Toy Review: Quiz Wiz

Quiz Wiz was a "toy" that your grand parents would have bought for you.  Sort of cool for the time considering it was a semi hand held that basically had cartridges but also lame in that it was a learning toy.  Also the no screen made it sort of a problematic toy to use.  The idea behind it was get the computer and purchase extra quiz books.  The computer would plug into the books sort of reversing the standard console set up.  Each book had a topic which it would quiz you on.    The original version of the toy was produced by Coleco, though the rework that came out in the late nineties was by Tiger.

I was not aware of variations of the product at the time but apparently there was a four play game version of the Coleco Quiz Wiz and a Star Wars version of the Tiger updated computer.

I am not really sure of the game play of the four player version.  I don't know if it allows you to play from a single or multiple quiz books.  From the picture that I snagged off eBay it looks like it used a single book for the questions.  That is sort of lame I have long thought a trivia game where players each brought topics to the table would make for fun.  It would make it so everyone had some topic they knew well.  I guess I will have to work on that idea for another post.  I have used the basic idea for a music party game I created.

As you can see the updated tiger version is a little different I am not sure how it work with the books from the original.  It almost looks like it would not accept the old books but perhaps the old computer would accept the new.

The folks over at hand held museum have a listing with the original books or carts whatever you like to call them

Cartridge list:

1. 1001 Questions
2. The World of Sports
3. Movies and TV
4. People & Places
5. Trivia
6. Music & Books
7. Math Mania
8. The Book of Lists
9. Greatest Sports Legends
10. Super Heroes
11. Disaster! When Nature Strikes Back
12. The Ocean- Mankind's Last Frontier
13. Energy- The Fuel of Life
14. How Things Work- Aerosols to Zippers
15. NBA Teams
16. NFLPA
17. MLB
18. Guiness Book of World Records
19. The People's Almanac #1 & #2
20. Sherlock Holmes & Other Famous Mysteries
21. Greatest Sports Legends- Volume II
22. Monsters, Vampires, Witches and Ghosts
23. Words- Used, Misused and Confused
24. Super Trivia- Movies and TV
25. Rock 'N Roll- Doo Wop to Disco
26. The Bible- The Old and New Testaments
27. Soap Opera Digest
28. Ripley's Believe it or Not
29. Celebrity Trivia
30. Fascinating Facts about Animals

Per eBay i have seen that the newer line some different 

1.   General Knowledge
4.   Greatest Sports legends
5.   Ripley's Believe it or Not
6.   Famous People
8.   All About Science
10. Rock and Roll
11. MLB players
12. Amazing Video Games
14. Computers and games
15. Travel and Language
18. TV Trivia
16. World Records
22. Dinosaurs
24. Where in the World
25. Music

30. Monster Mania
33. Movie Trivia II
36. Great Americans
37. The World Championship Games
40. Box Office

41. Heroes and Villains
43. Automobiles
44. Soap Operas

45. Music Video
46. Congo The Movie
47. World book encyclopedia Animals

49. Teams of the NFL

50. Quotes and Quotable
51. World Book encyclopedia People
54. Computers and Video Games

55. Facts about the Earth

56. American History
57. Mythology

58. Sports Stars of the 90's

59. Pro Sports

60. Fats, Events and People of the '90s

There are some more like the magic school bus - flying things but i have no idea on the number from that.  I am finishing out with the Star Wars version.  Thanks to Sci Fi Blog for the pic