Sky Germany is to air a bespoke Spitting Image show to German audiences, with puppets of prominent national figures already in development.  In line with the roll out of the second series to BritBox UK and BritBox Australia, the innovative format and tape deal will see an approx. 50/50 mix of globally resonating content from the English language version (redubbed by Germany’s leading voice artists), and new topical local sketches (written by German comedy writers) filmed in the UK-based Spitting Image studio close to transmission to ensure maximum topicality.

With well-known national figures like Jürgen Klopp and Angela Merkel already featuring heavily in season one, as you’d expect with the upcoming German federal elections puppets including Armin Laschet, Markus Söder, Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, are in production as well as domestic TV stars including Barbara Schöneberger and athletes including Thomas Müller.  These are just some of new German faces to fall under the gaze of the legendary Spitting Image Workshop.

With widespread critical and social media acclaim, Spitting Image has delivered record subscribers for BritBox UK, the BBC and ITV created streaming platform, and a 4.4 million audience for ITV with a one-off US Election Special, the highest Saturday night ratings for at that time in four years (one of ITV’s biggest Saturday night ABC1 audiences of 2020).  Across official social media channels, Spitting Image content has been hugely popular with over 200 million views globally and three No. 1 trending videos on YouTube.

With the world getting smaller and more turbulent, last year celebrated Spitting Image co-creator Roger Law returned to head up the show’s creative team, while multi-award-winner Jeff Westbrook (The Simpsons, Futurama) joined as Showrunner, leading the international writing team on the iconic British satirical take on global events.

Roger Law said: “Unlike Boris Johnson, I’m delighted that Spitting Image is working in collaboration with Sky Deutschland. The puppets are terribly excited and very busy perfecting their German. The show probably won’t be about Brexit, the World Cup or motorways, but who knows… You can never be too sure about Spitting Image!”

Christian Asanger, Vice President Entertainment at Sky Deutschland: “Spitting Image is cult show! With the world’s first local version of this successful British format, we are adding another innovative Sky Original to our comedy portfolio. Whether a scientist, sportsman or TV star – German celebrities will soon be shivering in front of Spitting Image and, in keeping with the Bundestag elections in September, German political figures will also get their money’s worth.”

Produced by Avalon (Taskmaster, The Russell Howard Hour, Catastrophe, Breeders, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver), development of puppets for series two is already underway with Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Prince Andrew, Vladimir Putin, Harry & Meghan, Beyoncé, Angela Merkel, Dwayne Johnson, Ed Sheeran, Jürgen Klopp, Elon Musk, Adele, Covid-19, James Corden, Emmanuel Macron, Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump, and Dominic Cummings just some of the global figures that fell under the show’s legendary gaze for the debut hit series.  A next generation of satirical writers and voice artists were assembled to drive a new wave of ‘public service satire’. In keeping with the 80s and 90s, scripts were written and new puppets made close to delivery to ensure each week’s episode was as topical as possible.

Internationally, the debut of the first series drew the second-best channel audience figure in Finland for its time slot and was hailed by the leading Finnish newspaper as being, “As vicious and risqué as before” and successfully launched in Belgium with a 22% of total TV audience share, as well as seeing millions of views in the USA via YouTube.

The bespoke German elements will be produced by Avalon and Redseven Entertainment, producer Georg Kappenstein, executive producer Sebastian Benthues, head writer Elmar Freels.  Executive Producers for Avalon are Jeff Westbrook, Joanna Beresford, Jon Thoday, Richard Allen-Turner and Roger Law. BritBox Commissioning Executive is Nana Hughes.

As part of the new deal series one is being revoiced in German by the country’s leading voice artists.

Spitting Image will return to the UK this autumn.

Pictures: Avalon/Britbox/Mark Harrison