''It's a Knockout'' was an Australian game show that was adapted from the original British version of the same name, which in turn was adapted from the French show, ''Intervilles''. It originally ran from 17 April 1985 to 11 September 1987. It was later briefly revived albeit less successfully on 27 November 2011 on

Network Ten Network 10 (commonly known as Ten Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a division of the Paramount Networks UK & Australia subsidiary of Paramount Global. One of fiv ...

and hosted by HG Nelson and

Brad McEwan Brad McEwan (born 28 April 1971) is an Australian television presenter and sports journalist. McEwan has previously been a sport presenter on the Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne editions of ''10 News First'' and is best known for his hosting du ...

with

Charli Robinson Sharlene Marie Zeta Robinson (born 8 March 1981), known professionally as Charli Robinson previously as Charli Delaney, is an Australian television and radio presenter, most famously known as an original member of children's musical group Hi-5 ...

History

An Australian version of ''

It's a Knockout ''It's a Knockout!'' is a British game show first broadcast in 1966. It was adapted from the French show '' Intervilles'', and was part of the international '' Jeux sans frontières'' franchise. History The series was broadcast on BBC1 from 7 ...

'' ran on

from 1985 to 1987. The teams were divided by Australian states

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(NSW),

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

(VIC),

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(QLD) and

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

(SA) with each team being represented by members of an Apex Club in their home state or territory. Prize money was donated back to the club to fund projects in their local community. The show was hosted by Queensland-based personalities, including Billy J. Smith (born 1945/1946 - 2019) and Fiona MacDonald (the sister of ''

Hey Hey it's Saturday ''Hey Hey It's Saturday'' was a long-running variety television program on Australian television. It initially ran for 28 years on the Nine Network from 9 October 1971 to 20 November 1999, with a recess in 1978. Its host throughout its entire ...

s, Jacki MacDonald), with Max Rowley as announcer, for the duration that it aired in Australia. They would arrive to the show in a golf buggy with the show's mascot Combat the Dog (an

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), and introduce the teams to compete in various athletic timed tasks. The show was filmed in a field in Dural, New South Wales, however due to numerous noise complaints from local residents the show was dropped in 1987. This version also aired in Mexico on the TV Cable Network

Multivisión Multivisión, styled as ''multivisión'', is the fifth national network of Cuba, established in 2008 and operated by the ICRT. Its programming primarily consists of imports from other countries. History The channel began broadcasting in 2008 f ...

and was a success during 1992, as well as the United States on

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in Los Angeles &

WWOR-TV WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox flagship WNYW ...

in New York in 1990–91. It was also adapted and shown in Argentina known as Supermatch. This version was heavily edited, and the

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s were replaced by off-screen commentators. In

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

was aired by "La Red" in the summer of 1992, known as ''Esto es Supermatch'', based on the Argentinian version. In the original series, an individual game win was awarded 4 points and second place 2 points (any ties were split between all tying teams). A nightly winner gave a team 6 points for the individual state ladder and $1,000 (first runners-up win 4 points and second runners-up win 2 points). After each team in each division played three times, the leading team in each state qualified for the semi-final worth $5,000. After each of the three semi-finals were conducted, the champions of each state qualified for the preliminary final worth $10,000. The same process was conducted again in pursuit of the teams for the grand final worth $20,000. A famous feature of this run was called the "Joker" which was used by a team to double any points they could get in only one individual game. The use of the Joker was self-contained to the individual episode.

2011/12 return

On 17 October 2011, it was announced that Channel 10 Australia was re-launching a new version of ''It's a Knockout'' for its 2011/12 Summer programming lineup hosted by HG Nelson,

and

. In each episode, Nelson and McEwan arrived on-set in a golf buggy and announced each team and the points tally, in addition to commentating each match whilst Charli introduced each game and explained the rules. Due to insurance costs however the show was recorded offshore in

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Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

, and it ran for eight 1-hour episodes and featured teams of 15 from each state of Australia. The teams competed for the Billy J. Smith cup as the grand prize. It premiered on 27 November 2011.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, id=0211152, title=It's a Knockout - Australia 1980s Australian game shows 2010s Australian game shows Network 10 original programming 1985 Australian television series debuts 1987 Australian television series endings 2011 Australian television series debuts 2012 Australian television series endings English-language television shows Television series by Fremantle (company) Television shows set in New South Wales