1 00:00:02,700 --> 00:00:09,020 This programme contains some strong language. 2 00:00:10,580 --> 00:00:16,220 MUSIC: Symphony No. 1 in D major, "Titan", by Gustav Mahler 3 00:00:48,460 --> 00:00:50,860 CHARGING DEFIBRILLATOR 4 00:00:52,140 --> 00:00:53,580 ELECTRICAL CRACK 5 00:00:54,580 --> 00:00:55,940 ELECTRICAL CRACK 6 00:01:00,220 --> 00:01:01,980 BEEPING 7 00:01:01,980 --> 00:01:03,660 ECHOING MRS THATCHER: And I can announce 8 00:01:03,660 --> 00:01:06,460 exactly what we're going to do for the next five years... 9 00:01:06,460 --> 00:01:08,460 MURMURS OF APPROVAL 10 00:01:08,460 --> 00:01:09,900 ..whatever we like!! 11 00:01:09,900 --> 00:01:11,820 CHEERING 12 00:01:14,660 --> 00:01:19,140 MUSIC: "Another Green World" by Brian Eno 13 00:01:44,420 --> 00:01:48,900 MUSIC: "Das Lied Vom Tod" by Ennio Morricone 14 00:02:37,060 --> 00:02:40,500 'Did you, in all the years of the broadcast, 15 00:02:40,500 --> 00:02:47,140 'ever run into someone whom you regarded as untouchable? 16 00:02:47,140 --> 00:02:50,060 '"We just can't deal with this one?"' 17 00:02:51,780 --> 00:02:53,100 'No.' 18 00:02:57,580 --> 00:02:59,660 'Now, John, 19 00:02:59,660 --> 00:03:04,420 'the business of Mr Tebbit drinking a human body - 20 00:03:04,420 --> 00:03:06,220 'do you find that amusing?' 21 00:03:24,220 --> 00:03:26,180 It set out as a satirical show, 22 00:03:26,180 --> 00:03:30,020 which means it's got to deal with prominent, famous people. 23 00:03:30,020 --> 00:03:32,420 And you realise with your horror when you start 24 00:03:32,420 --> 00:03:34,140 just how many of them there are. 25 00:03:35,580 --> 00:03:38,660 MUSIC: "The Rocks" by Jimmy Yancey 26 00:03:53,660 --> 00:03:56,100 MICHAEL PARKINSON: Are we agreed on the first record? 27 00:03:56,100 --> 00:03:59,940 Yes, the first record is Jimmy Yancey playing The Rocks. 28 00:03:59,940 --> 00:04:02,020 This is a record we remember very well 29 00:04:02,020 --> 00:04:06,100 from my art school days, where the sort of early jazz piano 30 00:04:06,100 --> 00:04:08,700 suited the lifestyle of the time. 31 00:04:10,740 --> 00:04:13,980 If you actually go in a pub on Monday lunchtime 32 00:04:13,980 --> 00:04:16,340 and you hear people talking about television, 33 00:04:16,340 --> 00:04:19,740 they will always say, "Did you see Spitting Image last night?" 34 00:04:19,740 --> 00:04:22,860 I didn't actually see Spitting Image last week, 35 00:04:22,860 --> 00:04:25,540 but it was disgusting! 36 00:04:25,540 --> 00:04:28,820 You can never embarrass politicians by giving them publicity. 37 00:04:28,820 --> 00:04:32,060 TERRY WOGAN: Do you enjoy it, though? Do you watch it and enjoy it? 38 00:04:32,060 --> 00:04:33,420 I don't watch it. 39 00:04:33,420 --> 00:04:35,820 Wrong, Mr Hattersley! I am a bully! 40 00:04:35,820 --> 00:04:39,700 This is the prerogative of those who are jealous, 41 00:04:39,700 --> 00:04:43,940 who haven't been able to achieve anything in public life themselves, 42 00:04:43,940 --> 00:04:46,900 who have no sense of responsibility, 43 00:04:46,900 --> 00:04:50,100 and who, therefore, will, at the end, 44 00:04:50,100 --> 00:04:52,820 pass on feeling that they've had a useless life. 45 00:05:01,740 --> 00:05:05,460 It is 30 years since Spitting Image first hit our screens, 46 00:05:05,460 --> 00:05:10,980 and we have the creators of the show coming to the BFI Southbank. 47 00:05:13,100 --> 00:05:15,620 I think the show, really, has never left the airwaves. 48 00:05:15,620 --> 00:05:19,100 I think it's true to say the programme has remained in the ether. 49 00:05:19,100 --> 00:05:20,420 It actually made 50 00:05:20,420 --> 00:05:23,540 young people connect with political issues. 51 00:05:23,540 --> 00:05:24,940 It was just a brilliant way - 52 00:05:24,940 --> 00:05:27,060 through making politics entertaining 53 00:05:27,060 --> 00:05:29,940 it made young people connect with politics. 54 00:05:29,940 --> 00:05:32,220 How many shows on television 55 00:05:32,220 --> 00:05:34,820 can we say that about now? 56 00:05:34,820 --> 00:05:37,620 And I think that's a really great legacy of the show. 57 00:05:39,100 --> 00:05:42,060 I was just going to say I think... 58 00:05:42,060 --> 00:05:44,140 I think if you look at what happened in the '60s, 59 00:05:44,140 --> 00:05:46,220 the sort of That Was The Week That Was, 60 00:05:46,220 --> 00:05:48,540 that was very much sort of broadsheet satire. 61 00:05:48,540 --> 00:05:50,060 It was about issues. 62 00:05:50,060 --> 00:05:53,300 Spitting Image came along and it was much more tabloid in many ways. 63 00:05:53,300 --> 00:05:56,540 It was about personalities as much as it was about issues, 64 00:05:56,540 --> 00:05:58,780 and I think it just took that a step further. 65 00:06:01,180 --> 00:06:03,540 Would you like to order, Sir? 66 00:06:03,540 --> 00:06:05,740 Yes. I will have a steak. 67 00:06:05,740 --> 00:06:07,820 How'd you like it? Raw, please. 68 00:06:07,820 --> 00:06:10,100 And what about the vegetables? 69 00:06:10,100 --> 00:06:11,980 Oh, they'll have the same as me. 70 00:06:15,540 --> 00:06:17,740 MICHAEL PARKISON: Another choice of record. 71 00:06:17,740 --> 00:06:19,900 Well, this is Please, Mrs Henry by Bob Dylan. 72 00:06:19,900 --> 00:06:22,940 Bob Dylan's been with us... I mean, he's roughly the same age. 73 00:06:22,940 --> 00:06:25,700 I love this record because it always reminds me of the trouble we had 74 00:06:25,700 --> 00:06:28,940 with landladies in the early days, both in Cambridge and in London. 75 00:06:28,940 --> 00:06:30,060 THEY LAUGH 76 00:06:31,380 --> 00:06:32,860 # Now don't crowd me, lady, 77 00:06:32,860 --> 00:06:34,900 # Or I'll fill up your shoe. 78 00:06:34,900 --> 00:06:37,260 # I'm a sweet bourbon daddy 79 00:06:37,260 --> 00:06:39,100 # And tonight I am blue 80 00:06:39,100 --> 00:06:40,740 # I'm a thousand years old 81 00:06:40,740 --> 00:06:42,980 # And I'm a generous mum. 82 00:06:42,980 --> 00:06:44,660 # I'm T-boned and punctured 83 00:06:44,660 --> 00:06:46,980 # I've been known to be calm 84 00:06:46,980 --> 00:06:50,900 # Please, Mrs Henry, Mrs Henry, please 85 00:06:50,900 --> 00:06:54,420 # Please Mrs Henry, Mrs Henry, please. 86 00:06:54,420 --> 00:06:58,500 # I'm down on my knees 87 00:06:58,500 --> 00:07:00,980 # And I ain't got a dime... # 88 00:07:00,980 --> 00:07:04,420 We'd like to work for a mass market, 89 00:07:04,420 --> 00:07:07,020 for as large a circulation as possible. 90 00:07:07,020 --> 00:07:08,940 Otherwise, you may as well just do your work 91 00:07:08,940 --> 00:07:11,060 and put it in a Bond Street art gallery, 92 00:07:11,060 --> 00:07:13,460 and have it seen by informed people, 93 00:07:13,460 --> 00:07:16,580 and they'll make a judgment on it without being affected by it. 94 00:07:18,700 --> 00:07:20,300 We work through photography. 95 00:07:25,620 --> 00:07:29,700 I think people are conditioned to see photographs and to believe them. 96 00:07:29,700 --> 00:07:32,980 If you give them a photograph of a caricature, I think there's 97 00:07:32,980 --> 00:07:35,100 an element of the double take. 98 00:07:35,100 --> 00:07:37,620 Are they looking at the real person? What are they looking at? 99 00:07:37,620 --> 00:07:38,980 It's their first reaction. 100 00:07:40,500 --> 00:07:42,220 APPROACHING TRAIN 101 00:07:43,700 --> 00:07:46,460 KIRSTY YOUNG: Let's have some music, then, John. What's next? 102 00:07:46,460 --> 00:07:50,740 Well, this is an Irish band called The Waterboys, who I'm very fond of, 103 00:07:50,740 --> 00:07:53,820 and a song called The Raggle Taggle Gypsy. 104 00:07:53,820 --> 00:07:56,380 And I come from an Anglo-Irish background, 105 00:07:56,380 --> 00:07:58,180 at least on my father's side, 106 00:07:58,180 --> 00:08:00,100 and he was in the Navy, 107 00:08:00,100 --> 00:08:03,420 and so, as children, we were shipped all over the world 108 00:08:03,420 --> 00:08:07,420 and so the gypsy side is that sort of wandering sailor's son thing. 109 00:08:09,060 --> 00:08:11,300 # There was three old gypsies came to our hall door 110 00:08:11,300 --> 00:08:13,020 # They came brave and boldly-o 111 00:08:13,020 --> 00:08:15,740 # And the one sang high and the other sang low... # 112 00:08:15,740 --> 00:08:18,380 In 1979 I went to television hoping for a job 113 00:08:18,380 --> 00:08:20,860 as a trainee floor manager and, 114 00:08:20,860 --> 00:08:23,340 for reasons, again, un-given, 115 00:08:23,340 --> 00:08:27,460 I was offered a series of six half-hours as a television producer. 116 00:08:27,460 --> 00:08:30,940 And the only condition was I had to work with an insane young 117 00:08:30,940 --> 00:08:33,740 current affairs producer called Sean Hardie 118 00:08:33,740 --> 00:08:36,060 who kept putting jokes into Panorama. 119 00:08:36,060 --> 00:08:37,700 They didn't want him, so I got him, 120 00:08:37,700 --> 00:08:40,460 and that was the start of Not The Nine O'Clock News. 121 00:08:40,460 --> 00:08:43,500 Mrs Thatcher revealed in the House of Commons today 122 00:08:43,500 --> 00:08:45,740 that a man called Sir Alec Douglas-Home 123 00:08:45,740 --> 00:08:48,980 was Prime Minister for several years in the '60s. 124 00:08:48,980 --> 00:08:50,860 The Queen, who was never told, 125 00:08:50,860 --> 00:08:52,980 has since stripped him of his knighthood. 126 00:08:52,980 --> 00:08:54,540 LAUGHTER 127 00:08:54,540 --> 00:08:56,140 I think it's terribly important 128 00:08:56,140 --> 00:08:58,140 that comedy ought to be able to comment 129 00:08:58,140 --> 00:09:01,620 on world events, and to deal with real things in a way that dramas 130 00:09:01,620 --> 00:09:04,900 and documentaries and even children's programmes are allowed to. 131 00:09:04,900 --> 00:09:08,660 John Lloyd knew how to get a show on TV. 132 00:09:08,660 --> 00:09:12,340 And he took it on board, and it pulled the idea together. 133 00:09:13,820 --> 00:09:17,020 I think that Spitting Image was a sort of hybrid 134 00:09:17,020 --> 00:09:20,260 between the tradition that Scarfe comes out of, 135 00:09:20,260 --> 00:09:24,540 that we came out of, English comic art, English satirical art, 136 00:09:24,540 --> 00:09:27,900 and John Lloyd, of course, is out of Footlights. 137 00:09:27,900 --> 00:09:31,260 So it's that hybrid between Oxbridge Footlights 138 00:09:31,260 --> 00:09:35,620 and a traditional form of visual art, and Punch and Judy. 139 00:09:35,620 --> 00:09:37,340 Who's that? That's... 140 00:09:37,340 --> 00:09:40,100 That's Stalin manipulating Brezhnev. 