The “Story of The Wiggles” is the story of how the “world’s number one preschool band” forged their way through the music industry and became an international success.
The band wore assorted colors to make recognizing themselves easy for their young audience. The original members, Murray Cook (Red), Anthony Field (Blue), Greg Page (Yellow) and Jeff Fatt (Purple), started in 1991 as three of the Wiggles met as students in an early childhood development class.
The Wiggles noticed how children responded to music and even named their band after how children dance. Watching them talk about how they chose what color shirt they wanted to be was unexpectedly sweet.
Because the band was made of four men and a dinosaur, industry professionals didn’t take them seriously. The performers were told at least once to “lose the dinosaur,” but the musicians knew that kids loved Dorothy the Dinosaur, so they kept her in the show.
As someone who had not watched “The Wiggles” growing up, it was fascinating to see their journey and the band’s early footage performing for their very young audiences. Soon, they were producing shows for over 500 people and realized they had something special.
Fatt, who wasn’t a childhood development student, wasn’t initially comfortable around kids. The Wiggles figured out how he could play a role that was comfortable. The “Wake Up Jeff!” skit was born, showing him falling asleep during the show. The kids shouted to wake him up and it was funny to watch how intense some of the kids would get.
However, not everything in the documentary was light and humorous.
Field opened about his struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts that had affected him from an early age. Page discussed his health issues that eventually made him stop performing. Another Wiggle talked about how rough it was to be away from his kids while they were on the road.
In the aftermath of 9/11 terrorist attacks, the band was in New York and ready to perform their scheduled show, but were concerned for their audience, questioning if they should continue. There were many requests from their fans, so they decided to proceed. During the show, a mother tells a very moving story about September 11.
In later years, The Wiggles wanted their cast to reflect global diversity. Field said that they were a bunch of people with blue eyes and pale skin and not everyone looked like that, so they were excited to bring in more characters who had different colors of skin, hair and eyes.
I didn’t expect to like the documentary as much as I did, and I recommend watching this film. Many people agree with its rating of 4.7/5 stars on Amazon Prime.
We need people to be silly for kids, and it’s heartwarming to know that when we don’t feel up to the task of silliness, there are people like The Wiggles who will bring smiles and dance. Reads a poster from a little boy to his favorite Wiggle: “not all superheroes wear capes, mine wears purple.”