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Wiggles

• Childhood, Wiggles

  A Truly Sad Day

  12.07.06 | Permalink | Comment?

  I found out some sad news late last night – Greg Page, the Yellow Wiggle, is turning in his yellow shirt and retiring from the band due to health problems. It’s really surprising because he’s the youngest member at 34 – bandmate Jeff Fatt is over 50.

  For a while my youngest son never missed an episode of The Wiggles, and they grew on me as well. Greg formed the band with Murray Cook and Anthony Field when the three of them met while studying to be teachers. The three then formed The Wiggles, later inviting Anthony’s old bandmate Jeff from The Cockroaches to join.

  While some of their music is less than memorable, a lot of it is not bad at all, and even adults can enjoy songs like “Wiggle Groove” and “Sailing Around The World” – some adults, anyway. And kids LOVE them, and they love kids. They’ve earned every dollar they have made for that alone.

  Greg apparently started having health over the past couple of years, including dizziness and nausea, and was finally dignosed with orthostatic intolerance, in which the nervous system does not make the necessary changes to compensate for changes in activity (even just standing up) or environment (entering a warm room).

  So best of luck to Greg and the other Wiggles, and here’s hoping they keep on keeping kids happy.

  Other musical news: I was out shopping with the wife the other day when she picked up a DVD of Schoolhouse Rock and jokingly suggested we get it. So we did. And that thing ROCKS! I can still remember a lot of these, although I don’t think I ever saw “Lolly Lolly Lolly” or “Interplanet Janet”, but of course I remember “I’m Just A Bill” and “Conjunction Junction”. And I can still recite every word of the Preamble to the Constitution thanks to the Schoolhouse Rock song.

  My favorite, though, is “Interjections!” (“Hurray! I’m for the other team!”) which steals shamelessly from Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, i.e. “IN-TER-JEC-TIONS!”. And I have to beleive there’s an uncensored version somewhere in which they use somewhat stronger interjections.

  Reading this over, I can see that I’m not getting across just how damn cool this sounds, so go here and listen to some of the samples (or check out the disc of all-star remakes).

  It’s sad to me sometimes that today’s generation of kids won’t grow up hearing this on Saturday mornings between Bugs Bunny cartoons. Childhood ain’t what it used to be.

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