Wigglepedia
Don't have an account?
Register
Wigglepedia
Advertisement
Register
Wigglepedia
Wigglepedia
17,089
pages
in: The Wiggles TV series, 1999, 2000,
and 24 more

The Wiggles: Series 2

View source

The Wiggles is the second self-titled TV series by The Wiggles. It did not make its debut in Australia, but on UK network ITV's morning block, GMTV, on 2 January 1999.[3] Soon after, Fox Family began airing the series on weekdays in the U.S.[4] Finally, Australian viewers were given the series in August of 1999 on Seven Network, which had been the home to their first series.

It differed quite a bit from its predecessor, both in content and style. Some episodes remained story-based, such as "Dancing" and "At Play". But, there is no specific format to the series, with songs and other skits appearing in between segments of the story. The focus of the episodes were more on general themes running throughout; for example, "Counting & Numbers", "Animals" and "Multicultural". The individual songs and skits typically related to these themes in some way. Most drastically, the setting changed quite a bit as The Wiggles' world is now primarily computer-animated with real objects being chroma-keyed around, with the primary locations (Wigglehouse, Dorothy's Garden, Captain Feathersword's Dockyard, Henry's Place and Wags World) being practical sets existing within it, all of which look completely different than in previous appearances.

It primarily featured songs from the 3 videos that came out before it: the 1998 versions of Wiggle Time! and Yummy Yummy and Toot Toot!. Songs filmed live in concert at the Toot Toot Show! tour (the same concert that would later be released on video as The Wiggly Big Show) also appeared. A few songs from Big Red Car and Wake Up Jeff! were re-shot in the style of this series for use in episodes.

This series is usually considered to be the original Wiggles' most popular, and arguably helped bring The Wiggles to the height of their overall popularity. In particular, it gave the group a significant push in countries outside Australia, where they had little to no exposure before. In the UK, it reportedly had a 50% audience share during its time slot during the first run of 13 episodes on GMTV. In the USA, Fox Family's run apparently failed to catch on, but it eventually found massive success on Playhouse Disney beginning in June 2002[5]. This series thusly began The Wiggles' relationship with Disney in the USA, who would continue to debut and rerun Wiggles series, new and old, until 2009, airing two to four episodes daily during much of that time.

Episodes[]

Note: GMTV versions that are available on DVD or have surfaced online are marked with an asterisk (*). All others are currently considered lost media.

  1. Food
  2. Counting & Numbers
  3. Dancing
  4. Dressing Up
  5. Your Body
  6. At Play
  7. Safety
  8. Storytelling
  9. Friends
  10. Multicultural
  11. Musical Instruments
  12. Hygiene
  13. Animals
  14. History
  15. Family
  16. Movement
  17. Nutrition
  18. Directions
  19. Manners (*)[6]
  20. Travel
  21. Play (*)
  22. The Body
  23. Communication
  24. Work
  25. Imagination
  26. Cows, Ducks & Penguins

NOTE: This list is incomplete. There are 52 episodes total, which were seen on PBS Kids Sprout (now Universal Kids) in America, ABC Kids in Australia[7] and Kidzone in New Zealand, those episodes that have surfaced online are marked with an asterisk (*); partially available episodes are marked with a double asterisk (**). All others are currently considered lost media. Please do not add any additional episode titles unless you can provide a verifiable source.

Format[]

Songs[]

HotPotatoFoodtitlecard

"Hot Potato", the first song used in the series

Like TV series 1, songs from Wiggle Time! and Yummy Yummy appear in most episodes. Unlike that series, not all songs from those videos are used, and most that are used appear in more than one episode. Some songs use completely different camera angles at times, most notably "Dorothy the Dinosaur". Some footage in music videos were adjusted to accommodate for transitions and song title cards, such as the first shot of "Get Ready To Wiggle" lasting longer when compared to its appearance in Wiggle Time!, with two of the following shots being removed as a result. More songs from Toot Toot! appear than in series 1, and many more episodes contain songs performed in concert. Most concert songs are from the tour featured in The Wiggly Big Show video (in fact, "D.O.R.O.T.H.Y. (My Favourite Dinosaur)", which was cut from that video, appears in the episode "Imagination"). One song, "Wake Up Jeff!", which can be seen in "Communication", is from the same concert used in Wiggle Time! and series 1 (that particular song appeared in neither). New music videos for the songs "Our Boat Is Rocking On The Sea" (a new recording of the track from Stories and Songs: The Adventures Of Captain Feathersword, The Friendly Pirate), "Big Red Car", "Hat On My Head" (both from Big Red Car), "Henry's Underwater Big Band", "Having Fun At The Beach" (both from Wake Up Jeff!), and "John Bradlelum" (from Toot Toot!) are used. Also, the opening song and closing credits are the only constant features of every episode, although the credits tend to differ in length from episode to episode. Both are set to "In The Wiggles' World".

