'Spitting Image' Celebrated By 'Arena': Ten Best Bits From Margaret Thatcher's 'My Way' To The Chicken Song (VIDEO)

Would 'Spitting Image' Work Now? Creators Think Not
|

'Spitting Image' last month celebrated its 30th birthday, and tonight 'Arena' traces how it began, and where those celebrated puppets - in their time nearly as famous as their human alter egos - now reside.

The BBC programme also meets the team behind the latex - the caricaturists, mould-makers, writers and directors who worked to pull in 15 million viewers to a show, quite unprecedented in its sometimes vicious, political satire.

Open Image Modal

"If we did it [now]," co-creator Roger Law tells Radio Times, "we'd be a cult thing, probably on the net."

Thatcher's voice for the show, blames the "blandness" of today's crop of leaders, pointing out: “The problem for Spitting Image would be how do you make somebody out of latex when he looks like he is made of latex already?"

Speaking to The Telegraph on the eve of the anniversary celebrations, he described Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband as "too alike" to inspire such humour in presentation as well as policy, unlike for example, Mrs Thatcher and Michael Foot, who led Labour in the early Eighties.

Very good point, sir. In the meantime, here are ten of our favourite Spitting Image sketches.

'Arena: Whatever Happened To Spitting Image?' is on BBC4 tonight at 9pm.