Advent events to go through Spitting Image’s legendary prism include: a shocking Christmas surprise for Prince Andrew; an ever-heroic Tom Cruise stepping up to save Christmas for Santa; who better to add a bit of flair to the Queen’s annual Christmas message than Phoebe Waller-Bridge; Keir Starmer finally springing into action for an oncoming Christmas lunch crisis with his (always law-abiding) vigilante alter-ego, Fox Man; while poor Rishi Sunak is visited by terrifying visions including of The Ghost of Tory Glory Past.
Spitting Image has delivered record subscribers for BritBox UK, the BBC and ITV created streaming platform. Across official social media channels, Spitting Image content has been hugely popular with over 200 million views globally and three No. 1 trending videos on YouTube.
With the world getting smaller and more turbulent, last year celebrated Spitting Image co-creator Roger Law returned to head up the show’s creative team, while multi-award-winner Jeff Westbrook (The Simpsons, Futurama) joined as Showrunner, leading the international writing team on the iconic British satirical take on global events. A next generation of satirical writers and voice artists are working with established talent to drive a new wave of ‘public service satire’. Writers on the show include: Al Murray, Bert Tyler-Moore (The Windsors), Bill Odenkirk (The Simpsons), Brona C. Titley (The Tracey Ullman Show), Jason Hazeley & Nico Tatarowicz (Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe/Murder in Successville), Karl Minns (Russell Howard’s Good News), Keisha Zollar (Astronomy Club), Laura Major (Famalam), Matt Forde, Patric Verrone (The Simpsons), with many more joining the growing team.
Voice artists include: Billy West (Futurama), Debra Stephenson (The Impressions Show), Debra Wilson (Family Guy), Tom Stourton (Pls Like, Horrible Histories), Eshaan Akbar (Mock The Week) Indira Varma (Game of Thrones), Jess Robinson (The Imitation Game), John DiMaggio (Futurama), Lewis MacLeod (Dead Ringers), Lobo Chan (Killing Eve), Luke Kempner (The Imitation Game), Matt Forde (The Political Party) and Phil LaMarr (Pulp Fiction), with many more joining as the puppet cast grows. The show is ultra-topical with scripts being written and new puppets made as close to each episode as possible.
Internationally, a bespoke German language version of the show has successfully launched in Germany with Der Spiegel hailing it as “really good” and news stories of far-right politicians from AfD considering legal action – Spitting Image: The Krauts’ Edition, includes the globally resonating content from the English language version (redubbed by Germany’s leading voice artists), with new topical local sketches (written by German comedy writers) – all filmed in the UK-based Spitting Image studio as close to transmission to ensure maximum topicality.
Elsewhere the debut drew the second-best channel audience figure in Finland for its time slot and was hailed by the leading Finnish newspaper as being, “As vicious and risqué as before” and successfully launched in Belgium with a 22% of total TV audience share, the show is a leading title for BritBox Australia, as well as seeing millions of views in the USA via YouTube.
Produced by Avalon, Executive Producers are Jeff Westbrook, Joanna Beresford, Jon Thoday, Richard Allen-Turner and Roger Law. BritBox Commissioning Executive is Nana Hughes.
The Spitting Image Christmas Special will TX on ITV in the Christmas schedule (day TBC) and will premiere in advance to BritBox UK subscribers on Thursday 2nd December.
Picture: Avalon/Britbox/Mark Harrison
