The Wiggles
|
|
The Wiggles are an Australian band that specialises in creating and performing music for preschool children.
63423main_wiggles_wave_flip_h.jpg
photo:NASA (http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/home/F_Wiggles_K-4.html)
| Contents |
Origins
Two members of the group, Anthony Field (vocals, guitar) and Jeff Fatt (keyboard) had been members of The Cockroaches, a popular eighties pub rock band that had a number of Top 40 hits in Australia. After enrolling in early childhood studies at Macquarie University in Sydney in the late 1980s, Field met fellow musicians Murray Cook (bass), Phillip Wilcher (piano) and singer Greg Page (vocals). They initially teamed up to produce a music performance project for their studies, but discovered that their performances were a hit with young audiences and they soon found that they were able to earn considerably more by working as children's entertainers than as preschool teachers (who are notoriously underpaid in Australia).
Up to this time, much of the huge potential of entertainment for preschool children had been overlooked. In Australia it was a small though profitable cottage industry which was dominated by the long-running ABC program Playschool, who marketed much of the most successful children's' material and whose various presenters often performed at children's concerts and similar events.
Effects of Home Video
However, by the time the Wiggles were becoming established, two important changes had taken place in the Australian household. Just as they had done with television in the 1960s, Australians took up the domestic video cassette recorder in the 1980s with extraordinary speed, with the result that there was a VCR in almost every Australian household by the end of the decade.
In the early 1990s, the introduction of the new compact disc technology saw CD players emulating the remarkable market penetration of the VCR. Crucially for the Wiggles, both the VCR and the CD player were ideally suited to repeated playing, and like TV before them, both technologies were almost immediately harnessed to entertain the preschool children of the late Baby Boomer generation, most of whom had grown up with TV as a constant childhood companion and babysitter. Moreover, their increasing reliability, falling cost and simplicity of operation saw many children in this age group learning how to operate CD players and VCRs themselves – and being allowed to do so.
The quality of content was another crucial factor in The Wiggles' success. Informed by their studies and teaching expertise, they brought a fresh approach to the genre which, at its worst, could be simplistic, old-fashioned and sometimes downright patronising in both style and content. The Wiggles' music and performances were given an additional strength by the members' interest and experience in live pop music, skills which they incorporated into their CDs, videos and live shows. All the members also play a musical instrument, and this became an important educational aspect of their shows.
History
The Wiggles began their career playing at pre-schools, where they developed a hugely successful system by which they would split the receipts for their shows with the centres, who were able to use the hugely popular Wiggles concerts as lucrative fund-raising events. As well as occasionally busking around Sydney, the group were able to capitalise on the touring expertise, contacts and goodwill that The Cockroaches had built up during the 1980s and were soon touring regularly and successfully throughout Australia. Their combination of kid-friendly songs, videos and characters were a quick hit in Australia in the early 1990s, and international exposure has made them hugely popular in the United States and elsewhere in the 2000s.
They released their first CD in 1991; Wilcher left the group prior to their second CD in 1992 and was not replaced. During the early 1990s The Wiggles also developed a group of secondary characters, including Dorothy The Dinosaur, Wags The Dog and Captain Feathersword. These characters – originally played by group members and by Anthony's brother Paul – are now played by hired actors; as "Dorothy The Dinosaur And Friends", they cleverly enable the group to maintain a touring presence even when The Wiggles themselves are off the road.
After several years touring constantly around Australia, the group were firmly established as the most successful children's entertainment act Australia had ever seen. They performed literally hundreds of shows each year, their videos and CDs sold in ever increasing numbers and they regularly won every major industry award in their category. They made their first forays overseas with visits to the United States and Britain in the mid-1990s, but like many other Australian acts, it was in the US that they scored their first major international success.
After an initially slow entry into the United States market (where they toured with the organisation that produced the Barney children's show) The Wiggles scored a breakthrough deal with the Disney organisation, which saw their videos and TV series screened to to preschool children across America.
The Wiggles are now seen nationally on the Disney Channel and as a result their popularity sky-rocketed. They now regularly tour to packed houses across the USA, have performed at both Madison Square Gardens and Radio City Music Hall, and have appeared in several Thanksgiving Parades in New York City.
Current Success
In 2001 The Wiggles were reported to have earned more than A$14 million, a sum which had grown to A$45 million by 2004. [1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4420089.stm) The group is currently franchising its concept to non-English speaking countries, with the idea already successfully sold in Taiwan, which now has its own Taiwanese Wiggles. They have also recorded with numerous Australian and international music stars including John Fogerty, Tim Finn and Ross Wilson. By guest-starring on their show, the Wiggles have also introduced non-Australian audiences to performers such as Jimmy Little, Kamahl, and Christine Anu (though many fans of the movie Moulin Rouge and sequels of The Matrix will recognize her by face if not by name). One measure of the Wiggles' fame in America is the fact that Captain Feathersword has been mentioned in an episode of the acclaimed political TV drama The West Wing.
Nature of the Show
Wiggles songs are often about simple topics that children can relate to: sleeping ("Rock A Bye Bear", "Wake Up Jeff"), eating ("Fruit Salad"), animals ("Do the Monkey", "Swim Like a Fish", "Ponies") or the cast of characters created for their home videos and TV shows. These costumed characters include Dorothy the Dinosaur (a horticulturalist dinosaur who eats only roses), Captain Feathersword (a harmless pirate), Wags the Dog, Henry the Octopus, and Officer Beeples (a female police officer who communicates through mime). Another distinctive feature of the group's songs is easy-to-repeat gestures, such as the "romp bomp a chomp" hand motions in the song "Dorothy the Dinosaur". The Wiggles also adapted the Bob Wills tune "Silver Bells That Ring In The Night" with a duck-like "quack quack-quack" in the refrain
Attributes
- Jeff wears a purple shirt and falls asleep.
- Murray wears a red shirt and plays a guitar.
- Anthony originally wore a green shirt but switched to blue because Dorothy is green. Anthony eats healthy food, especially fruit salad.
- Greg wears a yellow shirt and drives the Big Red Car.
Miscellaneous
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has produced several series of Wiggles television programs. In the United States, these series are broadcast on the Disney Channel.
It can be argued that the Wiggles are among the first cultural influences on the yet-unnamed generation that follows the Millenials, that is, the children of Generation X.
In Yummy Yummy...Raffi recordings were available on audio cassette and CD.
See also
External links
- The Wiggles home page (http://www.thewiggles.com.au/)
- Template:Imdb title
- Template:Imdb title