141 00:09:41,180 --> 00:09:42,940 From beyond the grave. 142 00:09:42,940 --> 00:09:45,700 'We'd worked with Tony Hendra before on The National Lampoon. 143 00:09:45,700 --> 00:09:50,140 'He was a very good print satirist, and he was Footlights. 144 00:09:50,140 --> 00:09:53,980 'I mean, Peter Cook used to call him the bubonic plagiarist.' 145 00:09:53,980 --> 00:09:56,060 He does actually have an enormous hooter. 146 00:09:56,060 --> 00:09:58,860 'And he had the idea of making the puppets move 147 00:09:58,860 --> 00:10:01,420 'by computer animated mouth.' 148 00:10:02,940 --> 00:10:06,500 What I'll do is just black that out and I'll superimpose the mouth 149 00:10:06,500 --> 00:10:09,540 in there, and the mouth will actually be talking at you. 150 00:10:09,540 --> 00:10:11,580 OK, so you're going to take that back to the States 151 00:10:11,580 --> 00:10:13,100 and send us a piece of tape? 152 00:10:13,100 --> 00:10:15,820 Yeah, it'll be interesting trying to get it 153 00:10:15,820 --> 00:10:17,420 through New York customs, though. 154 00:10:17,420 --> 00:10:19,100 Two kilos of uncut Whitelaw. 155 00:10:19,100 --> 00:10:20,380 THEY LAUGH 156 00:10:22,220 --> 00:10:24,460 He disappeared with Willie Whitelaw, 157 00:10:24,460 --> 00:10:26,540 and, you know, we never saw it again. 158 00:10:26,540 --> 00:10:28,940 Well, we used to enjoy working 159 00:10:28,940 --> 00:10:31,620 with journalists who were good journalists. 160 00:10:31,620 --> 00:10:36,300 Murdoch came along and the whole thing went down the tubes, 161 00:10:36,300 --> 00:10:40,340 and we realised that we were just about out of business. 162 00:10:40,340 --> 00:10:43,420 With new technology, everyone could have their own magazine 163 00:10:43,420 --> 00:10:44,980 and the budgets had gone. 164 00:10:44,980 --> 00:10:47,340 You couldn't do caricatures that took a week, 165 00:10:47,340 --> 00:10:50,980 have it photographed by a high-class photographer on 5/4 166 00:10:50,980 --> 00:10:54,220 and expect to make a living. We knew we were in trouble. 167 00:11:00,060 --> 00:11:03,020 MUSIC: "Blue Monday" by the Brythoniaid Male Voice Choir 168 00:11:04,500 --> 00:11:08,180 It's 6:30, Monday January 17th, 1983. 169 00:11:08,180 --> 00:11:10,460 You're watching the first edition of BBC television's 170 00:11:10,460 --> 00:11:12,580 Breakfast Time, Britain's first ever 171 00:11:12,580 --> 00:11:14,860 regular early morning television programme. 172 00:11:14,860 --> 00:11:16,860 SCREAMS Oh, my giddy aunt! 173 00:11:19,140 --> 00:11:22,580 '1983 was a crucial year in all kinds of ways. 174 00:11:22,580 --> 00:11:26,060 'What was going on, and the kind of very sedate sofas' 175 00:11:26,060 --> 00:11:29,380 of new breakfast television, the election that had happened. 176 00:11:29,380 --> 00:11:31,460 But there was a time bomb 177 00:11:31,460 --> 00:11:33,820 waiting to explode under all of them. 178 00:11:37,220 --> 00:11:40,660 If we could make the move and get them onto television, 179 00:11:40,660 --> 00:11:42,860 it's not going to be the kind of television 180 00:11:42,860 --> 00:11:44,820 that washes over you from the corner. 181 00:11:44,820 --> 00:11:47,780 You know, it's not Good Morning BBC TV. 182 00:11:47,780 --> 00:11:50,060 It's going to really upset people. 183 00:11:50,060 --> 00:11:53,860 So that was my feeling about it, and that was exciting. 184 00:11:53,860 --> 00:11:56,660 That made you want to do it, I really wanted to do it. 185 00:11:57,900 --> 00:12:01,340 # When you've laid your hands upon me 186 00:12:01,340 --> 00:12:04,660 # And told me who you are... # 187 00:12:04,660 --> 00:12:07,340 REPORTER: Margaret Thatcher returns to Downing Street 188 00:12:07,340 --> 00:12:09,540 with the biggest majority since 1945. 189 00:12:10,940 --> 00:12:15,580 It was a time of major turmoil, and nobody was really expressing 190 00:12:15,580 --> 00:12:18,980 what the great British public actually thought. 191 00:12:18,980 --> 00:12:22,500 They were much crosser, much more pissed off about it. 192 00:12:22,500 --> 00:12:26,620 There was a time bomb, and it was a time bomb that had been set, 193 00:12:26,620 --> 00:12:28,980 not by Al-Qaeda or any kind of people 194 00:12:28,980 --> 00:12:31,220 who knew what they were doing, 195 00:12:31,220 --> 00:12:34,940 but by a bunch of complete amateurs in many respects. 196 00:12:34,940 --> 00:12:37,100 One night, and I have to say it really was 197 00:12:37,100 --> 00:12:39,700 in the middle of the night, I suddenly sat up in bed 198 00:12:39,700 --> 00:12:41,380 and said, "It's puppets, 199 00:12:41,380 --> 00:12:43,820 "and it's Roger Law and Peter Fluck." 200 00:12:43,820 --> 00:12:46,540 Well, they could see the caricatures that we'd done, 201 00:12:46,540 --> 00:12:49,060 and you didn't have to be, you know, a scientist 202 00:12:49,060 --> 00:12:52,540 to realise that if they moved, well, fantastic. 203 00:12:57,020 --> 00:13:01,540 So, when we came up with the notion of making the caricatures move, 204 00:13:01,540 --> 00:13:05,940 there wasn't really a shortage of Thatcherite entrepreneurs 205 00:13:05,940 --> 00:13:08,180 queueing up round the block, you know. 206 00:13:08,180 --> 00:13:09,820 HE LAUGHS 207 00:13:09,820 --> 00:13:11,660 We were happy to take their money. 208 00:13:11,660 --> 00:13:17,100 We took something like 70,000 quid off Sinclair, 209 00:13:17,100 --> 00:13:18,980 the home computer fellow. 210 00:13:20,300 --> 00:13:23,860 And we got to work on our puppets, doing them, 211 00:13:23,860 --> 00:13:27,780 and the person that had interfaced between Sinclair and Peter and I 212 00:13:27,780 --> 00:13:31,220 came round to the chapel where we were working and said, 213 00:13:31,220 --> 00:13:32,820 "What kind of people are you? 214 00:13:32,820 --> 00:13:39,060 "You've had £70,000, and you can't even say thank you." 215 00:13:39,060 --> 00:13:45,140 And Fluck shouted down the stairs, "You can't buy us for £70,000!" 216 00:13:47,700 --> 00:13:49,580 Yes, we were very ungrateful. 217 00:13:51,180 --> 00:13:54,900 I mean, he took it back again. He had some trouble up in Dundee 218 00:13:54,900 --> 00:13:57,540 and needed the 60 grand back again. 219 00:13:57,540 --> 00:14:00,820 # I thought I told you to leave me 220 00:14:00,820 --> 00:14:03,460 # While I walked down to the beach 221 00:14:03,460 --> 00:14:05,940 MACHINERY CLANKING, THUNDER CRASHES 222 00:14:05,940 --> 00:14:08,500 # Tell me how does it feel 223 00:14:08,500 --> 00:14:11,660 # When your heart grows cold... # 224 00:14:18,300 --> 00:14:20,540 ELECTRICITY CRACKLES 225 00:14:30,140 --> 00:14:31,940 THUNDER CRASHES 226 00:14:36,980 --> 00:14:38,780 OK. 227 00:14:42,260 --> 00:14:43,740 OK, take it up a bit. 228 00:14:45,620 --> 00:14:48,180 It's alive, it's moving! 229 00:14:48,180 --> 00:14:51,020 It's alive! Oh, it's alive! 230 00:14:51,020 --> 00:14:53,140 It's alive, it's alive!! 231 00:14:53,140 --> 00:14:54,340 IT'S ALIVE!! 232 00:14:56,660 --> 00:15:00,700 In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God! 233 00:15:02,660 --> 00:15:04,580 Norman? Yes, leader? 234 00:15:04,580 --> 00:15:08,500 Send in the Chancellor, will you? Yes, leader. 235 00:15:12,540 --> 00:15:15,900 The fight to win the next election starts immediately, 236 00:15:15,900 --> 00:15:18,620 and I will participate in those discussions, 237 00:15:18,620 --> 00:15:21,220 and of course I took exception to the full. 238 00:15:21,220 --> 00:15:23,540 My responsibility is in the selection. 239 00:15:23,540 --> 00:15:26,340 'On the basis of this and some of Fluck and Law's postcards, 240 00:15:26,340 --> 00:15:28,620 'we went round, we hawked our product and our CVs 241 00:15:28,620 --> 00:15:30,900 'round all the television companies.' 242 00:15:32,700 --> 00:15:38,100 I took the existing static photographs of 243 00:15:38,100 --> 00:15:42,460 Roger and Peter's models, and I combined them 244 00:15:42,460 --> 00:15:44,700 with a kind of pitch. 245 00:15:44,700 --> 00:15:48,460 Nowadays to think that you could get a multimillion pound 246 00:15:48,460 --> 00:15:52,580 television series off the ground with something like this is... 247 00:15:52,580 --> 00:15:56,260 Well, my younger colleagues in television would laugh, 248 00:15:56,260 --> 00:15:57,620 as would indeed you. 249 00:15:57,620 --> 00:16:00,020 I think I led a sheltered life. I didn't know that John 250 00:16:00,020 --> 00:16:03,300 had previously offered it to Thames or to LWT, 251 00:16:03,300 --> 00:16:07,700 and that they'd both turned it down, but I was not going to turn it down. 252 00:16:07,700 --> 00:16:11,700 I think that we needed a little bit of healthy political disrespect 253 00:16:11,700 --> 00:16:14,620 and perhaps a bit of anarchy in the weekend schedule. 254 00:16:27,220 --> 00:16:28,380 Morning, leader. 255 00:16:28,380 --> 00:16:29,660 Morning, Norman. 256 00:16:29,660 --> 00:16:32,620 Anything in the post today? Nothing much, Norman. 257 00:16:32,620 --> 00:16:34,060 EXPLOSION 258 00:16:34,060 --> 00:16:37,860 Norman Tebbit was the character that we all came to love and endure, 259 00:16:37,860 --> 00:16:40,540 both as a person and as a puppet, but Thatcher, 260 00:16:40,540 --> 00:16:44,540 as you can see, is dressed in a way that she never was in the series. 261 00:16:44,540 --> 00:16:48,140 Her eyes don't move and her voice is a completely different voice, 262 00:16:48,140 --> 00:16:50,860 cos we hadn't discovered Steve Nallon yet. 263 00:16:50,860 --> 00:16:53,580 By the way, Norman, how are your children? 264 00:16:53,580 --> 00:16:56,060 Delicious, thank you, leader. 265 00:16:56,060 --> 00:16:58,500 Really, Norman, you are a sight. 266 00:16:58,500 --> 00:17:00,980 Let me get you someone to blow your nose on. 267 00:17:02,940 --> 00:17:05,820 'I committed £60,000 to a pilot.' 268 00:17:05,820 --> 00:17:08,980 £60,000 at the time was a lot of money. 269 00:17:08,980 --> 00:17:13,020 It was certainly more than you'd commit to a sitcom pilot 270 00:17:13,020 --> 00:17:14,500 or a game show pilot. 271 00:17:14,500 --> 00:17:17,540 It was getting towards drama money, really. 272 00:17:17,540 --> 00:17:19,100 Nobody had done this before. 