‘Spitting Image’s’ Royal Christmas

Press, 24 December 1985, Page 15

‘Spitting Image’s’ Royal Christmas

NZPA-AAP London Forget the prim, sedate, televised Christmas message by the Queen this year.

British viewers wifl be getting a much more outrageous version. The unofficial view of Yuletide life at Windsor Castle depicts the Royals after they have been through the turkey dinner. The Queen, in a green quilted jacket, complete with a “Ban The Bomb” badge and tiara under her headscarf, sits next to Prince Philip who is nursing a bottle of ouzo. Princess Anne is comatose, the result of too much sherry in the trifle.

Prince Charles is also legless and staggering, not from over-indulgence, but from three rounds of playtime with his son and heir, Prince William, i

The most photographed Royal, Princess Diana, peering out from under a mop of hair and a tinsel headband, is nursing a baby, supposedly Charles’ Christmas present to her.

Prince Andrew is in the background performing an idiotic dance around a Christmas tree.

This is the “Spitting Image” view. The immensely popular satirical puppet show has unmercifully lampooned the Royals for its Christmas special and once again Fleet Street’s newspapers are asking whether its producers have gone too far. Small touches, such as a photograph of the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, used as a dartboard on a Windsor wall, have prompted the question

of whether the Queen would be amused.

The producer, John Lloyd, admits the programme receives a lot of irate letters about the puppet portrayal of the Royal Family. The programme caused a public outcry recently after publishing a nude centrefold of the Prince Andrew puppet in its latest book. Woolworths banned the book from its shelves and “Spitting Image” destroyed the puppet If the public are offended by the Christmas portrayal, they are in for an even bigger shock when the show begins a new series in the New Year.

John Lloyd confirms they intend featuring a new Princess Michael puppet, which sports a Hitler moustache, following the revelations about her father’s involvement in the SS. |

Whenever the Princess enters a room the other Royal puppets shout in unison: “Don’t mention the war.” The show is also set to take the United States by storm and John Lloyd says they will be producing a series for the giant NJB.C. network.

But if they thought they had problems with some of their English characters — the Queen Mother has been declared out of bounds — then they hadn’t reakoned on Disneyland. John Lloyd says it was planned to have a Mickey Mouse take-off for the American series, but this had been vetoed.

“Apparently you can’t be rude about Disney — that’s a real taboo,” John Lloyd says.