This might be an obscure one for you (if you live in America)

It started as a UK TV series satirizing pop culture in England.

they tried to expand it to the US market in 1986.
NBC had a two part special called "Spitting Image: Down And Out In The White House"
The show featured some weird puppets modeled after caricatures of famous people (celebrities and politicians)

If you've seen the music video for "land of Confusion" by Genesis these are the same puppets

NBC broadcast two other specials "The Ronnie And Nancy Show" and "The Spitting Image 1987 Movie Awards"

I have the first part of Down And Out In The White House and The Ronnie And Nancy Show on tape still... somewhere.

Does anyone else remember this awesome show?

I wonder how many people are like me and blocked blocked the memory of this out until it was mentioned, due to finding these puppets terrifying as a small child ;-) Pretty entertaining now though :)

Ha,ha! Back in the days I thought this show was crude, disgusting and as edgeofmysanity said, terrifying. But as I got older I learnt to appreciated the style of humour.

Is this show still running?

Never saw the show, always loved that song & video though.

I liked the Genesis video but don't remember that show. The closest thing I can think of was the tv show "DC Follies" which used to come on late Saturday nights after the news. I guess the show was aimed towards adults by it's political nature and late night airing. I only liked it because of the puppets but quite sure most of the content and jokes went over my head! LOL

I remember D.C. Follies, it was OK but IMO Spitting Image was better.
To me that jokes where funnier and I liked the look of the puppets better (again IMO)

We got Spitting Image here in Canada on CBC if I remember correctly, and it started not that long after it premiered on TV in the UK.

It was one of my favourite shows as a kid!

While I never saw the NBC special, CBS's 60 Minutes ran a story about Spitting Image back in the 80's and I thought the concept was a good fit for the US market.

Yeah,I've heard of this show. Are there still puppeters like those around or did CGI killed that too?

The first time I'd ever seen Spitting Image was on USA Network's Night Flight around 84. It was this song calle Da Do Run Ron.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dSr9IxNQ0M4

I think on US they did showed some episodes i recall when i was 4 but the one i remembered the most was DC Follies when i was 5 when it came out around 11 as i stayed up till 11:30 to watch it every summer since to watch DC Follies including taping episodes.

There was also a show called The '87 Award Show featuring Spock attempting to sabotage the Oscars. Very funny. I think it was all too dry and British for most Americans. I loved it even if I didn't know who a couple of the poeople were. The Ronny and Nancy Show was great. Down and Out In the White Houee waas brilliant. I am glad that when I converted my VHS tapes over to DVD that I saved these one shot programmes even if the quality is a little ragged.