Spitting Image is coming back and not a moment too soon. The original rude, crude and sometimes downright vicious puppet satire returns to skewer celebrities and politicians alike next week and dropped a trailer for its long awaited return yesterday.
Originally created by British caricaturists Peter Fluck and Roger Law, Spitting Image was a television phenomenon that took on the best and worst of politics and popular culture in the 1980s. Roger Law has been supervising the new series and promises that it will be true to the original, despite the challenges of making a topical weekly show in the midst of a global pandemic.
Many people don’t realize – or have completely forgotten – just how influential Spitting Image was. In the nearly four decades since it debuted, the show has inspired political puppet shows in almost every country that you can think of, from Israel (Chartzufim) to Australia (Rubbery Figures) to South Africa (ZA News) and even Iran (Shabake Nim). Despite the dozens of imitators in the intervening decades, none have ever quite lived up to the original “public service satire”. Given the state of the world today, its hard to imagine a better moment for Spitting Image’s return.
The new Spitting Image series will debut October 3rd on the Britbox video streaming service.