Spitting Image, first broadcast in February 1984, is famed as an iconoclastic satire of 1980s political and popular culture. Its grotesque puppet caricatures became so well known that they could cement a person’s image in public consciousness: Margaret Thatcher as a domineering bully, Sarah Ferguson a snorting Sloane ranger, a grey-skinned John Major joylessly chomping a plate of peas.

Thatcher may have provided the show with its star turn, but her government’s policies were also influential in bringing the programme to air, as well as its eventual demise. The story of Spitting Image is a surprisingly – and accidentally – Thatcherite one.

Spitting Image had unusual origins for a popular TV show. It began with the partnership of artists Roger Law and Peter Fluck, also known as “Luck and Flaw”. They specialised in three-dimensional caricature models, which were photographed for news outlets across the world.

To provide additional income, the pair decided to make these models move. Though Fluck and Law would not have called themselves entrepreneurs, they were keen to expand the operation in ways that would have made Thatcher happy.

At a feted “original lunch” in 1982, designer Martin Lambie-Nairn suggested a television show as a vehicle for Fluck and Law’s caricaturing. They formed an independent company with US-based satirist Tony Hendra, comedy producer John Lloyd (who had approached Fluck and Law to animate their caricatures for his hit BBC show Not the Nine O’Clock News) and freelance current affairs producer Jon Blair.

It was unclear, though, how to translate this wealth of knowledge, experience and enthusiasm into making and selling a TV show.

This was understandable, since, at this time, most British TV was made in-house, either by the BBC or within the ITV network. Independent television production was a cottage industry and indies had little access to airtime.