Spitting Image: The Satirical British Puppet Show is Back - Here's a Review

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 38 seconds

After a 24-year absence the show doesn’t always hit the mark, but thankfully it also never pulls any punches.

The first two episodes of Spitting Image, which were aired on BritBox in the U.K. on October 3rd and October 10th, were funny but at times uneven as the creative’s fought to find their sea legs in the stormy waters of modern day comedy. 

Thankfully the born again show, despite its flaws, is just as relentless and ruthless in its comedy takedowns as the original. The humor isn’t always uproarious but it’s certainly biting and interesting because it’s simultaneously heady and gratuitously base.

The first episode, which featured some scathing mocking of Prince Harry, Trump, Boris Johnson and his advisor Dominic Cummings, is the better of the two, but the second episode had some notable highlights as well.

Trump and Boris Johnson are the main targets of the resurrected Spitting Image’s comedic fire, not surprisingly since they are in power and are grotesque caricatures all on their own even before ever being made into puppets.

In the first episode Trump is ridiculed for being the blowhard that he is, with a recurring theme being his arsehole, which looks like a repulsive creature out of Ridley Scott’s Alien, does all his late night tweeting for him.

The first episode also has Prince Harry literally cutting off his nose – maybe to spite his face, and lamenting his failure to succeed on his own in Los Angeles as he utters the spectacularly funny line, “I’ve tried every career there is – prince and Hitler!”

Other targets are Disney’s woke preening in the form of a black baby Yoda, Lewis Hamilton’s social justice hypocrisy and Greta Thurnburg’s shrieking and shrill environmentalism.

The second episode rakes Trump and BoJo over the comedy coals as well, the best instances being when Trump is fine after catching a case of coronavirus but coronavirus suffers greatly when it catches a case of Trump, and when Boris’s scatterbrained satellite navigation system drives a confused couple off of a cliff.

The very best scene in the second episode though is when Greta Thurnburg reluctantly goes to an English soccer match and surprises herself by getting really into it. Afterwards she becomes very Greta about it as she laments, “The referee has stolen my childhood with his reckless decisions. I must save West Ham!”

A reliably funny recurring bit in both episodes is the struggle of the distinguished Sir David Attenborough to navigate social media and technology, something that always ends in failure and a flurry of expletives.

The less successful scenes on the show are the songs, one has New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardearn as a coronavirus defeating Mary Poppins, the other has a time-traveling Elon Musk singing David Bowie’s song “Starman” except with the word “Conman”.

Remarkably, Spitting Image has yet to find a broadcast home in the U.S. According to some reports that is due to networks and streaming services being afraid of offending the Trump administration, which seems far-fetched since nearly every major news organization does the journalistic equivalent of Spitting Image to the Trump administration every day.

It is unfathomable that the show is not in America, even on Britbox. Americans can catch new episodes on Facebook for 24 hours after they originally air in the UK…but that just seems a silly, arbitrary and self-defeating approach.

The U.S. is currently saturated with political comedy, with the tiresome, predictable, relentlessly propagandic bitching and moaning from flaccid clowns like John Oliver, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah, but the nation is starving for top-notch political satire – which Spitting Image, despite its flaws, does deliver.

Saturday Night Live is the only notable political satire in America right now and it is disastrously dreadful. The biggest problem with SNL is that its humor is based on advocacy rather than comedy. The show shamelessly embraced Hillary in 2016…who could forget the cringe worthy sight of Kate McKinnon as Hillary singing an embarrassingly maudlin and melancholy version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallejulah” in the immediate aftermath of her election defeat, and this year touted Kamala Harris (played by Maya Rudolph) by having her declare to cheers the need for a WAP – Woman as President. Yikes.

Thankfully, unlike SNL and the rest of the emotionalist establishment late night court jesters like Oliver, Maher and the rest, Spitting Image doesn’t aim to advocate, only eviscerate. And while the first two episodes were somewhat hit or miss, the show at its best still comedically slices and dices with the very best of them and never chooses sides.

An example of the bi-partisan belittling is a hilarious recurring theme in episode two is Nancy Pelosi suffering from Panderititis, a disease that makes her cravenly pander to identity groups for votes. She switches between African garb, a hard hat with rainbow dildo attached, and Orthodox Jewish clothing, in order to appeal to black, LGBTQ and Jewish voters.

Another example is Biden being a dementia-addled fool, and the charisma deficient Keir Starmer getting a much-needed makeover by Elton John…excuse me…Sir Elton John.

Spitting Image‘s sense of humor is not for everyone and the show isn’t life changing, but it is at times extremely funny. There are certainly worse ways to spend half an hour…like watching the insipid John Oliver for example.