273 00:17:19,100 --> 00:17:22,140 The nearest they'd come to doing anything like this was The Muppets, 274 00:17:22,140 --> 00:17:25,940 and this turned out to be 1,000 times more complicated than The Muppets. 275 00:17:39,540 --> 00:17:41,580 We had to make the show in Birmingham 276 00:17:41,580 --> 00:17:43,220 because the unions insisted, 277 00:17:43,220 --> 00:17:45,860 and the unions were very powerful in those days. 278 00:17:45,860 --> 00:17:49,540 And we had to then ship the first few years all the way up to Birmingham 279 00:17:49,540 --> 00:17:51,780 in an enormous lorry, increasingly larger lorries 280 00:17:51,780 --> 00:17:53,340 as we got more and more puppets, 281 00:17:53,340 --> 00:17:55,620 and come back down again and start again, 282 00:17:55,620 --> 00:17:58,700 so the work schedule was made difficult by that 283 00:17:58,700 --> 00:18:01,500 sort of endless round and round commute, as well. 284 00:18:01,500 --> 00:18:03,980 It was quite clear we knew absolutely nothing 285 00:18:03,980 --> 00:18:07,020 about television whatsoever, about budgets, or studios, 286 00:18:07,020 --> 00:18:10,860 or...puppeteering, 287 00:18:10,860 --> 00:18:14,260 directing, script writing, script editing... 288 00:18:14,260 --> 00:18:16,140 The whole nightmare world, you know? 289 00:18:16,140 --> 00:18:18,860 John, there is still a shadow problem here, 290 00:18:18,860 --> 00:18:20,260 if we can be aware of that. 291 00:18:20,260 --> 00:18:22,060 Perhaps lighting can help? 292 00:18:22,060 --> 00:18:24,100 That's it, read them the riot act. 293 00:18:27,260 --> 00:18:30,700 We went up there to Birmingham and met a bunch of people 294 00:18:30,700 --> 00:18:33,140 who'd basically been used to making Crossroads. 295 00:18:34,380 --> 00:18:37,220 OK in five... Four, three, two, one... 296 00:18:37,220 --> 00:18:38,380 And... 297 00:18:46,780 --> 00:18:49,980 Good morning. 298 00:18:49,980 --> 00:18:52,340 I hoped we might have a word. 299 00:18:52,340 --> 00:18:53,660 So had I. 300 00:18:53,660 --> 00:18:55,180 When you're ready. 301 00:18:55,180 --> 00:18:56,420 Oh, I'm ready. 302 00:18:56,420 --> 00:18:57,700 Not here. 303 00:18:57,700 --> 00:18:58,940 When? 304 00:18:58,940 --> 00:19:00,540 We're not rushing you? 305 00:19:00,540 --> 00:19:02,020 No. 306 00:19:02,020 --> 00:19:05,060 Don't worry about me, David, I'm not easily pushed. 307 00:19:06,180 --> 00:19:07,460 How about lunch? 308 00:19:07,460 --> 00:19:11,380 # His name is Ronald Reagan and he's quite a guy... 309 00:19:13,460 --> 00:19:17,060 # You've got to re-elect him and we'll tell you why... 310 00:19:19,380 --> 00:19:23,340 And the first few weeks were awful, because they hated us. 311 00:19:23,340 --> 00:19:26,220 You know, all these beardy hippies coming up from London 312 00:19:26,220 --> 00:19:30,380 with lots of lapsed Catholics, lots of ex-communists, 313 00:19:30,380 --> 00:19:32,940 you know, mad people who'd never been in a studio, 314 00:19:32,940 --> 00:19:36,220 kept standing in front of the cameras, tripping over the wires, 315 00:19:36,220 --> 00:19:40,100 and all these decent, you know, Brummies in sort of brown suits 316 00:19:40,100 --> 00:19:44,540 and sensible brogues and all that suddenly being asked to work till... 317 00:19:44,540 --> 00:19:47,580 Well, literally all-nighters the first few weeks. 318 00:19:47,580 --> 00:19:51,300 And they just, they couldn't believe what had happened to them. 319 00:19:51,300 --> 00:19:53,260 # Yeah, he's 73. 320 00:19:53,260 --> 00:19:55,220 # Yeah, he's just ran into a tree...! # 321 00:19:59,220 --> 00:20:02,580 I always think that television's strange because there are things 322 00:20:02,580 --> 00:20:05,420 you're supposed not to do on television that people do in 323 00:20:05,420 --> 00:20:07,260 the pub or in their own homes every day. 324 00:20:07,260 --> 00:20:08,900 And that's all we're trying to do, 325 00:20:08,900 --> 00:20:11,660 just do ordinary things to make ordinary people laugh, really. 326 00:20:11,660 --> 00:20:14,300 And it's not there to offend or to outrage, 327 00:20:14,300 --> 00:20:16,540 it's there to be funny. That's the main thing. 328 00:20:16,540 --> 00:20:18,380 APPLAUSE 329 00:20:22,620 --> 00:20:25,300 First, Spitting Image, Central's new puppet show, 330 00:20:25,300 --> 00:20:27,740 which satirises people in the public eye. 331 00:20:27,740 --> 00:20:29,900 OK, here we go, chaps. 332 00:20:29,900 --> 00:20:31,180 Puppets up, please. 333 00:20:33,260 --> 00:20:35,540 Three, two, one.. And... 334 00:20:35,540 --> 00:20:37,380 'What was the first show like? 335 00:20:37,380 --> 00:20:40,380 'Well, all I can say is that none of my friends would speak to me 336 00:20:40,380 --> 00:20:42,020 'the first two or three shows. 337 00:20:42,020 --> 00:20:43,980 'They said, "Well, it's just shit, you know. 338 00:20:43,980 --> 00:20:47,220 '"It's just complete crap, what do you think you're doing?"' 339 00:20:47,220 --> 00:20:48,820 # Hail to the chief 340 00:20:48,820 --> 00:20:50,900 # Who in triumph advances 341 00:20:50,900 --> 00:20:55,260 # Honoured and blessed be the ever-green pine... # 342 00:20:56,540 --> 00:20:58,500 ALARM CLOCK RINGS 343 00:21:00,420 --> 00:21:02,060 ALARM BEEPS 344 00:21:02,060 --> 00:21:03,460 Oh, My God! 345 00:21:06,140 --> 00:21:08,500 Good morning, Mr President. Morning, Ed. 346 00:21:08,500 --> 00:21:10,300 May God be with you, Ed. 347 00:21:10,300 --> 00:21:13,060 Mr President, may God be with you. 348 00:21:13,060 --> 00:21:16,740 I'm almost affronted by the savagery of the caricatures, 349 00:21:16,740 --> 00:21:19,140 cos some of them are really very, very upsetting. 350 00:21:20,340 --> 00:21:21,940 Excuse me, sir. 351 00:21:22,980 --> 00:21:26,380 MUSIC BOX JINGLE 352 00:21:29,260 --> 00:21:31,140 Slippery little BLEEP. 353 00:21:33,580 --> 00:21:35,220 Ah, got him! 354 00:21:38,820 --> 00:21:41,420 Hang on just a second, Mr President. 355 00:21:41,420 --> 00:21:44,980 That's one, and...that'll do it. 356 00:21:44,980 --> 00:21:46,780 OK. Ready, Sir? 357 00:21:46,780 --> 00:21:49,540 It is the script, I'm afraid. 358 00:21:49,540 --> 00:21:52,060 Very patchy, and I don't know, 359 00:21:52,060 --> 00:21:55,460 I gather there's about a battalion of writers working on this, 360 00:21:55,460 --> 00:21:59,700 and I think you ought to really take one in ten out and shoot them. 361 00:21:59,700 --> 00:22:01,380 Hungry for lead, Ed. 362 00:22:01,380 --> 00:22:02,380 Oh! 363 00:22:02,380 --> 00:22:03,420 Up a little! 364 00:22:03,420 --> 00:22:04,620 Yes! 365 00:22:04,620 --> 00:22:06,060 Oh, that was good! 366 00:22:06,060 --> 00:22:07,300 Wonderful, oh! 367 00:22:07,300 --> 00:22:12,340 Fantastic, Sir. This might even get the young people on your side. 368 00:22:12,340 --> 00:22:13,780 You mean Congress? 369 00:22:13,780 --> 00:22:16,940 Sometimes it seems that they go for a target and completely 370 00:22:16,940 --> 00:22:21,100 overshoot it, and sometimes they seem to fall short of the target. 371 00:22:21,100 --> 00:22:24,660 I mean, very rarely does it seem to just hit on that very spot 372 00:22:24,660 --> 00:22:28,020 that should be, "Yes, it's a satire," I suppose. 373 00:22:28,020 --> 00:22:30,060 Will Ed Meese find the tiny organ? 374 00:22:30,060 --> 00:22:32,460 Will the president be able to function? 375 00:22:32,460 --> 00:22:35,500 Will it make any difference to US foreign policy? 376 00:22:35,500 --> 00:22:37,380 Tune in next week for the second episode of 377 00:22:37,380 --> 00:22:39,540 The President's Brain Is Missing! 378 00:22:43,180 --> 00:22:45,500 The best thing about the first programme was it allowed 379 00:22:45,500 --> 00:22:49,580 the second one to happen, and so on, cos we had to learn on our feet. 380 00:22:49,580 --> 00:22:53,060 The first few shows, there were theoretically five producers 381 00:22:53,060 --> 00:22:55,140 who had to sign off on everything, 382 00:22:55,140 --> 00:22:57,500 and it couldn't be done, we couldn't make a decision, 383 00:22:57,500 --> 00:23:01,580 so, gradually, you know, people got moved or shifted or fired, 384 00:23:01,580 --> 00:23:05,380 to the point where one person had to be the funnel. 385 00:23:05,380 --> 00:23:07,260 Argh! Ow! Ahh! 386 00:23:07,260 --> 00:23:08,860 I didn't know what I now know - 387 00:23:08,860 --> 00:23:12,340 that the team were at each other's throats for half of the time. 388 00:23:12,340 --> 00:23:14,380 I noticed you've got this cricket bat here. 389 00:23:14,380 --> 00:23:15,580 Do you play? 390 00:23:15,580 --> 00:23:17,740 No, I carry this partly out of... 391 00:23:17,740 --> 00:23:20,100 I don't know, sort of, er... 392 00:23:22,100 --> 00:23:24,100 I suppose, what's the word...? 393 00:23:24,100 --> 00:23:25,700 Affectation? Yes. 394 00:23:25,700 --> 00:23:28,940 I mean, it's a kind of totemistic thing, you know, 395 00:23:28,940 --> 00:23:30,260 but to be quite frank with you 396 00:23:30,260 --> 00:23:32,300 it's come in useful in a couple of situations. 397 00:23:32,300 --> 00:23:35,540 Certainly in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, 398 00:23:35,540 --> 00:23:38,580 having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is quite often... 399 00:23:38,580 --> 00:23:39,860 useful. 400 00:23:39,860 --> 00:23:42,780 It was quite obvious fairly soon that Tony 401 00:23:42,780 --> 00:23:45,340 and John Lloyd couldn't be... 402 00:23:45,340 --> 00:23:48,420 wouldn't work as a team of producers, 403 00:23:48,420 --> 00:23:50,300 it was either one or the other. 404 00:23:52,580 --> 00:23:54,540 Eventually, that changed 405 00:23:54,540 --> 00:23:56,940 and it became this much simpler structure, 406 00:23:56,940 --> 00:24:01,460 that Hendra left, Blair did all the money and I did all the, you know, 407 00:24:01,460 --> 00:24:04,500 basically the editorial and creative side. 408 00:24:04,500 --> 00:24:06,660 And that started to work. 409 00:24:06,660 --> 00:24:09,580 After Hendra left, Lloyd brought in two Northern boys, 410 00:24:09,580 --> 00:24:12,740 Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, to make the show funny 411 00:24:12,740 --> 00:24:15,540 and to make it topical, and they were there 412 00:24:15,540 --> 00:24:18,140 to lower the tone, and, my God, they certainly did! 413 00:24:18,140 --> 00:24:19,860 HE LAUGHS 414 00:24:19,860 --> 00:24:21,100 Ah, Larry. 415 00:24:21,100 --> 00:24:22,740 Dear, dear, Larry. 416 00:24:22,740 --> 00:24:24,020 Ah, Johnny. 