In Living Colour

The late Sixties had seen many European television networks move from black and white transmissions to colour, and this had a massive impact on Jeux Sans Frontières. And why? Well, because if any programme was ever designed for colour TV, then Jeux Sans Frontières, with its vibrantly hued games, competitors and locations, was it. Black and white television is often (quite rightly, in my opinion) credited with lending certain programmes an added dimension, an atmosphere and starkness which can never be replicated in colour. For JSF and It's A Knockout, the reverse was true: black and white coverage of a JSF event robbed it of a large part of its glamour, muted its effervessence, distanced it from the viewer. 1970 saw JSF's first colour transmissions and there was no denying that the series was manna from heaven for the new colour service.  

The watching of Jeux Sans Frontières became a tradition in many a European country in the Seventies, a must-see distraction from the toils of everyday life. As the decade progressed, the competition became increasingly epic, its games populated by weird and wonderful creations, many of which were guaranteed to have the audiences at home in fits of laughter.

"People have always laughed at someone slipping on a banana skin," commented British producer, Barney Colehan, in 1971 when asked to explain the attraction of the series. "We combine this with the appeal of a contest between two or more teams. People love games."  The critics may have delighted in writing off the British and European competitions as "midsummer madness", but there was no denying that television audiences loved this light-hearted and good-natured fare. Maybe they had better developed senses of humour than the series' detractors!

Three nations joined the fun throughout the 1970s: Netherlands in 1970, Yugoslavia in 1978 and Portugal in 1979. The stability of competitorship could be said to be one of the series main strengths in the golden era. Sadly this isn't a claim that can be made for the 1988-1999 revival which seemed to have a different set of competing nations almost every year. Naturally, this didn't affect the spectacle, but the stability that JSF enjoyed in the Seventies and early Eighties gave the series a rock-solid foundation which enabled it to enter the lives and habits of viewers in competing countries without interruption. The presentership had a similar continuity, with familiar faces on the presentation and refereeing staff appearing year in, year out: even though they may not have spoken their language very often, many British viewers became familiar with the likes of judges Guido Pancaldi and Gennaro Olivieri, and presenters such as Dick Passchier, Guy Lux and Simone Garnier, Paule Herreman and Giulio Marchetti, all vital parts, with Britain's Stuart Hall, Eddie Waring and Arthur Ellis, of what quickly became a pan-European family affair.

The "black and white years" of JSF had been dominated by the teams from Germany (at least in terms of International Final winners), with winners or joint-winners in 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969 - a tremendous achievement. The 1970-1982 era, by comparison, was one of very evenly matched competition. Teams from Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland and Portugal all registered two International Final victories, and, remarkably, considering the often painful experience of watching the British teams compete on foreign soil, the most successful teams in this period were from... Great Britain! With three victories coming care of Blackpool (1971), Ely (1973) and Dartmouth, who tied for 1st Place with the Portuguese team from Lisboa (1981), British teams scored more International Final wins in the colour era than anyone else. The remaining winning team from this era were Rochefort of Belgium, who finally got their taste of glory at the last breath - taking the prize in the last original series International Final, at which JSF bade farewell, seemingly forever.

The decision to drop Jeux Sans Frontières was not taken lightly. The series still garnered respectable audiences in 1982, even though it had been around for seventeen years at that point. The real enemy of the series, however, were financial considerations. With the pressure of going one step further every year, making each series more of a spectacle than the last, the inevitable happened. Suddenly many of the competitors decided that it was simply too expensive to stage each year. And money talks, sadly. It was the end of an era...

But another era was only six years away, and you can read about it in The Games Return.

by Alan Hayes
with thanks to JSFnetFRANCE
and Philippe Minet