Headcases
| Headcases | |
|---|---|
Headcases intertitle
|
|
| Created by | Henry Naylor |
| Starring |
Rory Bremner Jon Culshaw Lewis MacLeod Kayvan Novak Lucy Porter Jess Robinson Katy Wix Katy Brand Omid Djalili Phil Cornwell Lucy Montgomery Mark Perry |
| Music by |
Richie Webb Matt Katz |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes (including adverts) |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV, STV, UTV |
| Picture format | 576i 16:9 |
| Original release | 6 April – 15 June 2008 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Headcases was an ITV satirical animation show based on current affairs. It employed the same satirical style as Spitting Image, 2DTV and Bo' Selecta! but using 3D animation created by UK Visual Effects and animation house Red Vision. Red Vision evolved a series of unique production techniques and a sophisticated animation pipeline to deliver the weekly topical elements of the series to hitherto impossible deadlines.
The programme's only series began on 6 April 2008, with weekly episodes until 11 May 2008, airing on Sundays at 10 pm. A seventh episode was televised on Friday, 30 May at 10:30 pm, and an eighth at 10 pm on Sunday, 15 June.
The show included celebrities, politicians and members of the British Royal Family in their animated form, taking a role in sketches including scenarios from their own topical issues. The show's name comes from the fact that all the subjects' caricatured faces are out of scale with the rest of their bodies.
Lampooning people in the public eye, the impressionists got the chance to caricature politicians, royals and celebrities alike. These included Prime Minister Gordon Brown, portrayed as an out-of-touch, weak, very austere Scrooge-like Victorian and has a dark, miserable old character. His Chancellor, Alistair Darling, is depicted as a panicky cry-baby who says, "We're doomed, doomed, doomed" while jumping around the room. There were also the forgetful Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, the vicious creature David Miliband and Tony Blair who, under the guise of Brown's adviser Ed Balls, tricks Gordon for money. On the Conservatives' side, Leader of the Conservatives, David Cameron who was portrayed as insisting he's an ordinary man of the people for a press conference, before reverting into a volatile, mean-spirited, snobbish public schoolboy behind closed doors, He regularly beats his Shadow Chancellor and manservant George Osborne and forces him to do various unpleasant things, i.e. lick dog muck off his shoes (a reference to "old Etonian" fagging). Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague is portrayed as an oafish, bitter alcoholic Yorkshireman (referencing his past claims of having drunk "14 pints a day" as a teenager) and the then-newly elected Mayor of London Boris Johnson portrayed as half man and half dog so when he tries to talk about issues he instead does acts of canine behaviour e.g. chasing his tail and licking his genitals. While on the side of the Liberal Democrats, leader Nick Clegg is portrayed as a desperate leader ready to use anything (such as offers at Pizza Hut suggested by his party) as an excuse for the Lib Dems' 'drive for change' influencing day-to-day Britain.
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Wikipedia