Sajak, the longtime host of the puzzle-solving contest show, made the admission during a chat on ESPN 2's Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable Tuesday.

Sajak said that in the early days of the broadcast the show would feature extravagant prizes instead of cash as it does now. The large prizes would require hours for setting up.

"Our dinner breaks would be two and a half hours long while they drove in new cars and boats and gazebos and stuff,'' Sajak recalled. "Vanna and I would go across and have two or three or six [martinis], and then come and do the last shows and have trouble recognising the alphabet. They're really good tapes to get a hold of."

"I had a great time. I have no idea if the shows were any good but no one said anything, so I guess I did okay."

Sajak reminisced with Batard about meeting Jimmy Stewart at a party thrown by Merv Griffin during which the actor told him his wife "always solves the puzzle" before he did. And he recounted how Lucille Ball once told him, " 'You know what I like about you. You're not just funny. You think funny!;' And I go 'just kill me now!' "

But an impressed Batard guffawed while asking Sajak if he had a story about "anybody from the last 50 years."

"No one has liked me since 1980 but before then I was really big,'' Sajak shot back. "There are certain people -- there are about nine of them left, who would be impressed with those stories."

Then it was turn for Batard's "Papi's to ask a question: "Tell me what Vanna White smells like."

"She smells great. She smells a little like Lucille Ball."

Here's a taste of nostalgia for you.