Introduction. The television program It’s A Knockout was a games competition program broadcast
in the UK on the BBC between 1967 and 1987, on S4C in the mid nineties, and then on Channel 5 in 1999 to 2001.
What Was It's A Knockout ?
If you do not remember the tv show, in today’s terms it can be described as a
colourful inter-town style Olympic games competition or a team version of Takeshi‘s Castle
or BBC's Total Wipeout.
Regional Heats.
The national version of It’s A Knockout usually had between two and four towns each week competing in
entertaining games that typically involved oversized costumes, props and water... sometimes lots of
water !
Jeux Sans Frontières
In the BBC and S4C versions the winning team usually then represented Great Britain in a European televised
version called Jeux Sans Frontières, playing against the various winners of other countries regional
heats in Germany, France and Spain etc.
The Games.
In the early days the games were more likely to be over sized school sports day type games. As popularity grew,
so did the budget and style of games. The types of games usually involved such tasks as collecting water over
an obstacle course or dressing up in costumes (sometimes oversized) or walking across slippery poles suspended
over an erected pool. Programmes usually had a theme with the games based around the theme.
Hilarious mayhem usually
resulted.
A number of programs were set solely in swimming pools, with games involving canoes, rafts and water bound
assault courses.
This Site.
This site aims to chronicle just some of the fun and hilarity that this great television program captured. Although the BBC & JSF period of the shows history are the most fondly remembered by
enthusiasts, this site also reflects on other versions such as the charity Royal Knockout and Channel 5
production.
There are a few sites on this subject on the net, and we have chosen the "picture tells a thousand
words" route here with more and larger sized images (many being screen captures of the shows). By
no means is this site a definitive collection of the programs history just an edited high lights from an
enthusiasts point of view.
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