Jay Wolpert

Jay Wolpert is an American television producer and screenwriter.

Wolpert began his game show producing career working for US quiz scandal figure Dan Enright in Canada. He later worked as a producer and creator of game shows for Chuck Barris Productions and Goodson-Todman Productions. While at Goodson-Todman, he served as producer of The Price is Right from 1972 until 1978.

Wolpert left Goodson-Todman to form his own production company. His first game show was the 1979 series Whew! for CBS. Whew! was canceled in 1980 and Wolpert didn't return to television with a series until January 1983, despite shooting several pilots in the interim. On January 3, 1983, Wolpert's Hit Man debuted on NBC with Peter Tomarken. Like most of Wolpert's productions, Hit Man was short-lived and left the air after thirteen weeks.

Five years later, Wolpert returned to daytime television with the series Blackout for CBS. Debuting on January 4, 1988 in place of the long-running hit The $25,000 Pyramid, Blackout never found an audience as. The Bob Goen-hosted Blackout ended after thirteen weeks of episodes and was replaced by The $25,000 Pyramid.

In 1990 Wolpert launched a new series on the Lifetime network based on a pilot he had shot in 1981 with Tomarken as host. On February 5, 1990, Rodeo Drive debuted with comedienne Louise DuArt hosting. Again, however, Wolpert was behind a short lived series and Rodeo Drive ended its run on August 31 of that year; the show had only aired twelve weeks of new episodes prior to that and had been in reruns until the program was removed from Lifetime's lineup.