British animated satire series that ran from 2001 to 2004. Often considered the Spiritual Successor of Spitting Image and had many parallels with Dead Ringers due to sharing many voice actors.
About 60% of the material was about celebrities while the rest was about politics, a notable shift away from the latter relative to Spitting Image.
Major recurring characters/settings (heralded by theme tunes) included:
Tony Blair and the Cabinet: Blair as a power-mad control freak with a Napoleon Complex, while Gordon Brown is The Starscream. Other ministers commonly appearing included John Prescott (a vehicle for fat jokes), Robin Cook (The Unintelligible) and David Blunkett (Yes-Man).
George Bush in the White House: Bush oscillates between Psychopathic Manchild and innocently Too Dumb to Live, while a moustached (and unnamed) General tries to get him under control with the aid of a hand puppet called Professor Leibstrom. These sketches simply recycled a lot of 'stupid president' jokes from 1980s Spitting Image sketches about Ronald Reagan but left the direct references to politics out, instead dumbing Bush down to the point where he came across a Homer Simpson clone.
Osama Bin Laden: The main gag was Bin Laden's constant frustration with the Taliban's complete lack of modern military technology.
Saddam Hussein: Prior to the 2003 Iraq War, there were a series of sketches featuring Saddam hiding his weapons of mass destruction from the UN inspectors. This was when even anti-war satirists assumed that he actually had WMDs.
The Royal Family: Mostly jokes about Prince Charles trying to take the throne and about Princes William and Harry's youthful mishaps. In one sketch, Harry brings back some Australians after having gone backpacking there and they proceed to take over the palace. In sharp contrast to Spitting Image, the Queen was hardly ever treated in an unsympathetic light — she was usually portrayed as the Only Sane Person with occasional Deadpan Snarker tendencies.
Posh and Becks: Primarily, a vehicle for Too Dumb to Live jokes.
The England football team: Featuring Beckham again, Wayne Rooney, manager Sven Goran Erikson and so forth.
There were also a great number of one-off sketches. In the vein of Private Eye style humour, a lot of these involved crossing over two news stories or parodying a show by referencing current political issues.
For example, there was a parody of The Simpsons called "The Johnsons" (about Boris Johnson's family). Another parody was of The Parent Trap (1998) called "The Dubya Trap" (about George Bush's family).
Tropes
- The Alcoholic: Former footballer George Best, must to the dismay of his liver.
- American Gothic Couple: The picture appears in the background of their "The Saddam Family" sketch but the woman is wearing a burka.
- Animate Inanimate Object
- The planet Earth is depicted as one in the opening credits, appearing with a face and a pair of arms.
- George Best's liver, who would have left him had George not drank all the petrol.
- Animals Hate Him: The opening credits has one of the Queen's corgis pull a rage-filled expression when Prince Charles takes her throne. The dog gets even more angry when Charles is in turn replaced by Tony Blair.
- Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: President Bush, to the point that Governor Schwarzenegger attempts to explain to him that he is not The Terminator in Real Life.
- Cute Kitten: One sketch had Saddam attempting to defend against the US by surrounding himself and important military targets with kittens.
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Dueling Works: Parodied in a sketch which has soap operas Coronation Street and EastEnders scrambling to one-up the other's storylines, ending with the threat of a nuclear holocaust which is only stopped when they are reminded that Brookside already did that (thankfully not in Real Life). - Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The opening titles end with this as missiles from America and Iraq destroy the big fella himself (he has a face), despite his best efforts. It is from the kaboom that the logo appears along with the British Isles, which survives intact on one of the planet chunks.
- Fat Comic Relief: Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Facing Michael Owen on the pitch, Roy Keane tries to resist the devil on his shoulder who is trying to egg him into assaulting Owen, only to give in to temptation when a larger devil appears on his other should and tells him to straight-up murder Owen. Following a savage beating, Owen's two angels tell him not only to not retaliate, but to send Keane flowers as a gift.
- I'm a Humanitarian: A desperately hungry to the point of hallucinating John Prescott attempts to eat Tony Blair, having mistaken him for a steak.
- Later Prescott admitted to having Bulimia, meaning this joke hasn't aged well.
- He also admitted to being not terribly good at it.
- Later Prescott admitted to having Bulimia, meaning this joke hasn't aged well.
- Manchild: George W. Bush is depicted this way.
- Moonwalk Dance: One gag, referencing Michael's baby bungling incident in 2002, had Jackson teaching his infant to moonwalk from one end of a window to another across the street by tightrope walking over a washing cord.
- No Indoor Voice: The women of the Slater family in EastEnders. One sketch has family patriarch Charlie Slater being prescribed earplugs to prevent headaches caused by this trope. Another has them singing Silent Night in Queen Vic, with those two words alone causing the pub to explode.
- No Name Given: The General seen at the White House.
- Palette Swap: The Star Wars missile defense system sketch has a second General who is distinguished by having a green mirrored uniform in contrast to usual General's blue one as well as a slightly differently shaped moustache.
- Ret-Gone: Discussed in one sketch where President Bush, who Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality, orders Governor Schwarzenegger to get in his "Terminator time machine" to take out Bin Laden before he was even born.
- Rushmore Refacement: The opening credits included George W. Bush as a fifth face on Mount Rushmore. When a missile is launched out of his head, the other Presidents react in horror.
- Shout-Out
- Princes Charles dresses as the recently deceased Queen Mother to convince the Queen to abdicate, only to be rumbled by William and Harry, with a corgi acting as Scooby-Doo.
- The 2052 sketch has the Queen surviving as a Futurama-style head in a jar, whilst Prince Philip rides a Davros Dalek chair, exterminating a corgi to boot.
- The Starscream: Prince Charles, who is constantly scheming to take the throne from his mother. Also Gordon Brown, who plots to usurp Prime Minister Tony Blair.
- Too Dumb to Live: The Beckhams.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: One sketch is set in 2052, where Elizabeth II's 100 year reign is commemorated with a zirconium jubilee.
