Spitting Image

Spitting Image was a British satirical puppet comedy show that ran from 1984 to 1996. The series was notorious for featuring caricatured puppets of numerous celebrities and politicians who were famous during the 1980s and 1990s.

Early Stages
The Spitting Image credits mention the show was "based on an original lunch with Martin Lambie-Nairn". Lambie-Nairn was a graphic illustrator who originally proposed the idea of a satire show that featured puppets to BBC producer John Lloyd.

Peter Fluck and Roger Law were fairly famous artists that had worked alongside Lambie-Nairn before, but they specialised in clay caricatures intended for political magazines. They decided against Lambie-Nairn's idea because they did not think the series would be a good idea - also, they were not very good at making puppets. However, in 1983 Fluck and Law went to a Jim Henson television puppetry class that Jim was teaching. One of the things that Jim pointed out that scared Roger and Peter was "to never make human puppets because it would cause disbelieve by the audiance."

Roger & Peter later met Jim after the class asking either if he wanted to be a part of Spitting Image or if they can rent one of his workshops. Jim wasn't interested and he said that he was busy with his fantasy projects like Labyrinth.

As they couldn't get Jim, they then asked Louise Gold to be a part of the team instead. And, despite initial reservations as to whether she was actually capable of the job, she agreed to try and help them.

The show took a very long time to produce. The puppets were very difficult to make in a short time period and required expert puppeteering. The show's pilot episode was considered to be so bad it was never aired on TV. Another massive problem was the writing - producer and director Tony Hendra believed the show should be very anti-right and there should be no quickies. John Lloyd disagreed and thought the show should attack *all* political parties, and there should be plenty of quickies to keep audience attention. These disputes lasted for a full six episodes until Hendra finally left to work in America.

After Hendra left, the show began a steady increase in popularity. During Hendra's reign Spitting Image recieved complaints that it was being "too rude and not funny enough". Better writers were called in - young writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor became the script editors - and Fluck and Law enlisted the help of other artists to speed up the puppet-making process. In the short space of the final six episodes of the first series, the show had built up a small following and ITV decided to renew the show again for a second series. The rest is history.

Connections
All persons are performers unless otherwise stated.


 * Anthony Asbury
 * Donald Austen
 * Michael Bayliss
 * Kevin Bradshaw
 * Simon Buckley
 * Philip Casson has directed 2 episodes in 1984.
 * Patrick Comerford
 * Richard Coombs
 * Craig Crane
 * Sue Dacre
 * Phil Eason
 * Alistair Fullarton
 * Louise Gold was puppet captain in 1984 and one of the impressionists
 * Peter Harris has directed 20 episodes
 * Barnaby Harrison
 * Brian Herring
 * Richard Holloway was associate producer in 1984
 * Mark Jefferis
 * William Todd Jones
 * Chris Langham was one of the writers in 1984
 * Terry Lee
 * Steve Nallon was puppeteer and impressionist
 * Nigel Plaskitt
 * Martin P. Robinson
 * Tim Rose
 * John Sessions impressionist from 1986 to 1987
 * Malcolm Stone puppet maker in 1984
 * John Thirtle
 * Ian Thom
 * Mark Alexander Todd
 * Robert Tygner
 * Frank Welker impressionist in three U.S. specials from 1986 to 1987
 * Mak Wilson
 * Francis Wright