Event Staged: Wednesday 7th September 1977
Venue: Residenzschloß (Royal Palace), Ludwigsburg, West Germany

Through four decades, It's A Knockout and Jeux Sans Frontières became much-loved European obsessions. Once described as "the zany Olympics", these were competitions of physical prowess and plain lunacy, setting town against town. Domestic heat winners would then face their European counterparts in historic and exotic locations on the continent. The games were colourful and inventive and the annual competition was always one to garner impressive viewing figures across the contineDid You Know?
This edition saw the last appearance of the blue electronic scoreboard which listed the countries in fixed alphabetical order. From 1978, a new scoreboard was introduced which could list the countries in order of points scored.

For only the second time in the history of Jeux Sans Frontières, five teams played their Jokers on the same game. This occurred in Game 4, which involved six male team members traversing the course on hobby-horses. Employing nails protruding from their headgear, competitors had to jump to burst balloons which had been placed at regular intervals and increasing heights along the course. The West German team romped home and won the game, but the Dutch player was in tears, because he had won convincingly throughout rehearsals and was furious that he was unable to burst the balloons on the night. The final result of the game was West Germany 12 points, Belgium 10 points, Switzerland 8 points, Great Britain 6 points, Netherlands 4 points and France (without the Joker) 1 point. Incidentally, this was the third consecutive game that the West German team had won. They also won the subsequent game and recorded a fifth victory on the final game.

As they had acquired enough points, and their nearest rivals had performed poorly in the Fil Rouge, the West German team of Schliersee had actually won the Final after the conclusion of Game 7. Even if they had finished 7th on both the Fil Rouge and the last game, the team would still have won, albeit maybe with a tied heat.nt.

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