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Spitting Image - Series 1 - Complete
RRP: £19.99
Our Price: £6.30 (subject to change)
Hilarious satire with rubber puppets.
Review date: 2008-09-11 Rating: 8 out of 10
A chance to view all the episodes of Spitting Image from 1984. See rubber charicatures of 80s politicians - a sadistic Thatcher and her fawning cabinet, a child-like deranged Reagan and his long-suffering assistant Ed, Kinnock and his Loony Left no-hopers including a ranting Arthur Scargill. Also lampooned are showbiz stars, from Dennis Norden and his terrible puns to Bob Dylan singing songs about disgusting cheese and missing underpants. It is true that some of the material looks pretty dated now, and it takes a few episodes to get going (although the first episode does contain a hilarious take on Michael Jackson's Thriller). But it's still well worth buying for fans of satire.
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Reviews
Amazing
Review date: 2008-04-29 Rating: 10 out of 10
This DVD is amazing, it is so funny.
Although the events are not current this does not detract from the absolutely fantastic sketches. Although some of them are much more funnier than others on the whole it is the best buy I have made in a long time and I look forward to all the series being madfe available on DVD.
It's Just Getting Going So Give It A Chance
Review date: 2008-03-02 Rating: 8 out of 10
In the eighties comedy was at some of it's biggest heights, with many intelligent writers moving around from show to show. Today comedy is at it's weakest point were we have junk like Little Britain & Catherine Tate which realies on simple and crap taglines! "Spitting Image" is a good example of the intelligence we once had in comedy, though the normal viewer will have to have a good knowledge in eighties politics and events, but Spitting Image will make you laugh somewhere.
I know for a fact that Spitting Image as many comedies started off on a bad road, with this DVD you can clearly see why. The first 5 or 6 episodes were in lack of ideas and impressions, many of the crew were under stress at the time including producer John Lloyd, so if you do buy the DVD you may have to bear with this in mind. But I can guarantee that the programme gets a whole lot better as each episode comes and goes, the end of the first series is at it's finest point as comedians such as Chris Barrie and Rory Bremner had just been hired from the show. Before he was hired Chris Barrie was most famous for his roles in Jasper Carrott's classic "Carrott's Lib", Rory Bremner on the other hand was struggling to get a job at the time as an impressionist.
This is where Spitting Image starts it's years of laughter, now if Network will bring Series 2 out soon then I may continue. As an alternative to seeing Spitting Image, Paramount Comedy 2 is currently showing two episodes of the programme every Tuesday night.
Original series - variable quality is inevitable
Review date: 2008-02-04 Rating: 8 out of 10
The quality of these DVDs, both in terms of picture/sound and content, is decidedly variable, and one episode in particular looks like it came off someone's home VHS tape. But the variability is the price you pay for getting the whole series. You are electing not to allow someone else to select the bits they think are still funny, but to take the whole instead.
So for example the 1st episode has nothing funny in it - but at the time the mere vicious accuracy of the puppet caricatures was enough to make the show deeply exciting and controversial, and its not surprising the team took a couple of weeks to get into their stride.
Likewise the voices - Thatcher is brilliant but many of the rest are done by Chris Barrie using a somewhat limited range, and anyone familiar with Red Dwarf will now just hear Arnold Rimmer time and time again.
But there are great bits too, and it is easy to forget just how shocking and groundbreaking the portrayal of the Queen putting her bets on when she should have been meeting the Prime Minister, or of Thatcher's cabinet as full of spineless chinless wonders, was at the time.
And unlike a lot of 'alternative' comedy of the 1980s Spitting Image was as derisive about the left wing as it was about the right. So Neil Kinnock, Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Roy Hattersley, Arthur Scargill etc. are all as viciously lampooned as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
And its all definitely worth it just to see Sting's re-recording of "Every breath you take" with biting new lyrics - the finale to the series.
If you buy the complete first series of a 23 year old satire you are going to get some duff bits. But IMHO there are enough gems to warrant 4 stars.
Stick a deck chair up your nose.
Review date: 2008-01-29 Rating: 10 out of 10
I was recently introduced to spitting image, after finding an old betamax tape at a car boot sale. i have thus scince worn the tape out. when i found out that they were re-releasing the comody classic i launched at the chance to own it. and yes the rubber chicken is as anoying as the first time that u watched it, by the way magie thatcher now looks even more like the puppet than she should. sorry mags. lol
Product Details/Specifications
Artist(s):
Spitting Image
Recording label: Network
Manufacturer: Network
EAN: 5027626280444
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2008-01-28
Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 150 minutes
Language: English (Unknown)