When Black Beauty finally rode into the sunset, Sunday afternoons weren't the same for a while.  Just William whilst very memorable, didn't really fill the gap for me, with the annoying Violet-Elizabeth making it a bit of a turn-off.

I can't really remember any other Sunday series of note until one Sunday Afternoon in 1979, a loveable scarecrow arrived on our screens.

'Worzel Gummidge' was played by the incomparable Jon Pertwee, who's characterisation of Worzel made the character arguably even more memorable than Dr. Who, whom he played for four years

'Worzel Gummidge' was the story of a scarecrow who was brought to life by a mysterious magic man known only as 'The Crowman', played by Geoffrey Bayldon, who played 'Catweazle', also a previous Look-in strip.

He is befriended (and sometimes annoyed!) by two children, John and Sue Peters (Charlotte Coleman and Jeremy Austin), who come to live on Scatterbrook farm where Worzel guards the fields (or is supposed to...!!!).  They spend a lot of their time trying to keep Worzel out of trouble, or trying to explain away the messes he finds himself in.  A lot of the trouble Worzel makes for himself, is born from his misunderstanding of common everyday things.  One of the gimmicks of WG was an array of interchangeable heads that Worzel, keeps in his barn, that enable him to assume a different character, or help him to do certain things.  Later on different characters were added to the cast, Aunt Sally (Una Stubbs) was a Coconut-Shy doll who becomes a love interest for Worzel, unfortunately she spurns Worzel a lot of the time, and is very hard-hearted.

Other actors joined the cast over the four series as reoccurring characters, Saucy Nancy (Barbara Windsor) a ship's figurehead, Dolly Clothespeg (Lorraine Chase) a shop mannequin, Bogle McNeep (Billy Connolly) a Scotch scarecrow and Sergeant Scarecrow (Bill Maynard).

The series was written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, basing the stories on the books written by Barbara Euphan-Todd.

In one episode Worzel teaches the children how to speak 'Worzelese' with the aid of a song, called 'Worzel's Song', it was released as a single and made it into the top 40.

In 1981, despite the series still having decent ratings, TVS decided to axe the programme, this brought about a campaign to restore the series.  This proved unsuccessful but in 1986 the format was bought by Television New Zealand, who made the first of two series called 'Worzel Gummidge Down Under'.

The strip had a few different artists, personally I didn't like the Ranson one, he had a way of drawing that was over realistic for this type of story, I thought Worzel looked quite evil sometimes! (see above left), although strips like 'Sapphire and Steel' were amazing which shows Arthur did have his place.  Mike Noble in comparison gave the strip the airiness it needed, and kept the lovability in his characterisations, coupled with the writing, as usual impeccable, and full of humour.

A great strip generally, and certainly in my top 10.

8.0