They went from student project to global fame, out-selling Kylie Minogue, but Australian children’s band The Wiggles say they’re amazed by their success as they prepare to celebrate 20 years.
“All we wanted was to [make] really great theater for children, great music for children,” Blue Wiggle Anthony Field said. “But it wasn’t a career, we didn’t want to make money from it, we had no vision to travel.”
The colorful quartet, dressed in their trademark blue, red, yellow and purple high-necked shirts, are so beloved by children they can fill Madison Square Garden and reap tens of millions of US dollars in annual sales.
PHOTO: AFP
Their success made them Australia’s most profitable entertainers for four years in a row, outstripping Minogue, Keith Urban and rockers AC/DC, and made household names of characters Dorothy the Dinosaur and Wags the Dog.
“It’s all been a great surprise for us, how it’s gone and where it’s gone — all over the world now. It’s amazing for us,” Field told reporters.
The simple formula of catchy children’s tunes with sing-along lyrics and entertaining dances was born in 1991, when Field, Murray Cook and Greg Page were studying to become pre-school teachers.
Among just a handful of men in their Macquarie University course of about 500 women, the trio bonded over their love of music and decided to record an album for a class project.
Field was in an established rock band called “The Cockroaches,” and asked bandmate Jeff Fatt if he’d mind helping with the home-recorded album, which cost A$4,000 (US$3,700) to make, but sold 100,000 copies.
“How long will it take?” asked Fatt, who was renovating his house at the time.
Twenty years later, and Fatt is still turning out as the famously sleepy Purple Wiggle, who has excitable young audiences screaming, “Wake up Jeff!” and laughing at his headstands.
The keen surfer and cyclist, now graying at the temples and just past his 57th birthday, said “staying fit and healthy” was the secret to keeping up with the boisterous young audiences.
“Just doing the shows is enough, because they’re very physical and very demanding. You do have to watch what you eat,” he said.
Field knew they had stumbled on something special when he lent their first recording to parents at a pre-school and one mother returned it the next day because her son was playing it non-stop.
“We’ve always tried to speak to children in a language that they understand and that they can relate to, we sing about things that are in their world, not the world of adults,” said Field, 47. “Children really do think differently to adults and we’ve tried to accommodate that; we haven’t tried to make them think like us.”
Field, a one-time soldier and army medic, also has a strong following among mothers and was named Australia’s 1999 Bachelor of the Year by Cleo Magazine.
He named the band after a Cockroaches song, Mr Wiggle’s Back in Town, and dedicated their self-titled first album to his niece whose sudden cot-death in 1988 prompted his pre-school studies.
The Wiggles are now a global cultural force with CD, DVD, ticket and merchandise sales to match, and will be the subject of an exhibition at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum to celebrate their 20th year next year.
The success is hard-earned: The Wiggles spend between seven and eight months a year on the road. Cook, 50, said the time away from their partners and children was not easy, but the rewards were worth it.
“We hear a lot from families with children that have autism that we really make a connection with them, and they communicate much more in some cases after they’ve experienced The Wiggles. It’s really rewarding and wonderful,” he said.
His 13-year-old son doesn’t always appreciate the fame (“mainly because it draws attention to me and by association to him”), but Cook said most young Australians have an affectionate place in their heart for the group.
Sam Moran, 32, replaced a chronically ill Page as the Yellow Wiggle in 2006, and he brought a new sound to the troupe, with classical training and a background in musical theater.
He said simply taking off their signature long-sleeved shirts was the band’s “best disguise.”
“I wore a yellow T-shirt accidentally once, not thinking. I never wore it again,” he said, remembering attracting intense attention.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the