The Puppets of Spitting Images

Spitting Image war eine ziemlich fiese politische Satire-Show aus England in den 80ern (und wir hatten selbstverständlich ein paar Jahre später eine schlechte deutsche Kopie namens „Hurra Deutschland“), international waren die wohl am ehesten für ihren Auftritt in Genesis’ „Land of Confusion“-Video bekannt. Das Blog Dead2Rights hat jetzt ein paar Scans aus einem 1987er Buch mit Portraits der Viecher.

England’s bizarre satirical puppet show Spitting Image ran for an astonishing 132 episodes on ITV from 1984-1986. With its extremely topical parodies of politics and show business, the program was something like our Saturday Night Live… only with a much nastier edge and with all the celebrity parts being played by foam and latex doppelgangers of the rich and famous. These three-dimensional, often unflattering caricatures became the show’s trademark. Although the original British series never quite caught on in the States, the puppets did have a brief window of notoriety in America thanks to their appearance in the “Land of Confusion” video by Genesis in 1986 and a few prime time network specials. Although America’s interest in the show was short-lived, the fad did manage to produce at least one souvenir book. In 1987, Harcourt Brace Jonavich published Spitting Images, a collection of photographic portraits of some of the puppets, with accompanying text by National Lampoon’s Sean Kelly.

In the interest of preserving pop culture history, I have decided to scan some of the better ones. The captions are directly from the book. The photos are by John Lawrence Jones

A gallery of grotesque celebrity puppets from “Spitting Image” (1987) und 10 more grotesque pictures of “Spitting Image” puppets!