The Wiggles

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I fell down the Wiggles rabbit hole. When my niece was little, she was really into the Wiggles. For those who may not know who they are, they are an Australian children's singing group. People have referred to them as The Beatles for toddlers. I was in my teens when I first heard of them. As I said, my niece was obsessed, and I often babysat her and other kids, which means I watched a lot of Wiggles. My niece had almost every video they came out with. She had so many wiggles toys. I can't lie, a few of their songs were a little catchy. My niece got to see them in concert. My sisters offered for me to go, but I was clearly too cool to go see a concert meant for toddlers and preschoolers. I will say the Wiggles were far more tolerable than a lot of the other children's shows I got stuck watching over the years. I was surprised to hear the Wiggles actually got their start when I was still a kid, but they hadn't made their way over the pond until I was too old to watch their stuff. I remember watching their very early stuff and seeing Anthony (the blue wiggle) wearing green. I later learned they changed green to blue due to the green screen. I found myself on YouTube at 2 AM watching old Wiggles interviews, all because I got curious what happened to the original Wiggles. Anthony is the only one of the originals who is still a part of the Wiggles. Greg the yellow wiggle originally left due to health issues but came back again for a bit after he got his health better under control. Eventually, he left again with the other two original Wiggles. The Wiggles eventually did a reunion show to help raise money for the Australian wildfires, and while getting off stage, he collapsed and went into cardiac arrest, and survived, which doesn't happen a lot with cardiac arrest; a lot of people who go into cardiac arrest don't survive. Greg was extremely fortunate, and he has made it his mission to bring attention to things like an AED and what to do should someone be experiencing cardiac arrest to help bring the odds up. I started watching videos out of curiosity and to see what they looked like now, and they've all aged a lot, which I guess would make sense since it has been over 20 years since I last saw them in anything but reruns. I realized how young Greg actually was when they started. He was only 19 when they formed the Wiggles. I found it mildly amusing to realize he was an adult when the Wiggles started, and I was still a child, and he has children around my son's age. That said, though, there are men in their 80s still having children. He definitely looks older than he is, but I imagine the stress of everything he has been through will do that. My son never watched the Wiggles. I'm not sure why he didn't, if it was because I was sick of them from the years of watching them with my niece, or if it was because he just didn't get into them. He was more of a PBS and Nick Jr. kid, and if I remember correctly, I believe the Wiggles started on Disney, but I'm unsure where they went from there. I mentioned them to my son, and he was confused. We even had some Wiggles toys he played with, leftover from my niece when she was little. He had no recollection of it. We had a Dorothy the dinosaur, we always joked was demonic, that thing went over 10 years on the same batteries it came from the store with. It sang out the D O R O T H Y that Dorothy was known to sing.