Joker's Wild (TV series)

"Joker's Wild" was a UK comedy panel game that was produced by Yorkshire Television and broadcast for eight series on ITV from 1969 to 1974. The show was hosted by comedy writer Barry Cryer apart from one series broadcast in 1971 which was hosted by Michael Bentine.

Format and performers

Each week two teams of comedians played for points by telling jokes on a certain subject chosen by the host, who would pull the selection from a box on his desk. Typical examples were politics or the mother-in-law. When a member of a team was telling a joke, a member of the other team could interrupt the joke by pressing the buzzer and finishing the joke to score bonus points for his/her team.

Before the commercial break one of the comedians would be given one minute to get as many laughs as possible from the studio audience. The more laughs, the more points were scored. At the end of the show the team with the most points won a gag trophy of a jester carrying the Yorkshire Television chevron logo.

Some of the comedians who appeared on "Joker's Wild" were John Cleese, Rolf Harris, Les Dawson, Arthur Askey, Ted Rogers,Norman Collier, Chic Murray, Alfred Marks,Ray Martine and Jack Douglas

Repeats on Granada Plus in the late 1990s revealed that the participants chain-smoked cigarettes and pipes onscreen, something which was in fact commonplace on television at the time, but which has since become a taboo.

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295102/ "Joker's Wild"] at the Internet Movie Database
* [http://tv.cream.org/a-z/j/index.htm TV.cream.org page on "Joker's Wild" with screenshots]
* [http://www.memorabletv.com/quizshows/quizshowsitom.htm Memorabletv.com page on "Joker's Wild"]