417 00:24:24,020 --> 00:24:25,860 Dear, dear, dear Johnny. 418 00:24:25,860 --> 00:24:28,700 So, how've you been keeping, Johnny? 419 00:24:28,700 --> 00:24:30,220 Tell me the news. 420 00:24:30,220 --> 00:24:31,340 I've grown a beard. 421 00:24:31,340 --> 00:24:33,580 Ah! A beard! 422 00:24:33,580 --> 00:24:35,220 Splendid. 423 00:24:35,220 --> 00:24:37,020 Splendid. Where? 424 00:24:37,020 --> 00:24:38,860 Here, on the end of my chin. 425 00:24:38,860 --> 00:24:41,020 Of course, there it is, of course. 426 00:24:41,020 --> 00:24:42,460 How foolish of me. 427 00:24:42,460 --> 00:24:44,740 No, no, no, no, it's not there now. 428 00:24:44,740 --> 00:24:46,660 It fell off this morning over breakfast. 429 00:24:46,660 --> 00:24:48,500 Dear beard. 430 00:24:48,500 --> 00:24:50,100 Dear, dear, dear beardy. 431 00:24:50,100 --> 00:24:52,220 Yes, poor beardy. 432 00:24:52,220 --> 00:24:55,100 I loved old beardy. We both did. 433 00:24:55,100 --> 00:24:57,340 A scone? They're gone. 434 00:24:57,340 --> 00:24:59,220 Sconey? Gone? 435 00:24:59,220 --> 00:25:00,540 Poor sconey. 436 00:25:00,540 --> 00:25:01,940 They've all gone now. 437 00:25:03,580 --> 00:25:06,540 Beardy, sconey, Rafey. All gone. 438 00:25:08,260 --> 00:25:10,660 After a while, it became sort of a mix 439 00:25:10,660 --> 00:25:15,340 and the puppeteers and the, the puppet makers would come up 440 00:25:15,340 --> 00:25:17,460 with ideas for puppets, 441 00:25:17,460 --> 00:25:20,420 which we would incorporate and we would come up with ideas 442 00:25:20,420 --> 00:25:22,540 for puppets which they would go and build. 443 00:25:22,540 --> 00:25:25,740 The pressure meant that you could never make things properly. 444 00:25:25,740 --> 00:25:29,780 You'd get phone calls from John Lloyd in Central saying, 445 00:25:29,780 --> 00:25:34,500 "I need eight camels by the morning, Rog, can you do that?" 446 00:25:34,500 --> 00:25:37,060 And all of that really got on your nerves, 447 00:25:37,060 --> 00:25:39,540 because you never really did anything. 448 00:25:39,540 --> 00:25:42,380 But the trade-off was you could make the political statements 449 00:25:42,380 --> 00:25:45,060 you wanted to make, so it was sort of worth it. 450 00:25:45,060 --> 00:25:47,100 Why do we pay a police constable who's just started 451 00:25:47,100 --> 00:25:48,820 more than we pay a ward sister? 452 00:25:48,820 --> 00:25:51,580 Tell him, Norman!! 453 00:25:51,580 --> 00:25:53,380 Yes, leader. 454 00:25:53,380 --> 00:25:57,300 Foul pest, when were you last in an NHS hospital 455 00:25:57,300 --> 00:25:58,740 for, let's say... 456 00:25:58,740 --> 00:26:01,100 concussion, or... 457 00:26:01,100 --> 00:26:03,140 double concussion? 458 00:26:03,140 --> 00:26:06,180 Never. I've got private healthcare. 459 00:26:06,180 --> 00:26:07,300 Exactemoi! 460 00:26:07,300 --> 00:26:09,740 Now, when did you last cause a near riot 461 00:26:09,740 --> 00:26:14,340 by depriving the NHS of nurses and doctors and extra funds? 462 00:26:15,660 --> 00:26:17,740 I do that all the time! 463 00:26:17,740 --> 00:26:18,860 CRUNCH Exactemoi. 464 00:26:18,860 --> 00:26:22,620 Ergo, you need police protection. 465 00:26:22,620 --> 00:26:25,500 You mean we pay the police a high salary to protect us 466 00:26:25,500 --> 00:26:27,580 from the people we take the money from 467 00:26:27,580 --> 00:26:28,980 to pay the police a high salary? 468 00:26:28,980 --> 00:26:30,100 Yeah. 469 00:26:30,100 --> 00:26:33,220 And it was the puppeteers saying the scripts weren't any good... 470 00:26:33,220 --> 00:26:36,500 LAUGHTER The voice-over people saying the scripts weren't any good... 471 00:26:36,500 --> 00:26:38,860 BOTH: The critics saying the scripts weren't any good. 472 00:26:38,860 --> 00:26:40,540 Yes, I remember that bit. 473 00:26:40,540 --> 00:26:41,940 When Spitting Image started, 474 00:26:41,940 --> 00:26:44,260 many reviews said the puppets were brilliant 475 00:26:44,260 --> 00:26:46,980 but the scripts were terrible, and as I had nothing to do 476 00:26:46,980 --> 00:26:49,820 with making the puppets and I was responsible for the scripts, 477 00:26:49,820 --> 00:26:51,060 I was a little bit hurt. 478 00:26:51,060 --> 00:26:54,220 The puppets are brilliant, but I don't think much of the script. 479 00:26:54,220 --> 00:26:56,740 I had a wonderful letter from a woman who said 480 00:26:56,740 --> 00:26:59,460 she couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. 481 00:26:59,460 --> 00:27:02,660 Because she thought the scripts were absolutely wonderful, 482 00:27:02,660 --> 00:27:05,580 but she couldn't comment on whether the puppets were any good or not 483 00:27:05,580 --> 00:27:07,260 because she was blind. 484 00:27:07,260 --> 00:27:11,620 Would you like to order, Sir? Yes, I will have a steak. 485 00:27:11,620 --> 00:27:13,980 How'd you like it? Raw, please. 486 00:27:13,980 --> 00:27:15,700 And what about the vegetables? 487 00:27:15,700 --> 00:27:18,060 Oh, they'll have the same as me. 488 00:27:33,620 --> 00:27:36,620 In the past, most caricaturists have worked by themselves. 489 00:27:38,380 --> 00:27:42,740 Now, I think the best caricaturists are obsessive. 490 00:27:42,740 --> 00:27:44,980 The best ones work obsessively. 491 00:27:44,980 --> 00:27:48,540 And I think probably have a deeply distrustful nature. 492 00:27:48,540 --> 00:27:51,340 And maybe romantics or idealists, 493 00:27:51,340 --> 00:27:54,260 or moralists or social reformers, 494 00:27:54,260 --> 00:27:57,020 they object to what's around them, 495 00:27:57,020 --> 00:28:01,340 but the ability to make people laugh at a funny face 496 00:28:01,340 --> 00:28:03,340 is a fascinating tool and a weapon. 497 00:28:06,380 --> 00:28:09,020 When I look back on Spitting Image all those years ago, 498 00:28:09,020 --> 00:28:12,540 and let's face, it is 30 years ago, as we know, 499 00:28:12,540 --> 00:28:16,780 it seems like it happened to somebody else, so I can look at it now 500 00:28:16,780 --> 00:28:21,500 in a very kind of forgiving, cheerful way, the pain has long since gone. 501 00:28:23,220 --> 00:28:27,100 I don't throw my dinner at the television any more. 502 00:28:27,100 --> 00:28:28,900 That's a good sign. You know. 503 00:28:28,900 --> 00:28:30,380 HE LAUGHS 504 00:28:30,380 --> 00:28:34,300 But that was the kind of thing that made you want to do Spitting Image. 505 00:28:34,300 --> 00:28:36,980 But, you know, just be careful of what you want. 506 00:28:36,980 --> 00:28:39,140 You needed huge amounts of energy. 507 00:28:39,140 --> 00:28:41,380 I mean, the amount of, you know... 508 00:28:43,180 --> 00:28:46,820 ..uplifting drugs that went through Spitting Image so that people 509 00:28:46,820 --> 00:28:52,380 could actually cope with the amount of work, 60 hours, 80 hours a week. 510 00:28:54,820 --> 00:28:57,700 The only people that survived at Spitting Image were people 511 00:28:57,700 --> 00:28:59,300 who had high energy. 512 00:29:15,740 --> 00:29:18,940 We used to be a nice two-handed partnership, a couple of gentlemen 513 00:29:18,940 --> 00:29:22,540 in velvet jackets and shiny shoes producing caricatures for the press. 514 00:29:22,540 --> 00:29:23,900 But things have changed, 515 00:29:23,900 --> 00:29:26,900 now we're satisfying the needs of television in this factory. 516 00:29:26,900 --> 00:29:29,940 Yes, the London Enterprise Board's answer to Gdansk. 517 00:29:29,940 --> 00:29:32,540 This is the first caricature sweatshop in the world. 518 00:29:32,540 --> 00:29:33,740 Perhaps the last. 519 00:29:33,740 --> 00:29:35,900 And it's full of very young people who have to sleep 520 00:29:35,900 --> 00:29:38,340 under the benches at night. If they get any sleep at all. 521 00:29:44,340 --> 00:29:47,660 Well, the very first thing is the photographic reference comes in 522 00:29:47,660 --> 00:29:49,820 and then we go over there to the modelling. 523 00:29:49,820 --> 00:29:53,540 When the modelling's completed it goes into the mould room, 524 00:29:53,540 --> 00:29:55,180 where it's moulded. 525 00:29:55,180 --> 00:29:58,020 There are master moulders over there. 526 00:29:58,020 --> 00:29:59,980 Once the thing's moulded 527 00:29:59,980 --> 00:30:02,260 it then goes into the foam room to be foamed. 528 00:30:02,260 --> 00:30:06,140 Once it's foamed it comes back over here to the puppet makers 529 00:30:06,140 --> 00:30:08,780 who fit up the skulls inside. 530 00:30:08,780 --> 00:30:11,460 They also make the eyes over there by the machine shop 531 00:30:11,460 --> 00:30:13,260 and they're then fitted in. 532 00:30:13,260 --> 00:30:16,340 Then after that it goes through to this room again to be painted, 533 00:30:16,340 --> 00:30:18,460 for the paint work to be done. 534 00:30:18,460 --> 00:30:20,900 You see that stack of boxes over there? 535 00:30:20,900 --> 00:30:23,540 They're put into boxes in alphabetical order, 536 00:30:23,540 --> 00:30:26,260 taken down in that very small lift that you saw, 537 00:30:26,260 --> 00:30:28,420 on to a lorry and driven to Birmingham, 538 00:30:28,420 --> 00:30:30,020 where the show's made in three days. 539 00:30:31,460 --> 00:30:34,420 I know, I know, let's call him Bing! 540 00:30:34,420 --> 00:30:38,140 We haven't had a Bing in the family for ages. No. 541 00:30:38,140 --> 00:30:40,220 I still don't see what's wrong with Charles. 542 00:30:40,220 --> 00:30:41,980 We're not going to call him Charles! 543 00:30:41,980 --> 00:30:43,860 OK, how about Dick? 544 00:30:43,860 --> 00:30:45,780 No, no, wait, John Thomas. 545 00:30:45,780 --> 00:30:46,980 No! No, no, no. 546 00:30:46,980 --> 00:30:50,940 Listen, here's one - Zorba, or Stavros. 547 00:30:50,940 --> 00:30:52,780 Gordon's nice. 548 00:30:52,780 --> 00:30:54,820 We're not calling him Gordon. 549 00:30:54,820 --> 00:30:58,340 Look, I'm going to settle the whole thing - Donna. 550 00:30:58,340 --> 00:31:00,460 Oh, like Donna Summer? 551 00:31:00,460 --> 00:31:02,220 No, doner kebab! 552 00:31:02,220 --> 00:31:05,380 Theakston's Old Peculiar!! 553 00:31:05,380 --> 00:31:09,060 Look, here's a totally off-the-wall suggestion... 554 00:31:09,060 --> 00:31:11,500 ALL: No, not Charles! 555 00:31:11,500 --> 00:31:12,780 Ahem. 556 00:31:12,780 --> 00:31:16,140 Ah, we're trying to think of a name for the baby, darling. 557 00:31:16,140 --> 00:31:17,980 Tell me what you think of...? No, no. 558 00:31:17,980 --> 00:31:20,780 I've decided he's going to be called Henry. 