David Farnor | On 25, Jul 2021

Spitting Image will return to BritBox UK for Season 2 this September.

The fast-turnaround satirical comedy ran for a total of 18 season between 1984 and 1996, and proved no one was safe from ridicule in puppet form. Last year, BritBox brought it back for a revived run of 10 episodes, and proved a hit, with the daily sign-up of new subscribers increasing ten-fold compared to the service’s average daily rate. The streaming platform swiftly commissioned a second season, as well as a US election special, which racked up a 4.4 million audience for ITV.

Spitting Image co-creator Roger Law returned to head up the show’s creative team, while multi-award-winner Jeff Westbrook (The Simpsons, Futurama) joined as Showrunner, leading the international writing team.

Law says: “In this next Spitting Image Series we will be in line with Boris’s ‘Levelling-up Policy’. The puppets are moving to Hartlepool. We were going last week but we all got pinged on our apps so Dominic Cummings will be driving us back and forth until the HS2 is operating. Also in line with Boris this series will go massively over budget with the full support of Britbox. We will also be levelling off the number of our political puppets by introducing puppet characters that have a grasp of what they do for a living – the English football team along with Gareth Southgate for starters.”

That has already sparked controversy, with a puppet version of Marcus Rashford widely criticised for its reliance on racial stereotypes. Whether the puppet will be changed before Season 2’s broadcast is yet to be seen. Season 2 will air on BritBox UK on 11th September.

Introducing Gareth Southgate, Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford ⚽️ @SpittingImage Series 2 is kicking off from 11th September, exclusively on BritBox 🙌#SpittingImage #BritBox pic.twitter.com/kkGegYJeIH

— BritBox_UK (@BritBox_UK) July 23, 2021

 

BritBox renews Spitting Image for Season 2 after record-breaking launch

7th October 2020

BritBox has already renewed Spitting Image for a second season after a record-breaking opening weekend.

The fast-turnaround satirical comedy ran for a total of 18 season between 1984 and 1996, and proved no one was safe from ridicule in puppet form. Last Saturday, BritBox brought it back for a new 10-episode season, with episodes arriving weekly.

Produced by Avalon (Taskmaster, The Russell Howard Hour, Catastrophe, Breeders, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver), the show has lined up more than 100 puppets made by a socially distanced teams of artists, including: Adele, Angela Merkel, Baby Yoda, Barack Obama, Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Boris Johnson, Boris Baby, Dominic Cummings, Kanye West, Keir Starmer, Kim Kardashian, Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Hancock, Rishi Sunak, RuPaul, Taylor Swift, Tiger Woods, Tyson Fury and Vladimir Putin.

A next generation of satirical writers and voice artists are working with established talent to pen the show, including the show’s original co-creator Roger Law and showrunner Jeff Westbrook (The Simpsons, Futurama).

“BritBox’s revival of the grotesque puppet satire gets off to an uneven but promising start,” we wrote in our review of the first episode.

It certainly proved a hit, with BritBox’s first original commission seeing the daily sign-up of new subscribers increase ten-fold compared to the service’s average daily rate. Social media stats over two weeks around launch have seen Spitting Image official content reach over 30 million people globally, with 7.5 million views of content across official social media channels and 4 million organic views of the official trailer.

Reemah Sakaan, Group Director ITV SVOD and Chief Creative & Brand Officer BritBox said: “The fantastic response to Spitting Image just goes to show how much the world needs public service satire. Not only can subscribers look forward to another 9 weeks of anarchy but also now another series in 2021.”

Roger Law added: “Steady employment at last!”

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