At this juncture in JSFnetUK's History section, let's back track a little bit. Since the mid-Fifties, the BBC had been making an inter-town variety programme, Top Town, which was produced by the versatile Barney Colehan (pictured, left). This series, along with another series on the town versus town theme - Campanile Sera made in Italy by the RAI channel - inspired Guy Lux and his colleagues Pierre Brive and Claude Savarit to create Intervilles, the knockabout, good-natured competition which pitched towns all over France against eachother. This series in turn gave birth to Jeux Sans Frontières, Intervilles' pan-European off-shoot... Are you keeping up? Well, be warned, it might get even more confusing...

At this point, the wheel came full circle as French television - intent on adding more entrants to their fledgling international competition - approached the BBC suggesting they produce their own version. With this in mind, former Top Town producer, Barney Colehan, and a London-based BBC producer, Robin Scott, went to France to see the programme. The two men quickly saw the potential of Intervilles and convinced the BBC that it could be a great success. The series was commissioned and would be made at BBC Manchester (as was the whole It's A Knockout series) with Scott producing and Colehan directing.

On the occasion of the first It's A Knockout broadcast, Robin Scott said in Radio Times magazine that "this could be the most entertaining outside broadcast series ever seen on British television. Most of the games are inspired by the French TV series Intervilles, which started four years ago. The enthusiasm in France grew to fantastic proportions. An unknown spa called Saint-Amand-les-Eaux built three new hotels on the strength of the publicity gained by winning through to the finals."