It's A Knockout - Theme Tune and Clips - BBC1 - 26/05/1968

It's A Knockout was programme with a simple format: towns and cities around Britain competed against one another in a series of very physical and utterly absurd outdoor games.
It was based upon the format of the1962 French TV contest called Intervilles and first aired in Britain on BBC1 in 1966. It became a hugely popular show.
The programme was initially hosted by veteran broadcaster McDonald Hobley, then by the immaculately dressed and poshly-spoken Katie Boyle (she of the pre-Wogan Eurovision Song Contest fame) and the brilliant sports presenter David Vine. These were followed in the 1970s by Stuart Hall.
Eddie Waring and Arthur Ellis were the referees. Eddie later became a co-presenter. Remember Eddie Waring with the mini-marathon?
The British version of the show was just one of many separate European national shows that joined together later each year under the banner Jeux Sans Frontières (Games Without Borders) for international competitions.
It's A Knockout had both a comedic feel and a certain choreographed ritual to it. A good dunking in water for the contestants was an essential part of the mix, as was dressing up in strange costumes (furry animals, masquerade ball characters etc) plus the all-important playing of the joker card to get double points on the round that each team thought they were best-placed to win.
Health and safety didn't seem to play a major part of the programme - in those days a few injuries weren't going to get in the way of the glory of winning!
The clips on this video are taken from a heat between Plymouth and Torbay in May 1968. You can hear the partisan Plymouth crowd booing the Torbay team! The unreliable British weather was often a challenge for the programme makers and for the teams as can be seen here.
A curious aspect of It's A Knockout was that towns in the north of England seemed over-represented. I remember as a kid that Congleton, Wigan and Widnes often competed, and to this day if ever I see the name Congleton I immediately hear the It's A Knockout theme tune in my head.
The theme tune is in fact 'Bean Bag' composed by Herb Alpert, John Pisano, and Julius Wechter and performed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Its upbeat tempo contrasts markedly with the dreary tune of Jeux Sans Frontières.
In 2018 the ITV detective show Endeavour paid homage to It's A Knockout by recreating a lookalike competition in the 2018 episode 'Quartet'. In the story the game show was produced by Southern Television (the 1960s ITV contractor for the South of England) rather than the BBC.
Eddie Waring was unintentionally immortalised in the famously misheard lyrics of Diana Ross's song Chain Reaction - 'tell Eddie Waring there ain't no salvation'.... If you've never noticed that line then listen to the song!
(Misheard lyrics are technically known as mondegreens, a term coined by author Sylvia Wright who listening to a Scottish ballad as a child thought that the words 'Laid him on the green' were 'Lady Mondegreen').