Spitting Image
- TV sketch show
- BritBox / ITV1
- 1984 - 2021
- 161 episodes (22 series)
Groundbreaking, long-running and hugely popular satirical sketch show with a cast of grotesque latex puppets. Stars Chris Emmett, Jon Glover, Phil Cool, Jan Ravens, Chris Barrie and more.
Spitting Image trivia
Spitting Image was originally going to be called Rubber News, until someone pointed out that a certain 'specialist' publication also had that name.
Some celebrities were so desperate to appear on the show they sent in photos of themselves in a hope the puppet makers would use the images to create a puppet. Jeffrey Archer apparently sent in a range of photographs of himself.
Conservative MP Michael Heseltine kept attempting to purchase the Spitting Image puppet that looked like him through intermediaries. Co-creator Peter Fluck said he could have it if he donated money to the Labour Party.
Leon Brittan and his wife Diana once complained to John Lloyd about the fact that Leon's puppet had five warts on his face when in real life he had only three.
Source: Frost On Satire
Puppets of The Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Andrew, Bob Geldof and Paula Yates all appeared in the first ever Comic Relief, a 1986 broadcast of a live revue that had been staged at London's Shaftesbury Theatre.