Game Show TV Milestone Of The Week-Part 1

[AH3RD]

SEPTEMBER 4, 1972
 
Ahhhhhh, yes...truly indeed a red-letter date in the unending, ever-increasing realm of Game Show History.
 
The CBS Television Network, having wiped out a 90-minute block of sitcom repeats from its morning schedule, welcomed the series premieres of 3 exciting new game shows in their place: Jack Barry's The Joker's Wild, Goodson-Todman's The New Price Is Right, and Heatter-Quigley's Gambit. That Labor Day marked The Eye Network's splendiferous comeback to the daytime network game show race for the first time since the demise of the original CBS Daytime edition of To Tell The Truth in September 1968.

\"From Television City in Hollywood, CBS presents America's most exciting new show...The Joker's Wild!\"

On the premiere telecast of The Joker's Wild (which, aside from brief stints on Generation Gap and Juvenile Jury in 1969 and The Reel Game in 1971, also marked the end of Jack Barry's exile from TV in the wake of The Quiz Show Scandals of the late 1950s), the first 2 contestants were Susan Raphael and Ed Hackey. The first 5 categories used in the very first main round were: \"Cooking,\" \"Roaring 20s,\" \"Julius Caesar,\" \"Comic Strips,\" and \"Football.\" The first person to spin the wheels was Susan (good manners dictate that women go first!), and the first items to spin on the Joker wheels were a pair on \"Football\" and a Joker--a triple! Sue vied to go off the board and substitute for \"Cooking\", and with that category she succeeded in correctly answering the first question ever given on The Joker's Wild: \"What is the main ingredient in meringue?\" Her answer: \"Egg whites!\", which earned her $50. Ed Hackey made history on The Joker's Wild by being crowned as its first ever champion. Added to his $550, Hackey won a 23-inch color TV set, a $25 gift certificate from Pier 1 Imports, and a Wal-Vac central cleaning system. (The \"Money And Devils\" round didn't yet exist, preceded by 2 different bonus games: a prize-matching slot machine [in 2 versions], and a Jokers And Devils round.)

Continued...

[Jimmy Owen]

There was one CBS daytime GS that came on between TTTT and TJW.  \"The Amateur's Guide to Love,\" from March to June of 72, but perhaps the show is best left forgotten. If AGTL had been a success, there might never have been a revival of MG.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Aug 31 2003, 08:17 AM\']There was one CBS daytime GS that came on between TTTT and TJW.  \"The Amateur's Guide to Love,\" from March to June of 72, but perhaps the show is best left forgotten. If AGTL had been a success, there might never have been a revival of MG.[/quote]
And for those who don't know, that's because Gene Rayburn hosted \"Amateur's Guide,\" his first Cape Cod-to-TV City commute.

And four years before \"Mary Hartman Mary Hartman,\" Mary Kay \"Loretta Haggers\" Place appeared on \"Amateur's Guide\" as \"The Pregnant Pollster,\" a woman in full late-term pregnancy drag who came up to unsuspecting people on the street and asked them questions about their love lives while the hidden cameras rolled away.  The feature was the mid-point break segment in between the show's two games.  On the show's first week, Karen Valentine was the Pollster (H-Q connection, thanks to her \"Squares\" recurring guest status), but they realized that she could be recognized (thanks to \"Room 222\" and \"Squares\") and replaced her with Place.