DEAD SPIT

Tricky to say for the unwary, the names of Luck and Flaw were once the enfants terribles of British TV shocking, outraging, horrifying and, let's admit it, delighting the nation with their Spitting Image shows, in which scarily life-like celebrity puppets with uncannily sound-alike voices were seen generally behaving badly and taking the p*** out of royalty, politics and popular culture.

The latex caricatures by Roger Law and Peter Fluck (seen left among some of their early creations) soon became a beloved (and in certain quarters loathed and feared) institution that combined the knock-about politically incorrect humour of the Punch and Judy show with a three-dimensional realisation of the kind of savage satire and vitriolic humour popular with the British across several centuries of political cartoonists and social lampoonery from Gilray, Rowlandson and Hogarth to Ralph Steadman and Gerald Scarfe.

To celebrate three decades of Luck and Flaw's irreverent partnership, The Cartoon Museum has an superb new exhibition –– Spitting Image: From Start to Finish...

On show are cartoons, puppets and the superb models that Luck and Flaw created for many leading magazines and journals at the time and featuring Her Maj...

HM's third child, Prince Andrew posed naked as a Playgirl centre-fold and proudly displaying a couple of pounds of Cumberland sausage...

Former Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock as Pinocchio with his wife, Glenys as Jiminy Cricket...

Tennis bad boy, John McEnroe...

US President Reagan and Nancy...

And unquestionably Spitting Image's greatest triumph – the ultimate Maggie Thatcher that out-Maggied and out-Thatched the real thing...

Here's a reminder of what she was like in action – twice over!!

And here, at the opening of the Cartoon Museum exhibition is Steve Nallon who loaned his voice to Mrs T and others...

Also on show is art from Luck and Flaw's amazingly illustrated editions of Treasure Island and A Christmas Carol...

 
And numerous examples of Spitting Image souvenirs that back in the '80s no British home was complete without!

Spitting Image:
From Start to Finnish continues until 
8 June 2014 at...

The Cartoon Museum
35 Little Russell Street
London
WC1A 2HH

Tel: 0207 580 8155

OPENING HOURS:

Monday - Saturday: 10:30-17:30

(including Bank Holidays)

Sunday: 12:00-17:30

LATE OPENINGS (until 8pm):

Thur 15 May, Fri 16 May, Sat 17 May

Thurs 22 May, 29 May, 5 June

Please note the Museum will be closed on Monday 9 June 2014

Check out the SPECIAL EVENTS being held at the Museum during the exhibition

WARNING: Don't miss this great exhibition –– if you do, SHE will know!

All models: © Luck and Flaw Spitting Image Archive © Spitting Image Productions Ltd, Spitting Image Archive.
John McEnroe ‘I’m playing to win’ Model Peter Fluck & Roger Law Photograph by John Lawrence Jones. Radio Times 19 -25 June 1982
© Luck and Flaw Spitting Image Archive
Margaret Thatcher PM
Model Spitting Image workshop. Photograph by John Lawrence Jones.
© Spitting Image Productions Ltd, Spitting Image Archive.
'Thatcher Cutting Up Britain' by Spitting Image Workshop.  Photograph by Spitting Image Workshop.
© Spitting Image Productions Ltd, Spitting Image Archive.
'Her Majesty The Queen' by Spitting Image Workshop.  Photograph by John Lawrence Jones.
© Spitting Image Productions Ltd, Spitting Image Archive.