charliesmum | Get ready to Wiggle

zambinigirl, through her niece, has discovered the joy* that are The Wiggles. This is for her.

Brief background. Back when Charlie was still a toddler, and hadn't gotten his PDD/NOS diagnosis, and was not talking and having all sorts of problems, his day care du jour had a tape of The Wiggles, and one day the teacher told me that he loved them. It was the one thing he responded to over just about everything else. "What are The Wiggles?" I wondered, "Some cartoon worms or something?"

So I did a search on the good old interweb and found out who, exactly, The Wiggles were. I was immediately smitten. They didn't talk down, they didn't use dorky voices, and the music was pure pop rock, and very reminicent of The Monkees, at least for me. What clinched it was when I discovered they actually sang a cover of "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" originally done in the 80's by Split Enz.

So, I set off to find a tape for Charlie. This, back in the early days of 1999, wasn't bloody easy. They were just starting to break into the US riding on the annoying purple tale of a certain dinosaur. Some Barney videos had a clip from the Wiggles on it, but finding the Wiggles videos was not easy. I did, eventually find Yummy Yummy and we proceeded to wear it out. Charlie really responded to it. You have to understand, he was completely non-verbal, would have horrible temper tantrums, and had only just started to walk. When the Wiggles were on, he would listen, and dance and smile and laugh. And sing. He actually started using words because of The Wiggles. His first word was a very Ozzie accented "Teddy Bear".

Anyway, a few years later, in 2002, I had the opportunity to write an article for a magazine called Autism Asberger's Digest about the Wiggles, and managed to get a hold of their Publicity Manager, who arranged for us to meet with The Wiggles at their show in Wilkes Barre, PA (two hour drive, by the way), so I could arrange an interview, and get some photos.

Here are the photos of Charlie with The Wiggles. (forgive the quality, I don't have a great scanner)

Charlie was totally ahead of his time with The Wiggles, and now that he's just a bit too old for them, there are finally toys and videos and DVDs and CDs galore. Not to mention birthday stuff. His fifth birthday was a "Wiggles Party" but I had to make do with colored napkins and streamers. No Wiggles decorations for me.

*for a given value of joy, that is

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We love the Wiggles!! Reb's a major fan!! She responds well to them as well!!

YAY WIGGLES!!!

'Net

What a great story! I will confess that, not being in with the under-ten set, I had no idea that the Wiggles were people. I thought that surely they must be some kind of boohbah-like creature.

Yesterday I thought of Charlie; I had an anxious mum call me to register her autistic son for my day camp. She was worried because this was his first time going to camp, but she assured me that he was a lovely boy and easy to deal with. I explained that I had experience working with autistic kids, and I promised to call her cell phone if there was any trouble. She seemed satisfied with that.

The whole time she was talking I could hear her son singing in the background, and it made me think of Charlie, and how there are some wonderful mums out there, and that you, of course, are one of them. :)

Wiggles! My friends have a daughter who is three right now and is completely in love with the Wiggles.

That is such a sweet story about Charlie. What a great thing for him to have been able to meet them and have his picture taken!

That's awesome!! Lily just saw her first Wiggles dvd yesterday. I'm not sure if she liked it, she's still pretty smitten with Elmo. But I did catch her dancing a little.

They are rather amusing to watch...and a whole new set of characters to collect. My favorite is Dorothy.

I remember those days. For Colin it was Winnie the Pooh.

It's been a long while since we've watched the Wiggles here, but isn't one of them Asian? The blue-shirted and purple-shirted ones look familiar, I guess there's some turnover being a Wiggle, lol. I'm rather glad we don't watch that anymore, for me they were one of those shows that was fun at first, but turned grating really fast.

What cute pictures!

I hadn't heard of the Wiggles until my nephew Tyler got into them, and I think they were already big by then! So we're not as hip as you and Charlie.

I got to see them in concert with my sister and Tyler when he was about two years old. All through the show, Tyler wouldn't sing along or dance like he would do with the TV show; he just stared, mesmerized -- until the very end, when they were walking off the stage with big waves goodbye, and Tyler made this little wave back and said in this small, sad voice, "Bye." Then for days afterwards, if you brought up the Wiggles, he would wave and sadly say, "Bye" again. It was adorable.

When my sister told me they covered "Six Months in a Leaky Boat," I had her send me the song file off of Tyler's CD. It's funny, although it mostly makes me want to hear the original. But I like that they did it.

On the video "Wiggly, Wiggly World" they sing it with Tim Finn. Which is cool.

And Captain Feathersword. Who by the way is really hot in real life.

Hee! I've only seen Captain Feathersword in costume, and he doesn't do much for me looking like that. But he was the highlight of the live show, at least for my sister and me. He sang some song (can't remember what, but I think one of his regular numbers), and then took shout-outs from the audience to sing it in the style of ...[fill in the blank]. It was impromptu and he was spot on with all of them -- I remember he did Elvis, Bon Jovi and Cher, among others. It was pretty much a moment for the adults, who were all in stitches. I can't imagine the toddler set really cared how good a Cher parody he was doing!

Captain's Magic Buttons. Totally funny. He did this dead-on Mick Jaggar impersionation when we saw them the first time.

Love your icon, by the way.

Anthony has the bluest eyes ever. I was talking to him, and he was all looking at me all interested in what I had to say and I could barely speak. Embarassing. :)

Oh, now I remember the Magic Buttons. I had forgotten that's how it worked!

Which one is Anthony? I don't remember their names. But my dentist bears an uncanny resemblance to the one in the red shirt in your photos!

I'm glad you like the icon! *uses it again* I got it from

vanity_made.

I have a friend who has a child with similar learning problems and found the Wiggles to have the same effect with him. Josh would sit for hours watching if you let him and wore out many tapes.

They are of course an institution here in New Zealand with all my children being very much into the Wiggles. The big purple dinosaur has lost his appeal here and hasn't been on for a long time. My girls love Dora the Explorer. Thank goodness for Nickelodeon!!..lol

Oh, cute pictures! Notice how Charlie is smart enough to automatically gravitate towards Anthony so you could get close and be all, "Hi, um...*gigglehairflip*, he really loves you!"

Great pictures! I'm so glad that he got to meet them.

Their energy scares me a bit, but they're cool. And they entice you to dance, and that's a good thing, especially in today's sedentary society.

*opens M&M's*

Yeah. Exercise.

Why do I never spell your user name right? Sheesh.

Dancing to the Wiggles is good exersise. Actually. :)

I try not to take it personally. :-)

Get ready to Wiggle

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