YMMV / Les Guignols de l'Info

• Anvilicious: A recurring complaint was that the show's authors used it to put their political views without an inch of subtlety. Even though they didn't spare any side, you can tell they loathed some more than others.
• Broken Base:
  • The show got this starting in 1996 after Benoît Delépine and Jean-François Halin left. Some viewers found the show still funny after that but others thought it became unfunny with padding and Anvilicious sketches against people the writers clearly don't like.
  • Even more so after Bruno Gaccio left in 2007. The new writers' humor had become even more Anvilicious after the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy began, they were generally less skilled in their writing, and even in the public, you could hear much less laughter at that time than before.
  • Things went particularly awry in 2015 after Vincent Bolloré took over the channel, and the show was eventually terminated after his blatant Executive Meddling.
• Continuity Lockout: See all those explanations we had to put on the main page? Trying to watch the show without a terrifyingly in-depth knowledge of French politics, media and pop culture from 1988 to 2018 isn't such a good idea.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Happens sometimes with Islamic terrorists or the American army. Happens all the time with the Pope and his sidekick the Cardinal Sylvester.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The puppet of Osama Bin Laden became one of the most popular characters of the show, although this did not happen without a fair share of Misaimed Fandom (see the entry below).
• Growing the Beard: The show has become popular only in 1991 during the Gulf War when they started to follow the news.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Among some not so funny effects of the show's popularity in Real Life, there was the overly long "Cuckoo Box" gags with the puppet of Johnny Hallyday. His daughter Laura Smet got often mocked/bullied in school due to them.
  • In December 13. 2001, when a video that showed Bin Laden "confessing" responsibility for 9/11 was found (remember there wasn't any proof whatsoever at that time), the writers spoofed it by showing a guy filmed awkwardly and speaking in pseudo-arabic gibberish with an obviously American voice. Sylvestre is invited to comment on it, leading to this exchange:
    Sylvestre: Now that we have solid proof, we can bomb Iraq!
    PPD: What? Why Iraq?
    Sylvestre: To find evidence.
    PPD: What?
    Sylvestre: We are gonna bomb Iraq, level it, and then search for the tape that proves we were right to do so. It's not rocket science.

  Two years and one War in Iraq later, nobody was laughing anymore.

