Major French political figures were designed by artists: Alain Duverne, Jacques Loup, Jean-Yves Grall... representing as characters similar to those of The Muppet Show, with, for instance, François Mitterrand portrayed as a frog named Kermitterrand (and naming himself God), a reference to Kermit the Frog.
Jean-Marie Le Pen sued the show, as he disliked being represented as the vampire "Pencassine", shown wearing a traditional girl's costume from Brittany – a reference to Bécassine, a 1910s classic French comic character, and to Le Pen's origins in Brittany, while retaining his vampire fangs.
Édith Cresson expressed great displeasure at her own puppet: she was depicted as an air-headed panther, submissive to the sexual whims of "Kermitterrand".
The series' popularity and ratings began to decline in the 1990s, due to growing competition from Les Guignols de l'info on Canal+.
Eventually, Muppet Show references became less evident, with the introduction of new characters unrelated to the Jim Henson show: Jean-Marie Le Pen as Pencassine, a vampire version of Bécassine, Jack Lang as a goat, Édith Cresson as a panther, Jacques Chaban-Delmas as a duck, Charles Pasqua as a walrus, André Lajoinie as a dimwitted dog, Michel Rocard as a crow, Laurent Fabius as a squirrel, Édouard Balladur as a pelican, Arlette Laguiller as a weasel, etc... After Gaston Defferre died, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing complained about remaining the only character to be represented as a human (and a grumpy old man, at that).