The winner of the qualifying round competed against the show's returning champion in the "championship round." This round was played like the elimination round, except that the contestants had to give both the line and position numbers of the correct answer. The contestant who had more points when time ran out won the game and played the "solo round" (described below) for a chance at a cash jackpot. (If the winner won the jackpot in the solo round, the runner-up of the championship round came back on the next show as the "designated champion.") For a short time in this version, contestants also wrote down "bonus words" on index cards at the beginning of the championship round and of each half of the elimination round. A contestant or team could earn an additional 10 points if a bonus word was given as a correct answer.
To allow more games for each show, a slight alteration was made to the rules in December 1974. The old elimination round was 86ed in favor of 2 new challengers now playing a "letter, letter" elimination round in which 5 points won the match and the victor took on the champion in a finals match played similarly to the original one. Point values for each word doubled once a player reached 50 points and 100 won the game and a chance at the solo game.
In 1975, NYSI, which rode well into the ratings, hit a snag: the Heatter-Quigley smash High Rollers on NBC (which had exchanged timeslots with the faltering Wizard Of Odds). Now You See It sank lower and lower in the ratings race until, effective Friday, June 13, 1975 (the same day which saw the fall of The Joker's Wild), now you don't! Now You See It's finale ended with Dale Lourdes playing its final solo game and breaking a $5,000 bank. Jack Narz said at the end of this series, "On April 1, 1974, which was April Fool's Day, that's when we started! We've been on the air 13 months and 13 days, and this is Friday the 13th, and I think somebody's tryin' to tell me something!" (This may have provided insight as to why NYSI didn't last longer than it did!) Then he thanked the staff at CBS, the boys and girls on NYSI's staff, and the home audience for its support and letters, and remarked, "We've had a ball, and we'll see you soon!" TattleTales, another CBS Daytime G-T staple, replaced Now You See It the following Monday. (The same buzzer heard on TattleTales was also used on NYSI.)
Now You See It was also Jack Narz's very last daytime network game show (save for a brief bit wherein he subbed for brother Tom Kennedy on Password Plus); he continued to host G-T's syndicated Concentration until its conclusion in 1978 and finished his career doing announcing work (for Card Sharks and The All-New Beat The Clock) and guest shots on other GS. Now You See It would be given its second wind by Mark Goodson and CBS in 1989, with a couple of changes: Los Angeles-based KABC-TV newsman Chuck Henry as new host and with minor rule changes from the final edition of the 1975 version. The revived NYSI went head-to-head against NBC’s ratings monster, Classic Concentration (a resurrection of the previous 1973-78 Jack Narz-emceed G-T favorite!), and lasted just 15 miserable weeks. Henry, now an anchor/reporter for the 6:00 and 11:00 newscasts for KNBC-TV Channel 4 (the Burbank NBC affiliate), was apparently embarrassed at his lone game show hosting stint, and, feeling it would taint his reputation as a newscaster, has strictly enforced that his version of NYSI not be rerun by anyone!
(Some data courtesy of Wikpedia)
