It was announced recently that the 80s satire puppet show "Spitting Image" was making a comeback.
Great news, no? Back in the day it was brilliant. The puppets were superb, the writing was excellent, even though I was too young to understand some of the politics or the satire it was still funny,.
But there's a few things nagging away at me re this new show.
I can't help think it's going to be absolute shit.
I mean, the puppets look excellent but I'm worried about the content.
We just don't do satire anymore. When was the last time you saw true satire on your screen? It's dead.
"Have I got news for you" used to be excellent satire, now it's unfunny, I just can't watch it.
"Mock the week" used to be fairly satirical at times, until Brexit. Brexit and Trump, that's all they joke about - 4 bloody years!
"The Mash Report" with that nasal imbecile Nish Kumar? Give me a break, it's horrendous, which is why the BBC still keep it on.
So, let's look at some of the characters and what I personally think they'll be like:
Boris Johnson, our PM. Probably portrayted as a bit of a bumbling idiot. Not far from the truth if I'm honest but you just know it'll be full of "Stay at home, but go to work, don't see your family but go to the pub, be alert, the country needs more lerts".
You know, the unfunny shit you've been reading on Facebook since April.
Dominic Cummings; ghoulish looking, and the puppet is a good likeness too.
Probably portrayed as a master manipulator but I can't help but think his scenes will be full of references to Barnard Castle and Specsavers.
Yawn. That was months ago, can we have something new?
Ahh, Prince Andrew. Something non political.
But will his scenes just be full of "I can't sweat, Oh I love Pizza Express" nonsense?
See, I'm just not convinced by it all. There is of course Donald Trump as well.
Odd that they're only taking the piss out of those (supposedly) on the Right though?
I hope I'm wrong, and I'll happily praise it and fully admit I was wrong if it turns out the writers really have pushed the envelope to make sure it's true satire. The problem is that it's not on any mainstream channel, it's going to be on that Britbox thing, which is a streaming service setup by the BBC and ITV.
The BBC doesn't do satire (as I've outlined above) and the last time ITV attempted it was that 2DTV is the early noughties, and that didn't last too long. And with the show set to debut in the autumn does that mean they're writing and filming now? By the time autumn is here it'll all be out of date. The great thing about the original Spitting Image is that it was written and filmed in the same week as the events were occurring.
Barnard Castle was unfunny after about 2 days, that was back in April or May. Imagine how painful it will be to hear it all again come October or November. You might as well thrown in the miners strike for good measure.
And Britbox? Well, I guess unless people buy it especially for Spitting Image then most of us will have to resort to piracy to watch it.
As I said, I'll happily admit if it's really well done, I don't mind admitting I am wrong. But I also have a concern about the show if it really IS good. You see, part of the reason why we don't have satire anymore is because everyone gets offended by everything.
If you follow some of the great satire accounts on Twitter you'll see there's a whole world of idiots out there. People actually believe the satire as reality and get offended by it.
I've seen the list of puppets they have made for the show and guess what, not a single person of colour. They are ALL white men or women.
No Dianne Abbott for a sneaky episode of Countdown? Nope.
Nothing of the sort. Why is that? Because it's racist to take the piss out of people of colour, don't you know?
I'm sure people will complain there's no diversity in the puppets too!
Adele is one of the puppets. Will it be fat? Will people complain of fat shaming? The show will issue an apology and will quietly disappear from "Shitbox".
This is the world we live in now. Nobody is ever happy. Always looking for a reason to find fault, to point blame, to call something an "ism".
I truly wish Spitting Image all the luck in the world, it's going to need it - but I hope it knocks it out the park and ignores the woke wankers who have no sense of humour.
Let's make Satire great again.