The Joker's Wild: 1990 edition
Personnel
Host: Pat Finn
Announcer: Ed McKay
Lifespan: Syndicated, September 1990-August 1991
Play
Three players listen to Pat read a question. Whoever buzzes in first gets control of the wheels. Alternately, the champion gets first spin. The wheels now have money amounts, from $5 to $50, and jokers in the third wheel. The player then answers as many questions as possible, without missing any. The player in control of the wheels would hear Pat's question, and have three seconds to answer the question. Each right answer wins the amount of money on the wheels and another question. As long as the player gets questions right, more questions keep coming, getting harder and harder. On a miss, the opponents could buzz in and steal the money and control. If no one stole, control remained with the spinner.
JOKER: A joker in the third wheel tripled the question value, but imposed a fifteen second time limit on the number of questions to be answered. After time was up or a wrong answer given, the opponents could jump in as normal.
The first player to reach $500 ended the round. The second place player also advanced to round two. If there was a tie for second place, each player would answer as many questions consecutively as possible, and whomever got more right moved on.
Round two has increased money, a pair of categories to choose questions from, and "Opponent's Choice" in the third wheel. Whoever got to $2000 first won the game, kept the money, and battled the Joker Machine in the bonus round.
BONUS: In the bonus round, the player had 60 seconds to answer as many questions as possible. Each answer was a word, and up to three definitions were given as clues. All words in a round began with the same letter.
Each word guessed was worth one spin on the joker machine. The objective was to match the same prize or money amount in all three windows. Windows could be frozen or respun, but individual jokers had to be converted to prizes. If the same prize appeared in all the windows, the prize was won. If three JOKERs appeared on one spin, the "Joker Jackpot" was won: a building cash prize which began at $5000 and added $500 each day it wasn't won.
Version two:
Cash on the wheels was abandonded in favor of categories, but gameplay remained the same. Singles won $25, doubles $50, triples $100, and three jokers won an automatic $250 plus three categories were shown for $100 questions. Jokers could only represent any category on the wheels, and round one ended at $1000. The game ended at $2000, still.