Thus perished the original CBS Daytime edition of The Joker's Wild. By this time, it had abandoned its omnipresent Joker's Jackpot and Jokers And Devils bonus round in favor of a new Money And Devil's bonus round. It featured celebrity contestants playing for charity in January of 1974 and by this point had also instituted a new musical theme: Alan Thicke's "The Joker's Jive (Version B)". NBC routed Celebrity Sweepstakes into the 10 a.m. spot opposite Joker on CBS in January 1975, therefore committing its decline in ratings. The Joker's Wild was Jack Barry's last network game; his next hosting gig was the 1976-77 weekly syndicated primetime edition Break The Bank (after its 1976 ABC Daytime version [hosted by Tom Kennedy], despite monstrous ratings, fell victim to expanding daytime dramas), which he produced together with Dan Enright.
Barry and Enright sold repeats of the 1974-75 CBS season of The Joker's Wild to several markets, including KTLA in Los Angeles and WOR in New York (where it debuted in February 1977). The immense popularity of these repeats foreshadowed TJW's return to TV in a new first-run syndicated edition in September 1977, which yielded a 9-year hit! For 25 years, it was believed that the videotapes of the first two seasons of The Joker's Wild on CBS had been erased for reuse. That is, until an excavation at New York City's CBS affilliate WCBS-TV Channel 2 proved otherwise. Game Show Network (GSN) picked up the tapes to add to their vast collection (they already had the 1974-75 CBS tapes of the game, in addition to all 9 seasons of the syndie version), and, with a few exceptions (i.e. mising episodes), aired the CBS Joker's Wild on its schedule between December 2000 and August 2001, starting with the September 4, 1972 debut telecast.
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 Goodson-Todman staple, replaced NYSI on CBS the following Monday.
Now You See It was also Jack Narz's very last daytime network game show (until he briefly subbed for brother Tom Kennedy as host in March 1982 prior to the end of Password Plus' run on NBC); 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. And, like The Joker's Wild (which was axed along with it), Now You See It would be brought back to 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!
