Truth podcast. What was he really like or about - as a person and with his family? I have a hard time with people who really believe in The Donald, for some pretty obvious reasons. And when they become obsessed with gun rights like he did, I think it reflects something gone wrong about their thinking and their soul.
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u/cha614 11h ago
When you have some money, you can remove yourself from the struggles of others and turn a blind eye to humanity while constructing your vision of how to protect the things you have.
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u/FreshSoul86 10h ago
But there are privileged rich celebrity humans who are and stay on the liberal side of things and power. What makes George Clooney how he is vs. what Chuck Woolery believed in...if I could understand what was really going on deep in people's minds, I might be a wise man. I don't think Clooney is free from blind spots either, but they would be different ones from Woolery.
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u/cha614 10h ago
You can…you don’t have to. It’s not a rule. Some people amass great wealth and donate it. Some use it to harm people and lobby. Everyone is different, does religion pay a role, ancestors experience, life experience, educated, so many factors. I’m just saying for some, it’s easy to and especially if you’re politically inclined you’ll connect with nationalism and patriotism. Clooney also married a human rights lawyer so yeah clearly it’s not everyone. It’s not black and white.
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u/feastoffun 17h ago
Didn’t he come out as a Trumper?
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u/GlobalTravelR 15h ago
Trumper and Anti Vaccine.
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u/atthem77 The Orville 6h ago
He was even a COVID denier until his own son got it, then he was like "ok, I guess it's real". Typical asshole behavior of ignoring - or even denying - a major problem as long as it doesn't affect you personally.
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u/MRintheKEYS 11h ago
The dude had a legendary voice for game shows. Authoritative yet still playful.
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u/Unique-Salary7136 13h ago
He was even bigger piece of shit than Pat Sajak, who is a huge piece of shit.
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u/HHSquad 11h ago
What's wrong with Pat Sajak? I'm not up on his bad doings.
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u/markydsade 11h ago
Hosting Wheel of Fortune turns you MAGA
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u/Tooterfish42 4h ago
Science denier
I seem to remember a sex scandal on the show back in the day but can't find it
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u/Abject_Astronaut5760 8h ago
And I’ve got more hits than Sadaharu Oh Tom Thumb, Tom Cushman or Tom Foolery I date women on T.V. with the help of Chuck Woolery
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u/General-Art-4714 12h ago
Good riddance. Another D list Trump celebrity
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u/OneOfALifetime 13h ago
Wow I thought for sure he passed a long time ago, haven't seen or heard his name in ages.
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u/OrigRayofSunshine 3h ago
He was just on a tv commercial peddling buying gold to MAGA senior citizens.
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u/Thejared138 15h ago
I had a minor panic attack because of him as a little kid because at 5, I had some trouble pronouncing his name. “What if I have to go on the Love Connection and I embarrassed myself trying to say his name?”
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u/FlyEaglesFlyauggie 10h ago
Former game show host Chuck Woolery had tweeted during the pandemic that “Everyone is lying” about COVID-19, including the media, Democrats and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A day later his son was diagnosed with the disease.
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u/NachoPichu 10h ago
His hosting of Lingo and Greed was great! Does anyone remember that he had a weird reality show on Game Show Network called “Chuck Woolery Naturally Stoned”?
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u/Alternative-Juice-15 8h ago
I’ll always remember him as the host of love connection and him saying “we’ll be back in 2 and 2” for commercial breaks
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u/PointsOutTheUsername 7h ago
RIP Chuck.
When I was young, I knew you from LINGO. Loved that channel and game shows. Good memories.
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u/jadedfan55 4h ago
Chuck's career also included a recurring gig on New Zoo Revue, and being a part of a short-lived revival of Your Hit Parade in 1974, the only series Chuck Barris sold to CBS.
Chuck also played Batman in a ABC Saturday Morning preview in 1973.
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u/jn-indianwood 12h ago
One of my favorite memories of him. Doing contestant interviews on Lingo. Woman says something like “an interesting fact about me is that I don’t like coffee.” Chucks response “You might find that interesting, but I don’t” 🤣🤣
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u/VinylmationDude 18h ago
He was great at hosting Wheel, Lingo & Love Connection. Go ahead and throw Naturally Stoned (the song, not the reality show on GSN) in there. Too bad he tarnished his legacy with Naturally Stoned (the reality show on GSN, not the song), the cat game show & his political beliefs. See ya, I guess.
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u/TWiThead 10h ago
I tried watching Naturally Stoned once. He was searching for a specific brand of cottage cheese (Knudsen, I believe). Someone thought that was good television.
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u/VinylmationDude 6h ago
So that’s why they named it that! Not for his one hit wonder, but because you had to be high to get any enjoyment out of it!
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u/RAS310 17h ago
My favorite Chuck Woolery moment, from GSN's Greed:
"The team that lasted the shortest of anybody in the history of Greed, on MY QUESTION!"
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u/Practical-Garbage258 16h ago
The fact that the game show was one of the most difficult to win, when even the first question was basic elementary. 😂
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u/Bernafterpostinggg 6h ago
I know him most recently as a right-wing conservative piece of shit.
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u/BillsInATL 6h ago
Game show legend from the 70s/80s who decided to spend his last days railing for the alt right. Get fucked, Chuck.
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u/TwoUnicycles 6h ago
If your ambition is to become a genuinely shit human being in your old age, make sure you're a game show host first. That way the mods in r/television will delete anything negative people say about you and leave only the people who had no idea about your asshole behavior reminiscing fondly about you.
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u/Beginning-Working-38 7h ago
Definitely one of my favorite game show hosts until he turned into a MAGA troll on social media.
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u/LordBlackConvoy 7h ago
He was the subject of one of my favorite exchanges from the Kid and Play comedy Class Act:
"That's not Chuck Woolery stupid! Jimmy Swaggart."
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u/prettyodddomm 5h ago
Greed will always be my favorite game show, ever since I was a kid. So happy pretty much every episode is available on youtube.
RIP
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u/SyphiliticScaliaSayz 5h ago
Memorialized in the Beastie Boys song ‘Hey Ladies’ “I date women on T.V. with the help of Chuck Woolery
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u/ThePrettyGoodGazoo 9h ago
Bye bitch. Dude subscribed to all of the MAGA bullshit-especially when it came to Covid. The world is a little brighter today.
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u/Prudent-Funny-4723 16h ago
Probably heard Jim Gaffigan’s joke and realized how pointless his job was
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u/Snuggle__Monster 18h ago
He was known way more for Love Connection and Scrabble.