Despite the undoubted influence of Top Town on those behind the creation of Intervilles, there is actually very little to find in it that manifests itself directly in the celebrated French series. Top Town was essentially an inter-town talent contest, featuring singing, dancing, stand-up comedy, and magic routines. The only element that could justifiably be said to have been carried over to Intervilles was the inter-town nature of Top Town. Campanile Sera, however, appears to have had more in common with its subsequent, more famous descendent. For a start, programmes would be staged beneath the bell-tower - the campanile - in the town square, much as Intervilles and its later off-shoots would do. The Italian series also pitted towns against eachother, and contests would be both intellectual and athletic.

Intervilles was devised as a friendly competition which would pitch French towns against eachother in a series of challenging, often bizarre physical games on the ground, in the water and in the air which would decide the French ‘top town’. In an era when complicated outside broadcasts were only just becoming manageable from a technical standpoint, Intervilles represented something fresh and original.

Launched on July 17th 1962 on the Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (RTF) channel with a knockabout competition between the towns of Saint-Amand-les-Eaux and Armentières, Intervilles was an overnight hit on French television. It hit exactly the right note with its heady cocktail of extravagant, outdoor party games and tests of skill, concentration and intelligence, not to mention the wild card element of the ‘vachettes’, young cows that would chase and upend competitors unexpectedly. In a sidestep from the familiar Jeux Sans Frontières format, teams contesting in Intervilles could also gain additional points in general knowledge question and answer sessions. The series built each year to a grand final which would feature the highest scoring teams.

It could be said that occasionally, Intervilles was capable of beating all other versions of the series when it came to the unusual. The 1963 final between Compiègne and Royan ended up in a draw and a way was needed to separate the two teams and declare a winner. In possibly the oddest tie-breaker in history, the two teams had to count the beards and shaved heads amongst their townsfolk. Compiègne out-scored Royan on the number of beards, but thanks to the local barber in Royan, Compiègne were comprehensively beaten 250-77 on shaven heads - with each bald pate worth double points! Bizarre is not the word...

The first eleven-week series in 1962 (10 heats and a final) opened to the sounds of the catchy Intervilles theme tune, Shanana by composer Paul Mauriat (1925-2006), which has become synonymous with the series. The initial presenters were Guy Lux, Léon Zitrone, Claude Savarit and Simone Garnier, who stayed with Intervilles for decades and became well-known internationally as mainstay presenters of the French Jeux Sans Frontières heats. The games were designed by the genial, former all-in wrestler, Jean-Louis Marest. A novel idea that was part of the series from the very start was the way in which the televised events took place not from one location, but two. Both competing teams would host half the events in their home town each week, sending half their competitors to the opposing town for the 'away' part of the fixture. The programmes were transmitted live using state-of-the-art television techniques and equipment, mixing from one location to the other via a central control location. Even today, this type of outside broadcast is fraught with difficulties - imagine the pressures on the production staff working with primitive equipment (by today's standards) in the pre-computer age.

The competition has always been run in the summer months, although seasonal competitions such as Interneiges (Intervilles in the Snow) and Interglaces (Intervilles on Ice) have been staged from time to time to similar success. Intervilles fans have witnessed two further offshoots in the new Millennium. Intercities launched in 2005 and has featured teams from France, China, Italy, Romania, Russia and the Ukraine. It has rapidly become very popular in those countries, with exceptionally high audience figures. The most recent spin-off is Intervilles Juniors, a children’s version of the series, which premiered on April 7th 2007 on the TNT Gulli channel.

Despite several breaks in the series production, amazingly Intervilles is still being produced to this day, with the 2007 series final having been broadcast on Monday 27th August 2007 on the France 3 channel. There have been over two hundred editions since 1962, and of course its legacy is a global one, with versions of Intervilles having been produced as far afield as Great Britain, Europe, Australia and North America. Intervilles has, to date, been produced and transmitted in three distinct periods:

• 1962-1991
  Transmitted by RTF (which became ORTF in 1964)

• 1995-1998
  Transmitted by TF1 (the main channel of the ORTF)

• 2004-present
  Transmitted by France 2 (2004-2005) and France 3 (2006-)

The first era of Intervilles drew to a close in 1991, lasting some nine years beyond the original Jeux Sans Frontières series, and crossing paths with the revival for four series. As always seems to be the case with JSF series, Intervilles was rested by the RTF due to spiralling costs. Fortunately, in this case its demise was not to last for too long.

by Alan Hayes
Adapted, in part, from Wikipedia entry