We're ALL Fruit Salad - The Wiggles Turns 30 Today

 "It's time to WIGGLE!!! LET'S ALL WIGGLE EVERYBODY!"
- Anthony Field 1998

It's 30 years ago TODAY since the very first album of the multicolor Fab Four of Fun The Wiggles was first released to the world courtesy of Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Village Roadshow Entertainment.

You've probably already heard the story of the band's humble beginnings around a 1,000 times before: the men behind the blue and purple shirts Jeff Fatt and Anthony Field were originally part of the feel-good Sydney-based rock & roll band The Cockroaches which had really big success with four albums including a gold & platinum reward, an appearance on UK-based Channel 4's Countdown game show and their biggest hit single "She's The One" which originally reached #7 on the pop charts in 1987, the same year that the internet-meme-spreading hit "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley had first entered the music nations over in the UK.

When the Cockroaches broke up in the summer of 1991, with their final album St. Patricks Day dropping in 1994. Anthony met up with the guys in the red and yellow shirts Murray Cook and Greg Page during their times studying childhood education at the famed Australian college of McCrouria University while that sleepyhead Jeff was busy with a hammering job at the time. Anthony then suggested that they should record an album of children's music songs with Fatt being called down to the studio for 2 hours as well as their short-lived 5th member Phillip Wilcher (who we could assume wore a green shirt)

The very first Wiggles album would drop on THIS DAY August 11th back in 1991. A few of their songs from The Wiggles as the years went on would be based on Fatt and Field's recent experience as rock stars in the Cockroaches with their songwriting partner John Field and the band's boss and showrunner Paul Field, including some of their first tracks "Get Ready to Wiggle" and "Dorothy the Dinosaur" based on The Cockroaches' "Everybody Wiggle aka Mr. Wiggle Comes Back to Town" and "It's Another Saturday Night" respectively.

The band would later be signed to ABC Music (Australia Broadcasting Corporation) in Australia by Meryl Groce who was the latest boss of ABC's music brand at the time. The first album would be a SOLID GOLD #1 hit with their next four albums Here Comes A Song (1992), Stories & Songs: The Adventures of Captain Feathersword the Friendly Pirate (1993) and the album soundtracks for their second two videos Yummy Yummy (1994) and Big Red Car (1995) each going platinum respectively, the latter of which would receive the band's first win in the 1995 ARIA Awards under the "Best Children's Album" category.

In 1997, the band's international stardom really began taking the world by storm. The band released their own movie The Wiggles Movie courtesy of Disney-owned 20th Century Fox Studios, followed by a TV series of 13 episodes the following year. The band would begin their USA attention with a concert at Disneyland Resort in September 1998, which would cause the eyes of executives from Mattel-owned Hit Entertainment PLC. (then named Lyrick Studios Inc. at the time). Debbie Ries who was Lyrick's president at the time found this concert more amusing. She later reported that "There was an audience of USA children who had NEVER seen The Wiggles before and they IMMEDIATELY got up and started dancing and interacting with the music. And THAT is when I found out that we had something that would be really big." And thus the band's USA stardom was born with video releases from Hit/Lyrick first dropping in OCtober 1999.

In 2002, the band's US success really took flight when Disney acquired the band's catalog to be aired on Playhouse Disney/Disney Junior and Disney Channel in the USA, UK, Australia and Southeast Asia. The band's TV series would also air on Nick Jr. and Nickelodeon channels in the UK and Australia.

In November 2006, it was reported that lead singer Greg Page would ahve to leave the group due to him suffering a condition called orthostatic intollerence, a disease which means that there isn't enough blood pumping in your body when standing up straight. This caused Greg to be replaced with Sam Moran who has been working with the group ever since 1998. He would later return to the band 5 years later, but his return would not last long and it never would.

IN 2009, Disney's contract with the group expired and the band moved their TV series to PBS Kids Sprout and Universal Kids in America the channels that still air them to this very day.

IN May 2012, it was announced that Greg, Murray and Jeff would be splitting up from the group. Anthony would be the only of the founding fathers of the band who continues to go on. The band's last ever tour together, promoted as the Celebration! Greatest Hits tour was performed in New Zealand, Singapore, UK, Ireland, USA and Australia, with the original four's final bow at the sadly-defunct Sydney Entertainment Center on Sunday 23rd December 2012.

In March 2013, the band's new members were unveiled including Emma Watkins the first female Wiggles member in history, Simon Pryce who was more of an opera singer rather than a guitar player like Murray and Lachlan "Lachy" Gillespie who is the only Wiggles member to come from Brisbane another part of Australia rather than Sydney. The lineup is still meant this way for the past eight years.

THe band has spawned major success including over 46,000,000 copies of merchandise sold, a record 8-year reward of the highest rated videos for children in Australia, 250,000 sold out concerts at the Sydney Entertainment Center, 12 sould-out gigs at New York City's Madion Square Gardens Hulu Theater,16 ARIA awards including 14 "Best Childrens Album wins, a 2003 Outstanding Achievement award and a 2011 induction into the hall of fame and 10 multiplatinum albums awards. They have also collaborated with the whos who of Hollywood stardom including John Forgety, Slim Dusty, Ross "King Mondo" Wilson, Kylie Minogue, Leo Sayer, Troy Cassar-Daley, Rolf Harris, Jimmy Little and Jamie Redfern among others.

Thank you to the entire Wiggles band lineup and production team past and present who have not only educated the childhoods of millions, but have also broken music records unlike any preschool phenomenon before or since.

Happy 30th Anniversary and keep on wiggling.
#TheWiggles30 #WereAllFruitSalad