The Heckler: how funny really was Spitting Image?

Hold the front page! Spitting Image is back! Well, sort of. A new six-part series, from (some of) the team behind Fluck and Law’s puppetry satire show, will be broadcast on ITV this spring. Called Newzoids, it promises to provide a ‘biting look at the world of politics and celebrity’. Cue ecstatic reports in all the papers about how hilarious the original was, and how much we’ve all missed it. There’s only one problem with this analysis. Whisper it on Wardour Street, but Spitting Image wasn’t actually all that funny.

Yes, the voices were pin-sharp (shout-outs for Rory Bremner, Steve Coogan, Hugh Dennis, Harry Enfield, Alistair McGowan and a host of others) but, despite the input of writers like Ian Hislop and Richard Curtis, the breathless scripts reflected the frantic deadlines that the show’s topicality required. Yes, the puppets were works of art (take a bow, Peter Fluck and Roger Law, and all the puppet-makers who served under them) but for much of its 12-year run Spitting Image was often far funnier with the sound turned down.