Jeux Sans Frontières - Theme Tune & Opening Titles - BBC1 1970 (First Series In Colour)
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- Jeux Sans Frontières (Games Without Borders) was a wacky outdoor games show that drew together teams from different European countries to compete against one another. Each country had held their own national heats earlier in the year which were broadcast locally under different names.
It's hard with 21st Century eyes to imagine just how popular Jeux Sans Frontières was all around Europe. The programme was organised by the European Broadcasting Union under the Eurovision banner. This was about the only time apart from The Eurovision Song Contest that Eurovision branding had any visibility on TV screens in Britain.
In the post-war era it was thought that friendship and co-operation between European nations could be fostered by dressing up in silly costumes and ensuring that your neighbours got a good dunking in an oversized inflatable duck pond. Naturally this proved to be entirely unnecessary in the 21st century as there are no longer any crackpot dictators who want to invade a neighbouring European country on the basis that they have a minority who speak the same language. Hmmm...
The show was variously titled:
Spiel Ohne Grenzen (Germany, Switzerland & Austria);
Spel Zonder Grenzen (Netherlands and Belgium);
Giochi Senza Frontiere (Italy and Switzerland);
It's A Knockout (UK) (note that it's incorrectly shown as It's A Knock Out on the opening titles here);
Jeux Sans Frontières (France, and French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland).
Over the years different countries joined or left the programme. Here's the opening sequence from an episode of the 1970 series, which was the first series (as I recall) to be broadcast in colour. The British heat of the 1970 series was held in Cardiff on 21st August.
The Jeux Sans Frontières theme tune was accompanied by opening titles in the form of animations to illustrate national stereotypes from each competing country. How un-PC!
The animations look very similar to cartoons produced by the Terrytoons studio. Later versions of the opening titles had characters that looked like a cross between the Tate and Lyle sugar cube cartoon character and SpongeBob SquarePants.
Some of the international Jeux Sans Frontières judges became very popular personalities in their own right including Gennaro Olivieri and Guido Pancaldi.
And yes, in just case you were wondering, Jeux Sans Frontières does indeed predate Médecins Sans Frontières which was established in 1971.