Puzzlers

"What show has puzzles, pictures, and payoffs? It's PUZZLERS! Now here's the star of Puzzlers, PAT SAJAK!"

An unsold pilot hosted by soon-to-be-famous host Pat Sajak. It's a show, similar in context to Wheel of Fortune, with simple puzzles such as what letter goes into which puzzles.

Gameplay
Four contestants (one supposedly a returning champion) play a series of puzzle games.

Preliminary Game (Double Puzzles)
Three contestants compete in this game for the right to face the show's returning champion.

The game is called "Double Puzzles" because the solutions were all two word phrases and the pictures involved in this game were clues to two puzzles. The contestants were shown a picture which was a clue to the second word in the phrase. Then they were given the first word one letter at a time. Once the word puzzle was solved or completed, another puzzle was played with the same picture, only now it was a clue to the first word and then the players saw the second word revealed a letter at a time. Once that puzzle was done, the process was repeated with a new picture.

Each time a player buzzes in and solves a puzzle he/she scored 100 points, but if the contestant can solve both word puzzles with the same picture correctly he/she scored a bonus 100 points for a total of 300 points. The first player to score 500 points wins the game, $500 and goes on to face the returning champion in the finals.

Finals (Capture the Category)
The two players now competed to play in the final game "Capture the Category". Five categories were played and each category had different puzzle games (some of which became their own shows in later years). Here are some of the different types of puzzle games:


 * Missing Initials - Players had to guess the missing initial letter which was the same in a group of words. That kind of puzzle would be used on Pat's later & best known show Wheel of Fortune but with phrases/titles/names instead of separate words. The category for that is called, appropriately enough, "Same Letter".
 * License Plates - Contestants try to solve vanity license plate puzzles (ala future show Bumper Stumpers).
 * Twisters - Not to be confused with the Jim Perry-hosted pilot two years later. Contestants attempt to solve picture puzzles (ala future show Catch Phrase).

It takes two puzzles in any one category to capture the category. And the first player to capture three categories wins the match and goes on to play for $10,000.

Photo Finish (Bonus Game)
The winning player played a bonus game called "Photo Finish" for $10,000. In this bonus are ten circles with arrows arranged in a rectangle and going clockwise, with the center box as the finish line. Each circle consisted of a picture and a set of initials (ala Blockbusters' Gold Run) and all the contestant had to do was guess the picture and he'll/she'll identify the initials. Each correct answer won $100 and moved one step toward the finish box and if the contestant can reach the finish box by getting all ten right in 30 seconds or less, he/she won $10,000.

Trivia
A short clip was shown on many game show moments specials where the puzzle was to find the missing letter. The first word was _ART which led to some laughter as "F" could fit in. It was followed by _ALL and _ABLE. The laughter stopped when the fourth word _ARZAN was revealed, which gave away that the missing letter was T and not F.

Music
Score Productions

The theme to this show was originally used on Mindreaders.

Links
Review of Puzzlers

YouTube Videos
Intro to the Pilot

Is that what I think it is?