{"id":108498,"date":"2025-10-08T09:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T09:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/108498\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T09:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T09:50:10","slug":"paddington-creators-sue-spitting-image-for-sweary-drug-addled-bear-depiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/108498\/","title":{"rendered":"Paddington creators sue \u2018Spitting Image\u2019 for sweary, drug-addled bear depiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

The satirical puppet show depicted the adored children\u2019s character as rude and drug-addled in a sketch from its new YouTube series, titled Spitting Image: The Rest Is Bullshit.<\/p>\n

In the skit, which also features a parody of Prince Harry as podcast co-host, Paddington greets the audience by saying: \u201cI am from Peru, motherf*****r. I am Paddington Bear from Peru.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked the secret behind his \u201cpersonal glow\u201d, Paddington says his self-care regime includes taking \u201c100pc Peruvian, biodynamic, organic, catastrophic cocaine\u201d.<\/p>\n

Paddington Bear\u2019s rights holder and StudioCanal, producer of the hit films Paddington, Paddington 2 and Paddington in Peru, have filed a high court complaint citing design rights concerns and copyright.<\/p>\n

The filing does not reveal the details of the claim against Spitting Image\u2019s production company, Avalon, but comes just months after The Rest is Bullshit series was launched on YouTube.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The version of Paddington put forward by \u2018Spitting Image\u2019 which has drawn fury from fans of the much-loved bear.<\/p>\n

Today’s News in 90 Seconds, Wednesday, October 8<\/p>\n

The series parodies podcasts from production company Goalhanger such as Marina Hyde and Richard Osman\u2019s The Rest Is Entertainment and Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook\u2019s The Rest Is History.<\/p>\n

So far, in the sketch show Paddington and Prince Harry have interviewed Elon Musk. It has also read adverts for robot sex dolls and guns. <\/p>\n

Paddington\u2019s puppet also jokes that he starred in a Netflix series about the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar as \u201cPablo Esco-bear\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Prince Harry\u2019s puppet says: \u201cI\u2019m here to tell my truth and make a shit tonne of money out of podcasting as I don\u2019t have any discernible talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Avalon\u2019s representatives have been contacted for comment. StudioCanal declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Since its premiere this summer, the Spitting Image YouTube series has clocked more than 10million viewers, targeting celebrities including Meghan Markle and Taylor Swift.<\/p>\n

The fallout comes after Spitting Image returned to TV through the now-defunct BritBox series in 2020.<\/p>\n

As the series hit 40 last year, The Independent\u2019s James Moore said it had reached a mid-life crisis.<\/p>\n

Fans of Paddington have also pushed back against the sketch series\u2019 depiction of the bear, claiming their childhood has been \u201cruined\u201d by the parody and that they could not stand the \u201cdisrespect\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The satirical puppet show depicted the adored children\u2019s character as rude and drug-addled in a sketch from its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,1647,117,19,17,5091,5092],"class_list":{"0":"post-108498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-elon-musk","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-meghan-markle","14":"tag-prince-harry"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}