IS it a sign of our scary times that we’re going all retro? Faced with the grim reality of the present, is it a small crumb of old-fashioned comfort that we’re delving into the past?

First came the announcement that satirical puppet show Spitting Image is making a comeback. Oh how we hanker for the good-old days of its 1980s heyday when Thatcher was in power. Well, maybe not.

New episodes of the comedy, described as “public service satire” by co-creator Roger Law, will take on Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, among others.

“It’s pretty chaotic out there. As far as I’m concerned, it’s better than shouting at the television set,” said Law.

Spitting Image was created by caricaturists Law, Peter Fluck and Martin Lambie-Nairn, and at its height pulled in an audience of 15 million viewers.

Much of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet was parodied, with Douglas Hurd depicted with “Mr Whippy ice cream” hair and his successor John Major caricatured as a dull, grey puppet with a penchant for peas. World leaders were also satirised, with Mikhail Gorbachev’s forehead birthmark redrawn as a hammer and sickle. However, the series was axed in 1996 because of declining audience numbers.

Law said that, unlike the original, the new series would not focus on the lower ranks of British politics, explaining: “It’s an awful lot of trouble to go to, and you want it to be effective.”

Presumably, there’s the added problem that at Westminster, you don’t know who’s going to be sacked or resign from one day to the next – and that’s just the cabinet.

A pilot for the resurrected show has already been filmed. Also featured will be Meghan Markle wearing a glittery top with the word “Princess” on the front. Putin is bare-chested with a “Thug Life” tattoo, while Trump is seen in a suit and red tie, an orange glow surrounding his pale eyes. The real challenge will be distinguishing the Trump puppet from the real thing.

The National:

Then we learn that another model hero of the past is to reappear on our screens in the shape of Morph. Well, the many shapes of Morph might be a better way of putting it.

One of the creators behind the Aardman Animations character has revealed the flexible clay star is coming back in a new series.

Morph made his debut with Tony Hart in classic BBC1 children’s programmes in the late 1970s and early 1980s and it’s 20 years since he’s regularly been on TV.

Details of which channel will show the new episodes and when haven’t yet been disclosed.

Peter Lord, who created Morph with David Sproxton, explained: “It’s so new, I can’t reveal where it’ll be but, yes, a five-minute series. I think maybe 15 five-minute stories.”

In preparation, Lord and his animation sidekick have been on holiday in Orkney and posting pictures of their exploits on social media. A teaser shows the stop-go animation hero visiting the Highland Park distillery in Kirkwall.

But who knows where the wee chap’s adventures will take him next. After all, he’s orange apart from the whites of his eyes. Perhaps the White House beckons.