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* WholePlotReference: Many of the plots were taken wholesale from popular films or TV shows at the time, including "The Worminator" (''Film/TheTerminator''), "The K Files" (''Film/TheXFiles'') and "Star Truk: The Next Service Station" (''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', though with its plot being a take-off on the then-recent ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'').
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* WholePlotReference: Many of the plots were taken wholesale from popular films or TV shows at the time, including "The Worminator" (''Film/TheTerminator''), "The K Files" (''Film/TheXFiles'') (''Series/TheXFiles'') and "Star Truk: The Next Service Station" (''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', though with its plot being a take-off on the then-recent ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'').
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/turnertheworm.png]]
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** The early stories tended to fall more into RandomEventsPlot territory -- including a story where a wedge is driven between Turner and Glug by the latter's falling in love with a steak pie, with it eventually being resolved when the pie's owner, Peter Roget[[note]](Creator of the eponymous ''Roget's Thesaurus'' -- who, by the way, died about 124 years before the story aired)[[/note]] shows up and eats it -- before it settled down into its eventual format of parodying films and TV shows.
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** The early stories tended to fall more into RandomEventsPlot territory -- including a story where a wedge is driven between Turner and Glug by the latter's falling in love with a steak pie, Cornish pasty (and not even an anthropomorphic one; just a regular, if outsized pasty), with it eventually being resolved when the pie's pasty's owner, Peter Roget[[note]](Creator of the eponymous ''Roget's Thesaurus'' -- who, by the way, died about 124 years before the story aired)[[/note]] shows up and eats it -- before it settled down into its eventual format of parodying films and TV shows.
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''Turner the Worm'' was a weekly comic strip that aired on Creator/Channel4's Teletext service from 1993 to 2002. It was effectively a spin-off from the same channel's ''Series/{{Digitiser}}'' game review magazine, and was written and had artwork by ''Digitiser'' co-creator Paul Rose.
The strip focused around the titular Turner, an ordinary earthworm who gained human size and intellect after accidentally consuming a SuperSerum created by the insane Dr. Otto Matik. Turner teams up with Glug the Slug, a similarly anthropomorphic slug, to defeat Matik, and the two subsequently go on many adventures inspired by popular films, TV shows, and pieces of literature. Glug was temporarily PutOnABus from 1996-1997, and replaced by Goldblum the Fly in this period.
!!Tropes include:
* BerserkButton: Kylie Leech can be short-tempered at the best of times, but being sexist or condescending is a good way of ''really'' annoying her, as Glug found out in her introductory scene.
* BigBad: Otto Matik is the comic's main recurring villain, though he actually appears relatively infrequently, with most of the villains being one-off ones.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The early stories tended to fall more into RandomEventsPlot territory -- including a story where a wedge is driven between Turner and Glug by the latter's falling in love with a steak pie, with it eventually being resolved when the pie's owner, Peter Roget[[note]](Creator of the eponymous ''Roget's Thesaurus'' -- who, by the way, died about 124 years before the story aired)[[/note]] shows up and eats it -- before it settled down into its eventual format of parodying films and TV shows.
** While Turner and Kylie Leech's anthropomorphic status are both explained away as being the result of exposure Dr. Matik's Super Serum in the early stories, later stories have the world populated by humans and anthropomorphic animals in equal measure, with there being no real explanation of this.
* HalfwayPlotSwitch: "Mighty Morphin' Flower Arrangers" started out as a parody of, as you might guess, ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'', but switched to being a parody of ''Series/DoctorWho'' about a third of the way in. Rose purportedly found ''Power Rangers'' to be already so ridiculous that there was nothing he could do to make it seem more absurd than it was, and so switched to a different target.
* HereWeGoAgain: "The Beasts of Dr. Klemp" revolves around a mad scientist who wants to make the entire population of London just as ugly as him. Turner and Glug manage to rig things so that his "ugly bomb" backfires on him... at which point he becomes incredibly handsome and decides he wants to make all of London just as good-looking as him, much to Turner and Glug's annoyance.
* HorribleHollywood: One story has Turner brought to Hollywood to make a film adaptation of his adventures. It turns out that the actual star is a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger, Turner is only there to act as a ''stunt double'', and the film's depiction of his life story is grossly inaccurate. It culminates in Turner ''eating'' the film's negative to prevent its release.
* MadScientist: Turner encounters a lot of these during his adventures, the most prominent one being Dr. Otto Matik.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: While the strip's main recurring female character, Kylie Leech was clearly designed to resemble Music/KylieMinogue, character-wise she's actually a clear reference to Sarah Connor from ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' -- something made clearer by the fact that her debut story was titled "The Worminator".
