Spitting Image Halloween special to air on ITV

Puppet satire's second one-off special for terrestrial TV

Spitting Image is to return to ITV for a one-off Halloween special.

The revived satirical puppet shows is currently airing on streaming service Britbox on Saturday nights – but the October 30 episode will be also broadcast across terrestrial TV in the following week.

Another one-off special previously aired on ITV in the run-up to the US Presidential elections in November 2020, the first time it had been on the channel since 1996 and attracting 4.4 million viewers.

The programme has been credited with driving record subscribers for BritBox, as well as being an online success, racking up more than 200 million social media views.

However, it has also attracted criticism. A sketch earlier this month featuring Labour MP Jess Phillips as a superheroine shouting, ‘convene my big Labour vag’ and, ‘you wanna suck some fucking milk from my big Labour tits?’ was slammed a sexist.

Other new puppets for the second series have included Emma Raducanu, Olivia Colman, Sajid Javid, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Gary Lineker and Bill Gates.

Original Spitting Image co-creator Roger Law heads the show’s creative team, while Futurama’s Jeff Westbrook is showrunner. Comedians providing scripts and voices include Al Murray, Bert Tyler-Moore, Matt Forde, Debra Stephenson, Eshaan Akbar, Jess Robinson, Lewis MacLeod and Luke Kempner.

A German language version of the show has also launched, mixing redubbed international sketches from the English version with local sketches written by German comedy writers.