Worzel Gummidge

Worzel Gummidge is a British television fantasy comedy series, produced by Southern Television for ITV, based on the Worzel Gummidge books by English author Barbara Euphan Todd. The programme starred Jon Pertwee as the titular scarecrow and Una Stubbs as Aunt Sally. It ran for four series in the UK from 1979 to 1981. On a countdown of the greatest British children's programmes, this series was number 50 in the 50 Greatest Kids TV Shows on Channel 5 on 8 November 2013. Channel 4 reprised the show in 1987 as Worzel Gummidge Down Under, which was set in New Zealand. Outline In 1979, a television adaptation of Worzel Gummidge was produced by ITV station Southern Television for transmission on the ITV network. It was written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, and starred former Doctor Who actor Jon Pertwee as Worzel and Una Stubbs as Aunt Sally, a life-size fairground doll and Worzel's femme fatale. This was a significant change from the original books, where Aunt Sally is Worzel's aunt, and Worzel is married to Earthy Mangold, a character who does not appear in the series. The Crowman, who made Worzel and some of his other scarecrow friends, is played by Geoffrey Bayldon, who had played the title role in Catweazle. Regular and occasional guest appearances were made by well-known TV actors of the time, including Barbara Windsor, Billy Connolly, Bill Maynard, Joan Sims, Lorraine Chase, Bernard Cribbins, Connie Booth, David Lodge and Mike Reid. According to Jon Pertwee's memoirs, the idea for the series began as a proposed film about the Worzel Gummidge character by Waterhouse and Hall which would have been "about the scarecrow equivalent" of the Peasants' Revolt, with the scarecrows rising up against farmers who were going to burn them when the farming season had finished. Pertwee was approached to play the lead character by producer Gareth Wigan. When that project was unable to secure the funds it needed for a distribution deal, Pertwee encouraged the writers to create a television pilot instead, and via his agent pitched the idea to Shaun Sutton, then Head of Drama at the BBC. Sutton turned down the project, which he felt was "too way out", as did Philip Jones at Thames Television. Pertwee later recalled that he "began to lose faith in the project", but Southern Television's Lewis Rudd heard about it and enthusiastically agreed that his company would make the series.