The political satire show "Kukly [Puppets]" mocks Anatoly Chubais, a key architect of the disastrous early-1990s Russian privatization push known as "shock therapy." From Episode 47, “Hostages,” which aired on NTV on 27 January 1996.

An anti-Zyuganov cartoon published about a month before the first round of presidential elections in 1996 compares him to a Godzilla-sized dog owner training an entire city to “Beg!” for a slice of Soviet mortadella—liubitel’skaya kolbasa.