Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Get Ready to Wiggle

  • animation powers: wiggling

Yes it has been awhile since I updated the ol blog hasn't it. Yes precious it has. Well to be honest not a whole hell of a lot has been happening that is blog worthy. That is until this past Sunday. For it was on this past Sunday that we took Wonder-pea to her first concert. The Wiggles Live!!

Now for any of you without children you are probably asking: what the frack is a Wiggle? They are four guys from down under (that's Australia for you geographically impaired). While taking an education class they formed the Wiggles for a class project and the rest is history. They sing, they dance, they act silly and yes Wiggle. And kids just love them.

We own many Wiggles CDs and videos which we play over and over and over. Oddly enough I don't mind it. In fact I like the Wiggles. I act just as silly and goofy around Wonder-pea, so it's comforting to see other kindred spirits who are unafraid to act like idiots for the amusement of children. Also did I mention that each Wiggle made something like $34 million last year.

So we went to the Wiggle stage show and on the way there we had the Wiggles playing in the Animato-mobile. Wonder-pea was singing....and dancing....."Just wait until she sees them" I thought "She is going to freak-out".

We had pretty good seats in one of the upper sections, with lots of room for Wonder-pea to dance and move around. Two large jumbotron scenes bookend the stage playing pre-show clips from the Wiggles videos. Wonder-pea is dancing and singing along. Finally it's time. Texas are you ready to Wiggle!!! Babies hold their bottles in the air. Toddler's raise their sippy cups. By god....it's time to Wiggle!!

The very instant the Wiggles, accompanied by the Wigglie dancers, come on stage, Wonder-pea goes into a deer in headlights state. For the next hour and a half she will sit on my lap and just stare at the stage. She won't dance, she won't smile, she will occasionally clap and I notice she is mouthing the words to some of the songs, this religious experience is simply overloading. To me and my wife these are four ordinary men who jump around and act silly. To Wonder-pea they are pre-school rock n roll gods.

From our vantage point looking down on the audience, it was a sea of little heads bobbing around and little arms thrashing through the air. Kids where up in front of the stage jumping up and down. And the jello pudding mosh pit was in full swing. The kids had signs they'd hold up for the Wiggles to read and many brought balloons and cards for the guys too. It must feel pretty good to be adored by so many kids.

The show itself was very good and I would recommend it to anyone that has Wiggle fans at home. The guys did a good job of coming out into the audience to quickly take some pictures with kids and whatnot, even going up to the upper seating areas. Jeff Wiggle ran right in front of us. I said "Wonder-pea look it's Jeff!! This is as close as you may ever be to an actual Wiggle." However she would not....could not....look upon this god..this one of the mighty four....or else she be turned to a pillar of salt. I, on the other hand, had no problem. I was waving and yelling "HI JEFF!!"

If you are remotely interested in finding out more about the Wiggles or you want to take your kids to a concert check out their web site: http://www.thewiggles.com.au