559 00:31:20,780 --> 00:31:23,220 What? Henry? Yah. 560 00:31:23,220 --> 00:31:24,820 Why Henry? 561 00:31:24,820 --> 00:31:27,180 Well, all my friends are called Henry, OK? 562 00:31:27,180 --> 00:31:29,860 Oh, wonderful, hooray! Henry it is then. 563 00:31:29,860 --> 00:31:31,300 Yes, hooray, Henry! 564 00:31:31,300 --> 00:31:33,580 Good, I'll christen him. 565 00:31:34,620 --> 00:31:37,260 I name this baby Henry. 566 00:31:37,260 --> 00:31:40,500 May God bless him and all who sail in him. 567 00:31:40,500 --> 00:31:42,140 BABY WAILS 568 00:31:43,540 --> 00:31:45,820 Oh, what a waste! 569 00:31:47,460 --> 00:31:50,620 Spitting Image caused such a stir that for the first six shows - 570 00:31:50,620 --> 00:31:52,860 I believe uniquely in the history of television - 571 00:31:52,860 --> 00:31:56,100 I had actually to go to defend it line by line 572 00:31:56,100 --> 00:32:00,220 and word for word to the Independent Broadcasting Authority 573 00:32:00,220 --> 00:32:02,100 at their headquarters in the Brompton Road. 574 00:32:02,100 --> 00:32:04,740 UPPER CLASS VOICE: "Oh, yes, hello again, John." 575 00:32:04,740 --> 00:32:06,180 Norman? 576 00:32:07,340 --> 00:32:09,140 Yes, leader? 577 00:32:10,740 --> 00:32:12,340 Argh! 578 00:32:12,340 --> 00:32:16,340 'The business of Mr Tebbit drinking a human body - 579 00:32:16,340 --> 00:32:18,140 'do you find that amusing?' 580 00:32:18,140 --> 00:32:20,740 I said, "Oh, no, sir, I don't find it amusing at all." 581 00:32:20,740 --> 00:32:22,580 "You don't find it amusing?" 582 00:32:22,580 --> 00:32:24,500 "No, it's not meant to be funny, sir." 583 00:32:24,500 --> 00:32:26,020 "Not funny?" 584 00:32:26,020 --> 00:32:30,340 "No, sir, as you will remember, it's actually an homage 585 00:32:30,340 --> 00:32:34,380 "to Dean Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal of 1729, 586 00:32:34,380 --> 00:32:37,180 "where he suggests that if the Irish 587 00:32:37,180 --> 00:32:39,980 "are short of potatoes because of the famine, 588 00:32:39,980 --> 00:32:42,860 "there are plenty of babies for them to eat instead." 589 00:32:42,860 --> 00:32:44,580 "Oh! 590 00:32:44,580 --> 00:32:47,380 "Oh, satire! Oh, lovely! 591 00:32:47,380 --> 00:32:49,980 "Lovely, lovely. That's fine." 592 00:32:49,980 --> 00:32:52,620 Caricature is exaggeration. 593 00:32:52,620 --> 00:32:54,740 Punch and Judy would be... 594 00:32:54,740 --> 00:32:56,620 It's about hitting each other. 595 00:32:56,620 --> 00:32:58,940 It's about being... 596 00:32:58,940 --> 00:33:02,220 It's about being extremely rude, 597 00:33:02,220 --> 00:33:04,260 which I had a talent for, 598 00:33:04,260 --> 00:33:06,540 so, finally... HE LAUGHS 599 00:33:07,700 --> 00:33:15,140 The puppets have the same advantage as an animated Disney character has. 600 00:33:15,140 --> 00:33:18,100 You can run it over with a car, it would go flat 601 00:33:18,100 --> 00:33:22,260 and then get and up stand up again and go back into business. 602 00:33:22,260 --> 00:33:25,620 Well, with puppets, you can bang 'em around. 603 00:33:25,620 --> 00:33:27,980 As television comedy, Spitting Image goes 604 00:33:27,980 --> 00:33:31,620 probably a lot further than That Was The Week went. 605 00:33:31,620 --> 00:33:33,460 But people are less shocked. 606 00:33:33,460 --> 00:33:36,300 You can't come on and have Millicent Martin singing 607 00:33:36,300 --> 00:33:40,260 mildly topical songs. No-one's going to say, "Ooh!" anymore. 608 00:33:40,260 --> 00:33:42,780 You have to go further than that to get people's attention. 609 00:33:44,140 --> 00:33:47,660 Just cut it in a style that will be universally popular. 610 00:33:47,660 --> 00:33:49,340 Certainly, madam. 611 00:33:52,460 --> 00:33:54,780 The skills came from, you know, 612 00:33:54,780 --> 00:33:59,980 us having to find people who could help us. 613 00:33:59,980 --> 00:34:04,100 And for us it was the people who had worked with The Muppet Show. 614 00:34:05,740 --> 00:34:07,580 Oh, I'm 92! Shut up! 615 00:34:07,580 --> 00:34:09,580 Get out of my way! 616 00:34:09,580 --> 00:34:13,140 'You can't really see, and to try and mask your head 617 00:34:13,140 --> 00:34:16,860 'as much as possible you've got the clothes over your face. 618 00:34:16,860 --> 00:34:21,300 'You've got wires dangling off you for the eyes, and you've' 619 00:34:21,300 --> 00:34:25,140 probably got another person wrapped around you operating a hand, 620 00:34:25,140 --> 00:34:26,940 who if you move comes with you. 621 00:34:26,940 --> 00:34:28,820 Puppeteers know each other, 622 00:34:28,820 --> 00:34:30,580 so you find a puppeteer, 623 00:34:30,580 --> 00:34:34,100 you'll get ten others knocking on the door. 624 00:34:35,700 --> 00:34:39,060 How do you see what the puppet's doing then? 625 00:34:39,060 --> 00:34:43,060 Well, we have a monitor, a television monitor at our feet 626 00:34:43,060 --> 00:34:46,500 we can look down at and see exactly what's going on. 627 00:34:46,500 --> 00:34:49,580 The picture on the monitor is reversed so that 628 00:34:49,580 --> 00:34:51,260 we've actually got a mirror. 629 00:34:52,380 --> 00:34:54,540 This is for item 19. 630 00:34:54,540 --> 00:34:56,860 This is the 19th set of the programme. 631 00:34:56,860 --> 00:34:58,540 19 in one day?! 632 00:34:58,540 --> 00:35:01,220 I think we've got round to 19, yeah. 633 00:35:01,220 --> 00:35:03,060 'We have to put everything at two feet. 634 00:35:03,060 --> 00:35:05,220 'That was decided after many experiments, 635 00:35:05,220 --> 00:35:06,580 'that that was the optimum! 636 00:35:06,580 --> 00:35:08,060 'So everything's two feet, 637 00:35:08,060 --> 00:35:10,980 'so our floor is always two feet from the studio floor.' 638 00:35:10,980 --> 00:35:13,820 And this is all the thanks I get. Oh, bollocks! 639 00:35:13,820 --> 00:35:16,500 'After the first probably six, eight shows 640 00:35:16,500 --> 00:35:19,340 'you had a crew that was all onside, 641 00:35:19,340 --> 00:35:23,060 'that everybody was prepared to put in these hours,' 642 00:35:23,060 --> 00:35:25,500 and they believed in it, because these same guys, 643 00:35:25,500 --> 00:35:28,500 who'd go to the pub formerly and said, "I make Crossroads," 644 00:35:28,500 --> 00:35:30,060 and people go, "Oh, yeah? Really?", 645 00:35:30,060 --> 00:35:32,660 they say, "I make Spitting Image." "You do Spitting Image?!" 646 00:35:32,660 --> 00:35:34,540 '"Yeah, I do all the sound effects."' 647 00:35:34,540 --> 00:35:38,460 Yes, I tell you what, er, let's use the cup. 648 00:35:39,580 --> 00:35:41,660 Er, you put the mic up, John? Yep. 649 00:35:43,460 --> 00:35:45,380 Once again, then. 650 00:35:48,860 --> 00:35:51,340 SQUEAKING 651 00:35:53,900 --> 00:35:59,220 'We employed some terrifically talented young guys 652 00:35:59,220 --> 00:36:01,780 'who were much cleverer than we were, 653 00:36:01,780 --> 00:36:04,180 'who could really do it, you know, 654 00:36:04,180 --> 00:36:07,420 'Tim Watts, David Stoten, Pablo Bach.' 655 00:36:09,260 --> 00:36:13,140 'We have about...between anything from about three costumes 656 00:36:13,140 --> 00:36:15,740 'to about ten costumes to make in two days,' 657 00:36:15,740 --> 00:36:18,820 so some weeks you might get a bit more time 658 00:36:18,820 --> 00:36:21,620 and other weeks you don't get any time at all. 659 00:36:22,780 --> 00:36:25,740 'I've got a feeling, with Mrs Thatcher, 660 00:36:25,740 --> 00:36:28,740 'that if I was going to improve her image that's exactly what' 661 00:36:28,740 --> 00:36:30,180 I would have suggested, 662 00:36:30,180 --> 00:36:33,220 that she actually does go in for a three-quarter wig 663 00:36:33,220 --> 00:36:37,060 and has a permanent hairdo, and almost...a guaranteed image. 664 00:36:42,980 --> 00:36:45,820 ROGER: 'One of the lifers on the team was Scott Brooker, 665 00:36:45,820 --> 00:36:49,660 'and he was the only person that knew how to make a proper puppet. 666 00:36:51,060 --> 00:36:52,540 'Out of all of us. 667 00:36:52,540 --> 00:36:55,420 'And all the animals you see, the white cat, the dogs, 668 00:36:55,420 --> 00:36:58,780 'the anteater, they're all Scott Brooker's.' 669 00:36:58,780 --> 00:37:00,900 Yeeees? HE SIGHS 670 00:37:00,900 --> 00:37:03,140 Who is it? 671 00:37:03,140 --> 00:37:06,220 For my age I'm wearing quite well. 672 00:37:06,220 --> 00:37:10,420 Little rips in the latex start to appear as one gets older. 673 00:37:10,420 --> 00:37:13,380 That's the trouble with being a puppet. 674 00:37:13,380 --> 00:37:15,860 ROGER: 'We had the very, very best voice artists 675 00:37:15,860 --> 00:37:17,940 'but at first it was all impersonation, 676 00:37:17,940 --> 00:37:20,300 'and Harry Enfield made the breakthrough. 677 00:37:20,300 --> 00:37:22,180 'He took one look at the puppet 678 00:37:22,180 --> 00:37:24,980 'and thought, "This has to be a voice caricature," 679 00:37:24,980 --> 00:37:26,820 'and that's the way it went.' 680 00:37:26,820 --> 00:37:30,660 Douglas Hurd's another one of mine that I used to do. 681 00:37:30,660 --> 00:37:32,140 When he first came in... 682 00:37:32,140 --> 00:37:35,820 I decided to do him because Leon Brittan got sacked and he got... 683 00:37:35,820 --> 00:37:37,660 And I thought, I might be out of a job, 684 00:37:37,660 --> 00:37:39,860 I'd better learn the new Home Secretary. 685 00:37:39,860 --> 00:37:43,940 And, er, I heard him and, you know, he's always very slightly irritated, 686 00:37:43,940 --> 00:37:46,580 isn't he, just very slightly, in normal life. 687 00:37:46,580 --> 00:37:49,420 It doesn't matter what you ask him, "How's it going in the Middle East?" 688 00:37:49,420 --> 00:37:51,740 and he says, "Well, it's not a question of how it's GOING." 689 00:37:51,740 --> 00:37:52,820 Just very slightly cross. 690 00:37:52,820 --> 00:37:55,100 But, erm...the puppet... 691 00:37:55,100 --> 00:37:58,020 Roger Law came up with this ridiculous puppet 692 00:37:58,020 --> 00:37:59,980 with a sort of ice-cream-cone head, 693 00:37:59,980 --> 00:38:02,860 and it was obvious it needed a sort of huge sort of voice, 694 00:38:02,860 --> 00:38:04,860 so I just turned him into Fozzie Bear, 695 00:38:04,860 --> 00:38:07,820 and took the sort of slight growl in his voice, 696 00:38:07,820 --> 00:38:12,740 and MADE IT INTO A HUGE GROWL... so that the whole head could move, 697 00:38:12,740 --> 00:38:14,540 and then it worked with the puppet. 