What Might've Been: Trivial Pursuit: America Plays (2008)

 Before we discuss the current TV iteration of Trivial Pursuit, we have to go back at the earlier versions, and we'll start with the syndicated 2008 series, Trivial Pursuit: America Plays.

It had been 15 years since game show legend Wink Martindale had first adapted the board game for television, with the help of some business partners. Debmar-Mercury, which currently distributes Family Feud for Fremantle Media, handled America Plays, and tapped actor Christopher Knight (ex-The Brady Bunch) as host.

America Plays lasted just 1 season, as it didn't get cleared in a lot of cities. A fair number of stations were just unwilling to challenge the 1-2 punch of Wheel of Fortune & Jeopardy!, which are still around, 16 years later.

Let's take a look at a sample episode.

Simple enough. All three iterations of Trivial Pursuit have simplified the 40-something board game to make it useful for television. The current series, on CW, is a weekly show that stands a better chance of succeeding where the others failed.

We'll look at Wink Martindale's version another day.

Rating: A.