  • An earlier example could be the sketches parodying the former prime minister Pierre Bérégovoy. They are really less funny after his suicide.
  • The SARS-Cov-1 epidemic sketches are less funny to watch since the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic started (the former was easily contained, the latter spread worldwide).
  • The parody of the Volvic mineral water ad "I love those moments" from 2011 with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban cutting the hands of women and stoning them and saying "I love those moments, because even if I'm gone^note The real life one was found and killed in 2011., they continue, always." Afghanistan was fully retaken by the Taliban in 2021, and sure enough, the condition of women in the country has deteriorated yet again since.
  • PPD's status as the show's presenter became this in 2021-2022, following numerous accusations of sexual abuse against his real life counterpart.
  • One 2014 sketch has Vladimir Putin admitting to invading Donbas (the Eastern part of Ukraine bordering Russia) and then-French president François Hollande admitting Western leaders are "too cowardly" to confront him. It's particularly hard to watch with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine since early 2022.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The show has proved to be particularly respectful when a personnality that was not a horrible person died. When François Mitterrand died in 1996, the daily episode consisted of a single skit, showing him on his death bed, his soul rising and realizing he has died, then finding the answer to the ultimate question: Can a soul piss people off? He then proceeds to distract a walking man who hits a street light while looking for the voice calling him, and rejoices he now has eternity to annoy everyone. After this, his few cameos often include him in paradise, or tormenting whichever president is in office, often accompanied by Charles De Gaulle.
  • Another example is singer Johnny Hallyday. On the day after his death, they covered his song "Quelque Chose De Tennessee" to have several puppets sing about how great he was.
  • One 2001 episode started with a montage of fairy tale imagery... and PPD explains this is because they were sick of all the violence and war in the news (this was after 9/11), so having a little enchantment for soothing is good.
  • Christmas 2012, the reindeer are drunk off Swedish meatballs. How is Santa to deliver presents to the good little boys and girls? ... Get Memetic Badass soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimović to drop-kick every present into the right chimney from the North Pole.
  • A skit made one year after the November 2015 terror attacks showed a woman chatting through texts and reacting to various terror attacks on the news by lighting candles or showing variations of the "Je Suis Charlie" sign, progressively looking more and more distraught. At the end, she messages a friend asking about going to a concert at the Bataclan, implying that she herself is going to be a victim of the Bataclan shooting. It then turns out to be the reopening concert featuring Sting, then followed by a shot of the Eiffel Tower with the caption "Paris must go on".
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A mild example — in 2011, a parody trailer of The Hangover shows former PM Laurent Fabius saying that he would very well see himself as minister of Foreign Affairs in Dominique Strauss-Kahn's government (before having a severe hangover after DSK was arrested) ^note At that time, Strauss-Kahn was so beloved by the media that everyone already saw him as the next president. So much that many still think that the Sofitel affair was a conspiracy from the right to push him out of the presidential race. After François Hollande's election, guess what Fabius became in the first government.
  • "Droite Park" (2000) is a parody of South Park, featuring Valéry Giscard-d'Estaing in the role of Kenny, who of course gets killed during the sketch; the sketch also features Jacques Chirac (he sings a parody of the opening song). A decade later, Giscard-d'Estaing's age (he was born in 1926) resulted in the creation of a meme about him being immortal (especially since Fall of 2019, as after Jacques Chirac's death Giscard-d'Estaing was the only former French president born before World War Two who was still alive). Made even more hilarious because Giscard-d'Estaing survived ten years to Philippe Séguin's death in 2010 (Séguin stands for Cartman in the parody and survives the sketch), before eventually dying in December 2020.
• Memetic Mutation: The Catch Phrases that became proverbs through the years are countless.
  • "Tout à fait, Thierry." ("Indeed, Thierry.");
  • "ispices di counasses" ("those bitches", with a bad Arabic accent);
  • "Ici, à Nagano..." ("Here, in Nagano...");
  • "Putain, deux ans !" ("Damn, two years!");
  • "Mangez des pommes !" ("Eat apples!") ^note A mock slogan for Jacques Chirac in the 1995 presidential election.
  • "À l’insu de mon plein gré !" ("Without the knowledge of my own free will!");^note A parody of Tour de France cyclist Richard Virenque's surreally absurd denials when caught in a doping scandal in 1998. For good measure, Les Guignols depicted Virenque as a brainless puppet with hypodermics stuck in his head.
  • "Travailleurs, travailleuses, on vous ment, on vous spolie..." ("Male workers, female workers, you've been lied to, you've been despoiled...);^note A parody of the speechs of far-left politician Arlette Laguillers.
  • "LE MONSIEUR TE DEMANDE..." ("THE GENTLEMAN IS ASKING YOU...")...
  • "Alors, je clique sur le mulot..." *coin* "Comment ça, 'coin'?" ("So, I click with the rodent..." *quack* "Waddya mean, 'quack'?")^note Jacques Chirac used the word "mulot", which specifically refers to a field mouse, for a computer mouse, which is usually called "souris" (mouse) in French.
  • Johnny Hallyday beginning his sentences with "ah que". To the point that the French dub of SpongeBob SquarePants has Patrick Star using the same verbal tic.
  • "'cule un mouton!" ("'ucks a sheep in the ass")^note From a sketch where Alain de Greef had to explain to the Moral Guardians why a sketch about a journalist sodomising a sheep was funny. He tried multiple, more and more convoluted explanations about the meaning of the sketch, ending each of them with this sentence
  • "Zlataner" ("to zlatan")^note The show turned Swedish soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimović into ainvoked Memetic Badass. Becoming equivalent to curb stomp, it has entered the Swedish dictionary.
• Misaimed Fandom: Originally, Osama Bin Laden called women "ispices di counasses" (loosely translated goddamn bitches, with a bad Arabic accent) to show the predominant sexism in Arab countries. They stopped using it when they learned that, in a dark Memetic Mutation-like twist, people started using it to talk seriously about women. Of course, the real cause of the Misaimed Fandom came from the fact that Puppet Laden is a Magnificent Bastard who became a terrorist For the Evulz. Ironicaly, this comes from the fact that the Bush administration was criticized in France for allegedly describing Bin Laden as some sort of comic book supervillain and the writers decided to take this idea up a notch. Unfortunately, the Guignol's writer are very good at their craft, so the hyper-competent Puppet Laden became one of the most popular characters of the show, beloved even by those who cannot stand the original.
• Never Live It Down: The Spanish doping scandal. The fact that they won't let it die either doesn't help; after the sketch with the Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador super-fueling a car with his piss, they made one where Spanish athletes curb stomp The Avengers and another where Rafael Nadal grows to the size of King Kong.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • For some, the show was this since 1996. For others this was after the '90s or after Bruno Gaccio left in 2007. Some viewers still found the show funny though.
  • Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency was comedy gold for many French humorists and caricaturists, including those who worked on the show, much like what the Thatcher era was for Spitting Image. The show didn't enjoy as much success under François Hollande's presidency. One thing is sure though: François loves to sing. Some notable examples include Gné hé hé, Alors on flippe, Les Playboys, Emploioutai, and even Wrecking Ball (though this one was sung by Manuel Valls).
  • Ratings of the show took a nosedive since the revamp that followed Vincent Bolloré's purchase of Canal+ in 2015. First of all, the show was moved to encrypted schedules, which diminished its audience by a large margin. Then the historical anchorman, PPD, was removed. Then Bolloré specifically ordered to add Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian, which were felt as an insult to the intelligence of many viewers who would rather enjoy caricatures of politics.
• So Bad, It's Good: The early seasons, when the show was still called "Les Arènes de l’Info", were full of weird, vulgar and/or nonsensical gags that made it feel like a constant acid trip, not unlike the later episodes of Spitting Image (which makes sense since Les Guignols was inspired by it). For some people it was actually part of the charm, though.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The overwhelming reaction to the December 2015 un-cancellation. Among other things, PPD no longer presented the show. Many thought that the Guignols were not the same anymore now that Vincent Bolloré was in power, in addition to pretty much every famous Canal+ regular from the 2000s-mid-2010s leaving (when they were not outright pushed to leave), it was hard to disagree. Their coverage of the 2016 American presidential campaign and their caricature of Donald Trump largely felt out of touch with the public. The YouTube videos dislike ratios hammered it further. The show was eventually put to rest in the summer of 2018.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Very much inevitable given that, over thirty years, the show satirized political majorities/parties that don't exist anymore or are not in power anymore, currencies that don't exist anymore (the franc before 2002), sport, political or media personalities who are now deceased (from president François Mitterrand, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Jacques Chirac and Michael Jackson all the way to Johnny Hallyday and Osama bin Laden), soccer teams that were once laughingstocks and now dominate the French championship (like the Paris Saint-Germain), defunct Reality TV shows... the list goes on and on.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Some sketches parodied movies, and in particular the ones parodying Gangs of New York and Sin City were beautifully done.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Obviously, just because it has puppets in it doesn't mean it's for kids, what with its frequent Vulgar Humor and off-color jokes. Despite this, the show was actually quite popular with older children during its heyday, possibly because its humorous tone made it more entertaining to watch than real news.

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