"Thank you. Thank you very much, and a most cordially welcome to a brand-new and, we hope, very exciting show for you. It's called 'The Joker's Wild.' It's a show where Knowledge Is King and Lady Luck Is Queen, and where winning players can win up to $25,000 in cash and prizes!" Those were the first lines ever spoken by Jack Barry on the network daytime premeire of "The Joker's Wild", which occurred @ 10:00 (EST), Monday morning, September 4, 1972 on CBS Television (just before Goodson-Todman's "The [New] Price Is Right" and Heatter-Quigley's "Gambit"!). And, for the first time since their original airing, Game Show Network has managed to unearth more episodes of its pioneering CBS Daytime run (Sept. 4, 1972 - June 13, 1975; 636 episodes) for endless repeats, starting with PREMEIRE WEEK on Monday, December 4! I was so enthused, I taped the CBS series premeire TWICE! It was interesting to see the evolution of "The Joker's Wild" in its initial CBS heyday before it would gain even more fame in its 1977-1986 syndicated run. Until recently, only the final CBS season of TJW (1974-1975) was assumed to exist, with the first 2 years erased by CBS for reuse. But now, the earliest shows has been recently uncovered, much to my amazement. I was always curious and anxious about seeing this version, and had serious doubts about the destruction of all of the first 2 seasons (I'd hoped a surviving CBS "Joker" episode from '72 or '73 might show up on GSN's "Game Of The Week"!), having read about it umpteen times in books and on The 'Net; I've never seen the original network edition of TJW (I was but a wee waif when it started), but, thanks to GSN, my doubts were confirmed, and I finally get my chance! Kudos to The Eye Network for preserving "The Joker's Wild" in its archives! This is a GOOD show, playing every Monday-Friday @ 11 AM EST and 3 PM EST on GSN, and very essential for game show enthusiasts like me who are getting a taste of it for the first time. Please watch!
Review of The Joker's Wild
