‘Wheel Of Fortune’ Showrunner Bellamie Blackstone Is Using Her Magic Touch To Keep The Venerable Game Show Spinning
In the pantheon of unforgettable Wheel of Fortune outtakes, a moment from an episode this past May definitely rises to the top: A contestant by the name of Tavaris Williams made the baffling decision to declare that a four-word phrase on Vanna White’s puzzle board was meant to read “Right in the Butt.”
The actual answer was “This is the best.”
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Williams stood silent, his eyes wide, while a fellow contestant exclaimed “what?!” The audience roared with laughter.
“Everyone was like, no, no,” recalls executive producer Bellamie Blackstone. “Then Tavaris said, ‘I’ve never said those words in my life. I don’t know why I said them out loud on TV.'”
If only his moment of shame ended there. The clip would end up going viral, with multiple outlets reporting on the NFSW pronouncement and some even asking Williams to relive the humiliation in interviews.
Although Blackstone could sympathize with Williams (“that poor man, he was so sweet”), she couldn’t help but feel invigorated by the continuing power of the brand.
“In the zeitgeist, there’s a normalcy to it,” says Blackstone, who’s just kicked off her third season as showrunner. “When they see a clip like that, people go, ‘Oh, that’s funny’ because you don’t have to explain what’s happening. It’s Wheel of Fortune. All they have to do is cut to someone saying it and then cut back to the puzzle. The joke and set-up is done for you.”
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When Sony was looking for someone to replace Mike Richards as EP of WoF and Celebrity WoF in 2022, scores of applicants applied for the plum job of running one of the most successful syndicated game shows in TV history. Few, however, were women, recalls Sony Game Shows president Suzanne Prete.
“I want every voice represented because every voice listens and watches our shows,” says Prete. “The fact that Bellamie is a woman is a plus. I hired her because she is the right person. She has experience in comedy as well as game shows. And she was born into production. She grew up in live entertainment.”
Unless you’re a boomer, however, chances are rather slim you’d recognize the significance of her once famous lineage. Her father was Harry Blackstone Jr., a magician and television performer who learned the art of illusion from his dad, The Great Blackstone. Blackstone’s mom, Gay, served as her dad’s assistant on the road and was the lucky sap who got sawed in half when her husband wasn’t making handkerchiefs dance and animals disappear.
“When I was 11 weeks old and my parents’ Broadway show opened, we were mostly in New York through that and then did the bus and truck for the first five or six years of my life,” recalls Blackstone, a Redlands, CA, native who would often join her parents onstage. “I grew up traveling with them. I was on the road probably about 250 days a year through elementary school.”
When Blackstone’s father died in 1997, Magic Castle founder Milt Larson suggested that the magician’s towheaded daughter would probably keep the family tradition alive. (Gay Blackstone would go on and produce multiple seasons of Masters of Illusion for the CW).
“I was born into a magic family and let me tell you, there’s no way the secrets don’t get passed down,” Larson told the New York Times. “It’s in the air. And she’s a girl. Wouldn’t that be kind of refreshing?”
Blackstone isn’t exactly pulling rabbits out of her sleeve these days, but she has figured out how to create her own kind of magic for the small screen.
“I just love the craft of theater and a studio-based show,” says Blackstone, a USC theater grad who cut her game show teeth on Deal or No Deal and @midnight before taking a detour into comedy with I Love You, America, Feeding America Comedy Festival and History of Swear Words. “I use so much of that knowledge, whether it’s lighting or set design or all of the things that you do in a traveling magic show. It really does exist in this environment. That’s why I’ve always gravitated toward this style of show because I really like all of those aspects of putting it together and being able to tell that story.”
Her youth, enthusiasm and unique background comes at an important time for WoF. With Ryan Seacrest now hosting the show and serving as a big piece of the proverbial puzzle, Blackstone’s job is to continue finding way to keep Wheel relevant well into the 21st century. (Besides producing Pat Sajak’s final episodes, she already added tournament style theme weeks to the classic game and temporary game elements, like an XL wedge on the wheel in season 40 that was worth $40,000 if the contestants solved the bonus puzzle.)
Next up is finding a streamer that will pick up either same-day or next-day episodes; the studio is expected to shop it shortly.
And while WoF has stretched its tentacles into broadcast specials, slot machines, live tours, cruise ships and mobile gaming, Blackstone is confident there is much more they can do with the IP, like creating spinoffs similar to what Jeopardy! is doing with its pop culture edition hosted by Colin Jost. Sony Kids and the Game Show group, for example, is developing and taking out to market a kids/family version of WoF.
In the meantime, job one is making sure WoF remains in the winner’s circle. So far, so good: The 42nd season with Seacrest and co-host Vanna White delivered its best premiere month audience (9/9/24-10/6/24) in three years, making it the No. 1 series on television. The premiere month reached 40 million total viewers and viewership grew by 12 percent versus the same period last season.
“Bellamie is a smart producer with a great love of the game and I’ve enjoyed working with her over the last few months on Wheel,” Seacrest tells Deadline. “She has an incredible warmth about her and I am so grateful that she’s done everything possible to make this job smooth, collaborative, and fun for me and the team. I look forward to working with her for years to come.”
“It’s really incredible and when you start to look at the numbers,” adds Blackstone, who’s repped by Gersh. “The numbers for this show are immense and the popularity is still great. We still have a brand that people really relate to. If we can get it in front of people who maybe don’t have linear TV and continue to grow that viewership, there’s a lot of exciting change that’s happening.”
And with massive success comes those ever-present, outrageous outtakes — some of which don’t always represent everything that’s good and decent about the long-running game show. One meme that continues to make the rounds on social media is a man trying to guess a “clam digger” word puzzle, except he asks for a N instead of a D. His request is followed by an awkward silence.
Good news, WoF purists: it’s not real.
“There’s something about social media where it’s a bit of the wild west when it comes to those moments in time,” marvels Blackstone, whose publicity staff released a statement confirming that it was a fake. “Once we determine something is user-generated, there’s nothing we can do about it. So we try not to harp on it.” It’s just how the wheel spins sometimes.
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