Wheel Of Fortune Contestant Julian’s Achilles Heel

Watch “Wheel of Fortune” contestant Julian, from Indiana University, almost win $1 million and a car on Friday’s show – almost. The way he loses out is more than a little embarrassing.

First, Julian blows though the puzzle “Mythological Hero Achilles” with all the confidence and speed of someone who knows what he is doing. The clip begins with the puzzle mostly solved and we see Julian pick up a trip to London, then nearly miss bankruptcy before filling in the rest of the letters. Lucky guy, right?

Then it is time for Julian to read out the answer, a mythological name that any college student should know, and he blows it.

“Mythological hero Ay-chill-us!” Julius proudly proclaims.

Everyone is stunned as the buzzer sounds and Pat Sajak professionally moves on, saying “I can’t accept that.” Then he turns to Shelby from Texas A&M who gladly takes over for the easy win and the easy $1 thousand.

After that, Julian makes a comeback with “Science Project Runway” as a “Before and After.” At that point he has won eleven thousand, seven hundred dollars. This isn’t the first time a contestant has lost out on “Wheel of Fortune” by mispronouncing a word, so at this point Julian probably doesn’t feel too bad about his mistake.

Next comes “The World’s Fastest _a_,” a person. Take a moment to see if you can puzzle that one out.

Again, Julian guesses the letters easily, all except the M and N. He even has the chance to win a car this time. The car must be weighing heavily on his mind because the next letter he guesses is C. But the answer can’t be “The World’s Fastest Car” because the answer has to be a person. It also couldn’t be “car” because Julian had already chosen “R” earlier and should have known that the last word couldn’t end in “R.”

The buzzer sounds and Shelby of A&M once again gets the chance to answer correctly: “The World’s Fastest Man.” She even knows where the world fastest man is from – Jamaica, where she’ll be going on vacation thanks to her quick thinking and knowledge.

At the end of the clip we see him miss another puzzle, only to be shown up by Laura from Alabama, who was solving the puzzle: “On-The-Spot Decision.”

Julian’s guess? “On-The-Spot DiceSpin.”

I guess Julian learned the hard way what he’s not good at.

Luckily for him, Julian still wins the show with over eleven thousand dollars and receives a few kind words from Pat Sajak. Hopefully that eases his embarrassment, but it sure doesn’t make him look any smarter.