Headcases: "Spitting Image" CG vs. Puppetry

Princes Harry and William get caricatured in the new CG version of Spitting Image (image © ITV).

Spitting Image has come back to the UK! Except it’s not puppetry. Also, it’s not called Spitting Image. The puppets have been replaced with computer animation and Headcases is what they’re calling this 21st century remake of the 1980s British classic. I haven’t really seen enough of Headcases to judge whether or not the changes are an improvement, but the Independent spoke with Spitting Image co-creator Peter Fluck about the new show and reports on his thoughts about it.

I don’t really understand why they would make the switch to CG considering computer animation takes longer and it’s arguably even harder to get decent performances in animation than puppetry. I’ve read suggestions that ITV thought puppets were “too old fashioned”. I don’t know if that was actually the case or not, but I do think that the persistent assumption that audiences respond better to computer animation than puppetry or other traditional mediums is another of those crackpot executive beliefs.

08/04/08 Update: A reader who asked to remain anonymous wrote in to say that ITV actually wanted to stick with puppets like the original, but weren’t able to because of a copyright dispute.

The story goes that ITV produced a Spitting Image retrospective two years ago that included new Spitting Image style puppets of British TV personalities Ant and Dec that were created without the consent of Roger Law. Roger co-created Spitting Image, owns the rights to the Spitting Image brand and reportedly withdrew his cooperation on the new series because of the perceived slight, which necessitated the switch to animation and a name change.