* PutOnABus: At the end of "The K Files", Glug decides to stay on another planet in order to raise the alien he was impregnated with, leading to Goldblum taking up his role. This didn't stick however, and Glug returned firstly in a one-off appearance in that year's Christmas story, and then permanently in "The Beasts of Dr. Klemp" early the following year.
* TeleporterAccident: "Star Truk: The Next Service Station" has its Data {{Expy}} suffer one of these when a transporter accident (presumably caused by them having to beam out right as their Star Truck was being destroyed) causes his head to materialise inside his stomach. It doesn't technically ''kill'' him seeing how he's an android, but it puts him out of action for the rest of the story.
* WholePlotReference: Many of the plots were taken wholesale from popular films or TV shows at the time, including "The Worminator" (''Film/TheTerminator''), "The K Files" (''Film/TheXFiles'') and "Star Truk: The Next Service Station" (''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', though with its plot being a take-off on the then-recent ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'').
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The strip focused around the titular Turner, an ordinary earthworm who gained human size and intellect after accidentally consuming a SuperSerum created by the insane Dr. Otto Matik. Turner teams up with Glug the Slug, a similarly anthropomorphic slug, to defeat Matik, and the two subsequently go on many adventures inspired by popular films, TV shows, and pieces of literature. Glug was temporarily PutOnABus from 1996-1997, and replaced by Goldblum the Fly in this period.
!!Tropes include:
* BerserkButton: Kylie Leech can be short-tempered at the best of times, but being sexist or condescending is a good way of ''really'' annoying her, as Glug found out in her introductory scene.
* BigBad: Otto Matik is the comic's main recurring villain, though he actually appears relatively infrequently, with most of the villains being one-off ones.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The early stories tended to fall more into RandomEventsPlot territory -- including a story where a wedge is driven between Turner and Glug by the latter's falling in love with a steak pie, with it eventually being resolved when the pie's owner, Peter Roget[[note]](Creator of the eponymous ''Roget's Thesaurus'' -- who, by the way, died about 124 years before the story aired)[[/note]] shows up and eats it -- before it settled down into its eventual format of parodying films and TV shows.
** While Turner and Kylie Leech's anthropomorphic status are both explained away as being the result of exposure Dr. Matik's Super Serum in the early stories, later stories have the world populated by humans and anthropomorphic animals in equal measure, with there being no real explanation of this.
* HalfwayPlotSwitch: "Mighty Morphin' Flower Arrangers" started out as a parody of, as you might guess, ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'', but switched to being a parody of ''Series/DoctorWho'' about a third of the way in. Rose purportedly found ''Power Rangers'' to be already so ridiculous that there was nothing he could do to make it seem more absurd than it was, and so switched to a different target.
* HereWeGoAgain: "The Beasts of Dr. Klemp" revolves around a mad scientist who wants to make the entire population of London just as ugly as him. Turner and Glug manage to rig things so that his "ugly bomb" backfires on him... at which point he becomes incredibly handsome and decides he wants to make all of London just as good-looking as him, much to Turner and Glug's annoyance.
* HorribleHollywood: One story has Turner brought to Hollywood to make a film adaptation of his adventures. It turns out that the actual star is a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger, Turner is only there to act as a ''stunt double'', and the film's depiction of his life story is grossly inaccurate. It culminates in Turner ''eating'' the film's negative to prevent its release.
* MadScientist: Turner encounters a lot of these during his adventures, the most prominent one being Dr. Otto Matik.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: While the strip's main recurring female character, Kylie Leech was clearly designed to resemble Music/KylieMinogue, character-wise she's actually a clear reference to Sarah Connor from ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' -- something made clearer by the fact that her debut story was titled "The Worminator".
* PutOnABus: At the end of "The K Files", Glug decides to stay on another planet in order to raise the alien he was impregnated with, leading to Goldblum taking up his role. This didn't stick however, and Glug returned firstly in a one-off appearance in that year's Christmas story, and then permanently in "The Beasts of Dr. Klemp" early the following year.
* TeleporterAccident: "Star Truk: The Next Service Station" has its Data {{Expy}} suffer one of these when a transporter accident (presumably caused by them having to beam out right as their Star Truck was being destroyed) causes his head to materialise inside his stomach. It doesn't technically ''kill'' him seeing how he's an android, but it puts him out of action for the rest of the story.
* WholePlotReference: Many of the plots were taken wholesale from popular films or TV shows at the time, including "The Worminator" (''Film/TheTerminator''), "The K Files" (''Film/TheXFiles'') and "Star Truk: The Next Service Station" (''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', though with its plot being a take-off on the then-recent ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'').
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