Turner the Worm was a fondly-remembered cartoon strip that ran on Teletext‘s Kids section from 1992 until the service’s final day in 2009. In actuality, creator Paul Rose (Mr Biffo) stopped making new comics for the series prior to his departure from Teletext Ltd in 2003, but they were continually repeated afterwards.
Inspired by the cartoon strips Barney’s Bunch (ORACLE) and The Fantastic Adventures of 4-T (4-Tel), Turner was conceived because Rose wanted to make graphics that were “more challenging” and “fun” than the small icons he had been creating.
Speaking at the 2016 Teletext & Digitiser Festival in Cambridge, he explained that Turner the Worm was largely improvised, with stories built around whatever he wanted to draw that week, such as post-apocalyptic landscapes. Memorably, he came up with the idea of a time-travelling Barbary ape, so drew an ape-shaped time machine for Turner to travel inside.
“I always considered myself more a teletext cartoonist, whereas Ian [Irving] was a teletext artist. So I think Turner The Worm was that, sort-of writ large.”
–Paul Rose
Editor Graham Lovelace recalls that Turner was born out of a need for the service to graphically “come to life” as there was “a great pressure to make [Teletext] a mass consumer thing.”
Initially he wanted to show Mr Men stories, but Roger Hargreaves – creator of the books – had just died, and his daughter took control of the company, “wanting thousands and thousands” for the rights. Lovelace approached Rose with a request to make something “that looks like Mr Men, but…”
Turner the Worm was just one of the ideas conceived to give the service “more personality.” Another comic strip designed by Rose was Turner the Screw, which followed the escapades of a foul-mouthed prison guard, and resided in the short-lived After Hours section of the service.
Rose also drafted pilots for comics involving characters from the Viz comic including the Fat Slags and Roger Mellie, but they were never fully adopted due to rights issues.
A version of Turner the Worm infamously featured in the final graphic Rose made for Teletext in 2003. Passing the censors one last time, his farewell message included the controversial “Real Turner The Worm Being Sick”, a half-page graphic resembling the titular worm character “vomiting milk.”
Sources
- Teletext People: Paul Rose, Byte High No Limit, 5 January 2023
- Teletext 50 – Teletext Artists Panel with Paul Rose, Ian Irving, and Steve Horsley, uploaded by Jamie Nemeth, 27 March 2025
- Teletext Fest 2016 – Artists Panel with Paul Rose and Steve Horsley, teletextart.co.uk, 9 October 2016
- Turner the Worm Archive, Alistair Cree, accessed October 2026
Recent Comments