Song title cards appear on a wavy Wiggle Rainbow of varying sizes and colours depending on the length of the title. It would later be used in the 1999 re-release of Toot Toot! with differently-styled text. Only one song appears without a title card, "Wigglegroove" in the episode "Work". Often, title cards show up at varying times in multiple appearances, such as "Hot Potato", where the title appears right away in some episodes, but not until several seconds into the song in "Hygiene" (as it did in Yummy Yummy). Sometimes, the title cards themselves are different from episode to episode, especially those with long titles, like "We're Dancing With Wags The Dog", where the divide in what words are on top or bottom is different, or the colours in the Wiggle Rainbow are different.

Segments[]

TheWigglesinTravel

The Wiggles at the Wiggle Rainbow in Travel

There are no specific sets of segments that appear in every episode, nor are there segments with given names. Examples of recurring segments include: The Wiggles discussing the theme of an episode in the Wiggle Rainbow, or inside or outside Wigglehouse; Greg performing magic tricks and trying to get a rabbit out of his hat (often with help, or hinderance, from Anthony); Captain Feathersword attempting to teach tricks to Wags the Dog (like trying to make him fetch an object he throws) with little success at either Wags World or his dockyard; Henry conducting his Underwater Big Band; and Dorothy planting in her garden.

Broadcast History[]

After its broadcast on GMTV and GMTV 2 in the UK, the standard versions aired on Nick Jr. beginning in 2004.

In the U.S, The Wiggles had their first television exposure on Fox Family Channel (now known as "Freeform"), along with clips played in the series Mister Moose's Fun Time. In 1999, the network was then the first to pick up the series in that territory, beginning on May 3, 1999[10] until February 20, 2000[11]. By 2002, it found a new home as part of Playhouse Disney (which Fox owned by Disney in this year). Episodes were aired out of order, and its final "new" episode aired in 2003 (episodes of Series 1 were interspersed beginning in 2002). After The Wiggles later moved to PBS Kids Sprout (now known as "Universal Kids") that network started airing the 11-minute version by 2009. The standard episodes were formerly in rotation on The Wiggles Channel. As of 2024, The standard episodes are now in rotation on FilmRise Family, FilmRise Kids and Xumo Free Kids TV.

This was The Wiggles' last series to air on Seven Network in Australia.

The 11-minute version aired on TVNZ Kidzone in New Zealand.

In Canada, the series aired on TVO and later Treehouse TV.

In Japan, it aired dubbed on Playhouse Disney circa 2008-2010.[12]

A Castilian Spanish dub aired on an unknown network, an Italian dub aired on JimJam Italy[13] and KidsCo[14], a Korean dub also exists, though it also aired on an unknown network[15], and a Polish dub exists, it aired on KidsCo.

Wiggles series are known to have aired on Sky Kids Discovery in the UK, Disney Channel in Australia and New Zealand, TV3 in New Zealand and RTÉ in Ireland.[16] It is assumed, but unconfirmed, that series 2 aired on these networks.

Version Differences[]

TheWigglesTVSeries2endboard(OriginalGMTVVersion)

GMTV credits

There are three different versions of the series: the original GMTV versions that are roughly 18 to 19 minutes each, the extended versions that run around 22-minutes (both of which consist of 26 episodes), and split 11-minute versions edited much later, around the time of TV series 4 and 5 (of which there are 52 episodes). The 22-minute "standard" versions are the most common, as they aired in several countries, and appear on the DVD box set and other home video releases.

