Spitting Image, the British puppet comedy show, is a cornerstone of modern television satire. In fact, it’s even been said that many UK cabinet ministers became household names purely as a result of their Spitting Image puppets. Thai television also broadcast a political puppet show, Robot Government (รายการรัฐบาลหุ่น), in the early 2000s, created by veteran actor and director Arun Bhavilai. (Unfortunately, Robot Government is not well documented, either online or in print.)
Another show, Spa Joke [sic] (สภาโจ๊ก), was equally satirical, though it featured political lookalikes rather than puppets. The characters’ names were also soundalikes for those of real politicians. Like Robot Government, Spa Joke was broadcast on the independent channel iTV, running from 2002 to 2014. (After iTV closed down in 2007, Spa Joke moved to the state broadcaster NBT.)
Like Spitting Image, Spa Joke made political debates accessible to a mass audience, and this was one of the aims of the show’s creators. It was released on a long-running and popular series of VCDs, and the first year’s episodes are archived on YouTube, with the tagline “แล้วพบกันอีพีต่อๆไปครับท่านประธาน!” (‘see you in the next episode, Mr Speaker!’). It was briefly revived in audio form on the Clubhouse app in 2021, with live episodes that were even edgier than the TV version.
Like Spitting Image, Spa Joke made political debates accessible to a mass audience, and this was one of the aims of the show’s creators. It was released on a long-running and popular series of VCDs, and the first year’s episodes are archived on YouTube, with the tagline “แล้วพบกันอีพีต่อๆไปครับท่านประธาน!” (‘see you in the next episode, Mr Speaker!’). It was briefly revived in audio form on the Clubhouse app in 2021, with live episodes that were even edgier than the TV version.
สภาโจ๊ก is also the title of a song by the band TaitosmitH, from their album เพื่อชีวิตกู (‘for my life’), which makes coded references to politicians of the period. The song refers to a man charged with possession of flour (Thammanat Prompao, who falsely claimed that the heroin he had smuggled was only flour), and a sleeping deputy PM (Prawit Wongsuwon, who was filmed dozing in parliament). The album was released on CD and vinyl in 2022.
In 2023, some of the original Spa Joke team created a new version of the show, Sapa Talk (สภาทอล์ค). This was initially broadcast on Thai-Tai, the channel that was previously known as Bluesky, though after a few months it moved to Thai Rath TV. Each episode is also on YouTube.
Sapa Talk’s cast included Phayao Nimma playing Prayut Chan-o-cha, and the actor also portrayed Prayut in the films New Abnormal (ผิดปกติใหม่) and The Cave (นางนอน). Sapa Talk has not released any new episodes since October last year, due to the national mourning period following the death of Queen Sirikit.
Sapa Talk’s cast included Phayao Nimma playing Prayut Chan-o-cha, and the actor also portrayed Prayut in the films New Abnormal (ผิดปกติใหม่) and The Cave (นางนอน). Sapa Talk has not released any new episodes since October last year, due to the national mourning period following the death of Queen Sirikit.