The new Spitting Image series - it fell through apparently...

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

From Roger Law's autobiography ('Still Spitting at Sixty'), published this week:

Soon afterwards, I got news about Spitting Image. The proposed budget had gone through the wringer with ITV and the production company involved in the deal and had come back with some interesting amendments. Under the scrutiny of the higher bean-counters, the amount of what is known in the trade as 'How's it going?' money - as in 'How's it going and where's the cheque?' - had incredibly gone up, but only at the expense of funds for actual puppet production. I was charmed to see my name on the list of beneficiaries, but I did not see how a half-decent show could be reassembled on such a lop-sided basis. There was also no money earmarked for a pilot programme, which I thought was absolutely essential to get the ring-rust out of our system before going on air. From my point of view (and, not long after, from John Lloyd's), Spitting Image Mark II had turned out to be a sodden squib. By now thoroughly surplus to requirements, Deirdre and I sloped off back to Bondi.

This is autumn 2003 he's talking about, so it stopped being on the cards a long time ago. I'd like to know more details though - it's a frustratingly thin book generally, but I'm confused by the above extract: when he says 'How's it going?' money, does he mean private backers? Is that normal for TV shows? I find it strange that ITV wouldn't pay for it, anyway - Spit would be expensive, but not ridiuculously so in ITV terms surely?

It's a bloody shame, anyway. We need Law and Lloyd back making comedy.

[The Mumbler]

Surprised and somewhat disappointed to hear that it's a thin read - Law's written it with Lewis Chester who wrote the Tooth & Claw book.

[Ambient Sheep]

Bollocks.  Not much else to add, sorry.

[The Mumbler]

It's official... From The Guardian:

*********

No way back for Spitting Image

John Plunkett
Friday May 20, 2005

Plans to resurrect satirical puppet show Spitting Image have been abandoned after one of its original creators dropped out and the estimated cost of the project ran into several million pounds.

Producer John Lloyd held talks with ITV about bringing back the show, which lampooned politicians and celebrities from Margaret Thatcher to Madonna during its 12-year run from 1984 to 1996.

But Mr Lloyd has been unable to persuade his fellow co-creator and puppet maker, Roger Law, to take part.

"ITV were very keen and there couldn't be a better time to bring it back but Roger just doesn't want to go there anymore," said Mr Lloyd. "He lives on Bondi Beach in Australia and is having a great life painting kangaroos and duck-billed platypuses.

"You wonder whether it could be done without Roger but it just wouldn't be the same. He is more than just a name on a piece of paper - he is a very inspirational guy and central to the whole thing."

Mr Lloyd had the backing of a number of the comedians who provided the voices for the original Spitting Image, including John Sessions, Harry Enfield and Rory Bremner. He discussed bringing back the show with the ITV controller of entertainment, Claudia Rosencrantz, and Nigel Pickard, the director of programmes.

But reviving the show would have involved creating hundreds of new puppets at a cost running into millions of pounds, said Mr Lloyd.

"We were having to start right from scratch with at least a year of pre-production," he said. "We would need to find several million pounds to get where we were when we finished. We had 1,200 puppets and even if we still had the puppets they would have aged 15 to 20 years. There's no point having a puppet of Leonid Brezhnev any more.

"Everyone thinks it's a good idea but Roger is 63 now and it's not the time to start working 22-hour days again. I'm afraid we will never see its like again."

Mr Lloyd had also held talks with a film financier ready to bankroll the new series, which would have cost around £400,000 an episode.

"You couldn't possibly get all the money from one broadcaster. I have got nothing but praise for ITV. They were incredibly supportive and I have got a lot of time for Claudia Rosencrantz," he said.

Ms Rosencrantz said: "We would love to have Spitting Image back on ITV and have been in discussions for some time to try and find a way to do this. Although this is an expensive show to revive funding is absolutely not an issue. The issue has always been trying to persuade [Peter] Fluck and [Roger] Law to let us bring it back."

In the 80s Spitting Image's biting satire provided a running commentary on the Thatcher years, taking in the miners' strike and the poll tax and attracting audiences of up to 15 million.

Ronald Reagan was regularly shown in bed with wife Nancy searching for his missing brain, while Lord (then Norman) Tebbit appeared in full biker leathers and Kenneth Baker was morphed into a snail.

Accused of libel, blasphemy and sacrilege, the show even had a number one hit single, The Chicken Song.

But the show was axed in the mid-90s as the death throes of John Major's government dragged on and it appeared to have lost its relevance and cutting edge.

Mr Lloyd, who produces BBC quiz show QI, hosted by Stephen Fry, has been involved in some of the biggest comedy hits of the last three decades, including Not the Nine O'Clock News and Blackadder.
He is in talks with ITV about other projects.

