In my day, the Wiggles were a tame bunch. Four blokes in loose skivvies whose concerts more closely resembled a school nativity play than a sold-out Eras show.
When I saw them in Toowoomba in 1997, was I thrust into an early puberty by their moves? Hardly. In fact, when all four signed my Dorothy the Dinosaur T-shirt, even at the age of four I thought, clingy much?
They were firmly G-rated, lo-fi and family friendly. And, crucially, daggy. Shamelessly daggy – the metric that turns kids into consumers.
And consume they did. The Wiggles accrued serious capital. But it’s easy to imagine a Don Draper-style marketing consultant whispering in their ears: “We’ve got the kids. Now how do we get the adults?”
Twenty-five years later, and with my signed T-shirt lost to the Lifeline bin, the Wiggles have cracked the code. Long gone are concerts and shows leaning exclusively on nursery rhymes and the cutesy theatrics of Dorothy the Dinosaur, Wags the Dog and Henry the Octopus. Instead, the Wiggles are harnessing raw emotion. Vibe, even.
Enter the Tree of Wisdom. The man. The $2 wig. The leaves hardly held on with a single stitch. The Tarocash chinos. And those moves.
He works it better than Missy Elliott. Puts his thing down, flips it and reverses it. Drops it like it’s hot. He seems to have found what the French would call his raison d’etre by thrusting what my toddler would call “his bum bum”. Move over “hot Purple Wiggle” John Pearce (but don’t go far).
As a mother of a toddler and newborn, the Instagram algorithm makes sure my feed is tightly maintained – sleep consultants, baby-led weaning recipes, and Brian Jordan Alvarez’s shirtless dance videos. But this week fan videos of the Tree of Wisdom seeped into my timeline. I couldn’t pry my bloodshot eyes away. I fell in love with him. He made this bone-tired mum grin ear to ear. “I’ve got some dance moves for you,” the tree sings, and I know he’s speaking just to me.
Don’t ask how I know, but in 2015 Dominic Field (the Tree’s human name) posted on Instagram that his childhood hero was Captain Feathersword. In a trajectory positively Sophoclean, Field would end up playing Feathersword while touring with the Wiggles. He’d also fill in for sick Wiggles, including his uncle who just happens to sport the blue skivvy. Not only is the nepo-tree a delight to watch; he has wholesome roots.
And now he’s a viral sensation. One video of Field’s performance has attracted 5.2m views on Instagram and 9.4m on TikTok. Now, I don’t have access to the analytics, but I think I know the demographic bringing in those views.
These numbers, this cultural phenomenon, shouldn’t be dismissed. Dancers have gone to the Olympics with less. There is likely an Aria in Dominic’s future, maybe even a talkshow. Give this sapling a permanent spot on the crew and let him grow!
It would be cynical to wholly attribute the Tree of Wisdom’s inclusion in the Wiggles as part of the “new deal” of kids’ entertainment – something for you, something for them – perhaps best embodied by Bluey; my daughter likes that they are talking dogs, I like that Chilli is regularly at breaking point. Rather, this genre-disrupting moment is a modernisation of kids’ entertainment which finds commercial virality in pure, human expression.
So much children’s TV is boring at best and irritating at worst, but the Tree of Wisdom is just the latest reminder that the Wiggles don’t overthink their craft and it makes for great entertainment. Chucking some green feathers on your nephew’s head and making him dance to an Irish drinking song is hardly a masterstroke, but it’s the type of dagginess that harps back to what made them their millions.
And if you’re as deep a scroller as I am, you’ll know that the Tree of Wisdom is just the tip of the iceberg. The whole crew have been making fun of themselves on TikTok and Instagram for years. The fact that 61-year-old pioneer blue Wiggle Anthony Field will happily do a TikTok dance with 19-year-old Tsehay is peak daggy dad energy. The hot Purple Wiggle recently posted himself dancing as if he were having an out of body experience. The fact he filmed the television is about as daggy as it comes.
But there is something special about the Tree of Wisdom, and it seems the Wiggles know it. They have upped their social output involving him, and every video is funnier than the last. If you’re playing Wiggles Shoot, Kiss, Marry with your partner (relax, we put the kids to bed first) – well, Wags would be going to the farm, and after a brief but emotionally nuanced fling with the hot Purple Wiggle, I’d be spending my days with the Tree.
Molly Glassey is Guardian Australia’s assistant editor, audio and visual
