Pat Sajak, the Cool, Unflappable, Reliable Host, Signs Off

After four decades on the air, Mr. Sajak, 77, presides over his last episode of Wheel of Fortune on Friday. And his departure Mr. Sajak has suggested in a series of televised exit interviews with Maggie Sajak, his daughter, that this will be a welcome retirement offered a chance to reappraise what it is that made him such a durable fixture of the American cultural landscape. Mr. Sajak, it is probably worth remembering, has been with viewers through seven presidents, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both the AIDS and the Covid pandemics, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the 2008 financial crash and, oh, the Kardashians. Not incidentally, he has outlasted the internets incursions into broadcast televisions longheld primacy. Through it all hes been with the American game show audience, unflappably prompting contestants to choose a consonant or buy a vowel. He calmed contestants as they guessed at Hangmanstyle word puzzles.