His popularity grew more and more. He became the protagonist of another show called "Grillometro" ("Grillometer"). Soon after this, his performances started to have more and more political satire. He often insulted politicians. In 1987 during the Saturday night television programme "Fantastico 7", he made comments about the Italian Socialist Party and its leader Bettino Craxi who had just taken a trip to China. Grillo said, "If the Chinese are all socialists, whom do they steal from?" The Italian Socialist Party did not like this because he was calling them thieves. After this episode, Grillo slowly was banned from the publicly owned television. Grillo not back on television until the political party was forced to disband several years later.