Spitting Image (90s show)

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Soldato
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The puppets were so-called 'spitting image' versions of politicians and celebrities. The show was fairly topical and political in that it covered current affairs. John Major was always grey which was a fairly accurate representation of himself :D I found a short clip (embedded below) where the show correctly predicted that Labour would win the 1997 election. I can't remember seeing that episode and I don't think the show ran for much longer after that. Probably ended in the early Blair days.

Did anyone here watch this and did anything replace it? I can't think of anything on TV now that is like Spitting Image although there are panel shows like Have I Got News For You and Mock The Week. Those would be the nearest nowadays.

I would love if Spitting Image came back to mock today's politics in the UK and also the Trump administration.

 
2dTV was it's first spiritual successor. Don't remember much about it other than a feeling that I enjoyed it, and that the Paul Scholes character looked funny enough to make me laugh just seeing it :D
 
My favourite scene was out of the very first one where Arthur Scargill was talking to the Miners holding a pick & shovel.
It meant a lot at the time.
 
( ... what equivalent is on yt ? )


But - the windsors re-captures the satire with respect to royal family (will they touch Andrew now)
.. tracy ullman has also done a good job with Merkil, forget if she did May too ...Alec Baldwin as Trump too

If you have good quality script and actors, the puppet are not so essential ?
 
It'd never get made today with the same level of satire, just look at the South Africa can video above, that'd cause riots nowadays!
 
Fairly sure this was massive in the 80s (remember watching it on a Sunday night and then discussing it at school the next day), I can clearly remember the South African song and also Hold a Chicken in the air.

A lot of people would get bent out of shape if it was done now or it would have to be watered down too much to avoid upsetting the populace that you'd be better off watching repeats of Rainbow (mind you they all slept in the same bed so someone would probably get offended at that).
 
ianh said:
It'd never get made today with the same level of satire, just look at the South Africa can video above, that'd cause riots nowadays!
Click to expand...

Yeah. They'd have to be a lot more careful in today's world with the amount of PC that's about; so much so, it probably wouldn't be worth making...
 
When mainstream politics is like political satire (such as a US president using a sharpie to amend a week old hurricane chart and then, in a totally out of context moment, getting an assistant to show it to the press, just to 'win' an argument from a few days previous), it's difficult to see how an edgy fictionalised political satire show can actually work.
 
cheesyboy said:
When mainstream politics is like political satire (such as a US president using a sharpie to amend a week old hurricane chart and then, in a totally out of context moment, getting an assistant to show it to the press, just to 'win' an argument from a few days previous), it's difficult to see how an edgy fictionalised political satire show can actually work.
Click to expand...

Well, the long running 'Presidents Brain is Missing' skit would be rather apt...

 
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