Lampy Claims, Then Denies Blame For Princeton Wheel of Fortune Hoax

The Harvard Lampoon, the nation's oldest humor magazine, might have the world believe that it successfully humiliated hundreds of Princeton students by falsely telling them they would be on the popular game show Wheel of Fortune, and that they would meet celebrated hostess/cult figure Vanna White.

But the Daily Princetonian says the Lampoon had nothing to do with the hoax, which was a huge failure. Meanwhile, a University of Pennsylvania debating society has also claimed responsibility for the prank.

Now the Lampoon can't decide whether it actually pulled off the prank, whether it didn't play the trick but is accepting responsibility for it, or whether it actually had nothing to do with the whole incident at all.

Sources said that the Lampoon was too busy with preparations for its upcoming visit by Pee Wee Herman--who last week arrived in Cambridge to accept the humor society's Elmer Award--to achieve anything that clever or funny.

Posters were put up around the Princeton campus announcing that representatives from the Wheel of Fortune were coming to the central New Jersey college in search of students skilled at playing Hangman, the children's game on which Wheel of Fortune is based, said Daily Princetonian editor Ed V.W. Zschau.

Following a series of events in which almost none of the facts are clear, it is still unknown which Ivy League institution is responsible for the prank. Even officials at the Daily Princetonian disagree as to whether the whole thing was funny and embarassing or not.

The Wheel of Fortune has recently acquired something of a cult following, but no one really knows why, according to last week's airing of 20/20. The show's Lost, Pat Sajak, who was most recently employed as a TV weatherman in Los Angeles, attributed the show's popularity to himself. Other sources, however, said that it is the hostess of the show, Vanna White, who draws the viewers.

Lampy staffers agree with Sajak. "We're interested in Pat," said editor Edward B. Hodgman '86, "We'd like to get him to be the Elmer next year."