The GMTV versions have not been rerun or released since, and all but two episodes are considered lost media: "Play" (ep. 21), is featured on the UK compilation DVD Playtime Children's Favourites as the GMTV version. Based on that episode, these versions did not contain the concert clips seen in the others ("Captain Feathersword Fell Asleep on His Pirate Ship" is seen with the version from Wiggle Time!), and contained other differences as a result of the reduced run time (when compared to the standard version, "The Monkey Dance" and the prologue to "Ponies" are missing entirely, while the epilogue to "Starry Night" is shortened). Episode credits are also much shorter. The standard version of the episode "Your Body" contains a single frame of The Wiggles Big Show version of "Can You (Point Your Fingers And Do The Twist?)" before switching to the Toot Toot Show!/The Wiggly Big Show version, likely meaning the GMTV version used the clip from the former concert (considering the GMTV version premiered in January 1999, less than a month after the December 1998 Toot Toot Show! performances were filmed, this is probably the case). A frame during a camera transition in "Storytelling" appears to be the final shot of the song "Wags the Dog" from Big Red Car, causing similar speculation that songs from that video (and maybe others, such as Wake Up Jeff!) appeared in the GMTV version, but it may have also simply been a placeholder during post-production before it was decided to include "Zardo Zap" in that episode instead. In addition, a page of the script for "At Play" (ep. 6) that was exhibited at the Powerhouse Museum contains "Rock-A-Bye Your Bear" instead of "Henry's Underwater Big Band", although it is unknown whether the version aired on GMTV used this song. A YouTube video[17] reveals that the opening on GMTV airings is shortened from 1:08 to 0:20, although the DVD release of "Play" shows it intact.

The 11-minute versions are known to have aired in the United States on Sprout (now Universal Kids), New Zealand on Kidzone and Australia on ABC Kids. Most episodes are now considered lost as few recordings have since surfaced online, and no official release exists. In these versions, the standard episodes are split into two, with scenes and songs reshuffled to get them to fit in these separated time frames. Apparently, The Wiggles no longer had access to the raw footage from this series, thus the result is somewhat odd and patched together in nature. The final edits of the standard versions are used, with transitions from series 4 and 5 used to hide any cuts (occasionally, the original transitions would be visible under the new ones, as seen in the cloud transition in the slideshow). On Sprout, a single black frame is visible during the title card/first transition, intended to allow for a commercial break. Likewise, there is a hard cut to another frame of black before the credits begin. However, Sprout never placed commercial breaks in this slot. On Kidzone, these gaps for commercial breaks were not present, with no black frames and a transition always placed between the final scene and the credits. The credits themselves were sped-up on Kidzone (with "In The Wiggles' World" accordingly abridged) but played at original speed on Sprout (using footage of the credits from Storytelling), comparatively extending the length of the episodes. Unlike the 22-minute and the original GMTV versions, The 11-minute version only uses one opening sequence for each episode (The version used is sourced from Counting & Numbers).

Tie-in Videos[]

Two "clip show" videos were released. The Dorothy the Dinosaur and Friends Video was released in 1999, containing several skits from the TV series featuring the Wiggly Friends, with some new introductions by Dorothy herself, and new music videos featuring The Wiggle Puppets. The Wiggles themselves never physically appear in the video, although their voices can be heard at several points. The following year, Captain Feathersword the Friendly Pirate was released, containing skits focusing on Captain Feathersword. Greg, Jeff and Anthony introduce the segments, and all four Wiggles appear in many of the skits. There are no music videos in the video, although occasional songs appear within segments as they did in episodes.

It's a Wiggly Wiggly World!, a video released in 2000, features many direct connections to the series. The series 2 intro is used for that video, as is the series’ Wiggles World at several points. The set for Dorothy's Garden is also the same as the one used in this series. The song "Starry Night" is taken directly from the episode "Play" as a flashback by Murray, although the music is re-recorded. The video is often considered by fans to be a special for this series, or perhaps even its finale.

Other videos made smaller use of various sets or other imagery from the series. The Wiggly Big Show, a 1999 live video using the same concert clips as the series, also contained scenes of The Wiggles inside the Wigglehouse from series 2. In addition, the dentist set used in the episode "Movement" was repurposed into a backstage dressing room where the Wiggly Friends were seen. A new music video for "Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car" was also created for this video in which they drive through the computer-animated Wiggles World from the series.

When Toot Toot! was released internationally (and re-released in Australia in 1999), the chroma key backgrounds of the video's primary setting was changed to the Wiggles World from this series, with the garage in the initial version being replaced with the street outside of Wigglehouse. The music videos for "John Bradlelum" and "Henry's Underwater Big Band" made for this series were also added to the video, with the former replacing its original version, and the latter replacing the song "Bathtime". The same music video for "Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car" from The Wiggly Big Show was also reused (although the original 1998 music video is the one that appears in the series, as the later version had simply not been made yet).

The Wiggles' second Christmas video, Yule Be Wiggling, was filmed in 2000 and released in 2001. It contained the last direct visual references to series 2, by way of a few brief scenes where the background used was the playground location from the series 2 Wiggles World. The copyright screen (featuring a bee exposing the logo on a flower) was also used in this and other contemporary videos, including the 1999 re-release of Wiggly, Wiggly Christmas, as well as Hoop-Dee-Doo it's a Wiggly Party.

