Pat Sajak signed off of “Wheel of Fortune” on Friday evening after more than 40 years as host, telling viewers with a slight catch in his voice that he was grateful for the “incredible privilege to be invited into millions of homes night after night.”
The half-hour episode, recorded on April 5, was largely a regular telecast of the syndicated show with a few extra touches including Sajak’s four-minute farewell, or what he described as “a few parting thoughts.” But it opened with a clip of Sajak’s first appearance as host back in 1981, when the show aired on NBC’s daytime schedule before shifting to first-run syndication through King World Productions (which was acquired by CBS in 2000) in the fall of 1983. In the 1981 clip, the voice-over announcer introduces Sajak as the replacement for former host Chuck Woolery, who went on to host the dating game show “The Love Connection.”
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