User blog:WigglesFan82/A Lot of Camelot Mini-Review

Every once in a while when I take a break between reviewing videos I will review an episode of The Wiggles’ TV Series in what I call a mini-review. Today, I’m looking at the Ready, Steady, Wiggle! episode “A Lot of Camelot”

Right off the bat, let me just say I do not like this episode. At all. The thing is, I seem to be the only one. Whenever this episode is brought up, people say they like it because Greg had a cameo in it. That’s fine, but when you really take a step back and look at the story, there are some major problems here. Now, it’s only 11 minutes, and only about 2 and a half minutes of it is the actual story, but that doesn’t excuse it from being lazy.

The story involves The Wiggles getting ready for a play about the fantasy city of Camelot, which is directed by Greggory Griggs (whom we later see is played by former yellow Wiggle, Greg Page). When Anthony, Emma, and Simon try to wake Lachy, they can’t. They all hear the phone ring, and after the Wiggly Trivia it transitions to the first song.

Later, when we get back to Wigglehouse, we see Simon is holding the phone, as The Wiggles do their usual bit of calling someone to the tune of “Where is Thumbkin?”/”Frere Jacques”. We find out a band called the Mini Mites is going to try to wake Lachy by playing music. But, they’re literally playing music at that moment, and Lachy’s not waking up, so there’s a pretty clear flaw in their plan right there, but whatever. The Mini Mites (played by Antonio and Maria, Anthony’s son and 2nd daughter, respectively) come and play music terribly (which I think is the joke) and loudly, but Lachy’s still asleep. Big shock.

After our second break, we see Lachy still asleep on the couch. And to make matters worse the director is about to come and pick them up to do the play. So as we see Griggs enter the screen he says “Off to the theater, let’s leave him to sleep-a-lot!” to which Anthony replies “What a great solution” and they all leave without his as he continues his slumber. Seriously?! That’s how it ends?!

So, to recap, they spend the entire episode trying to wake him up, only to just let him sleep anyway, basically rendering the entire episode pointless. I will give them credit for creating a clever conflict by giving the story a ticking-clock element, but with no resolution what’s the purpose of there being any conflict at all? In a much better episode featuring Greg, “Excuse Meow!”, there’s a problem set up in the first part of the episode (Lachy the Cat is feeling sad and won’t drink his milk), and by the end of the third part the problem was resolved (Emma and Greg cheer him up with a song). And that’s the big problem with this episode, it has a problem set up early on, but it’s never resolved. Without any resolution, there’s no reason to get invested, and really no reason to even watch at all.

The use of songs starts out nice here, but by the end the sense of theming gets lost. The first song is “Wake Up Lachy!”, which makes sense to the story in that it’s about Lachy falling asleep, and the second is “Koala-By”, which is a lullaby that ends with Lachy asleep. The third song however is “The Shimmie Shake”, which is a concert song Lachy himself sings, and then Hot Potato, which does feature Jeff (the original purple Wiggle), but otherwise I have no idea why it’s here. Personally, since every episode does feature one concert song and one filmed in the studio (as far as I know) I feel that “Joannie Works with One Hammer” and “Rock-a-Bye Your Bear” would have been much better choices. “Joannie” ends with Lachy falling asleep, and “Rock-a-Bye Your Bear” ends with the teddy bear falling asleep, and both do feature lyrics about falling asleep. These songs have been featured in other episodes, so I know they easily could have used them here.

Overall, A Lot of Camelot is probably my least favorite story-based episode of Ready, Steady, Wiggle Series 1. I’d say it’s worthy of only 1 out of 5 stars. What a waste of Greg Page’s talent, and just The Wiggles in general. It’s not worth your time outside of the good songs, which do at least take up more of the episode than the weak story does.