Trivia / The Wiggles

• Acting for Two:
  • In the earlier days, it was not uncommon for the secondary cast (Dorothy, Henry, Captain Feathersword and Wags) to be played by one of the four main Wiggles during shows.
• Breakthrough Hit: "Rock-a-Bye Your Bear" first appeared on the band's eponymous debut album, and immediately became one of their most recognizable songs.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: The Wiggles are basically a kid-friendly version of KISS when it comes to merchandise (and coincidentally, both bands happen to have recorded albums with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra)
• Colbert Bump:
  • The Wiggles' rise to fame in America was, in part, thanks to Barney. Lyrick Studios, who created the purple dinosaur, put song clips as trailers on Barney videos and the band was the intermission act for the "Barney's Musical Castle" live tour.
  • Clips of The Wiggles also appeared on Mister Moose's Fun Time (a spinoff of The All New Captain Kangaroo that aired on what was then Fox Family), providing their first American TV appearance. Exposure grew further when Playhouse Disney would broadcast music videos of theirs at the height of the band's popularity.
  • Averted when the 2020 bushfire relief gigs got a mention from none other than Stephen Colbert himself; by that point, both shows had sold out, and VOD sales were already going strong.
• Directed by Cast Member: Anthony has been directing most of The Wiggles' content since the inception of the new lineup.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Emma, who's a natural blonde, dyed her hair red when she officially became a Wiggle.
  • Greg dyed his hair black throughout his entire original tenure with the band as he'd actually began going grey when he was only 16. He stopped sometime after his original retirement.
• Executive Meddling: Though the group had released VHS tapes, CDs and cassettes through The ABC with no complaint, when the group filmed the pilot for the television show for the ABC in the mid-90s the powers insisted that the group drop their skivvies in favour of caps and shorts, among other things. Naturally, the group dropped the pilot due to "irreconcilable artistic differences" and funded their own TV show through profits made from live shows and The Merch. They eventually sold the show to the Seven Network, but seeing their newfound success, the ABC was all-too-happy to screen their programmes later on.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The band's entire 90s video output (excluding the well-known 1998 versions of Wiggle Time and Yummy Yummy, Wiggly Wiggly Christmas and Toot Toot's 1999 re-edit) were given this treatment for a long time, although there had been two releases rather than one. As a result, the 2000 issues of two videos, Big Red Car and Wake Up Jeff!, reused their entire contents, including the 1995 ABC Kids promo. Since 2018, The Wiggles have started to upload all of the Greg-era Wiggles videos onto YouTube in parts, thus averting this.
  • There are alternate versions of the pre-2013 TV series, edited down from 20 minutes to 10 minutes for when the shows were only given a shorter timeslot. Most of the Series 3 and 6 episodes also featured alternative segments that did not appear elsewhere, like this one. These edits appear to not have been used since 2012 when they aired on then-called Sprout. There's also an earlier version of Series 1 with "Kaz the Cat" segments, before they were eventually replaced with Kindergarten segments hosted by Dorothy the Dinosaur.
  • It had been revealed that "Wiggle Bay", "Whoo Hoo! Wiggly Gremlins!", and "Top of the Tots" were filmed in widescreen, although the songs were only used in the Series 3 and 4 episodes. In 2008, it was discovered that on the Australian iTunes release of "Santa's Rockin'!", the video was filmed in widescreen also.
• Missing Episode: The band appeared in the Australian soap opera Neighbours in 2001. They were in two episodes but both of these have almost completely vanished, with only a couple of screenshots surviving.
• No Budget: For a group - and brand - that has become one of Australia's biggest (and richest) exports, it may shock some to know that the band had little budget for the longest time. Though, this became less of a problem in the 2000s, mostly thanks to the new revenue.
• Non-Singing Voice: Anthony's deep vocals that he'd do onscreen were actually performed by Simon. In reality, Anthony does very little in the way of singing.
• One Head Shorter:
  • Emma is this to her bandmates. The next tallest just happens to be Lachy, her ex-husband.
  • The current Little Wiggles lineup, however, actually has Emma's child actress taller than the rest by at least an inch.
  • Jeff was dwarfed by all of his bandmates, most notably the 6'4" Greg, who's the tallest Wiggle of them all.
  • Oliver Brian, by virtue of not being much taller than his girlfriend, Emma, is this to the current male Wiggles.
• The Other Darrin:
  • The Wiggles' sixth TV series, Wiggle & Learn, was produced in 2008, when Sam had replaced Greg. Sam does turn up as a background dancer in some of the earlier series' episodes, though, and even takes on larger non-Wiggle roles (such as Professor Singalottasonga).
  • Unable to find a new voice actress in 2017, the current Wiggles decided to use Anthony's daughter Maria instead for Dorothy's voiceover.
  • Originally, The Wiggles planned to release the rest of the never-before-seen archives to YouTube, as seen on Field's Instagram account, but instead, they decided to release the archives on a documentary as snippets. Also throughout 2021, they uploaded YouTube clip compilations, including this one.
