Wiggles and giggles: Taking it to the next level

Published in the Asbury Park Press 08/31/05

Get ready . . . to wiggle.

OK, so I'm only 13 years late discovering Wiggles, the group
of male preschool teachers from Australia who have made
their way onto the toddler music-entertainment scene.

Being the worldly (ha) person I am, I wanted to be hip to the
happenings of the curtain-climber set so my granddaughter,
Chloe, later can attest that her grandma wiggled with the
best of them.

So, I bought tickets for Darling Daughter, Chloe and me to
see the Wiggles in concert after watching their DVDs more
often than my man, Spud, watches the bottom line of our
checking account. Which means from Spud the Wiggles
now get the same low-balance reaction of "If I see this one
more time, I'm going to pull out all of my hair!"

In any case, during the concert Greg, Jeff, Murray and Anthony got me on my feet, hopping around like a frozen French fry in a deep fryer to their lyrics of "hot potato, cold spaghetti" and "mash your banana" (or something like that). Yummy, yummy!

It was impressive, to say the least, to see the moms and dads throughout the arena singing ALL the words to the Wiggles songs, while their kids moved their arms like Henry (the octopus), one of the wiggling characters on stage.

My only concern while wiggling was that we would fall to our demise from the facility's nosebleed seats that left me dizzy with vertigo from the time we sat down until we safely reached the bottom tier when the concert was over.

Most of the steep aisles were without handrails for support, which from my perspective, was a lawsuit waiting to happen as young mothers maneuvered their babies back and forth to the bathroom, snack bar and souvenir stand.

With about a foot of wiggle room between the rows of seats set on an 175-degree angle, you'd think Australia's top entertainment group, earning a whopping $45 million Australian dollars last year, would book a facility that didn't have the potential of killing off part of their audience.

I especially got worried when one of the Wiggles gang sprinted from the stage up the aisles to the top-row seats, and mothers were hotfooting their kids down to touch him like he were Brooooce.

We escaped the havoc without any face-plants to the concrete, but not before getting a new "Wiggles" DVD for later hair-pulling and a light stick with miniature Wiggles on top . . . which Chloe later tossed from her car seat into the windshield on the way home. Yes, it was a great time!

With their kid-friendly songs and dances, the "Wiggles" DVDs are hugely popular, after all, especially with the parents who have grown up with TV as a constant childhood companion and now see its benefits as a baby sitter.

For my kids it was "Sesame Street."

For me it was Captain Kangaroo with his huge, kangaroo-like pockets on his coat that held carrots for Bunny Rabbit and filled up with Ping-Pong balls after Mr. Moose told knock-knock jokes. Forget about Grandfather Clock and Magic Drawing Board. While they didn't wiggle, they kept us entertained along with one of my personal favorites, the "Howdy Doody Show."

I say that this was one of my favorites because producers brought the show to Orlando when I was 9 years old. I was chosen over hundreds of other kids as one of 40 youngsters to sit in the peanut gallery behind Buffalo Bob and Howdy while they did their thing . . . and to scream, "It's Howdy Doody Time!"

I was thrilled that I was going to be on TV. However, I was placed on the bottom right side of the on-stage bleachers that held the "Howdy-Doody" screamers. In the final taping, the only part of my body seen on air was the top of my frizzy permed hair. My mother said I looked beautiful despite the fact that I could never prove to my friends that I actually sat behind Howdy Doody.

You can bet your wiggling bottom dollar, though, if my little Chloe ever gets the opportunity to be on TV with the Wiggles, I'll be in the background waving my arms like Henry.
The Wiggles guys are Murray Cook (from left), Anthony Field, Paul Paddick as Captain Feathersword, Greg Page and Jeff Fatt.