Hearing scheduled for Monday

The copyright fight over Spitting Image’s use of Paddington is heading to the High Court on Monday.

The producers behind the hit films and the estate of his creator, Michael Bond, are suing programme-makers Avalon for their depiction of the beloved bear as a foul-mouthed South American narco-terrorist with a penchant for his own product.

Now the case has been scheduled to start at the High Court’s Rolls Building at 9.30am on Monday, overseen by Deputy Master [Jonathan] Arkush

An online revival of the Spitting Image franchise last year took the form of a podcasts hosted by the bear and Prince Harry.

Episodes were pulled from YouTube after the writ was filed last October, but the show continued to mock the lawsuit – including creating an episode called We’re Getting Sued and renaming film company StudioCanal as Studio C Anal.

After the  writ was filed –  citing copyright and design right issues – Paddington’s look on the satirical show changed, with his familiar red hat and blue duffle coat ditched.

In the claim, the plaintiffs, demanded the puppet used on the show to be delivered to them or destroyed.

They said: ‘The Avalon puppet depicts the Paddington character with a frightening demeanour’ adding that the portrayal as ‘a cocaine smuggler, an alcoholic and a user of heroin’ who uses ‘coarse language’ is a ‘distortion or mutilation’ of the polite Paddington of the books and films. 

Spitting Image is written and performed by comics Al Murray and Matt Forde. And soon after the writ landed Murray said: ‘I’m finding it kind of ridiculous. We’re carrying on, because we don’t think we’re doing anything wrong in particular… we are absolutely mystified by it. Because they [Studio Canal] make comedies, right?’ 

Published: 19 Jun 2026