In 1968, Jack Barry was still persona non gratia in Hollywood due to the quiz show scandals a decade earlier, but the ice would break a year or so after with ABC's Generation Gap, when Barry was asked to replace original host Dennis Wholey.
In December '68, Barry made his first attempt to sell The Joker's Wild to CBS, but not in the format we all knew. Oh, no. What Barry sought to do was flip the script, if ya will, on the success of Heatter-Quigley's Hollywood Squares over on NBC. Five celebrities asked the questions of the two contestants, with Allen Ludden, a year removed from the end of Password's 1st run, presiding over the competition.
As the most recent MC, Snoop Dogg, would say, now, wait just one minizzle.
Judge for yourselves, pilgrims. Our panel consists of Rich Little, Dodgers ace Don Drysdale, Pat Paulsen (The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour), Rosemary Clooney, and Irene Ryan (The Beverly Hillbillies), who, as Ludden notes, had just published a cookbook.
Ludden would host one more pilot for Joker, but Password would resurface on ABC in 1971 for a four year run, and Joker, with Barry at the helm, bowed in September 1972.
Talk about cluttered!
Rating: B--.
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