The 'family tree' of It's A Knockout stretches back into the 1950s. Its direct antecedent is Jeux Sans Frontières (1965), which in turn was an off-shoot of the French inter-town television show, Intervilles (1962). This series was the creation of Guy Lux, Pierre Brive and Claude Savarit, three producers at the Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (RTF, later ORTF) who devised Intervilles after official visits to television companies in Great Britain and Italy. They found two programmes (one in Great Britain and one in Italy) which proved influential. These programmes were Top Town (1950s), an inter-town talent contest, made by the BBC in Great Britain, and Campanile Sera (1959), produced by RAI in Italy.

This section at JSFnetUK takes a look at these two series and asks just how influential they really were. Click on the links below to visit the pages pertaining to each Top Town and Campanile Sera.