PPDA puppet to keep host job
Rubber representative will still host France’s Spitting Image despite departure of his real life counterpart.
The rubber puppet of newsreader Patrick Poivre d'Arvor will stay on as host of les Guignols de l’Info despite his real life counterpart losing his job.
A spokesman for Canal+ which broadcasts the show – a French version of Spitting Image - said the puppet had become “more than just a caricature of PPDA” (the newsreader’s nickname) and was the “autonomous host” and emblem of the Guignols broadcasts.
Puppet PPDA has hosted the show since August 1988.
The departure of the real life PPDA, host of TF1’s evening news since 1987, was shrouded in controversy on several counts; his replacement, the blonde and beautiful Laurence Ferrari is a friend of President Sarkozy, as is TF1’s controlling shareholder, billionaire Martin Bouyges.
PPDA had incurred the anger of Sarkozy after asking the 5’5” president if he felt like a petit garçon in the Elysée Palace.
Ferrari, who began her journalistic career working as a freelance for AFP in 1986, has hosted several prime time news and information shows.
She has even worked with the Guignols, co-hosting election night specials in 2007 and 2008.
However the show’s producers said they had no plans for a Ferrari puppet as yet.
“If the writers of the Guignols don’t get any material, they don’t make a puppet,” said a spokesman who added that the situation would always be under review.
