Vanna White Reconsidered

We watch Wheel of Fortune every night when the kids are with me --which is at least three of the five weekday evenings. And for the most part I'm just there for the pleasure of sitting on the sofa with my kids for an hour. Sometimes I even read whilst "watching" because I care so little about the show. But every once in awhile I notice something. A week or so ago I caught a glimpse of Vanna and I thought I actually saw some side-boob. I immediately decided that it was my imagination, which can be pretty untamed when it comes to boobs, especially those of the side variety. I mean, Vanna is 60 years old, y'know? 60 year old women don't voluntarily do side boob shots, do they?

But then tonight (suddenly!) came this:

To quote the great philosopher James Osterberg, "I was most impressed."

And you know . . . I've taken my fair share of potshots at Vanna White. I've certainly characterized her as the archetype of vapidity, fame & fortune without an iota of merit, allathat. And I've also spent more than my fair share of time lusting after her with respect to those lovely pictures printed in Playboy back in the day. (Oh my gosh, that was May of 1987, man. 31 years ago! Holy shit!)

But when her boobs caught my eye on this particular evening, my second thought was, "You know, it says something that this lass is still at the job after 35+ years (she started full-time on December 13, 1982). How many television stars do you know who have that kind of staying power? And no matter what the gig is, it takes something to hang onto it for that long. It also says something about the people who produce the show . . . and about the network, I think. I'm sure that they could get a hot young thing to take Vanna's place, and after a bit of uproar from the old folks, everything would be fine. Probably even gain some viewers if the new young hot girl was hot enough. But they haven't done that.

Speaking of hot young things, when I went to look up the date of Vanna's first Wheel appearance, I happened upon a video of her as a contestant on The Price is Right from 1980--when she was a mere 23 years old. And I have to say . . . she was really, really hot. Unbelievably and undeniably hot. So hot that (1) I'm going to go back and watch it again, (2) Bob Barker made a comment about how hot she was (in nicer language, of course) when she came up to the stage, and (3) Bob felt the need to chastise her for "staring at herself in the monitor" when she asked him to repeat the bids of the other contestants . . . which he didn't feel the need to do when another (decidedly not hot) contestant asked him to do the same thing . . . TWICE. (Men have a hard time dealing with hot women 

. . . especially when they know that they have No Shot.) Anyway

 . . . you should go have a look for that video. 

And I think I'm going to start paying closer attention to Wheel of Fortune.