Le Bébête Show



Le Bébête Show was a puppet show which first aired on French television in 1983. A satirical blend mixing elements of The Muppet Show and Spitting Image, the series took French political figures and adapted them into characters from The Muppet Show. French President François Mitterrand became a frog name Kermitterrand, while the head of the Communist Party Georges Marchais became Marchy la cochonne (a very different take on Miss Piggy).

Other political figures that were featured on the show included former Prime Minister Raymond Barre as the "Fozzie Bear-ish" Barzzie and politicians Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Gaston Defferre as Le Bébête Show's own version of Statler and Waldorf.

As the series aged, Muppet Show references became less frequent, with the puppets more political charged and the politicians morphed into animalistic caricatures. The show was eventually eclipsed by another French show, Les Guignols de l'info, which borrowed heavily in its style from the British Spitting Image series, and it was cancelled in.