Bigger than Barney or Elmo

By Joe Brown (contact)

Thursday, July 23, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Chris Morris

If you remember it, the saying goes, you probably weren’t really there.

That’s the received wisdom about veterans of Woodstock, the mega-rock concert that marks its 40th anniversary next month. The substances — mystery wineskins, weed, the infamous brown acid — have something to do with the foggy recall.

Most veterans of a Wiggles concert don’t remember much about the experience, even just two or three years after the event. It’s not the substances this time — juiceboxes, string cheese, Ritalin. It’s mostly because these first-time concertgoers were 2 or 3 years old at the time when the Wiggles came to an arena in their town.

International superstars to Generation Sippycup, the Wiggles have sold more than 23 million DVDs and 7 million CDs worldwide, and perform in front of 750,000 kids and parents each year.

If you don’t have access to very young kids, you may be excused for being unaware of the Wiggles’ existence. If you do have children, you don’t need me to tell you that they are coming to Las Vegas on Friday for a pair of before-bedtime shows at Cox Pavilion. Three members of the Australian supergroup have degrees in early childhood education, and the Wiggles have partnered with Reach Out and Read’s Clark County coalition for these performances, and local book donations will be made. Families are encouraged to bring a new children’s book for donation.

Along with their identifying shirt color, the core Wiggles are on a first-name basis with their fans: Anthony (blue T-shirt, guitar/jokes), Murray (red, guitar/funny faces), Jeff (purple, keyboards/naps) and Sam (yellow, lead vocals/magic).

The song lineup will include old favorites, such cheerfully repetitive dance-along numbers as “Quack Quack,” “Toot, Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car” and “Can You Point Your Fingers and Do the Twist?” and the inescapable hit “Fruit Salad,” plus a few from their latest CD, “The Wiggles Go Bananas”, including “Monkey Man” featuring Australian pop star Kylie Minogue (now known to a new generation as the Pink Wiggle).

Do not doubt that the Wiggles are rock stars: When Coldplay visited Sydney this spring, lead singer (and father of two) Chris Martin paid homage to the Wiggles by incorporating part of “Fruit Salad” into Coldplay’s set.

Rounding out the Wiggles onstage entourage are Dorothy the Dinosaur, Henry the Octopus, Wags the Dog, the Wiggly Dancers, and best of all, the friendly pirate Captain Feathersword, played by Paul “Paddy” Paddick, who has been with the group since 1994.

“Ahoy there!” chortles Paddick, “the fifth Wiggle,” calling from one of the Wiggles’ three tour buses, en route from Sacramento to San Jose before heading to Vegas. “Our bus drivers just rated us his No. 1 group for cleanliness on his bus,” Paddick laughs. “That’s how radical we are. We actually talk to the bus drivers to hear their great stories about other bands.”

Paddick, 42, talks about the view from the Wiggles stage, watching wide-eyed children wandering entranced up the aisles toward the performers (under the watchful eyes of moms or dads, of course).

“Each one of them loves it for a different reason,” Paddick says of the mesmerized kids seeing their on-screen idols in three dimensions for the first time. “One child might be totally enraptured by Wags and just beams every time Wags comes on stage. Little boys and girls have guitars with them and they just can’t wait to play along with Murray on any song he plays his guitar on. And I’ve got to say some of the mums put so much effort into the little pirate suits.”

Paddick, who some say serves as “the adult relief” at Wiggles shows with jokes and impressions aimed over the heads of the kids, genially deflects nosy questions about groupie-moms and Wiggle-wars on the road. (One of the Wiggles had previously acknowledged that, yes, the Wiggles get lots of fan mail, including from adults, and it’s not always G-rated.) But Paddick expertly Wiggles out of any situation that might sully The Brand.

Unlike most perishable pop commodities, the Wiggles recognize that their audience will inevitably outgrow them, leaving them behind for tween and teen idols.

But Paddick says the trend-resistant Wiggles aren’t worried about audience attrition, and don’t try to pander stylistically to retain an aging group.

“We constantly change and strive to make the shows better,” says Paddick, who hints that the next Wiggles CD and touring show will have a touring theme. The group is also returning to TV in a bigger and better way: On Aug. 24 the Wiggles will return to U.S. TV on PBS’ 24-hour Sprout preschool network, hosting a 6 to 9 a.m. block of programming.

“We’ve noticed there is a cutoff point somewhere between 5 and 8 (years old), when they move on to the new teen group — the Hannah Montanas or Hi-5 in Australia,” Paddick says.

“But,” he adds — and this may be the real genius of the get-’em- while-they’re-young, world-conquering Wiggles — “our audience regenerates.”