The Wiggles, one of Australia’s most successful musical acts, celebrate their 10th anniversary with their new album and video - Hoop-Dee-Doo It’s a Wiggly Party.
Over the past 10 years, The Wiggles have enjoyed phenomenal success, with no live artist or band in the history of Australian children's entertainment selling as many records or videos or selling as many concert tickets.
For those who have not heard of The Wiggles, and I would be surprised if any Australian has not, here is a brief introduction. The Wiggles are a Sydney-based children’s group who tour and record music for pre-schoolers. With goof-ball grins, a group of colourful supporting characters and simple yet easily identifiable costumes, the four members Anthony Field, Murray Cook, Jeff Fatt and Greg Page have become household names. It’s estimated that one in two toddlers in Australia either sing-a-long to The Wiggles on video or CD at home or have been to a Wiggles concert.
Their material is not only popular with kids, it’s thoughtfully crafted, with three of the four Wiggles having qualifications in early-childhood education. Coupled with the foursome's unique song-writing ability and their genuine enjoyment of what they do, it’s a formula that is hard to beat.
This newest offering from the group contains a whole new collection of songs and dances that your preschoolers are going to enjoy. I had the opportunity to trial this disc on two of my nieces – one two and a half years and one four years old and they absolutely loved it. For the full 50 minutes the lounge room was a-blur with tiny arms and legs.
Oh my god, my eyes! My eyes!!! There is so much colour here, what with Wiggles jumping this way and that and backgrounds swirling round and round and round, that my eyes were literally watering after about 15 minutes - I kid you not. After about half an hour however my body began to acclimatise, and with my retinas sufficiently burnt out and my brain’s internal brightness control suitably reduced I was able to watch without a problem. No wonder the kids love it so much.
Toddlers are notoriously fussy when it comes to image quality and The Wiggles, never ones to disappoint their demographic, have made sure that the image quality is faultless. This is just as well – all those large areas of solid colour are fairly unforgiving when it comes to compression or grain problems, not to mention colour blur. Thankfully, the full-frame images holds up perfectly. If you look closely enough, you can sometimes see the jagged edges of blue-screen superimposition, but don't point this out to the kids - they'll probably kill you.
The audio is also good, with a simple yet solid stereo presentation that remains fairly simple (demonstrating some panning effects only). It can be easily heard from whatever corner of the lounge room you’re jumping around in at that moment. For those with hearing impaired kids, you’ll be glad to know that the disc also provides optional AUSLAN (Australian Sign Language) and subtitles for all dialogue and lyrics.
The menus are static yet suitably colourful, with the lively theme Wiggly Party playing in the background. There are a few extras for the kids to enjoy once they are shagged from all that jumping:
Caveland Featurette: Simplified right down for kids, we get an introduction to the process of CGI animation (from storyboards to finished product) that was undertaken for the clip to Wiggles song Caveland.
Video Jukebox: Allows you to jump right to your favourite Wiggles track.
Photo Gallery: A montage of images from the production of Hoop-Dee-Doo It’s a Wiggly Party.
All in all, this is a great production by ABC for kids, and a perfect DVD for any pre-schooler.
