WI: An American "Spitting Image" on TV?

Spitting Image, as the British board members probably well know, was a TV series in Britain in the 1980s where detailed caricature puppets of celebrities and politicians would be put into sketches and satire. It was huge in Britain, and very influential culturally and even politically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doi1U7I1CyU

So my question is, what if an American version or a takeoff of the concept was put in the air in the 1980s as well?
 
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Wait, so it was just Saturday Night Live only one-dimensional (focusing almost completely on politics) and with puppets? That doesn't sound like the type of thing that would catch on too well seeing as how we already have SNL.
 
Wait, so it was just Saturday Night Live only one-dimensional (focusing almost completely on politics) and with puppets? That doesn't sound like the type of thing that would catch on too well seeing as how we already have SNL.

Oh dear, looks like your about to get butchered by the British members once they see your blasphemy.

Anything you'd like on your tombstone?
 
I could see it taking off initially like the Simpsons - starting as part of another show, (SNL for example), then spinning off in it's own right.
Ultimately, I don't see it being as successful as the British version due to the alleged American habit of suing anyone for anything at the drop of any hat. Litigation would kill the show in under a series in it's own right.
 
Ultimately, I don't see it being as successful as the British version due to the alleged American habit of suing anyone for anything at the drop of any hat. Litigation would kill the show in under a series in it's own right.

Actually, due to freedom of speech, it's very difficult to sue anyone for slander or libel, and especially more so than in the UK.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Well depending on the type of celebrities you could have made Puppets who Kill before its time.

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Actually, due to freedom of speech, it's very difficult to sue anyone for slander or libel, and especially more so than in the UK.


Ooooh. I happily stand corrected. :D Is parody classed as a protected form of speech? If so then it could have potentially been bigger.
 
Spitting Image, as the British board members probably well know, was a TV series in Britain in the 1980s where detailed caricature puppets of celebrities and politicians would be put into sketches and satire. It was huge in Britain, and very influential culturally and even politically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doi1U7I1CyU

So my question is, what if an American version or a takeoff of the concept was put in the air in the 1980s as well?

There was. It was called D.C. Follies and it only lasted two seasons.

Torqumada
 

Thande

Donor
There was. It was called D.C. Follies and it only lasted two seasons.

Torqumada

Yeah, they apparently tried to do a proper U.S. localised version of Spitting Image, but the U.S. network executives were scared of having a show that was so irreverent about major politicians, the Pope and so on. So you ended up with that cautious and overly respectful DC Follies thing.

The show was localised very successfully in some other countries though--the French and Indian versions are still running now, years after the British original ended.
 
For the rest of the US members, the people behind this show were also behind the puppets for the music video for Genesis' Land of Confusion.

There was. It was called D.C. Follies and it only lasted two seasons.

Torqumada

Hmmm... it says Sid and Marty Kroft were behind it. Very, very interesting... As good as some of their stuff was, I wonder if a show like this might have been more popular if Jim Henson or Frank Oz had been behind it instead.

In general, though, I think SevenLegged had it right. Shows which limit themselves to just political humor tend to not do as well -- they're seen as too "cerebral" (i.e. TV producers think that Americans don't want to have to think, especially in the '80s). They also have a tendency to get boycotted by hardliners if they're seen as favoring one of the parties over the other.

Although, considering the success of the Daily Show and Colbert Report, irreverent political humor shows can be done... maybe it's a time period thing.

EDIT: Or maybe, related to what Thande just said, it's due to a difference between what Network Executives of the '80's think the public wants to see and what the public actually would watch.

Maybe if Fox, or someone like them, comes along earlier in the '80s, and decides to produce something like this simply because they're searching for content to fill up their timeslots, and they get some decent writers to go along with it (perhaps some writers who would have later gotten jobs with the Simpson's, or Tracy Ullman Show, or In Living Color), it might do better. It actually sounds like something Fox might have tried.
 
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D.C. Follies is odd. For one, the puppets weren't as caricaturized as the Spitting Image puppets. The format was also odd; rather than satire sketches, it's put into a bar in a fixed situation, alongside normal human actors like Sesame Street. It also pulled it's punches (not just in satire, but in the voices and caricatures since I think those were dull), and didn't seem all that funny, and lacked a lot of the Pop culture satire Spitting Image did. I mean, if you were on TV, you'd be on Spitting Image. Whereas D.C. Follies seemed to have taken that prolific political satire thing done on Spitting Image, and did just that, with a few pop culture celebrities sprinkled around.
 
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