Worzel Gummidge is a scarecrow who gets bored standing at his post in Ten Acre Field and often wanders into the village of Scatterbrook to see what's going on - and to see what mischief he can get up to! In the first episode he befriends a pair of children, John and Sue Peters, who spend most of the next four series trying to clear up the messes he creates. Charlotte Coleman (Sue) went on to secure considerable achievements in the acting profession. Mystery surrounds Austin's current whereabouts, but he went on to play Humphrey in the BBC children's drama Jonny Briggs.

Worzel's gimmick was a set of interchangeable turnip heads (the idea of Jon Pertwee, it is said), each head allowing Worzel to perform a certain skill or to suit a particular occasion. Should Worzel be required to sing, for example, he would put on his singing head. Worzel's catchphrases are "A cup o’ tea an’ a slice o’ cake" and "Arma darma deema darma arma darma Worzel". He is madly in love with Aunt Sally, a cruel-hearted fairground doll who considers herself a lady and far too good for a common scarecrow such as Worzel. The reality is Aunt Sally has no more intelligence than Worzel, and won't hesitate to exploit him for her own ends (in one episode, promising to marry him if he frees her from a junkshop washing machine, but she never has any intention of going through with it and jilts him at the "altar").

The subtext of the move to New Zealand in Down Under was that Aunt Sally is purchased by an antiques dealer visiting from New Zealand. At the airport, Worzel spots Aunt Sally going down the luggage chute and throws himself in after her; they make the long journey to Wellington together in the plane's hold!

A good deal of the show's entertainment value came from the interaction between Worzel and Sally, played with relish by Pertwee and Stubbs. Pertwee is virtually unrecognisable due to the make-up that was applied to him in a gruelling six hour process every day - and the audience is invited to cry along as much with Worzel as laugh as him. It's not for nothing that he has often been referred to as "the tragi-comic scarecrow." Upon Pertwee's death in 1996, Una was to comment "He was a big man in every way."

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