The Wiggles - Yule Be Wiggling

I was first introduced to the mega-brightly coloured world of The Wiggles a few years ago by a little cousin with a very cute, green dinosaur doll named Dorothy that she had just received from Father Christmas. Not only did this doll have a gorgeous little frilly hat and sweet buck teeth, she also sang a song in a remarkably male voice, "D.O.R.O.T.H.Y. - Dorothy the Dinosaur!". So cute! Then she sang it again... and again... and again... and again... and...

With that little ditty indelibly seared into my cerebellum for all time - and popping up through the ensuing years whenever it was least expected (don’t start humming it at job interviews - it won't help your chances) - it seemed about time some more research was undertaken into this new kiddie cult of Wiggledom. Yule Be Wiggling is the third Wiggly sortie into the DVD market, and as the wonderfully dire pun in the title should indicate, it's a Christmas-themed affair.

So, welcome to Wiggly World - where the clock is always at five minutes to twelve, and pastel colours are but a figment of some boring person's imagination. Greg (the yellow one who sings), Murray (the red one who loves his guitar), Anthony (the foodaholic) and Jeff (the somnambulistic one) make up the band, and have a gaggle of friends on hand to help them sing and dance throughout this 48 minutes (well, 43 without the credits) of Chrissie cheer. There's the aforementioned, and still gorgeous, Dorothy the Dinosaur (at least that evil spawn of purpledom, Barney, has some nice rellies) - who deserves special mention for being able to dance up a storm with THAT tail, Henry the octopus, Wags the dog, Captain Feathersword the pirate, a gaggle of spangly-panted, pony-tailed elves, spangly-skirted reindeer, Father Christmas (not S**** C****!), the odd musical guest and quite a number of rather adorable kids.

"WAKE UP JEFF!"

The songs are almost entirely original (kids, can you spell "royalties"?), and are uniformly jaunty and remarkably catchy little numbers. Everybody smiles like mad and dances their big hearts out, be it the mashed potato, frug, twist, limbo, jig, tango, shake shake, twirl, polka, tap, air guitar, the "wobbly wobbly" or all manner of unclassifiable, but highly amusing, moves. There are some spoken bits in-between songs, an appearance by the inevitable Big Red Car, lots of computer generated magic, sparklers and enough hyperactivity and smiling to have the most difficult of littlies absolutely entranced. So sit them down in front of the telly, get the hell out, put your feet up and relax for three quarters of an hour - or if you're in it for the long haul, don some sunnies...

Perfect! Gee, kids are spoiled nowadays - whilst many of our treasured classics that make their way to DVD bear the marks of time, it seems most any children's release scrubs up pristinely. Talk about hooking them into the format early!

All the phenomenally vibrant primary colours of The Wiggles are absolutely divinely presented in this full screen presentation, and skin tones are delightfully natural. As it's shot on video filmic nasties don’t even get a look in, and as for shadow detail, well there don’t appear to be any shadows in the world of The Wiggles so it's a moot point.

It's only in Dolby Digital Stereo, which is perfectly serviceable for such a release. Being full of song and dance numbers there wouldn’t have been a lot of potential for surround usage anyway. Everything is delightfully clear and easy to understand, and synching is pretty good for something that is mostly mimed throughout.

For a release aimed at the generally hyperactive, it was surprising to be met with completely static menus, with the only sonic enhancement being a brief voiceover prompting the user to make a selection. There are some handy diversions tucked away in the 'Wiggly Extras' section though...

Sing Along With The Wiggles: Pick any song from the main feature, or set and forget to play the entire program all over again (minus the intro), with lyrical subtitles added to the action. Why they couldn’t have just allowed the subtitle button to work during the main show is beyond me.

Read With The Wiggles: An electronic storybook entitled The Christmas Fairy, this is a sweet Wigglefied story of a rather bedraggled and grungy treetop decoration who gets a makeover from The Wiggles and their various friends. It can be read at a child's own pace, or narrated by The Wiggles.

Want to know more about Christmas?: Tell me all about Christmas, Dorothy! The gorgeous green dinosaur helps Captain Feathersword understand many of the ins and outs of all things Chrissie. The story of Jesus, Christmas trees, pressies, cards, Christmas day, who is Santa Claus, carols and celebrations are ALL covered, in this page-by-page feature that seems to go on forever and a day, hence parents should adore it.

Photo gallery: Just seven piccies - Dorothy, Henry, Wags, Captain Feathersword, the latter with The Wiggles plus two more of the group.

DVDROM features: A Playtime Drop and Drag game, Christmas Magic Buttons plus a website link.

On leafing through an old, mid-'80s Countdown magazine I happened across recently (once a dag, always a dag), I found a picture of a band named The Cockroaches. At the time they never amounted to much, and who could ever have predicted they'd change their name to The Wiggles, aim for an ENTIRELY different demographic, and basically make themselves very, very rich guys? Hey, good on them - even if perhaps it's getting to the stage where they should add a nasty big "Inc." to the end of their name, with the marketing heading firmly into the dark side - as evidenced by an extremely long advertisement for their myriad of other videos (on a DVD?!) that plays at the end of the main program. Sure kids get marketed at all the time, but this is a rather low blow from purveyors of otherwise wonderfully wholesome children-oriented entertainment. It would just be very sad to discover that these seemingly lovely chappies are really Monty Burns-like calculated cynics behind all the smiles, colour and sheer jolliness.

The quality of both the content and presentation here cannot be questioned; perhaps the only thing to consider is how many children you intend to have, as how much value does a Christmas-themed DVD really offer when it will be outgrown by most children within a year? Mind you, if any of the littlies I know are an indication, they'll happily watch this over and over and over at any time anyway. To quote an old episode of The Goodies, "and don’t the kids love it!".

D.O.R.O.T.H.Y... ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Have mercy... please?