698 00:38:17,460 --> 00:38:20,300 There's been a bomb in Oxford Street! 699 00:38:20,300 --> 00:38:23,300 There's been a bomb in Oxford Street!! 700 00:38:23,300 --> 00:38:27,620 Who's responsible? You are, you dreadful old witch!! 701 00:38:28,940 --> 00:38:32,140 'Chris Barrie, he worked as a puppeteer. 702 00:38:32,140 --> 00:38:34,980 'He really could take a voice apart.' 703 00:38:34,980 --> 00:38:36,900 AS RONALD REAGAN: When I became president, 704 00:38:36,900 --> 00:38:38,220 someone told me I had a voice. 705 00:38:38,220 --> 00:38:40,940 Then I opened my mouth...hahahaha... and here it came. 706 00:38:40,940 --> 00:38:44,660 Splendid. I'm still discovering many other things about my body. 707 00:38:44,660 --> 00:38:47,580 And Mags is helping me. Aren't you, Mags? No, Ronnie, I'm not. 708 00:38:47,580 --> 00:38:49,340 Is this a two-shot? 709 00:38:49,340 --> 00:38:54,260 One of my treasured memories is John Lloyd saying, "This is Steve Nallon. 710 00:38:54,260 --> 00:38:56,220 "He's Mrs Thatcher." 711 00:38:56,220 --> 00:38:57,660 Ha-ha-ha-ha! 712 00:38:57,660 --> 00:39:00,860 You know, Spitting Image portray me as someone who is out of touch, 713 00:39:00,860 --> 00:39:04,700 someone who has no humanity. Well, the truth is, I care. 714 00:39:04,700 --> 00:39:06,780 I care a great deal. 715 00:39:06,780 --> 00:39:09,940 I care, I care, I care, and don't you ever forget it! 716 00:39:09,940 --> 00:39:12,900 The rhythm of the voice is more important than the sort of tone. 717 00:39:12,900 --> 00:39:15,300 For example, you can do an impression of Hattersley 718 00:39:15,300 --> 00:39:16,780 without actually speaking. 719 00:39:16,780 --> 00:39:18,980 So you can go, "Buh-buh-buh-bluh-bluh, 720 00:39:18,980 --> 00:39:23,700 "bluh-buh-bluh, buh-buh-bluh-buh. Bluh-buh-bluh, buh-bluh! Bluh-buh." 721 00:39:23,700 --> 00:39:26,780 And you get an idea of what he's saying, even though 722 00:39:26,780 --> 00:39:29,820 he isn't making any...words, because the rhythm's there. 723 00:39:29,820 --> 00:39:31,580 I've gone off the idea of red, Roy. 724 00:39:31,580 --> 00:39:34,260 Yes, Neil. Red's too... Too... ..red. Too red. 725 00:39:34,260 --> 00:39:37,020 It says red all over it. I prefer grey, like this. 726 00:39:37,020 --> 00:39:38,860 Er, that's blue, Neil. 727 00:39:38,860 --> 00:39:42,340 No, bluey-grey. And I'm a bit concerned about the name Labour. 728 00:39:42,340 --> 00:39:44,340 Labour. Makes us sound like a bunch of lefties. 729 00:39:44,340 --> 00:39:45,540 We are a bunch of lefties. 730 00:39:45,540 --> 00:39:47,260 But Labour sounds totally wrong. 731 00:39:47,260 --> 00:39:50,900 You can't imagine saying Labour Government or Labour Prime Minister. 732 00:39:50,900 --> 00:39:54,500 Well, what would you prefer? Something beginning with, er, a C. 733 00:39:54,500 --> 00:39:57,980 Er, C... C... Con... Conservation Party. It starts well. 734 00:39:57,980 --> 00:40:01,220 Er, Neil, are you thinking what I'm thinking? 735 00:40:01,220 --> 00:40:02,580 Put the wig on, Roy. 736 00:40:04,300 --> 00:40:05,580 How's it feel? 737 00:40:05,580 --> 00:40:10,180 I have this strange urge to kiss Ronald Reagan's leathery bottom. 738 00:40:10,180 --> 00:40:11,140 MUSIC 739 00:40:22,140 --> 00:40:24,980 It was getting 15 million viewers. 740 00:40:24,980 --> 00:40:27,820 That was more people than it took to elect the Tory government, 741 00:40:27,820 --> 00:40:30,300 which I think was 13 and a half million voters, 742 00:40:30,300 --> 00:40:35,580 and it gave you an extraordinary amount of clout. 743 00:40:35,580 --> 00:40:37,380 'Both of you are the same height. 744 00:40:37,380 --> 00:40:39,580 'Why do you think the Spitting Image people came up with 745 00:40:39,580 --> 00:40:42,260 'the notion that YOU were in the brass pocket? 746 00:40:42,260 --> 00:40:44,540 'Is it because David Owen seemed the more saturnine...?' 747 00:40:44,540 --> 00:40:47,060 'No, David's taller than I am. No, I'm quite a bit taller. 748 00:40:47,060 --> 00:40:48,780 'I think that... 749 00:40:48,780 --> 00:40:52,220 'I mean, I was always portrayed in cartoons as being very small, 750 00:40:52,220 --> 00:40:54,220 'which I don't think I am particularly, 751 00:40:54,220 --> 00:40:55,300 I'm 5 foot 9 and a half, 752 00:40:55,300 --> 00:40:57,980 'but that was the way the cartoonists saw me.' 753 00:40:57,980 --> 00:41:00,540 Apparently the Liberal Party did a survey which showed 754 00:41:00,540 --> 00:41:02,900 that our portrayal of David Steel 755 00:41:02,900 --> 00:41:04,780 did them enormous electoral harm, 756 00:41:04,780 --> 00:41:07,020 which we didn't necessarily set out to do. 757 00:41:07,020 --> 00:41:08,660 Who will be the leader? 758 00:41:08,660 --> 00:41:13,420 Again, David, one word from your name and one word from mine. I see. 759 00:41:13,420 --> 00:41:14,700 Er, which words? 760 00:41:14,700 --> 00:41:18,380 Well, from yours, David, I thought we'd take the word David. 761 00:41:18,380 --> 00:41:22,500 David. And from yours, David? Errrrr.... 762 00:41:22,500 --> 00:41:24,940 What about Owen? 763 00:41:24,940 --> 00:41:29,700 So, it's David Owen, head of the Social Democratic Party? 764 00:41:29,700 --> 00:41:33,060 Well, that's put my mind at rest. Thank you very much, David. 765 00:41:34,380 --> 00:41:37,620 David, have you just burst the hot water bottle? 766 00:41:37,620 --> 00:41:40,540 No, David, I... DAVID OWEN GROANS 767 00:41:40,540 --> 00:41:43,620 We can't take the blame for bringing them down. 768 00:41:43,620 --> 00:41:46,460 I mean, it's hardly our fault. And we were just... 769 00:41:46,460 --> 00:41:48,660 I think Spitting Image just does mirror 770 00:41:48,660 --> 00:41:50,380 what's going on in the real world. 771 00:41:50,380 --> 00:41:52,780 And is this the first time puppets have been at the top? 772 00:41:52,780 --> 00:41:55,580 Up ten at one, The Chicken Song, Spitting Image. 773 00:41:55,580 --> 00:41:59,500 # ..chicken in the air, stick a deck chair up your nose 774 00:41:59,500 --> 00:42:03,340 # Buy a jumbo jet and then bury all your clothes 775 00:42:03,340 --> 00:42:07,980 # Paint your left knee green then extract your wisdom teeth 776 00:42:07,980 --> 00:42:13,860 # Form a string quartet and pretend your name is Keith... # 777 00:42:13,860 --> 00:42:16,420 CHICKEN SONG ON RADIO 778 00:42:16,420 --> 00:42:18,140 JOHN: 'In Birmingham I'd get up 779 00:42:18,140 --> 00:42:20,540 'at five in the morning to read all the papers 780 00:42:20,540 --> 00:42:24,020 'and then have studio all day, all the way through the day, 781 00:42:24,020 --> 00:42:26,900 'and at lunch break you'd have writing problems.' 782 00:42:26,900 --> 00:42:28,980 # Wear salami in your ears 783 00:42:28,980 --> 00:42:32,820 # Casserole your gran Disembowel yourself... # 784 00:42:32,820 --> 00:42:35,780 'When the recording was finished at normal time, 785 00:42:35,780 --> 00:42:38,820 'six or seven o'clock, then there'd be all the issues. 786 00:42:38,820 --> 00:42:40,460 'You know, angry puppeteers, 787 00:42:40,460 --> 00:42:44,140 '"I don't want to work with him, he smells," or whatever it is, 788 00:42:44,140 --> 00:42:46,580 'and so you'd have four pints of lager 789 00:42:46,580 --> 00:42:50,260 'and then there'd be arguments about the miners' strike 790 00:42:50,260 --> 00:42:52,820 'or Roger would throw a sofa at me.' 791 00:42:52,820 --> 00:42:56,420 John and I used to have incredible stand-up screaming matches, 792 00:42:56,420 --> 00:42:57,700 you know. 793 00:42:57,700 --> 00:42:59,540 And he'd say... 794 00:42:59,540 --> 00:43:03,220 "Well, I mean, your just sort of left wing...diatribe, Rog," 795 00:43:03,220 --> 00:43:06,700 and you'd say, "She's not interested in the left wing any more, John, 796 00:43:06,700 --> 00:43:08,740 "she's interested in people like you! 797 00:43:08,740 --> 00:43:14,300 "Reasonable liberals!" Meaning Mrs Thatcher? Yes. Mrs Thatcher. 798 00:43:14,300 --> 00:43:17,460 "She's after your tail now, mate, she's finished with us." 799 00:43:18,820 --> 00:43:21,180 And so those conversations... 800 00:43:21,180 --> 00:43:24,020 I doubt those conversations happen in... 801 00:43:24,020 --> 00:43:27,620 even in the newsrooms in the television these days. 802 00:43:27,620 --> 00:43:30,180 'And I'd fall into bed exhausted at about 2:30 in the morning 803 00:43:30,180 --> 00:43:32,300 'and have to get up in two hours. 804 00:43:32,300 --> 00:43:35,020 'And I would often find myself sitting in the bath, 805 00:43:35,020 --> 00:43:37,580 'aged 31 or 32, just crying, just thinking, 806 00:43:37,580 --> 00:43:40,580 'nobody should have to do this, this is impossible. 807 00:43:40,580 --> 00:43:43,220 HORROR FILM STYLE MUSIC 808 00:43:47,460 --> 00:43:50,780 'It was very much more complicated than anything I'd done. 809 00:43:50,780 --> 00:43:53,500 'And Geoffrey Perkins kind of saved my life 810 00:43:53,500 --> 00:43:55,540 'by coming in on the third series 811 00:43:55,540 --> 00:43:59,060 'to produce it and run it, so I could kind of relax a bit.' 812 00:44:08,340 --> 00:44:11,380 Ooh-er, world driving championship. 813 00:44:11,380 --> 00:44:14,140 'I started on the show as a script editor 814 00:44:14,140 --> 00:44:16,940 'and six months later I was producing it.' 815 00:44:16,940 --> 00:44:19,220 Which was... Which was fantastic. 816 00:44:19,220 --> 00:44:21,420 'By the end of the third series it was running. 817 00:44:21,420 --> 00:44:23,460 'You know, it was a machine. 818 00:44:23,460 --> 00:44:26,700 'Geoffrey took over, he was very good at it, erm, 819 00:44:26,700 --> 00:44:29,740 'and there was nothing for me to do, really. 820 00:44:30,780 --> 00:44:34,460 'Well, I left Spitting Image in a huff, I was kind of tired out,' 821 00:44:34,460 --> 00:44:37,940 and resigned, and so after Spitting Image I went off to do 822 00:44:37,940 --> 00:44:41,580 two series of Blackadder, the third and the fourth series, 823 00:44:41,580 --> 00:44:43,820 and I was briefly a television presenter. 824 00:44:43,820 --> 00:44:46,220 I basically decided, "I'm going to have some fun now. 825 00:44:46,220 --> 00:44:48,260 "I don't want to be a public servant any more." 826 00:44:48,260 --> 00:44:51,140 Geoffrey Hicklin from Nottingham rang in to say that he finds 827 00:44:51,140 --> 00:44:53,660 Spitting Image very irresponsible. 