Wheel of Fortune viewers have been left frustrated and flabbergasted over what they're calling the quiz show's "dumbest moment ever".
Fans took to social media to vent over what they saw as a painfully obvious clue that stumped contestants.
Their comments became so emotional that longtime show host Pat Sajak saw fit to intervene, defending the contestants and asking viewers to "cut them some slack".
The controversial clue appeared during a recent Wheel of Fortune episode, and asked three contestants to fill in the blanks in: "Another feather _n yo_r _a_".
Despite the seemingly obvious answer ('Another feather in your cap') players took a whopping eight turns and 10 attempts to solve the riddle. Contestant Laura Machado tortured viewers with her wrong answers - "Another feather in your hat," "Another feather in your lap" and "Another feather in your map."
Meanwhile, her fellow player Christopher Coleman didn't guess any correct letters, and it took the third contestant Thomas Lipscomb three tries to finally solve the puzzle.
Many fans took to Twitter to air their frustrations about the episode.
"Hey if you feel like screaming at the TV in agony and want to throw something at your screen round 2 of tonight’s 'Wheel of Fortune' is *perfect* for you," one moaned.
"A woman on Wheel of Fortune got this puzzle wrong three times. I’m yelling at the television like I’m watching a football game," another vented.
A third user wrote simply: "the dumbest two minutes in Wheel of Fortune history."
But host Sajak leaped to the contestant's defense in a Twitter thread on Wednesday.
"It always pains me when nice people come on our show to play a game and win some money and maybe fulfill a lifelong dream, and are then subject to online ridicule," he wrote, adding that the "Feather in your cap" clue wasn't as easy as it appeared on screen.
"The first attempted solve was 'Feather in your hat' which, by the way, is how a lot of people say it. So all three players thought it was a good solve, and were stunned when I said it was wrong.
"Now imagine you’re on national TV, and you’re suddenly thrown a curve and you begin getting worried about looking stupid, and if the feather isn’t in your hat, where the heck can it be? You start flailing away looking for alternatives rather than synonyms for 'hat.'" he explained.
Sajak went on to ask viewers to be more sensitive to contestants, saying: "Yeah, it was an oddly entertaining puzzle and it’s okay to laugh at the situation. But have a little heart. After all, you may be there one day. And no one wants to be trending on Twitter."
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