Strap on your grin, it’s time for more Wiggly adventures in video land, and this time our colourful, crooning foursome have Australia’s famous Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin to keep them company. He’s their excitable guide on an adventure packed Wiggly Safari!

Yes, the latest addition to the Wiggles canon has finally arrived; an unashamed marketing opportunity for all concerned, with our familiar toddler-rockers showcasing senor Irwin’s ‘Australia Zoo’ and milking his international profile to boot. Well, good luck to them all I say, The Wiggles deserve a little overseas success, and who can blame them for taking advantage of the opportunity? And although I don’t normally have much time for Steve Irwin’s antics, you’ve got to applaud his willingness to jump around like an idiot and bash out a few tunes.

While the ingredients may seem a little dubious this time around, Wiggly Safari is in fact as entertaining as any of The Wiggles’ previous outings. Joined by their normal gaggle of friends including Wags the Dog, Dorothy the Dinosaur and Captain Feathersword, Murray, Jeff, Anthony and Greg learn about all kinds of Australian flora and fauna while they sing their way around senor Irwin's facility. Sporting a whole bunch of new songs to learn, there's sixteen tracks tracks here all revolving around animal themes. And while most are filmed on location at Australia Zoo, they also include two older tracks (Dorothy Queen of Roses and Do the Owl) taken from a recent Wiggles concert tour:

That the whole project works is largely due to Steve Irwin and his unsubtle, in-your-face on-screen persona. As we all know, subtlety is totally wasted on toddlers. They need their entertainment big, obvious, and enthusiastic. If you’ve ever watched other Wiggles videos, and that annoying bastard Captain Feathersword, (am I the only one who feels like gouging his other eye out?) you’ll know exactly what I mean. There’s no doubt senor Irwin, as big and cartoonish character as your ever likely to see, slots in effortlessly beside The Wiggles’ other companions. Let the crocs have Feathersword, let’s have more Irwin!

Presented on a single-sided, single-layer disc from Roadshow, Wiggly Safari continues the high standard that we have come to expect from ABC for Kids releases. Shot almost exclusively outdoors in a bushland setting, Wiggly Safari replaces the painfully bright, swirling colours of a Wiggles studio production with the relative tranquility of the leaf and grass. While the change means that parents can watch Wiggly Safari without getting a headache, the detail inherent in the locations does show up the limitations of the video source material. The image, being as sharp as video source material allows, displays slight video grain on occasion when rendering background foliage and the like. Aliasing is also a minor irritation from time to time. These not wholly unexpected limitations in the source material aside, the transfer itself is as technically perfect as we’ve come to expect from Roadshow. Colours and black level are rendered beautifully, and there's not a hint of compression related artefacts.

Predominantly composed of music tracks, Wiggly Safari provides a solid stereo audio track that is pretty standard for Wiggles releases. The mix is serviceable, yet unremarkable, with little front channel separation and no surround or subwoofer usage. One aspect that does stand out as compared to previous releases, however, is that the between-song segments have been recorded out of doors; introducing a wide variety of background noise – mainly birds and insects - into the soundtrack. Whilst the enthusiastic prattling of various Wiggles and senor Irwin are still easily understood, the audio quality is distinctly lower than their previous studio productions.

In terms of extras, your younger kids will certainly enjoy a set of five short educational segments on various animals at the Australia Zoo. Although only a small amount of information is presented, these segments give your kids the opportunity to get a good look at the animals themselves. Featured animals are the koala, the kangaroo, snakes, the kookaburra and the Galapagos tortoise. In addition to the these educational segments, there's footage of a press interview with Steve Irwin and The Wiggles explaining the motivation for the project and what it was like working together. The estras are capped off with a photo gallery containing 74 promotional and behind-the-scenes images from the production.

All in all, Wiggly Safari is great stuff, and in my mind the most entertaining of all The Wiggles videos that I have yet seen. The addition of Steve Irwin and the outdoor setting certainly provides an added dimension to the tried and trusted Wiggles formula, and if my daughter’s reaction is anything to go by, your little ones will love this combination of songs, dances, animals, and various mispronunciations of ‘Australia’. Highly recommended.