Recap / Spitting Image S 2 E 5

Provides examples of:

• Bait-and-Switch: An old MP appears to be admiring a centrefold in Mayfair but is actually drooling over "The New Face of Margaret Thatcher" on the cover of The Economist.
• The Bore: The man singing "I've Never Met a Nice South African" slowly causes the bartender to fall asleep. He even shows him some holiday snaps from his travels.
• Comedic Sociopathy: The shadow cabinet can't help bursting out laughing at the Tories having to deal with the terrible state of the country.
• Dirty Old Man: Reagan insists on Don giving him a kiss before they start their meeting, and goes back on his promise not to use any tongue.
• Driven to Suicide On One Callaghan and His Dog, Rusty shoots himself after he realises he used too much paprika on the lamb.
• Parlor Games: The Queen starts a game of charades with the rest of the Windsors reluctantly joining in.
• Parody Commercial: Margaret appears in a supermarket advert endorsing Falklands lamb, even though it costs millions per pound.
  • Other ads in this episode flog Campartinibonizanco and the Observer colour supplment.
• Silly Prayer: Reagan starts his morning conflab with Don with a quick prayer to tell God he can't talk right now because he's in a meeting.
• Sophisticated as Hell: The show departed from its normally refined blend of absurdism and with "(I've Never Met) A Nice South African". Rather than the normal scalpel, show's creators favour the sledgehammer in order to display their contempt for the Apartheid regime, having their chorus of Boer safari men sing:
  No, he's never met a nice South African!
  And that's not bloody surprising, mun,
  Because we're a bunch of talentless murderers,
  Who smell like baboons!
  • The production team defended this song on the basis that A: the harshness was necessary to show moderate South Africans how despised apartheid was by the world, and B: the song does acknowledge that there are nice South Africans, but they have all been put in prison.
• Stocking Mask: Richard Nixon wears one in his Any Card advert.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: All variations of the chorus for "I've Never Met a Nice South African".
• Tablecloth Yank: This week, Paul Daniels does one of these with his own wig after placing a glass of milk on his head.
• Take That!:
  • David Lynch came eighth in a competition run by Film `85 where viewers were asked to write in and explain the plot of Dune (1984).
  • One of the highly unusual things that the singer of "I've Never Met a Nice South African" has done is "had lunch with Rowan Atkinson when he paid and wasn't late."
• Talking Down the Suicidal: Nigel Lawson tries to talk The Pound out of jumping off a high ledge. In the crowd at the bottom, Geoffrey Howe waits hopefully with an open purse.
• Vocal Dissonance: The voice used to read out Sara Yallop's letter on Points of View belongs to a middle-aged man rather than a teenage girl.
• Wunza Plot: Played for Laughs with Rubinovski and Franks - an anteater and a sheep who work together as cops in the New York Petty Crimes division.