Roger Law, the co-creator of Spitting Image, says the political times are right for a return of the outrageous latex puppets – though only to America.

Law spoke as Cambridge University Library accepted the first tranche of an enormous archive of Spitting Image , the satirical puppet show shown originally on ITV from 1984 to 1996. The archive includes the first script and videotape for the pilot episode, which was not broadcast.

The initial 32 boxes of material contain rehearsal and post-production scripts, memorabilia, puppet design drawings and newspaper cuttings that shine a light on one of the most famous, and infamous, TV satire shows ever broadcast. At its peak the show reached an audience of 15 million.

Law, 77, acknowledged that now would be a good time for Spitting Image to return. But it would not happen in the UK. “I’ve got about 10 or 15 years if I’m lucky. Do I want to spend it repeating Spitting Image as it was? No. I want to be somewhere you can do what you want, and that would be on the net or pay-for-view. I don’t need some halfwit at ITV or the BBC telling us what you can or can’t do. I’m too old.”

If money, such as from Netflix, were on the table for a US version, written by Americans but made in Britain, he would consider the revival.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Roger Law, co-creator of Spitting Image, says times ‘are so extreme’ a US version of the show might be apt. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

“Now it’s so extreme, what’s going on. What am I going to do for the last bit of my life? And I love to work, it wouldn’t be a waste of time. We never really did it successfully in America. We did it and blew it for all sorts of reasons. It would be very interesting.”

In the meantime Law has been involved, with his archivist wife, Deirdre Amsden, in starting to move three sea-containers’ worth of archive material from north Norfolk to Cambridge.

Law, who created the show with Peter Fluck, said he was pleased people had fond memories of the episodes but that it had had misses as well as hits. “I remember some of it being really quite good. Most of it wasn’t, and it’s the same for the people that watched it. They’ve telescoped that 13 years down to ‘what will the vegetables have?’ It’s jolly boring of them. But in a way it’s quite good. Unless I’m foolish enough to do it again, they have a very pleasant memory of Spitting Image.”

The episode which was not broadcast, which has the working title The Late Latex Show, is a good example of the good and bad of Spitting Image. Its first scene features a puppet of Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, who was UN secretary-general from 1982 to 1991. The opening line would have been: “Ah. Good Evening. Bonsoir. Buona Sera. (HE GLANCES AT HIS LIST OF PHRASES). Guten Abend. Kalispera. Buenas Noces … and the top of the morning’ to yez. Welcome, everybody. I am Senor Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. I am Head of the World. But come in, come.”

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Later sketches featured the British prime minister Margaret Thatcher (1979-90) and Norman Tebbit (now a Tory peer) opening the mail full of letter bombs; the Labour leader Michael Foot as the alien from ET reaching out with his long bony finger (“look, if you kids don’t push off I’ll … I’ll … and let me add … er … of course … erm”); and an undeniably racist sketch about Japanese people, where all the characters looked the same. Law said that sketch was of its time. “It is only in retrospect that you realise it was a pretty fucking obscene thing to do.”

They got away with a lot, Law acknowledged. ITV “had all these worries about this, that and the other – once we had an audience and all those car ads and lager ads and god knows what, we could pretty much do what we wanted”.

As well as the piles of scripts, Cambridge will take delivery of 400 videos and puppets of Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev and Alan Bennett.

Jessica Gardner, the Cambridge University librarian, called Spitting Image a “brilliant and iconic” show. “I do think of this as a national treasure, it is exactly what we, as a university library, should hold.”

Law said the essence of Spitting Image was basically Punch and Judy. “Punch was an alcoholic wife-beating racist who abused children. Children of five fucking love him.”