Releases[]

TVSeries2-iTunesArtwork

iTunes artwork

Physical Home Video[]

The Wiggles' first ever DVD was a TV series 2 compilation called Wiggly TV, released in 2000. It contained three standard episodes, "Play" (titled as "Playtime"), "History" (titled as "Wiggly History") and "Family", as well as an electronic storybook and bloopers. A VHS version was later released in 2001, although it did not contain "Family". In the United States and Canada, this was released as Wiggly Play Time. Both the VHS (released in 2001) and DVD (released in 2004) contained all three episodes, edited together to form a complete hour-long video.

The song Get Ready To Wiggle (sourced from the episode Manners) was used in a promo called Coming soon... on various UK DVD releases from HIT Entertainment in 2004 to promote Toot Toot! plus Yummy Yummy.

From 2004 to 2008, select episodes were included on Children's Favourites (later HIT Favourites) compilation DVDs and VHS in the UK, alongside episodes of other HIT Entertainment-distributed shows. The episode "Play", featured in Playtime Children's Favourites, is the original GMTV version. "Safety" was released on a promotional DVD sold in the Daily Mirror titled A Fun Filled Episode.

In 2005, the episodes "Family" (which had been previously seen on Wiggly Play Time) and "Musical Instruments" (which was new to home video) were included on the North American-exclusive VHS and DVD Lights, Camera, Action!, which also contained episodes 12 and 16 of TV series 3 (11-minute versions). A rental version, titled The Wiggles Show, contained these episodes and the video Top of the Tots.

In Australia and New Zealand, all 26 episodes were released together across 4 DVD discs in a Collector's Edition Box Set released in 2007, along with two bonus episodes of Dorothy the Dinosaur series 1.

All releases are currently out of print.

Digital Retail[]

Two 13-episode volumes compiling the whole series were available on digital platforms such as iTunes and Google Play. Like series 1, episodes on iTunes were presented in 480p rather than their the original 576p resolution (technically 576i, but iTunes doesn't support interlaced video so it must be deinterlaced). Episodes were also in mono sound despite being created in stereo. Like the DVD box set, the digital releases were never made available outside of Australia and New Zealand, and are no longer available for purchase on iTunes. Although, they are still available on Google Play and YouTube.[citation needed]

Streaming[]

As noted above, the series has played on The Wiggles Channel, a linear streaming network that was formerly available through The Roku Channel, FilmRise Family, a linear streaming network available through Redbox, Sling TV, TiVo+, TCLtv+ and WatchFree+, FilmRise Kids, a linear streaming network available through Plex, Sling TV, The Roku Channel and TCLtv+ and Xumo Free Kids TV, a linear streaming network available through TCLtv+, Xumo Play and Xfinity Stream in the USA. A few episodes have also been uploaded to various WildBrain YouTube channels which are viewable worldwide; these episodes are presented with a border and an incorrectly converted framerate.

Trivia[]

Goofs[]

References[]

  1. ↑ https://www.eldoblaje.com/datos/FichaPelicula.asp?id=13778
  2. ↑ https://m.tv.pl/opis/s_44_p_328250_The_Wiggles.xhtml
  3. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/19990423044531/http://thewiggles.com.au:80/gmtv.html
  4. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/19991009135527/http://thewiggles.com.au:80/tvwiggles.html
  5. ↑ https://www.laughingplace.com/w/leg/?legacyasppage=News-ID10012450.asp
  6. ↑ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1St97yI_md8Db-fE67WTxIwmsdnlx1s-n/view
  7. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20090619154003/http://www.thewiggles.com.au/au/entertainment/tv
  8. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20140724010633/http://corporate.comcast.com/images/IPG-SPROUT-Q4-2011.pdf
  9. ↑ https://archive.org/details/thewiggles11mintvs2ep50
  10. ↑ 3 May 1999, Page 364 - Daily News
  11. ↑ 20 Feb 2000, Page 300 - Daily News
  12. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/thewiggles/videos/the-wiggles-can-be-watched-in-japanese-on-disney-japan/444025298627/
  13. ↑ https://youtu.be/YcmHn-QGR3A?si=aoH5NQVB2Leqc9z7
  14. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/thewiggles/videos/the-wiggles-can-be-watched-in-italian-on-kidsco-italy/444550578627/
  15. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/CTvl5llLhMw/
  16. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20010410032023/http://www.thewiggles.com.au:80/tvwiggles.html
  17. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7_hBbmsZDE - at 6:25
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
Advertisement