A revival of the classic Australian quiz show Pick-A-Box (1957). Two contestants are each asked five general knowledge questions. The winner gets to choose between taking the prize in a chosen prism or adding to their cash bank.
Hosted by Bert Newton and Patti Newton, this show was a revival of the concept of Pick-A-Box (1957). In each round, two contestants, usually a returning champion and a challenger, competed in a trivia quiz with five questions. The champion is sent to a sound-proof isolation booth while five questions are asked to the challenger. After each question is asked, the challenger has five seconds to come up with the answer, and if their answer is correct, they will score a point.
After the five questions are asked, the champion is brought back from the isolation booth and the same five questions are asked to them. Like the challenger, the champion has five seconds from the end of the question's asking to come up with the answer, and scores a point if their answer is correct. The contestant who scores more points remains or becomes the champion. If both contestants finish with the same score, then they play a tie-breaker game where they have to each put on a set of headphones while a question is asked to them one at a time, with Bert able to switch both headphones on or off so that each question is asked to one contestant at different times. The tie-breaker ends after one contestant gives an incorrect answer and their opponent gives the correct answer, with the latter becoming or remaining the champion.
The winning contestant then gets to choose from a number of prisms. When a contestant first becomes the champion, there are 20 prisms available for them to select, and the number decreases each time they return as a champion. Each prism has a prize inside it, which could be a "zonk" or a valuable prize. One of the prisms would have a Ford car, which was the most valuable prize of the series. Once they have made their choice, Patti will hand the chosen prism over to Bert, who opens it up to look at what prize is inside it without revealing this information to the champion. After finding out what prize the champion had selected, Bert would offer them an amount of money that they could take instead of the prize in the prism. Sometimes, if the contestant chose the prism, Bert would increase the money offer. Regardless of the champion's final decision, they would subsequently find out what prize their prism had (in early episodes, Bert would give the champion the card from the prism and get them to read what prize they had either won or given up in exchange for the money; later Bert would announce this prize himself). The champion then had another choice to make - they could either take the money and prizes they had won to that point and leave undefeated (which they automatically did if they selected all 20 prisms), or risk their money and prizes and play on for a chance to win another prize.
With the prism prizes shuffled before a new episode, Patti would reveal near the end of each episode which prism had the Ford car prize if the champion hadn't previously selected it.
