Nul Pointers 1956 – 1964
N.B. There is no known complete surviving video of the 1964 contest so YTs from that year are audio clips with stills.
01 “Ton Nom” – Fud Leclerc (BELGIUM/1962)
Once the pianist of famous chanteuse Juliette Greco and competed in the contest four times. On his last appearance he went out not with a bang but the “Fud” of being the first nul-pointer ever.
02 “Llalame” – Victor Balaguer (SPAIN/1962)
The namesake of a nineteenth century Catalan folk hero, Victor followed Fud’s Walloon heels onto the stage in Luxembourg City. It’s rather ironic that two of the nul-pointers have been called Victor.
03 “Nur In Der Weiner Luft” Eleonore Schwarz (AUSTRIA/1962)
Eleonore was a famous light opera singer in her homeland through the sixties and seventies but at Eurovision her song, right after Fud and Victor, effortlessly hit the nul points hat-trick, the only time in contest history that three consecutive songs zeroed out.
04 “Katinka” De Spelbrekers (HOLLAND/1962)
Dutch duo Theo Rekkers and Huub Kok had been around for more than fifteen years before Euroviosion. Apart from their shared victory in 1969 the Netherlands had a dreadful decade in the sixties and their first zero was achieved by this less than spellbinding song.
05 “Een Speeldos” Annie Palmen (HOLLAND/1963)
Netherlands became the first country to hit the double doughnut, though Germany would join it in this category in a couple of years. Annie was a teenage star turned successful singer and her song involved a music box as both subject matter and stage prop.
06 “Solhverv” Anita Thallaug (NORWAY/1963)
Norway’s first brush with the big fat zero featured a song so bad that Ms Thallaug even refused to record it in a studio. Anita was primarily an actress who sang. On the night of the contest in the BBC studio she almost bumped into a pillar.
07 “Muistojeni Laulu” Laila Halme (FINLAND/1963)
Laila went “la la” for much of this song but the juries didn’t go Dipsy. This was a strange year for Scandinavia. Denmark walked off with the Grand Prix but the other three countries failed to score. Finland went for over forty years without a top five Finnish (sorry).
08 “En Gang I Stockholm” Monica Zetterlund (SWEDEN/1963)
One of the most accomplished of the Nul Pointers, Monica was the face of “Scandinavian Jazz” and worked with the likes of Louis Armstrong and Quincy Jones. Yet songs about home towns have never done that well at the contest, their appeal seldom travels far.
09 “Mann Gewohnt Sich So Schnell An Das Schone” Nora Nova (GERMANY/1964)
Nora (real name Ahinora Kumanova) has a history far beyond Eurovision. She fled her native Bulgaria by marrying a West German and after her singing career, and the later fall of the Iron Curtain, she returned to her homeland where she is now in politics.
10 “Oracao” Antonio Calvario (PORTUGAL/1964)
Portugal was given the coldest welcome as it became the first country to score “nul points” on it’s Eurovision debut, a feat not repeated until Lithuania thirty years later. Mozambique-born Antonio had a long and fruitful career in his native land and North America.
11 “Zivot Je Sklopio Krug” Sabahudin Kurt (YUGOSLAVIA/1964)
Former Yugoslavia’s only zero. Sabahudin was part of the expert jury that selected the entry from his native Bosnia-Herzegovina entry in 2003 (which did score!). Given televoting patterns today it seems hard to believe any part of old Yugoslavia won’t score.
12 “I Miei Pensieri” Anita Traversi (SWITZERAND/1964)
The arguable home of Eurovision (it hosted the first contest and is the HQ of the organisers) scored it’s first zero with a song in Italian as Italy won. Anita had finished eighth in 1960 but could not harvest a single point this time. The second Anita to nul point.