828 00:44:53,660 --> 00:44:59,020 "It's disrespectful to government leaders and to royalty." Good. 829 00:44:59,020 --> 00:45:02,980 Do you bother about what people think? Er, yes, we do. I... 830 00:45:02,980 --> 00:45:05,540 I'm glad that he does find it's irresponsible 831 00:45:05,540 --> 00:45:09,420 and disrespectful because that is exactly what it's supposed to be. 832 00:45:09,420 --> 00:45:12,820 As you know, I won't be here forever. GASPS 833 00:45:12,820 --> 00:45:17,900 And my successor, well, might be someone from round this table, 834 00:45:17,900 --> 00:45:21,740 because you are the only people I feel I can trust these days. 835 00:45:21,740 --> 00:45:23,340 CLEARING OF THROATS 836 00:45:23,340 --> 00:45:26,300 About that, Margaret... What?! 837 00:45:26,300 --> 00:45:31,100 I'm afraid we just can't work with you any more. What do you mean?! 838 00:45:32,340 --> 00:45:35,220 No! Yes! Yes! Yes! 839 00:45:47,220 --> 00:45:48,580 One, two, three, four! 840 00:45:48,580 --> 00:45:52,900 # Happy days are here again, the skies above are clear again 841 00:45:52,900 --> 00:45:57,820 # We'll sing a song of cheer again, happy days are here again! # 842 00:45:57,820 --> 00:45:59,340 Hooray! 843 00:46:04,820 --> 00:46:07,420 Politicians today strike me as being so much more colourless than 844 00:46:07,420 --> 00:46:10,140 they were, sort of five, even ten years ago. Er, that's... 845 00:46:10,140 --> 00:46:14,740 Is that a problem? It is a problem. PEOPLE are more bland these days. 846 00:46:14,740 --> 00:46:18,140 I mean, you know, the pop stars like Jason Donovan, 847 00:46:18,140 --> 00:46:21,140 they're not as sort of colourful as they were a few years ago, 848 00:46:21,140 --> 00:46:24,100 and a lot of the colourful members of the Cabinet, 849 00:46:24,100 --> 00:46:28,380 like Nigel Lawson, Leon Brittan, Heseltine, they've gone, 850 00:46:28,380 --> 00:46:30,580 or were kicked out, you know, but they've... 851 00:46:30,580 --> 00:46:33,460 And the thing is now that you've got a lot of grey men, 852 00:46:33,460 --> 00:46:35,300 a lot of young, up-and-coming Tories, 853 00:46:35,300 --> 00:46:37,220 and they're sort of... characterless. 854 00:46:37,220 --> 00:46:39,220 Last record. 855 00:46:39,220 --> 00:46:42,420 Last record is, er, Frank Sinatra. 856 00:46:42,420 --> 00:46:47,220 Sinatra singing The Best Is Yet To Come. Not eating your peas, dear? 857 00:46:47,220 --> 00:46:50,260 Ooh, no. I'm saving them till last. Oh. 858 00:46:53,860 --> 00:46:59,180 # The best is yet to come come the day you're mine 859 00:47:00,780 --> 00:47:03,180 # Come the day you're mine 860 00:47:04,860 --> 00:47:07,980 # I'm gonna teach you to fly 861 00:47:09,380 --> 00:47:11,380 # We've only tasted the wine 862 00:47:13,860 --> 00:47:16,420 # We're gonna drain the cup dry... # 863 00:47:19,020 --> 00:47:22,380 We've got a call now, Daniel McAdams. Hello, Daniel. What's your question? 864 00:47:22,620 --> 00:47:26,180 Where does he get the ideas for the Spitting Image dummies? 865 00:47:26,180 --> 00:47:29,180 I probably slightly reduced the amount of politics. 866 00:47:29,180 --> 00:47:32,340 I really wanted the show to be a popular show 867 00:47:32,340 --> 00:47:34,780 and for it to be funny above all else. 868 00:47:34,780 --> 00:47:37,860 The writers wanted to do different things, and a new generation 869 00:47:37,860 --> 00:47:41,820 of writers came along who weren't particularly interested in politics. 870 00:47:41,820 --> 00:47:43,820 And we accommodated SOME of that. 871 00:47:43,820 --> 00:47:47,220 Jon Culshaw, and I'm responsible for, let's see, Mr Motivator, 872 00:47:47,220 --> 00:47:49,860 Harry Carpenter, Wolf from the Gladiators, 873 00:47:49,860 --> 00:47:53,380 Ian Paisley, Frank Bruno, Kenneth Clarke. 874 00:47:53,380 --> 00:47:56,620 Alistair McGowan, and I'm responsible for John Major, 875 00:47:56,620 --> 00:47:59,420 Tony Blair, Paddy Ashdown, Jeremy Paxman, 876 00:47:59,420 --> 00:48:03,020 Chris Eubank, and Kenneth Branagh, and several others, 877 00:48:03,020 --> 00:48:05,500 including a new Alan Hansen, which is coming up soon. 878 00:48:05,500 --> 00:48:07,300 I think the Fergie puppet is brilliant, 879 00:48:07,300 --> 00:48:10,140 because there's something about Fergie's face, you know. 880 00:48:10,140 --> 00:48:12,220 The eyes and the sort of... SHE SNORTS 881 00:48:12,220 --> 00:48:14,620 You know, that sort of stupid laugh that I gave her. 882 00:48:14,620 --> 00:48:16,660 I don't know why I gave her that snort. 883 00:48:16,660 --> 00:48:18,700 Poor woman's probably never done that in her life. 884 00:48:18,700 --> 00:48:20,740 Gosh, Anne, it's so helpful having someone to talk to. 885 00:48:20,740 --> 00:48:22,020 SHE SNORTS 886 00:48:22,020 --> 00:48:23,380 Times had changed. 887 00:48:23,380 --> 00:48:27,460 I was exhausted with Spitting Image long before it finished. 888 00:48:27,460 --> 00:48:31,540 Anyone admitting to being on props today? Moving on, please! 889 00:48:31,540 --> 00:48:34,140 One... For the last... 890 00:48:34,140 --> 00:48:37,300 That was the first take, OK? OK, here we go, chaps. 891 00:48:37,300 --> 00:48:39,780 Puppets up, please. Let's go. 892 00:48:39,780 --> 00:48:41,260 And, go track. 893 00:48:41,260 --> 00:48:42,860 In the shower? 894 00:48:42,860 --> 00:48:45,660 Yes, George, I could even go to sleep in the middle of... 895 00:48:45,660 --> 00:48:49,580 'I think Central had had enough, and I think they thought they could 896 00:48:49,580 --> 00:48:54,820 'dismantle it and probably bring it back when they felt like it. 897 00:48:54,820 --> 00:48:56,260 'And we said, you can't, 898 00:48:56,260 --> 00:48:59,180 'because there are a thousand puppets, that deteriorate, 899 00:48:59,180 --> 00:49:01,620 'there's all these moulds, we have to store them, 900 00:49:01,620 --> 00:49:03,820 'we don't have the money to store them, erm, 901 00:49:03,820 --> 00:49:09,020 'there's, you know, 2,500 square feet of costumes.' 902 00:49:22,900 --> 00:49:26,100 'You're always looking for the most negative thing you can find, 903 00:49:26,100 --> 00:49:30,220 'that you can read in the news. You... 904 00:49:30,220 --> 00:49:33,900 'You find that bit where you can take the piss out of somebody, 905 00:49:33,900 --> 00:49:37,740 'and it gets a bit...it gets a bit depressing. 906 00:49:37,740 --> 00:49:40,340 'Because if you come to the realisation that 907 00:49:40,340 --> 00:49:42,860 'it ain't going to change anything... 908 00:49:42,860 --> 00:49:45,980 'Cos I remember an early meeting with... 909 00:49:45,980 --> 00:49:50,180 'other people and Lloydy in a pub in the Fulham Road,' 910 00:49:50,180 --> 00:49:54,980 and at that time I was...we were fully fired up with... 911 00:49:54,980 --> 00:49:57,700 "We're satirists, we're caricaturists, 912 00:49:57,700 --> 00:49:59,860 "we're going to change the world." 913 00:49:59,860 --> 00:50:01,020 And he said, 914 00:50:01,020 --> 00:50:04,260 "It doesn't change anything." And he was absolutely right. 915 00:50:16,060 --> 00:50:17,980 'I take the view the most interesting satire 916 00:50:17,980 --> 00:50:19,140 since Spitting Image 917 00:50:19,140 --> 00:50:22,820 'is The Two Johns on Rory Bremner, which is two faceless, 918 00:50:22,820 --> 00:50:26,220 'you know, very charming fellows talking in a very reasonable way 919 00:50:26,220 --> 00:50:28,380 'about why we've taken all your money 920 00:50:28,380 --> 00:50:30,620 'and why we're committing genocide.' 921 00:50:30,620 --> 00:50:33,340 '"I think you'll see, now I put it quite reasonably to you, 922 00:50:33,340 --> 00:50:35,180 '"I think you'll see what I'm saying."' 923 00:50:35,180 --> 00:50:37,980 They're not responsible, you don't even know their names, 924 00:50:37,980 --> 00:50:41,620 they could be a corporation, they could be a PR firm, 925 00:50:41,620 --> 00:50:44,340 and they're all the same person and they control us 926 00:50:44,340 --> 00:50:48,540 and they can't be found, they can't be pointed at. 927 00:50:48,540 --> 00:50:51,060 When Mrs Thatcher died, Lady Thatcher died, 928 00:50:51,060 --> 00:50:54,300 and I was asked on telly a bit to go and talk about it 929 00:50:54,300 --> 00:50:57,620 and they'd show clips and I was astonished at how funny it was, 930 00:50:57,620 --> 00:51:00,260 even the stuff that at the time I thought wasn't very good, you know, 931 00:51:00,260 --> 00:51:05,060 wasn't funny enough, wasn't clever enough, wasn't well enough made. 932 00:51:05,060 --> 00:51:08,700 Then it was divisive, it was angry, it was, you know, probably 933 00:51:08,700 --> 00:51:13,220 the most unpopular government of the century, and also the most popular. 934 00:51:14,380 --> 00:51:18,100 And that's what...the climate in which Spitting Image could thrive. 935 00:51:21,100 --> 00:51:25,180 'Spitting Image ended up as a show that 12 million people, 936 00:51:25,180 --> 00:51:28,340 '14 million people, never less than seven... 937 00:51:28,340 --> 00:51:31,620 'In The Thick Of It is one of my favourite satire shows - 938 00:51:31,620 --> 00:51:34,380 'they're lucky to get 2 million. 939 00:51:34,380 --> 00:51:36,380 'That is the difference. 940 00:51:36,380 --> 00:51:40,300 'So I think Peter's assessment of what would happen 941 00:51:40,300 --> 00:51:43,580 'with Spitting Image was correct for now. 942 00:51:43,580 --> 00:51:48,060 'If we did it, we'd be a cult thing, probably on the net. 943 00:51:49,500 --> 00:51:53,540 'A lot of the commissioning editors have never made television, ever. 944 00:51:53,540 --> 00:51:56,620 'So they really want to cover their bottom. 945 00:51:56,620 --> 00:51:59,660 'There aren't people like Denton that can take a decision. 946 00:51:59,660 --> 00:52:04,300 'Anything that might fail, miserably, is avoided, 947 00:52:04,300 --> 00:52:07,340 'and that must be to do with budgets and it must be to do with 948 00:52:07,340 --> 00:52:10,940 'the fact that they've kind of Americanised the system.' 949 00:52:12,220 --> 00:52:15,300 But I don't feel that strongly about...these people. 950 00:52:15,300 --> 00:52:17,140 I mean, what have you got? 951 00:52:17,140 --> 00:52:20,780 You've got a PR man who's never had a proper job, 952 00:52:20,780 --> 00:52:24,820 and you've got a government that's sort of like, erm... 953 00:52:24,820 --> 00:52:29,060 It's like a George Orwell land, but with...but Conservative. 