The Wiggles
Australian childrens music group
The Wiggles are children's entertainers from Sydney, Australia. They formed in 1991 at Macquarie University, with the original members being Anthony Field, Phillip Wilcher, Murray Cook, Greg Page and Jeff Fatt. Wilcher left the group shortly after the release of their first self-titled album.
After Wilcher's departure, The Wiggles fanbase grew as the played shows at kindergartens, daycares and birthday parties, adopting many of their trademarks for which they are most famous, among them colour coded skivvies and the "wiggle fingers" action. After a string of APRA awards, The Wiggles cemented themselves as Australia's favourite children's group, expanding their empire from just albums and videos to a feature film and a TV series in 1998. In that same year, The Wiggles traveled to Disneyland for their first performance in the USA and have since toured there many times and have even showed up in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
In late 2006, shortly after being named Australia's richest performers, earning $45 million in 2005, founding member Greg Page was forced to quit the band due to an illness known as Orthostatic intolerance. His replacement, Sam Moran was welcomed fans, but was controversially dismissed from the band in early 2012, as Page, health permitting, returned to the group for the 'Celebration' tour, the last time Anthony, Murray, Greg and Jeff would perform together. The Celebration tour also introduced the new generation of Wiggles, Emma Watkins, Simon Pryce and Lachlan Gillespie, with Field staying on.
Since the group's inception, The Wiggles have sold 23 million videos and 7 million CDs, performed to an average of 1 million people per year and written some songs which are now considered children's standards, such as 'Rock-a-bye Your Bear', 'Hot Potato' and 'Can You Point Your Fingers And Do The Twist?'