Vanna: And I get a new wrinkle…

Pat: And I, of course, do not … So you try to make changes but you don’t go too far because people like the basic show. If you think about it we’re just playing hangman with a giant wheel and yet people seem to like it, which is not a bad thing for us.

Vanna: And also, it’s a half-hour of family fun. It’s time for the whole family to get together and play the game together, which we don’t have a lot of that on TV these days.

Pat: I laugh because it’s a massive job putting this thing together on the lawn of a hotel. And I came in here a week ago and there are a hundred people running around doing it. But Vanna and I laugh all the time—when you mention Wheel-of-Fortune, you think of the two of us and yet in a weird way, we do less than anybody. We show up, she touches letters and I stumble around and call names out and sell vowels. That’s what people don’t know exactly is how many people work really hard to make this thing work. When we travel it’s well over a hundred people.

Q: Do you like the new touch style of illuminating the letters on the puzzle board or do you prefer the old style where you had to turn the letter around?

Vanna: I like the new one better because I can’t mess up. It’s computerized, so the computer is the one that lights up the letter before I touch it, where before I literally had to turn the letter. When I turned it I could have made a mistake.

Pat: We’re working on a system where she can just stay home in bed and just think of a letter. We’re trying to make things as easy as possible for her.

Q: Have you ever made a mistake with the letters on the puzzle board?

Vanna: I did. The puzzle was “Dr. Spock” or “Mr. Spock,” I forget which one, and I turned over the “D” or “M” and it was the opposite of what it was supposed to be.

Q: Is there anything unique about Hawaii contestants?

Pat: Well, they certainly have some name challenges for me. I’m pretty good with the alphabet and with the pronunciation but they’re different from a lot of the names we’re used to. We had one lady whose name had three “a’s” in a row the other day and I had some trouble with that one. All the stuff about the aloha spirit is true. They are very warm and sweet people and I think those who don’t do well (who don’t win a lot of money or who have bad luck with the wheel) they seem to take it better than other people because when they go home after the show they’re still in Hawaii.

Q: If you weren’t doing Wheel-of- Fortune, what would be the job you’d most like to pursue?

Vanna: For me it would probably be something in real estate. I don’t know why, I kind of like real estate.

Pat: That’s the first time I’ve heard you say that.

Vanna: I like fixing things up and fixing it up and selling them. Kind of like HGTV Design on a Dime…that kind of stuff. So maybe be an interior decorator.

Pat: I’ve done this for so long I’ve forgotten if I ever had any other ambitions in my life. I would probably want to be a major league outfielder.

Q: What would people be surprised to learn about who you are off-camera?

Pat: How normal life is. We’re in show business but we don’t live it 24 hours a day and we each have families and we do things everyone else does. It’s funny, I’ll be at the grocery store and someone will say, “You’re in a grocery store.” And I’ll say, “Well, I have to eat.” So people have this idea that we’re out partying or something.

Q: You are only taping Wheel-of-Fortune 35 days a year on this show. What do you do the remainder of the time?

Vanna: I’m a full-time mom when I’m not working. I live in California, do homework with the kids, carpool them to school, bake cookies…

Pat: We travel a little bit, I’m helping the kids with their homework … those kinds of things. I’m lucky that I have a lot of time to do those things because we don’t have to be in the studio a lot.