Trivia / Les Guignols de l'Info

• Acting for Two: The show only had six voice actors in total for the longest time (Yves Lecoq, Daniel Herzog, Sandrine Alexi, Nicolas Canteloup, Thierry Garcia and Marc-Antoine le Bret) to voice hundreds of politicians and celebrities (not counting voiceovers like Jean Barney and Alain Dorval), which made sense since all of them needed to be professional imitators who could imitate a wide range of famous people. Yves Lecoq alone did about half of the male voices, and Sandrine Alexi did all the female and teen voices.
• Approval of God: One of the rare celebrities who loved his puppet in the show was Serge Gainsbourg (who was a fan of the early show in general shortly before his death).
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Some catchphrases were never actually said by the people the puppets satirize but became publicly associated with them nonetheless due to the show's popularity.
• Creator Backlash: Alain Duverne, the creator of the puppets, left the show after 2007 when he realized the writers were becoming more concerned about inserting their views agressively rather than being funny. He thought Nicolas Sarkozy could have made a funny character by playing on his Louis de Funès-like mannerisms, but instead they "portrayed him like a Nazi".
• Defictionalization: There are real, voice-activated "boîtes à coucou" (Cuckoo Boxes) toys inspired by Johnny Hallyday's in the show.
• Fake Nationality: Inevitable when French voice actors voice puppets modelled after people from all over the world.
• Follow the Leader:
  • The success of Le Bébête Show spawned a rival in Les Guignols de l'info. Le Bébête Show itself would attempt to follow the example of Les Guignols by abandoning its Muppet Show puppet caricatures in favor of regular human puppets, and failed.
  • Les Guignols de l'info could be considered a French version of Spitting Image. Probably inspired others, such as caricaturist Serge Chapleau in Québec, who created Et Dieu Créa Laflaque ("And God Created Laflaque"), which follows a similar formula of making fun of events in the news, talking to exaggerated versions of political and cultural faces.
  • The show had a localized version in the Spanish station of Canal+ (Las Noticias del Guiñol) and its influence can be seen in later Spanish sketch programs like TVE's La Hora de José Mota and TV3's Polònia, even though the parodies are done this time by human actors.
• Long-Runners: The show lasted from August 1988 all the way to June 2018.
• Prop Recycling:
  • The French and Spanish versions shared puppets, and the puppets of people who are famous in one country are sometimes recycled as average, non-famous citizens in the other. This can be bizarre if you watch either version while being familiar with the other, because the host puppet (PPD in Les Guignols, Hilario Pino◊ in Los Guiñoles) is particularly prone to this.
  • Les Guignols also sometimes used puppets from Les Minikeums (or made from the same molds as Les Minikeums) as young extras or incidental characters, as the shows shared a workshop (that of Alain Duverne) and some puppeteers. Of note, writer Arnold Boiseau (who started Les Arènes de l'info — the first seasons of Les Guignols) also created Les Minikeums.
• Screwed by the Network: When billionaire Vincent Bolloré took over Canal+ in 2015, he had the show's airing schedules reduced, fired most of the writers, made sure it became less and less political (regarding France at least, the show still had plenty of Take That! for Donald Trump for instance), and had puppets of celebrities like Justin Bieber and reality TV personalities put forth. The show's audience ratings sank rock bottom and it was eventually terminated in October 2018, three months after its 30th anniversary.
• What Could Have Been: The very final episode was going to show Chirac and PPD giving each other sorry glances as a song by Cyril Hanouna was playing in the elevator they were in... which was supposed to be a Take That! at Hanouna having become French TV's most popular personality (he's often criticized as aiming for the Lowest Common Denominator). The creators were forced to rework the scene so that the song is only faintly heard and Chirac and PPD don't react to it.
• Working Title: According to a 2023 social media post, the original title for this show was "Les Odieux Visuels".

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