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Is this Wheel of Fortune answer the biggest cock-up in quiz show history?

Oh, mate...

Is this Wheel of Fortune answer the biggest cock-up in quiz show history?
22 March 2017

You’re at least a bit familiar with Tennessee Williams’s 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama A Streetcar Named Desire, aren’t you? 

Even if you haven’t seen the play or watched the Marlon Brando-starring film adaptation, you have the name stored in your bank of cultural awareness. If, for example, you happened to be on Wheel of Fortune and you literally needed one letter from the title, with thousands of people watching on – you reckon you’d have it in the bag. 

Kevin didn’t. There’s a good chance that nobody has ever fucked it quite as much as Kevin, a contestant on the long-running gameshow who, somehow, managed to snatch defeat from the extremely inviting jaws of victory. And his undoing? Horniness, of course. 

Here’s how it went down. Our man Kev was presented with “A STREETCAR NA_ED DESIRE” on the board, which is about as close to a free hit as you can get. A correct answer would have been worth an extra $600 – just saying the letter “M” could have paid for two PlayStation 4’s. At this point the audience are shaking their heads wondering why they never get that lucky. 

But Kevin said, “K”. A Streetcar Naked Desire. It’s not like it was a hopeful punt either. Kevin shouted the wrong letter so quickly and with so much confidence that we’re convinced that A Streetcar Naked Desire exists –  probably on the dusty bottom shelf in an adult DVD shop. But that’s not the answer they were looking for. 

The internet reacted to the gaffe in exactly the way you’d expect. We have a feeling Kevin – who still left with a fair wedge of money, it should be added – is never going to live this one down.