• The Pete Best: Phillip Wilcher, the other original member, who played on their first album in 1991 and was in two early music videos with the band. He left (or was kicked out, depending on whom you ask) the next year, and went on to a successful career in classical music. Phillip was effectively unpersonned from the group, with the first album later re-recorded. He had no color-coding, as he left before the group adopted their trademark shirts.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: In 2012, an article about an supposed 20th anniversary box set dedicated to their 90s output popped up on Wigglepedia. While this could be seen as a Wiggles fan's dream box set nowadays, Wigglepedia's messy state back then lead into people believing it was true.
• Promoted Fangirl:
  • Emma was a fan of the Wiggles as a little girl (saying the Yellow Wiggle was her favorite) before she herself became the new Yellow Wiggle.
  • Tsehay was also a fan of the band since she was a little girl (with her saying in an interview that her parents enrolled her into dancing classes because of the Wiggles) before taking over as the new Yellow Wiggle from Emma.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Because many of the performers and crew have families, some of their children or other relatives might appear.
  • Anthony's son is the baby in their cover of Day-O/the Banana Boat song.
• Reclusive Artist: Sam, who is on Twitter and Instagram but doesn't post much, and Jeff, who is completely absent from social media. Averted with the new Wiggles, Murray, Greg, and Anthony, who are all active (to varying degrees) on social media^note mostly Instagram for the former two, Instagram and Twitter for the latter two.
• Recycled Script: Dorothy and Wags have been married (or at least played in a pretend wedding) a total of three times.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Sam (the yellow Wiggle from 2006-2012) and Lyn Stuckey, Dorothy's former suit actress, met during Sam's stint as host for The Dorothy the Dinosaur Show. They were married from 2006 to 2018, though Sam has said that there's no animosity between them.
  • Lachy and Emma, the current Purple and Yellow Wiggles, though they have since split up and become Amicable Exes.
  • Emma and Oliver "Ollie" Brian, one of the Wiggles' guitarists.
  • Simon is married to Lauren Hannaford, who is the current suit actress of Dorothy the Dinosaur.
• Throw It In!: Doing a Raised Lighter Tribute during "I Love it When it Rains" was an impromptu thing the audience did during the 2018 reunion, even concerning Anthony when it happened before realizing they were just phone screens. The group seemed to like this a lot, since they started encouraging it in later reunion tours.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jeff Fatt said that Anthony was going to be the Wiggle that had the sleeping habit. Jeff later became the one who would fall asleep as he is somewhat shy with kids.
  • According to Greg Page, had Murray and Jeff decided to stay after 2012, Simon would've become the new Yellow Wiggle after Sam. In 2020, we got a taste of what that could have been like.
  • In 2012, had Anthony chose to depart the Wiggles with Greg, Murray, and Jeff when they decided to retire, Nick Hutchinson would've been in line to replace Field as the new Blue Wiggle. Hutchinson was previously associated with the group as a background dancer, acrobat, and occasional actor.
  • Getting Strong! was originally written and recorded with Greg in 2006, as the first part of a three-part video series called Wiggle & Learn. However, after Greg's retirement, it had to be re-recorded and reshot with Sam as the Yellow Wiggle. This also resulted in the planned video series getting cut short at that one, with whatever material written for the following two videos being repurposed for the Wiggle & Learn TV Series.
    • In 2015, it was revealed that Murray, Jeff, and Anthony once found a small clip of the original 2006 version of the Wiggle & Learn TV series with Greg. The post also mentioned that the clip was going to be used for a documentary for 2016, but the documentary might had been cancelled, although footage of the original 2006 sets appeared in the very first one: 15 Years of Wiggly Fun.
    • The series' theme song was originally written for one of the idents that promoted ABC Kids in 2006 and featured Greg.
  • A 2D-animated special called Wiggles in Wonderland was set to be released sometime during the Sam era. However, the project was later abandoned and then completely canceled, with the only known footage of it being an animation render test from animator Matt Diks.
• Write What You Know:
  • Dorothy was created by Murray as he found out the kids in the preschool class he was teaching liked dinosaurs. Similarly, Henry, the Captain and Wags were made due to the other Wiggles learning that kids were fascinated with marine life, pirates and dogs.
  • Shirley Shawn was added not only due to the fantasy aspect but also because of Anthony's Scottish heritage (the unicorn is actually the national animal of Scotland).
• You Look Familiar:
  • Simon had played various roles in Wiggles productions before officially taking over as the Red Wiggle, most notably as Ringo the Ringmaster.
  • Emma played a fairy and Lachy played Captain Feathersword on The Dorothy the Dinosaur Show prior to their promotions to the main lineup.
  • Sam performed Professor Singalottasonga and Dapper Dave in some material before becoming the Yellow Wiggle.
  • Greg appears in the Ready, Steady, Wiggle episode "A Lot of Camelot!" as a stage director named Gregory Griggs. Later, Murray appears in "A Musical Cake" as a chef named "Dr. Murray de Cook". Granted, it's implied that these are completely separate characters, and not the actual Wiggles, though it's pretty obvious the reason they were even casted is at least partially for the sake of fanservice.

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