‘Wheel of Fortune’ contestant’s preposterous guess on a Christmas-themed puzzle had fans howling

Everyone loves a good “Wheel of Fortune” fail and we’ve been gifted a great one this holiday season.

During the Dec. 17 episode of the popular game show, a contestant named Phil McManus, from Palmer, Massachusetts, decided to solve a puzzle in “Same Letter” category, with the board reading “Chocolate Chestnuts & Chi_ne_s.”

After host Ryan Seacrest asked if he wanted to solve the puzzle or spin the wheel following his decision to buy an “I,” McManus went for it and guessed “Chocolates, chestnuts and chickens,” which is as wrong as spiking egg nog with prune juice.

The correct answer, given by another contestant named Matt, was “Chocolates, chestnuts & chimneys.” Unlike this contestant, you may have correctly guessed that people were very amused by the wrong answer.

“That was my shopping list last weekend,” someone joked.

“When I think of chocolates and chestnuts, the next word I think of is chickens,” another person quipped.

“Christmas theme episode of Wheel of Fortune! And this was the guess by the contestant. Love Wheel of Fortune but where do these contestants come from,” someone else commented.

“I laughed so loud that my deaf dog jumped out of her bed,” another person wrote on Instagram.

This contestant’s hilarious wrong answer mishap comes about a month after a contestant named Will tried to solve the puzzle “Give yourself a round of applause” by guessing “Treat yourself a round of sausage.”

“I tell you, when the lights are on, and you know, the stars and Ryan Seacrest, Vanna White, I just went blank,” he told the show’s social media correspondent Maggie Sajak, daughter of former host Pat Sajak, afterward. “But, if your dad, in retirement, is watching this show, maybe cracks a beer and gets a laugh, it was worth it.”

Earlier this year, before Sajak retired, another contestant named Tavaris Williams had a gaffe when he guessed “Right in the butt” while trying to solve a phrase. The guess was so unexpected and surprising that Williams wound up on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

“Pat was the best! He made me feel so great about that at the break,” Williams said. “He said, ‘You know, we’ll find a tactful way of editing it. I don’t know how, but we’ll do it.’”

About a week after the episode aired, another contestant named Rufus incorrectly celebrated by giving fist bumps to his competitors after he guessed “Don’t look away” while solving a phrase during a toss up, prompting Sajak to step in to stop Rufus from cheering. The answer was “Can’t look away,” which none of the contestants figured out before the buzzer went off.

After the puzzle was revealed, Sajak had a little fun of his own.

“Everybody’s congratulating everybody, and we get to keep the money!” he joked while the audience laughed.