JON P’TWEE was your thick-but-loveable scarecrow befriended by kids, according to the 7″ single (see below), “just like John and Sue”, with all the “thinking head”/”cup of tea and slice of cake” stuff. (Sue was, in fact, a pre-pubescent CHARLOTTE “FOUR/MARMALADE/ORANGES” COLEMAN.) Aunt Sally (UNA STUBBS) and “The playing-God-with-bits-of-turnip-and-carrot-alchemist Crowman” (GEOFFREY “CATWEAZLE” BAYLDON) did the schtick, along with multiple guest appearances down the years by BARBARA WINDSOR as Saucy Nancy. Original Southern television production later shifted lock, stock to New Zealand (for co-production of the “…DOWN UNDER”), though the series had long since deviated from the original BARBARA EUPHAN-TODD books.
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Creamguide's Pick of the Day
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Electric Dreams – The Giorgio Moroder Story
Monday, 22.00, BBC Radio 2Second part of this, where our hero moves slightly more towards the mainstream and starts penning film soundtracks, including the likes of Flashdance and Top Gun, plus of course The Never Ending Story which means we get to enjoy Limahl nestling alongside the rest of the heavyweight contributors, plus another film where his soundtrack is probably about a hundred times more famous now than the actual film. It’s the title of this programme, for a start.
Having finally seen the repeats on UK Gold after 15 years of being off the air, and then on the subsequent DVD release (box set one contains the first four series, box set two is the Down Under series), it has reaffirmed to me what a classic for me this was.
Can’t say I care much for the later Down Under ones that lacked most of the original supporting cast (so not the same Crowman for a start), but the first four series based around the books were very entertaining. Some of the character’s dialogue is as equally amusing for an adult viewer as well as for kids, plus you can’t beat the odd un-P.C. statement every now and then!
As Worzel himself said, well stick my head in a bucket of pigswill!
It won’t have dated that much, apart from some of the fashions, as it was filmed on location and the humour is timeless and Ptwee was always a very good comic actor whose pedigree went back to the forties. It was a classic kids show with that memorable trombone intro.
Sorry that I cant put up a link for this but take a look on youtube and type in “worzel gummidge swearing”. A bit juvenile I admit but it is very funny.
I really liked this when originally on & when Channel 4 repeated it later in the 1980s.
Worzel’s fall at the end of the closing credits always caught me off guard.
The Down Under ones wern’t quite up to the Southern standards. Using film stock that made an average Sweeney episode look like it was shot in HD didn’t help either.
Supposedly it was originally pitched to the BBC who turned it down, along with Thames, LWT, ATV, Granada & Yorkshire before Southern eventully picked it up.