The year was 1984 and it was a Sunday night, at about 10pm, that British television witnessed the birth of a new phenomenon.

A phenomenon which would push  the boundaries of taste and decency, presenting the Royal Family, politicians and celebrities alike as satirical puppets, in surreal yet telling situations.
Indeed the show, the brainchild of artists Peter Fluck, Roger Law, National Lampoon’s Tony Hendra, producers John Lloyd and Jon Blair, would become one of the most talked-about programmes of the 1980s and 1990s.
Thirty years on, an exhibition celebrating the partnership between Fluck and Law, whose talent for three-dimensional caricature formed the bedrock for the complex creation that would become Spitting Image, has opened.

This Is Local London:

Including images of the satirical sculptures created by the duo in the ‘70s and ‘80s for magazines such as Men Only and Der Spiegel, it may be one of the few opportunities to view a depiction of Prince Andrew as a naked hunk...with two pounds of Cumberland sausage between his legs.

This Is Local London:

Then there are the letters of complaint including a particularly forthright one written in October 1986, diligently filed away. "You ignorant bastards are just piss-takers out of our country and a pack of reds. We are going to march in protest," it reads.
There are caricature drawings and photographs of, amongst others, Paul McCartney, Kate Moss, Rupert Murdoch and Saddam Hussein, and ceramic teapots of Margaret Thatcher, Royal eggcups, books, magazines, dog chews and other ephemera are on display.

And what of the infamous puppets themselves?  Although the show ended in 1996 after 18 series, in the following years many of the 600 puppets have either been sold or have succumbed to wear and tear. But, if you head over to the exhibition, you’ll have the rare chance to be in the same room as Osama Bin Laden, Alan Bennett, the Queen Mother, Jacques Chirac, Will Carling, Roy Hattersley and Princess Diana. Yikes. 
Spitting Image from Start to Finish it at The Cartoon Museum, Little Russell Street, WC1, until June 8.
Details: cartoonmuseum.org, 020 7580 8155.