Trivial Pursuit (1986-87)

Host
Steve Morris
Co-Host/Announcer (1986 only)
Linda Marr
Broadcast
Unsold Pilots for Daily Syndication: 1986, 6/26/1987
Packagers
Jay Wolpert Productions Taft Entertainment Television
Distributor (planned)
Worldvision Enterprises

1986 INTRO:
"FEMALE VOICE: Psst! You know how great it is playing Trivial Pursuit for fun? (people talking) Well, supposing I told you that I know a place that they play Trivial Pursuit for money. (people talking) Like to know where? (Yeah!)

MALE VOICE: Right here! …On the television edition of… Trivial Pursuit!

MARR: And now, here's the host of Trivial Pursuit, Steve Morris!"

This version of Trivial Pursuit was an unsold show based on the popular board game of the same name.

Gameplay[]

Four contestants compete for a chance to win over $10,000 in cash & prizes. The object of the game is to answer six questions correctly to reach the hub (the center of the game board) and at the same time, light up all six wedges of the pie in front of them.

The difficulty of the questions (in the six categories normally used in Trivial Pursuit games of the period) were decided by the counterclockwise player who bought one using his/her money. All players were given $250 to use. Hard questions cost $100, medium questions cost only $50 and easy questions were free. The person could either take what one of their opponents had "purchased" in that category, or change the category. Every right answer would get them one space closer to the hub, and light a wedge on their pie.

The second round of play proceeded similarly, but with a few twists; if a question is answered incorrectly, the contestant who bought the question could answer it themselves. Added to each player's path to the hub would be a prize, located on the part of the path the player hadn't traversed yet.

The third round had a car being hidden on the players' untraversed paths. A player could either hope to try and get the car by proceeding down his/her path, or choosing to spin his/her pie; if s/he landed on a lit wedge, s/he automatically won the game and advanced to the hub.

The winner will try to win that $10,000 package in an elimination-style bonus round; here, the lit wedges from the front game serve as "lives" in a sense (much like another Wolpert game, Hit Man). The winning contestant would move to a separate podium, and would face off against them in a series of jump-in questions. A wrong answer by the champion would eliminate one of his/her own wedges; a right one would eliminate one of his/her opponent's wedges. If the main-game champion managed to knockout everybody else's wedges before they knockout his/hers, s/he won the prize package.