The bottom line regarding the show is this - the world needs more comedy, not less, so some courageous executive at NBC, Hulu, Netflix or Amazon should quickly grab Spitting Image and give Americans a glimpse of some solid political satire at the height of the election silly season, we sure as hell could use it. 

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

The Taboo Against Erections on TV Crumbles Just as New Taboos Around Speech are Being Erected

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 39 seconds

Sexual libertinism is on the rise, including on British TV where Channel 4 was happy to show men’s erections in all their glory. But at the same time, liberal freedoms protecting speech and thought are quickly disappearing.

Channel 4 showed an erect penis on air last night, which was the first time a male member ever stood at attention on British television.

The erections in question, there were eight in total, rose to the occasion on the aptly titled documentary, Me and My Penis, which explored issues of masculinity through the radical portraits of fine-art photographer and artist, Ajamu. 

As someone raised in the schizophrenically Victorian culture of America, where an exposed breast or bare-bottom on network television is cause for alarm but pornography is a booming multi-billion dollar business, I always assumed that the erectile Rubicon had long ago been crossed in that hedonistic paradise that is Great Britain. Silly me.  

The U.K. certainly does have a long history of showing limp dicks on television, like Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and Piers Morgan…and Channel 4 often shows flaccid penises too, especially on their nudity packed dating game show Naked Attraction, but My Penis and Me made history by rising up and breaking the boner barrier.

Channel 4 didn’t so much circumnavigate the erectile Maginot Line as stroll across an imaginary line. It ends up the long held taboo against showing a raging phallus on television in the U.K. was more a gentleman’s agreement rather than a rock hard rule (that’s what she said!).

There was a long-standing myth of an unofficial ‘Mull of Kintyre’ guideline, which supposedly stated that any penis on tv could not be shown in a more erect state than the outline of the Scottish peninsula, which is such a gloriously British thing it makes my teeth turn crooked. I mean, who exactly is supposed to measure the angle of the penis in question? Do they use a special pecker protractor? Is that a union job?

Thankfully it turns out, according to Ofcom - the UK’s communications regulator, there actually is no ban on boners as long as they are ‘justified by the context’ – which is a rule I think we should all try and live by.

As ridiculous as this all seems, what interests me most about the breaking of the British tv boner boundary is that just a week ago a story broke about how ITV nixed Spitting Image from showing the puppet penises of Boris Johnson, Trump and Putin. So apparently the British public are resilient enough to see a human erection on their tv sets but incapable of withstanding glimpsing a puppet penis? Churchill would be so proud.

What is most striking to me about this odd disparity is that it highlights both the deconstruction of sexual taboos, be they regarding erections on television, or gay marriage or transgenderism, and the construction of new taboos meant to limit and control speech and thought.

Agree or disagree, Spitting Image was making a political statement with their puppet penises, whereas on My Penis and Me the erections are the statement…one was censored by the corporate powers that be, the other endorsed.

As more is allowed in the realm of public sexuality, less is being allowed in the realm of public speech. You can be, do, show and watch what you like in terms of sex nowadays without any consequence, but try saying exactly what you think if it contrasts with the woke establishment’s beliefs and you’ll be met with a brutal backlash.

So now there are erections on Channel 4 and “WAP” (Wet Ass Pussy) on the top of the music charts, but you can’t say ‘All Lives Matter’ or ‘only women menstruate’ or ‘sex is real’ without great risk of being cancelled and losing your livelihood.

This strange brew of hypersexual libertinism mixed with the puritanical policing of speech and thought has an extremely unnerving late period Weimer Republic feel to it.

As libertinism waxes and liberalism (in the philosophical sense) wanes, it seems we are quickly devolving into a dystopian hellscape with the distorted sexuality of Huxley’s Brave New World combined with the brutally restrictive politics and language of Orwell’s 1984. Soma and Two Minutes Hate for everybody!

That comparison may seem hyperbolic, but considering how steep the slippery slope has been over the last four years alone, with the pandemic of wokeness, and its accompanying objective reality defying symptoms of Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and transgenderism, spreading like wildfire, it strikes me as uncomfortably accurate.

I am one of those fools that believe freedom is a magical elixir for what ails nearly everything and everybody. 

For example, for the puritanical prudes out there alarmed by the boner brigade on Channel 4, if you don’t want to see erections on Channel 4, you are free to change the channel.

For the politically correct prigs out there who demand ideological conformity or be silenced, cancelled or fired, you are free to ignore those with whom you disagree or to grow up, debate your opponents and defend your position.

Like the erections on Channel 4, freedom is hard and takes effort to maintain but is worth it because it lets you watch what you want, marry whom you want and think and say what you want.

