Review of the New Wiggles DVD

Getting Strong, which my children are watching at this moment. Perhaps it tells you something that it is not holding my attention? I mean, besides the fact that Sam and not Greg is the yellow Wiggle. I'll have to listen to Greg's CDs all morning to make up for it. . .

Um, back to the review. I knew they were revamping their sound and style, but I don't like it. They're trying to get back to a preschool and educational style, taking advantage of their early childhood degrees and knowledge. However, that means that all of their music seems very much aimed at kids. Their skits and what not in the videos and show have always been dumb, but even my husband likes the songs on Sailing Around the World, Cold Spaghetti Western and Racing to the Rainbow. Who can resist "Olive Oil"?? And their concerts are definitely designed to appeal to kids and adults. So these songs are more like "sing in preschool" songs, more similar to their earliest music on the Let's Wiggle and Yummy Yummy CDs, only Greg's not singing them. I mean, only they're not as good. Maybe that is just cause I haven't listened to them 8000 times.

This video is trying to educational, as I said before, and that annoys me. "Not trying to be educational" was the first thing I liked about the Wiggles. I always felt that, primarily, they loved music and wanted children to love and have fun with music, without an additional educational agenda to their songs. Well, the songs on this DVD focus on promoting physical health (exercise, etc.) and literacy, so they are definitely trying to be educational. This shift in emphasis is obvious from the title of the video series Wiggle and Learn, this DVD is only the first two episodes in a planned series. So the songs are not as high a quality, and everything sounds different without being sung by Greg.

My kids love it. Rosie, Roger AND Pauly have all sat entranced by it. The boys were interested, not upset, by the fact that Sam was the yellow Wiggle. I think they finally believe it after being told it for nearly a year. Pauly, who is five and thus at the upper age of the range the movie is intended for, said that Getting Strong (the title song) was "awesome" and that this was better than the other Wiggles DVDs. He did say to me, however, "It was boring for you, wasn't it?" So, yes it is a good kids video. It is less annoying than their show on Disney. The music just doesn't hold the appeal for adults that their best music in the past did, IMO. It is 1000x better than Hi-5.