Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hot Potato: The Story Of The Wiggles’ on Prime Video, A Doc About The Wildly Successful Children’s Music Group From Australia 

Whoo, wiggy wiggy wiggy whoo, it’s time for a documentary film. Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles (now streaming on Prime Video) tracks Australia’s most successful children’s music combo ever over their three decades-plus of singing original songs and performing in brightly colored monochromatic “skivvies” for kids – how it started, how it’s going, and all of the friends they made along the way. Hot Potato, written by Sally Aitken and directed by Aitken with Fraser Grut, features interviews with all four original Wiggles – Anthony Field, Greg Page, Murray Cook, and Jeff Fatt – as well as the group’s membership as it’s evolved over the years. The Wiggles’ latest studio album – their 60th! – appeared in September.    

HOT POTATO: THE STORY OF THE WIGGLES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: As Hot Potato cuts between crowd and stage shots at an arena-sized recent Wiggles reunion show, where Greg (Yellow), Anthony (Blue), Murray (Red), and Jeff (Purple) join the group ensemble to lead an audience of ecstatic kids and equally excited grownups in singalong versions of hits like “Dorothy the Dinosaur,” “Fruit Salad,” and this doc’s title track – whether the couplet is “hot potato hot potato” or “cold spaghetti cold spaghetti,” it’s all about that “wiggy wiggy whoo” followup – The Story of the Wiggles starts to unfold in an interview room chock full of instruments. The quartet wasn’t created by focus groups, or dreamed up in a boardroom. It just happened organically. Before the Wiggles had ever sold an album, filmed a video, or played multiple sellout nights at Madison Square Garden, before The Wiggles were an international brand, they were just a bunch of mates in Sydney who wanted to start a band.

“We all thought it was a one-off,” Murray Cook says. “We never thought we’d make a career of it.” But in the early 90s, when Field and Page met Cook at the university where they were studying early childhood education, they immediately connected over a love of music and teaching. With instrumentation and melodies repurposed from Field and Fatt’s pop band the Cockroaches, and a grip of new lyrics designed to get kids up and moving, the Wiggles started gigging and in ‘91 issued their full-length debut. Lead single “Get Ready to Wiggle” was the clarion call for a nation of kids (and their parents) starved for wholesome, multi-dimensional, and hooky entertainment, and pretty soon the foursome had graduated from preschool rooms to playing 500-seat town halls. Everybody quit their teaching jobs, the band hit the tour circuit, and their philosophy of performance solidified. The Wiggles were officially a thing.

Topping the list of Australia’s top earners in entertainment by 2005 and clearing $50 million a year in gross earnings, the Wiggles continued to record new material annually and tour relentlessly. They endured through mental health challenges (Field) and mystery illnesses (Page), and watched as the media latched onto their every move. Hot Potato discusses a bit of the friction regarding lineup changes – Sam Moran replaced Page in the mid-2000s, but he was ousted in 2012 when Page returned – and establishes some of the gripey media context that surveyed the Wiggles’ conscious decision to become more balanced in their representation of gender and diversity. But at the end of the day it’s about the songs, not who’s wearing which color of skivvy. And since the Wiggles’ audience turns over every three years anyway, why not keep the whole thing running indefinitely?  

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Coco, Disney’s vibrant musical fantasy from 2017, makes Decider’s list of Halloween’s coziest watches. But if you wanted to keep singing but skip spooky szn and head straight for Santa Town, The Wiggles put out Wiggly, Wiggly Christmas way back in 1997. 

Performance Worth Watching: Emma Watkins has had quite a journey since she replaced Greg Page to become the Wiggles’ first female member in 2012. “I thought, ‘This is the highlight of my entire life,’”Watkins says in Hot Potato of being asked to join. “Because I grew up with the original Wiggles, they were like mythical childhood celebrities from my childhood.” And now here she was donning the yellow skivvy and joining in a rendition of “Rock-A-Bye Your Bear.” 

Memorable Dialogue: Greg Page says Anthony Field recognized even in the early 90s what needed to happen. “He said, ‘Guys, whenever somebody’s talking on stage, we all need to be looking at them.’ We’d never thought about that. We treated it like a band. This was the shift that needed to happen. It was no longer a band. The Wiggles had become a show.”

Sex and Skin: Come on. Ask something like that again and The Wiggles will run you over with their Big Red Car.

Our Take: The footage in Hot Potato of adults completely losing their minds to the original Wiggles members returning to the stage to sing and dance to “Fruit Salad” really puts into relief the effect this band has had on its audience. Sure, their key demo still eats fruit snacks and has nap time integrated into their day away from home. But one thing this documentary makes clear is how resonant the Wiggles’ music and vibe is, not only for the parents of toddlers, but for the toddlers who grew up to become Wiggles fans themselves. In that sense, so much of the behind-the-scenes action Story of The Wiggles showcases feels similar to any survey of a major musical group as they rehearse, perform, and travel to the next gig. The road is the road, whether you’re singing about heavy metal thunder or whether it’s time “Wake Up Jeff”. The Wiggles we come to know in Hot Potato – from the OG foursome to all of the new members through the years – already exist at a level of fame that makes the group’s biography arc toward standard issue, albeit with a large dose of friendliness. 

This has the tendency to make Hot Potato feel a little padded. But fortunately, the doc also offers insight into the Wiggles’ songwriting process, with its emphasis on meshing musicianship with early childhood behaviors. That children are “centered thinkers,” for example, informs the origin story of beloved character Dorothy the Dinosaur. It’s the kind of fast fact that might someday win you a round of Wiggles trivia at the local pub.    

Our Call: Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles tells a nice story about a group of real nice people who wrote some real nice songs for kids and have even made a real nice chunk of change doing it. But really, this is a STREAM IT only if you’re craving some up close and personal interview time with either the original four Wiggles or those who’ve worn the colored skivvies in the decades since.

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.