Sadly, freedom now grows flaccid because our culture is more interested in allowing raging boners on television than raging debate in the public square.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Spitting Image, BoJo's Penis, and Fear of a Black Puppet

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 37 seconds

Spitting Image, the savagely satirical puppet show from the 80’s and 90’s, is making a comeback in Autumn. But already it’s on the defensive due to a hyper-sensitive climate where there’s always someone offended about something.

Spitting Image, the satirical television puppet show which made a name for itself on ITV from 1984 to 1996 for its brutal caricatures of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, John Major and the Royal Family among many others, is attempting a comeback on BritBox UK this Autumn. 

Now would seem a perfect time for the show to re-appear, as there is an abundance of prime comedy targets among the world’s politicians and celebrities.

In an era that boasts the buffoonery of Boris Johnson, Trump and the dead-eyed rambling of Joe Biden, as well as the relentless narcissism of the entertainment industry elite, one would think that satire should thrive.

But navigating the minefield of comedy in today’s hypersensitive age of suffocating political correctness is a perilous venture bordering on a suicide mission, and if early reports are any indication, Spitting Image is doomed to wind up legless in the graveyard of comedy failure.

Just this week it was revealed that Spitting Image produced a short trailer for their overlords at ITV that featured a scene where Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin wrestle naked in a sauna.

In the scene, BoJo and Trump are revealed to have tiny puppet peckers while Putin has the python-esque appendage of a Russian Dirk Diggler, which sounds both hysterically funny and most likely phallically accurate.

That scene of presidential and prime ministerial penises, or penii, or gaggle of penis, whatever the proper term may be, horrified the stuffed shirts at ITV who quickly gave it a hard no…demanding re-shoots sans genitalia.

The censoriousness of the corporate clowns at ITV is not the least bit surprising, and is actually something that the creatives at Spitting Image can use to their advantage, but the real comedy calamity for the show will be its own self-censorship.

An example of which came earlier this month when reports surfaced that the show’s producers had a ‘curious meeting’ with their ITV bosses to talk about how to properly depict black celebrities in order avoid a “racism row”.

Spitting Image’s raison d’etre has always been fearlessly cutting comedy combined with grotesquely distorted puppets caricaturing to humorous heights. But now the show is preemptively acting to make sure that its depictions of black celebrities like Kanye West, Beyonce and Meghan Markle are delicate enough to be palatably un-offensive? Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

This sort of self-censoring is and always will be the death of comedy. How can you effectively be funny if you’re constantly looking over your shoulder afraid of offending someone, somewhere over something?

If comedy were a fistfight…and it often times is, Spitting Image is heading into the brawl having tied one hand behind its own back out of racial deference, with the other hand tied by ITV out of corporate cowardice.

It is ironic that Spitting Image has run afoul of ITV with its depiction of Boris’s tiny Johnson, because with the show’s self-censorship it is definitely proving it no longer has balls.

There is no shame in being censored by ITV, hell it should be a badge of honor for any comedian or comedy show, but Spitting Image should be ashamed of neutering its own comedy instincts to the point of impotence with its paternalistic double standard when it comes to the black celebrities it means to caricature.

If the show can’t eviscerate famous people of different races and ethnicities with its caricatures with equal aplomb, then what is the purpose of it?

The satire of Spitting Image does serve a purpose…it helps to humble public figures who think they are God’s gift to the populace, and assists the hoi polloi in blowing off steam by laughing at the foibles and frailty of their supposed betters.

But when the show attempts to appease the delicate sensibilities of certain people or groups of people, then it just becomes a flaccid exercise in safely controlled, establishment-friendly, pseudo-comedy.

Yes, there will be jokes, but the comedy no longer reveals any greater truths or higher purpose…it simply maintains the status quo and reinforces the protective barriers around whatever the culture considers a sacred cow.

Spitting Image, like all comedy, should be in the business of slaughtering sacred cows and transforming them into delicious meals of highbrow filet mignon or lowbrow burgers, both of which satiate certain audience’s hunger for humor.

Without its signature devil may care attitude when it comes to offending its political and celebrity targets, Spitting Image might as well be The Muppets discussing how gentrification has ruined Sesame Street…a self-indulgent, toothless and useless comedy exercise.

Testicular fortitude has always been a necessity for comedy greatness. Monty Python, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Billy Connolly, Ricky Gervais, Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr and Frankie Boyle all had or have it in abundance.

Spitting Image used to have it, but between the quick trigger finger of the censors at ITV and the show’s own Orwellian self-censoring, it may have castrated its own comedy bollocks.

Hopefully it hasn’t, because without their comedy bollocks, Spitting Image doesn’t stand a chance of regaining its relevance, which would be tragic since the world could sure use a good laugh.

 A version of this show was originally published at RT.

©2020