Wheel 2000

Gameplay

The gameplay of Wheel 2000 was very similar to the adult version, except children aged 10–15 competed for points and prizes instead of cash with the eventual winner playing for a grand prize in the bonus round. Round categories were chosen by the contestants from a possible three; the names of the categories were updated to reflect the younger contestants ("Place", for example, became "Globetrotter"). New categories replaced those chosen in each round. In Round 1, the coin toss winner/the red player would choose, Round 2, the yellow player, Round 3, the blue player and so on. Contestants received a prize for solving each puzzle. The player who solved the puzzle also added the points to their bank, with the eventual top winner advancing to the Bonus Round. After each round, Cyber Lucy (or a celebrity) presented a short video clip related to the solved puzzle. Vowels cost 250 points. Games were typically played to three rounds, with top point values of 1,000, 2,000, and 5,000.

The wheel featured a special wedge on which a contestant could choose to play a pre-determined stunt to earn up to three extra letters. There was also a "WWW.WHEEL2000.COM"wedge, which allowed a home viewer who had previously registered on the site to win Wheel 2000 merchandise if a contestant hit the wedge and called a consonant that appeared in the puzzle. The Lose a Turn wedge was here named the "Loser" spot; in place of the Bankrupt wedge was "The Creature", which, if the contestant landed on that wedge, would prompt the wheel to rise, belch smoke, and cause an unseen creature to "eat" the contestant's points. Other special wedges included Double Up, which awarded double its value per letter if a contestant correctly answered a trivia question, and a Prize Box, which functioned identically to the special prize wedges on the adult version (except the kids were allowed to keep the prize whether they solved the puzzle or not and the value was not added to their score). The bonus round was played in almost identical fashion to the adult version, including the adult categories, except that prizes were determined by selecting from two envelopes labeled "A" or "B" (instead of the five choices in the adult version at the time).

12-city tour

In early 1998, Wheel 2000 made a 12-city tour, appearing in shopping malls around the country. The Discover-branded tour, coordinated by the Chicago office of New Jersey-based promotion agency DVC Group, also featured Sidoni as host, with Ray as Lucy joining him again. The tour visited a variety of major market cities: Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., New York City, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Jose, and Anaheim. Winners from each market were invited to appear as contestants on the program in a grand finale.