In the program’s Marjorie-era incarnation, contestants who won four episodes in a row would then, if they made it to the bonus round of a fifth episode, play for a prize of $300,000. According to Wheel of Fortune temporality, this was known as a carryover champion’s ‘Day of Fortune’. In the era of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the more established but lower-rating gameshows began to offer bigger cash prizes, and gone were the days of long runs by carryover champions: audience research showed that viewers grew sick of a player after five episodes. They were regular people, the contestants, not performers. Some of them were strange indeed, not too likeable. On Wheel you got four slots and a Day of Fortune, which Marjorie called ‘the big dance’.

Marjorie told Lucky: ‘I want to hear more of your story but let’s talk again tomorrow, shall we?’

The audience applauded again as the sign blinked. One of the producers whipped his hand around in a whirlpool motion. Young Stan burst into tears at the podium and a security guard stood in front of his mother and prevented her from consoling him until the shot was cleared.

Dan rushed out of the studio and a stagehand informed everyone there would be some adjustments to the set before the next game. The audience were given snack boxes and ushered into the foyer, and from the foyer they marched down a hallway to the network’s courtyard, pausing to show the day passes they wore around their necks to a security guard who smiled and nodded. No one from the audience got close enough to ask for Marjorie’s autograph. They offered Lucky his own little dressing room: he changed clothes and, when he was decent, Dan came inside.

‘You surprised a lot of people,’ said Dan.

Lucky said: ‘Did you see Stan? He nearly shit his pants out there. Kid needs to learn how to lose.’

‘Marjorie likes you,’ Dan said.

‘She’s a rabid right-winger and it’s in their religion to like small business people.’

‘I’d put money on you making the Day of Fortune, if my employment contract allowed me to do that.’

In the second episode, flanked by an art teacher at a Launceston high school and a Brisbane real estate agent with a blonde, Ingres curtain of hair, Lucky took the first four puzzles easily—Thing, Phrase, Famous Painter, What to Do In Queensland—but he had trouble speaking clearly into his microphone and, when Marjorie called a commercial break, Dan took this opportunity to give Lucky a few words of encouragement. Before they restarted taping, Marjorie waved to a small girl in the front row. Men in the audience touched the collars of their shirts.

Dan said to Lucky, the board leader by $2100: ‘Speak up. Don’t get stuck in your head. Look at the wheel, man, and be confident. Imagine it’s the shield of Achilles! Know what I mean?’