954 00:52:44,540 --> 00:52:46,900 'I think Spitting Image is a programme that... 955 00:52:46,900 --> 00:52:48,660 'stopped and made people think, 956 00:52:48,980 --> 00:52:51,260 'and it was a very important barometer 957 00:52:51,260 --> 00:52:53,220 'of public opinion at the time. 958 00:52:55,620 --> 00:52:57,500 'We thought it was very important 959 00:52:57,500 --> 00:53:00,740 'that the Imperial War Museum represent Margaret Thatcher,' 960 00:53:00,740 --> 00:53:04,620 one of the most important political figures of the late 20th century, 961 00:53:04,620 --> 00:53:07,820 in our new exhibition, which looks at the post-war world. 962 00:53:07,820 --> 00:53:10,620 And so Margaret Thatcher sits in a little group of objects 963 00:53:10,620 --> 00:53:12,940 considering the war in the Falklands, but also 964 00:53:12,940 --> 00:53:14,700 next to that is Northern Ireland. 965 00:53:14,700 --> 00:53:17,500 And she was a very important political figure in both 966 00:53:17,500 --> 00:53:20,700 the Falklands and Northern Ireland. It's a caricature. 967 00:53:20,700 --> 00:53:23,940 It's slightly violent in the way that she appears, 968 00:53:23,940 --> 00:53:26,820 deliberately, and so that makes people stop and think. 969 00:53:28,260 --> 00:53:33,900 Tell me, oh, tell me again, how much better am I than Neil Kinnock? 970 00:53:33,900 --> 00:53:38,300 Oh, you're twice the man he is, PM. No, three times. Ten times at least. 971 00:53:38,300 --> 00:53:40,700 Oh, come on! 20! 972 00:53:40,700 --> 00:53:44,300 How long can I stay on as Prime Minister? 973 00:53:44,300 --> 00:53:47,740 And so we chose the Spitting Image puppet 974 00:53:47,740 --> 00:53:52,540 because we felt it would provoke a response in visitors, rather than 975 00:53:52,540 --> 00:53:56,780 just show what she looked like as a natural representation. 976 00:54:00,740 --> 00:54:02,540 MUSIC 977 00:54:13,180 --> 00:54:16,980 Well, I think special is an understatement in this instance. Yep. 978 00:54:16,980 --> 00:54:20,100 Because we are now going live to none other than 979 00:54:20,100 --> 00:54:22,260 Her Majesty the Queen herself. 980 00:54:22,260 --> 00:54:24,260 Just explain to us, then, ma'am, 981 00:54:24,260 --> 00:54:28,020 why you're at the British Film Institute this evening. 982 00:54:28,020 --> 00:54:30,340 I'm at the BFI Southbank 983 00:54:30,340 --> 00:54:33,700 to celebrate 30 years of Spitting Image. 984 00:54:33,700 --> 00:54:36,500 APPLAUSE AND WHISTLING 985 00:54:44,660 --> 00:54:48,300 Are you bathed in a warm glow of nostalgia, John, 986 00:54:48,300 --> 00:54:51,700 or are you having kind of flashbacks like a Vietnam vet? 987 00:54:52,980 --> 00:54:56,060 Well, I think you live with a one-sided view 988 00:54:56,060 --> 00:54:58,340 of what it was like for 30 years. 989 00:54:58,340 --> 00:55:00,700 Roger and I were extremely angry with each other 990 00:55:00,700 --> 00:55:03,700 a great deal of the time. We'll be talking about that shortly. 991 00:55:03,700 --> 00:55:06,500 But also it was marvellous, it was fantastic, it was such fun. 992 00:55:06,500 --> 00:55:08,340 It was so brilliant. 993 00:55:08,340 --> 00:55:09,820 Well, I think you forget, 994 00:55:09,820 --> 00:55:13,660 I mean, the talent that buoyed the three of us up. 995 00:55:13,660 --> 00:55:17,100 Weren't they amazing? And how about you, how did you feel about...? 996 00:55:17,100 --> 00:55:18,820 Well, I completely agree with John. 997 00:55:18,820 --> 00:55:20,940 I mean, it took a whole community of people 998 00:55:20,940 --> 00:55:22,500 to put the programme together, 999 00:55:22,500 --> 00:55:25,020 and, er, it had a curious split, actually, cos... 1000 00:55:25,020 --> 00:55:27,820 a split between people who went to art school and that, 1001 00:55:27,820 --> 00:55:29,780 sculpture and painting and things, 1002 00:55:29,780 --> 00:55:34,420 and then...and then the guys from Oxbridge. And it was a curious mix. 1003 00:55:34,420 --> 00:55:39,100 And was that what caused the often combustible moments, or...? 1004 00:55:39,100 --> 00:55:42,780 No, I mean... Roger was throwing sofas around cos he's like that. 1005 00:55:42,780 --> 00:55:45,980 He does that at home. LAUGHTER 1006 00:55:45,980 --> 00:55:49,820 It was incredibly good fun, it was...really good fun. 1007 00:55:49,820 --> 00:55:53,460 Well, I think for the producers and... Hell for them, but... 1008 00:55:53,460 --> 00:55:55,340 ..I think it was really hard, 1009 00:55:55,340 --> 00:55:58,180 because we got the fun, we got to write it, we got to see it happen, 1010 00:55:58,180 --> 00:56:01,380 and then when it went out we said, "Ah, you've messed it up," 1011 00:56:01,380 --> 00:56:03,900 and, you know, gave them a hard time. 1012 00:56:03,900 --> 00:56:07,100 We watched it religiously every Sunday evening, it was fantastic. 1013 00:56:07,100 --> 00:56:10,460 What, you and David? LAUGHTER 1014 00:56:13,820 --> 00:56:17,580 Were you two unusual? No, Ian, me and my wife! Oh, yeah, sorry. Sorry. 1015 00:56:17,580 --> 00:56:19,940 I remember speaking to a conference of policemen, 1016 00:56:19,940 --> 00:56:22,060 and Shadow Cabinet... or Cabinet ministers 1017 00:56:22,060 --> 00:56:24,780 weren't popular with the police force, and the front row, 1018 00:56:24,780 --> 00:56:27,100 every policeman took out an umbrella when I began to speak. 1019 00:56:27,100 --> 00:56:28,500 LAUGHTER 1020 00:56:28,500 --> 00:56:32,220 When Spitting Image was on, many more people in the public knew 1021 00:56:32,220 --> 00:56:35,860 the names of every politician in the Cabinet than they do now. 1022 00:56:35,860 --> 00:56:37,660 Now people could probably mention 1023 00:56:37,660 --> 00:56:39,980 four or five people who are in the Cabinet... 1024 00:56:39,980 --> 00:56:43,220 But we did talk about that. But at the time... And the Shadow Cabinet. 1025 00:56:43,220 --> 00:56:46,100 Part of the impetus for the programme starting in the first place 1026 00:56:46,100 --> 00:56:48,940 was a sort of loathing of Thatcher and the Conservatives. 1027 00:56:48,940 --> 00:56:52,580 Do you think that they were kinder to you if you were in opposition? 1028 00:56:52,580 --> 00:56:55,220 But it did her good. This is what people don't understand. 1029 00:56:55,220 --> 00:56:57,940 People liked the idea we'd got a strong, 1030 00:56:57,940 --> 00:57:01,500 aggressive Prime Minister, it did her great...great... 1031 00:57:01,500 --> 00:57:03,180 benefit, I think. 1032 00:57:03,180 --> 00:57:06,260 AS THATCHER: Could I say a few words from... Oh, do, please. 1033 00:57:06,260 --> 00:57:08,260 ..from beyond the grave. 1034 00:57:08,260 --> 00:57:11,700 I think the problem is that, you know, Margaret Thatcher 1035 00:57:11,700 --> 00:57:14,780 was an incredibly conviction politician. Yes. 1036 00:57:14,780 --> 00:57:20,140 That is the point. David Cameron is NOT a conviction politician. 1037 00:57:20,140 --> 00:57:23,700 He wants to be everyone's friend. He's too friendly. 1038 00:57:23,700 --> 00:57:28,060 You know, he's the sort of man that would call John the Baptist Jack. 1039 00:57:28,060 --> 00:57:30,980 You don't want that. LAUGHTER 1040 00:57:30,980 --> 00:57:33,460 Have conviction! 1041 00:57:33,460 --> 00:57:36,260 These bastards sloped off after a few years, 1042 00:57:36,260 --> 00:57:39,580 and I was there for the whole... nine yards. 1043 00:57:39,580 --> 00:57:42,180 Why didn't you slope off? 1044 00:57:42,180 --> 00:57:44,620 He needed the money, frankly. 1045 00:57:46,420 --> 00:57:50,180 I was, you know, the Liberal voting, middle-of-the-road, 1046 00:57:50,180 --> 00:57:52,260 reasonable, BBC-trained producer, 1047 00:57:52,260 --> 00:57:56,180 trying to mediate between all these lunatics, and they were all, 1048 00:57:56,180 --> 00:58:00,380 you know, Marxist, Che Guevara hats and all this kind of stuff. 1049 00:58:00,380 --> 00:58:03,260 And by the time Flucky and I and Jon Blair 1050 00:58:03,260 --> 00:58:06,700 had been shunted out by the mother cuckoo here, 1051 00:58:06,700 --> 00:58:10,620 erm, and he was on his own, the workshop went to Roger 1052 00:58:10,620 --> 00:58:12,460 and said, "We'd like a trade union." 1053 00:58:12,460 --> 00:58:16,140 He said, "Not in my fucking company, you don't." 1054 00:58:19,140 --> 00:58:22,180 WOMAN: First off I want to thank you guys for politicising a very young, 1055 00:58:22,180 --> 00:58:25,180 impressionable eight-year-old 30 years ago, so thank you very much. 1056 00:58:25,180 --> 00:58:28,100 MAN: You know, it was a great way for left-wing people and people 1057 00:58:28,100 --> 00:58:30,900 that were resisting to recharge their batteries on a Sunday night. 1058 00:58:30,900 --> 00:58:32,740 It gave us a lot of hope. 1059 00:58:34,940 --> 00:58:38,180 MAN: Do you now agree with Ted Heath that you wish you'd done something 1060 00:58:38,180 --> 00:58:40,420 really rather more useful with your time? 1061 00:58:40,420 --> 00:58:41,620 LAUGHTER 1062 00:58:55,580 --> 00:58:58,900 # Shopping around for prizes 1063 00:58:58,900 --> 00:59:01,660 # Looking around for prizes... # 1064 00:59:01,660 --> 00:59:05,260 Hi. Thought we were starting early this morning. This is early. 1065 00:59:05,260 --> 00:59:08,580 RADIO: 'Yes, it's time again for the BBC Shopping Basket...' 1066 00:59:08,580 --> 00:59:10,740 Is this crap the best Radio 4's got to offer? 1067 00:59:10,740 --> 00:59:14,620 Well, turn it off. 'Since the beginning of December...' 1068 00:59:14,620 --> 00:59:17,420 What about making a nice cup of tea, Flucky? OK. 1069 00:59:17,420 --> 00:59:22,660 'In fact, the 57 items in our basket then cost us £17.97. 1070 00:59:22,660 --> 00:59:27,060 'Now, today those very same items would cost £18.49. 1071 00:59:27,060 --> 00:59:30,460 'And that's an increase of 52 pence in just over a month. 1072 00:59:30,460 --> 00:59:33,420 'Now, the reason for this week's increase can be put down to 1073 00:59:33,420 --> 00:59:35,220 'more expensive tomatoes, greens, 1074 00:59:35,220 --> 00:59:39,740 'and fractional rises on a whole range of goods, including beef, 1075 00:59:39,740 --> 00:59:43,220 'bacon, onions, apples, coffee and some cleaning materials. 1076 00:59:43,220 --> 00:59:46,860 'Right, and in fact the milk prices are going to go up next month, 1077 00:59:46,860 --> 00:59:49,380 'and there's talk about the cost of canned goods going up. 1078 00:59:49,380 --> 00:59:50,500 'I'm afraid so...'