Note: We are republishing this article, which originally captured headlines in May 2017.
A wildly confusing puzzle on Wheel of Fortune recently had the entire country baffled all at once.
The broadcast exploded across the internet after a podcast host uploaded a screenshot of the puzzle board to Twitter, racking up over 40,000 likes and 13,000 retweets.
Hundreds of users flooded the replies with their hilarious attempts to decipher the board, offering guesses like “Suck it dork,” “Duck at work,” “Lick it fork,” “Pick at pork,” and the completely absurd, “Return to Zork.” Several others chimed in with highly inappropriate suggestions.
Simultaneously, spectators followed the Twitter thread in pure amusement, attracting even more eyes to the viral post—even from individuals who aren’t regular fans of the game show.
“I really appreciate all the replies and quote tweets of this with alternate jokes,” the podcast host expressed. “Can’t get enough of it!”
“[H]ahahahahaha why can’t I be watching when this sh happens!?” one Twitter user questioned.
“[I] hate that show but this is funny,” another added.
Ultimately, the actual solution—which the sharp-minded contestant successfully figured out in under a minute—turned out to be “back at work.”
This is certainly not the initial instance this year of Wheel of Fortune dominating the digital landscape.
As reported by TIME Magazine, back in March, a player named Kevin hilariously mistook “A Streetcar Named Desire” for “A Streetcar Naked Desire,” drawing a massive laugh even from the program’s host.
“And although you got the right answer,” host Pat Sajak joked to the champion of the round, “I’d rather see Kevin’s play.”
Online audiences immediately rushed to Twitter to share their reactions.
“Dude on Wheel of Fortune had to solve this: A STREETCAR NA_ED DESIRE,” one individual tweeted, according to TIME. “He asked for a K. I’m gonna go lie down.”
“Nothing’s funnier to me than Wheel of Fortune fails,” a second user remarked. “Unlike Jeopardy it’s literally spelled out for you.”
“Hey, Wheel of Fortune contestant who just tried to fill in A STREETCAR NA_ED DESIRE with a K, DM me – I’ll buy you a beer or 20,” a third spectator added.
Merely a few weeks following that event, another Wheel of Fortune participant went viral for yet another incredibly amusing guess, as detailed by Thrillist.
During an April broadcast, players were presented with the board “O_EYS_CK_E B_S” within the “living things” category.
Viewers were highly entertained, to put it mildly, when a woman blurted out “popsicle bike,” entirely missing the correct phrase: “honeysuckle bush.”
“I don’t know what I was saying,” the player later confessed, as covered by the Dallas Observer. “Maybe it’s because I saw a ‘K’ at the bottom, but I’m like OK, let’s move on. So I didn’t think about it, but my daughter’s like, ‘That’s gonna go all over.’”