Puppets (TV series)

Puppets (Russian: Куклы, lit. "dolls") was a weekly Russian TV show of political satire, produced by Vasily Grigoryev and shown on Saturdays on the TV channel NTV. It used puppets to represent celebrities, mainly the major politicians. It was inspired by the 1980s–90s British show Spitting Image.

Puppets's puppet of Vladimir Putin, which was shown in his 2000 autobiography, On Behalf Of the First Person. Talks With Vladimir Putin.[1]

The show was well loved in Russia and has inspired spinoffs in other countries.[2] President Vladimir Putin was frequently represented in the show.

Closure

NTV was forced to close it down in 2002 after pressure from the Kremlin.[3]

Spitting in Russian

On January 1, 2010 the programme Spitting in Russian was broadcast by BBC Radio 4. Presented by Roger Law, co-creator of Spitting Image, it recounts how Russian programme-makers came to London to learn the art of making political puppets, and how the programme came to an end.

The show's producing team was involved in several legal controversies.

Viktor Shenderovich, a satirist and a writer for the show, has claimed that an unnamed top government official required NTV to exclude the puppet of Putin from the show.[4] Accordingly, in the following episode, called "Ten Commandments", the puppet of Putin was replaced with a cloud covering the top of a mountain and a burning bush.

References and footnotes
  1. Фотоматериалы книги. Часть 24 (in Russian). Presidential Press and Information Office. Archived from the original on 2009-04-01. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
  2. In Ukraine a similar show called Pupsnya ran in 2007. Source: Pupsnya TV show, Kyiv Post (September 19, 2007); click here for episode of Pupsnya on YouTube.
  3. Colton, Timothy J. (2016-09-08). Russia: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190628406.
  4. Sherendovich about NTV, TV-6, TVS
gollark: Yes. A "joke". Definitely. vote gibson, !lyric!demote!.
gollark: The "joke" mutings/kickings are a bad thing which should stop, yet LyricLy has not done this despite agreeing to not mute/ban people without consent and also admin guidelines.
gollark: He is also generally vaguely tyrannical.
gollark: I think andrew is.
gollark: *Maybe* the alleged "bad sense of humor" is actually a bad thing about him which is bad?
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