In its 12 years on our screens, Spitting Image mocked politicians from Westminster and around world, the Royals, sport stars, musicians and TV presenters.
The show’s best moments and classic characters:
Its most famous puppet was perhaps that of Margaret Thatcher, who wore a man’s suit in the show and treated her Cabinet with contempt.
One of the shows most famous moments was when, with the then-Tory cabinet around the dinner table, a waitress asked: ‘What about the vegetables?’ The model of Mrs Thatcher replies: ‘Oh, they’ll have the same as me.’
Margaret Thatcher replying ‘they’ll have the same as me’ when a waitress asked her, ‘what about the vegetables?’ during a dinner with her cabinet
Thatcher’s successor, John Major, came in for equally merciless treatment, with his puppet painted grey to reflect his perceived dull personality.
In a further mocking of the Tory leader’s perceived lack of charisma, some of the most famous scenes to feature him showed him and his wife, Norma, eating peas. Major would occasionally say: ‘Nice peas, dear.’
One of the classic sketches of former Prime Minister John Major complimenting his wife on her peas
The Royal Family were not spared the Spitting Image treatment. The Queen was habitually portrayed with a headscarf and CND badge and the Queen Mother carried a copy of the Racing Post and spoke with a Birmingham accent.
One of the most famous sketches to feature the Royals appeared after Prince William was born, when the Queen broke a bottle of champagne over his head to ‘Christen him’.
The Royal Family was also lampooned in a sketch showing the Queen and Prince Philip sitting in their palace while they learn a recession has robbed them of all their wealth.
Philip at first says ‘recession, what recession?’ before hearing the bad news – that their properties will be repossessed and they will be forced to live in a council flat.
Prince Philip pictured reading The Sun bearing a headline reading ‘recession, recession’
Tony Blair was regularly pictured with a huge smile or in sketches mocking him as a megalomaniac.
In the final episode – from 1996 – he was seen in front of his cabinet after an election victory boasting that he was ‘the clever one’.
Tony Blair on Spitting Image when he was celebrating with his cabinet after winning the election
Labour politician Roy Hattersley was regularly mocked for his lisp, with skits showing him spraying other people in the room with spit.
He was regularly seen alongside his partner-in-crime Neil Kinnock, who was nicknamed The Welsh Windbag and shown talking for hours about anything except his policies.
Roy Hattersley and ‘Welsh Windbag’ Neil Kinnock in a classic Spitting Image sketch
International leaders also featured in the show.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s distinctive birthmark on his head was shaped into a hammer and sickle
Soviet leader Mikhal Gorbachev with a hammer and sickle birthmark on his head
A grotesque characterisation of Prince Andrew before he was married to Sarah Ferguson is said to have offended the Queen.
The Andrew puppet was not only a naked centrefold but was using two pounds of Cumberland sausage as a prop.
This characterisation of Prince Andrew before he married Sarah Ferguson offended the Queen
Trade and Industry Minister Norman Tebbit – Mrs Thatcher’s loyal sidekick and enforcer – was parodied as a leather-jacketed thug.
He later admitted the parody was useful for his political career, writing: ‘It was good for my political career. I always won, I was never beaten.’
Norman Tebbit was portrayed on the show as one of Margaret Thatcher’s goons