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The
first edition of It's a Knockout aired at 4.40-5.30pm on Sunday 7th
August 1966, beamed live into British households from the Beach and Promenade
of Morecambe in Lancashire. The first run of the series was definitely one
where it was finding its feet. In many ways, it can be seen as a transitory
phase between Top
Town and the It's A Knockout that audiences came to know
and love. Viewers consulting the programme pages of Radio Times
magazine for the day of the first broadcast would no doubt have noticed an
unsubtle link to Top Town: the teams were apparently competing to win
the "Tip-Top-Town Trophy".
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McDonald
Hobley:
It's A Knockout's first presenter
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Unlike
any future series of It's A Knockout, the first adhered to a
traditional 'knockout competition' structure, with heats leading to regional
finals and then a grand final. Furthermore, this
series restricted itself to teams from the counties of Lancashire and
Yorkshire, with two heats and a final in each region, followed by a grand
final where the best team from Lancashire took on the best from Yorkshire. The
programmes aired weekly, transmissions alternating between one
county and then the other. All programmes were introduced by BBC veteran
presenter, McDonald Hobley, with Eddie Waring as referee, while Charlie
Chester and Ted Ray took it in turns to play Master of Ceremonies, with
Chester appearing in the Lancashire heats and comedy movie star Ray doing the
honours in the Yorkshire heats. The pair shared the task for the grand final
on Sunday 18th September and Eddie Waring's co-referee would now raise an
eyebrow... Yes, Stuart Hall, later dubbed "Mr. Knockout", put in an
appearance long before he assumed the presentation reins.
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While
at this stage It's A Knockout was exclusively a domestic competition,
with no automatic progression for weekly winners to an exotic continental
locale, eventual first series winners Bridlington were asked to be the first
team to represent Great Britain in the 1967 Jeux Sans Frontières. |
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Times magazine described some of the games that would feature in the
first seven weeks of It's A Knockout. "With infinite care the
jaws of a bucket crane close under an egg; the crane lowers the egg on to
a chute; at the bottom of the chute a catcher lunges forward to catch the
egg without breaking it; as he moves he takes the strain on his elastic
harness and his feet start to slip on the soft-soaped floor... A man
stomps off down a steel pavement wearing magnetic shoes to carry back - if
he can- the local Beauty Queen in his arms... Landladies heave at
tug-o'-war ropes... Mechanics strip down two cars to their component parts
in forty minutes... Lifeboat coxswains race leaking boats while their
team-mates bale like fury to keep the boats from sinking... Rugger teams
pack into small cars to race round an obstacle course... A man lances
balloons slung over the swimming pool as he slides down the chute... The
top local amateur golfer chips a golf ball off the top of an egg into a
net... A forty minute race to see which team can collect the most silver
coins from the bottom of a swimming pool... Lancing rings from the wrist
of a cut-out figure of an Arab warrior while riding a penny
farthing..."
 Unfortunately,
the television debut of It's A Knockout was something of a baptism
of fire, as referee Eddie Waring recalled ten years later: "The
contest was held on the sands of Morecambe in Lancashire and one of the
games was a three-legged soccer match, filmed live. Everything had been
arranged very well except for one vital detail... the sea. The tide came
in and not only was I refereeing up to my knees in water, but also the
camera crew were splashing about trying to rescue some of their
equipment." Waring was also a moment from disaster himself in that
salutory first programme. One of the games involved tractors with large
grabs attached, which team members had to manoeuvre to pick up an egg and
roll it down a slope for their team members to catch in a frying pan.
"Well," recalled Waring, "one of the teams was having real
trouble and as I walked forward, watching the clock all the time, one of
the grabs came round and if it hadn't been for a very nice bloke in the
crowd who shouted out "duck Eddie!", I wouldn't be here to talk
about it." Eddie Waring's first Knockout could well have been
his last, it seems.
Looking back on the humble beginnings of It's A Knockout,
producer Barney Colehan considered the reasons for its
instant appeal. "People have always laughed at someone slipping on a
banana skin," he commented. "All we did was devise games with an element
of slapstick and pit one town against another in such contests. The show's
unique... a sort of travelling circus."
The
series was transmitted live, as earlier intimated, and unfortunately, this
virtually put paid to any editions surviving to this day. The BBC hold no
episodes of the first season, and the chances of any being found is
practically nil, sadly. The series was,
however, deemed a success - the ratings were respectable, although the
programme didn't break into the top twenty programmes. This however, would
surely come.
by Alan Hayes
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