In histories of “The Joker’s Wild,” there has sometimes been mention of a trial run on KTLA in 1971. Seeking more information and precise dates, I headed to newspapers.com to look for TV listings and articles . . . which led to a slight problem. None could be found.
I looked through California newspaper hits from the start of 1971 until the network series debuted. There was nothing except for announcements of the new CBS games in July and August 1972. (There were hits for other uses of the phrase, including a similarly named 1957 movie. And a string of hits from a Long Beach paper in May ‘71 looked promising, but they turned out to be misdated and were really from May ‘74.)
Looking at nationwide results, there were some mentions of the “Joker’s Wild” project in late 1968 and early 1969, around the time the Ludden pilots were taped. “The Honeymoon Game” aired as a syndicated special in late June/early July 1971. And TJW was mentioned in the
Minneapolis Star in February 1972, shortly after Bud Grant took over CBS daytime. But there was no discussion of a local KTLA series, nor TV listings for it.
Some recollections say the KTLA run used three players and clips were used in promos before the CBS run started. However, there was yet another pilot taped at TV City in April 1972 (see
https://televisioncityla.com/shows#) and as we all know, pilots are sometimes used for ads and they often have set/format differences. It’s also possible that “The Honeymoon Game,” with its two teams of two players, was mixed into these memories.
So—did this supposed local series actually exist, or is it a case of memories playing tricks and facts getting scrambled? Did the format possibly air under a different name?