[Catalogue Trousers]

But hey! We've got the brilliant 2DTV with its hilarious "Posh 'n' Becks" and "EastEnders" jokes, so never mind eh?

Jaysus.

[Jon_Norton]

Bo Selecta is carrying on the rubberface parodic tradition nowadays.

I'm probably bucking the consensus here, but I think it's better this way. An awful lot of SI's impact came from the sheer daringness of mocking the Royals etc. in that way (politicians were another matter, though they'd never been done so crudely before). But once you break a taboo, you can't remake it, and you can't recapture the thrill of breaking. Taking the piss out of the Royals nowadays is just as boring and unadventurous as swearing on the telly. There's a reason why SI (and Week Ending, for that matter) got binned - they were just old and tired.

We don't have Royalty nowadays, not in the way we did in 1983. Nobody cares about them anymore. Instead we've got Heat and Abi Titmuss blowjob videos downloaded by millions, and Abi Titmuss earning millions as a result. Bo Selecta is actually doing as much "satire" as it's possible to make of such a media world: fuck all. But all that Si could achieve nowadays is a more prudish, technically more complex, and less interesting version of BS. Why bother?

Leave SI in its place in history. And shut down HIGNFY while you're at it. Let's have some new formats instead.

[The Mumbler]

Why not just have a much much much better version of 2DTV?

[Jon_Norton]

Why not just have a much much much better version of 2DTV?

To do that you'd have to shut down Dead Ringers and Alistair MacGowan, and consolidate all the worthwhile ideas in to 1 show, which is all there are enough of them for.

[Alberon]

The importance of Spitting Image was never the puppets, good though they were. It's the writing, obviously, that's the most important.

I'm glad in someways that it isn't coming back, it's very likely it'd end up a live-action 2DTV

[Jemble Fred]

I was always in favour of an annual review of the year in lieu of the series ending forever in the first place. But then you'd have to store the puppets and god knows what else, so it'd still cost a fortune.

[Rats]

Maybe they could do a radio show, that might be alright. They'd have to change the name though.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I had similar worries about a new Spit series - the only real 'establishment' now is the media, and satirising the media tends to *look* shallow even when you've actually got a point to make.

Could you satirise Jordan and Abi Titmuss as bimbos? Or would you have to satirise them as cynical businesswomen? Or would a better target be people who say 'they're cynical businesswomen, and good luck to them'? Would that even work as comedy?

[Ambient Sheep]

So where's Peter Fluck?  Is he dead? (serious question)

[Labian Quest]

If the budget is the problem, couldn't they just do 10 minutes a week as part of some other program? (rather than a whole half an hour)

[Alberon]

If the budget is the problem, couldn't they just do 10 minutes a week as part of some other program? (rather than a whole half an hour)

I think the real killer that stopped the new series was the cost of making all the puppets you need for the new show. The startup, even for a ten-minute slot, would be fairly staggering.

[The Mumbler]

It sounds like, from what John Lloyd says of Claudia Rosencrantz's entertainment department at ITV, that money was no object.  I just get the feeling that Lloyd wouldn't do it without Fluck or Law.

[benthalo]

Maybe they could do a radio show, that might be alright. They'd have to change the name though.

Week Ending?

[Cheese bored]

So where's Peter Fluck?  Is he dead? (serious question)

He's still going..

http://www.silverwelldesign.co.uk/silverwellfineart/indexframeset.htm?peterfluck/index.htm~mainFrame

(second row, third in)

[weirdbeard]

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pandora/article301485.ece

Here's some news to send a shiver down the spines of politicians and celebrities everywhere.

There are moves afoot for a new run of Spitting Image shows, being spearheaded by Jon Culshaw. The comedian, who writes Dead Ringers and did the voices of more than 40 characters on the satirical puppet show, tells me that the cast is ready to reform and cut the current crop of public figures down to size.

"We, the producers, the cast and everyone have been discussing it and we'd love to get back together. I am actually working with one of the producers from Spitting Image on Dead Ringers now so, to that extent, part of the team is already working together.

"We're talking to ITV about it: we're just waiting to hear whether they are prepared to put the money up for a couple of series. It's expensive to make the puppets but if we can persuade them that the time's right for a return, it'll be back."

You'd think someone, somewhere, would make their mind up for good about this.

[The Mumbler]

Note that John Lloyd's name is missing from that report.  Maybe Bill Dare's been approached instead.

[Bert Thung]

What a depressing thread. The one thing everyone has been hoping wouldn't be the outcome, 2DTV with puppets, will be the outcome.

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

Nev Fountain's popped up to rubbish the story on another board.