TV & Radio

The original stock of the first season of fantasy epic Game of Thrones on DVD and Blu-ray has become overnight collectors items for a rather unusual reason.

As odd as it sounds, in the above image of two severed heads impaled on spikes, the image on the right is actually a prosthetic version of the 43rd president of the United States, George W Bush - wearing a wig.

Though the spot wasn't made by any viewers during the original broadcast of series one, showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss admitted as much during the DVD commentary, stating: "George Bush's head appears in a couple of beheading scenes.

"It's not a choice, it's not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around."

"We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk."

However, Republicans in the US were less than impressed and now HBO has announced that earlier editions of the DVD - featuring decapitated Bush - will be removed from sale.

"We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste," said the US network.

"We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologised immediately for this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production."