Hot Potato: The Story Of The Wiggles (2023) – Everybody Clap

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 24th October
Seen: 27th October

When it comes to true cultural impact, there are very few bands who you can say have changed the course of history and also been massively popular. Obviously, you could throw in groups like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Kiss but any list of “culturally significant bands” that doesn’t contain The Wiggles is incomplete. With a set of brightly coloured skivvies and songs about fruit salad and driving around in a big red car, The Wiggles have dominated the world of children’s entertainment for over 30 years and have changed the lives of millions. It only makes sense that, like all truly great bands, The Wiggles would get to have a documentary of their own someday and just like the band itself, the documentary Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles is a truly brilliant piece of art that stands apart from others in its genre.

Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles is a no-holds-barred look at the lengthy history of the greatest band to ever be given the responsibility of babysitting everyone’s children. The documentary creates a timeline of their career going from the shows done at children’s birthday parties to the arena tours they did in 2022, showing core moments from the history of the band through a series of gorgeous archival footage and photos and even home footage from young fans enjoying some of the classic Wiggles’ videotapes that were a staple of any Australian household. All of this is placed over fascinating interviews with not only the original Wiggles lineup but with several cast members who have replaced them over the years. You will not find a more in-depth look at this classic act than you will in this documentary.

To learn the full history of The Wiggles is quite a trip, even for someone who literally grew up with them. Personal story moment, I’m old enough that I remember the Wiggles back when there were five of them and they didn’t have their trademark colour combination (So you could say I’m a Wiggles Hipster, I was into them before they were cool) so there is a substantial chunk of Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles that just poked right at the portion of my brain that controls nostalgia, meaning it’s going to be a little hard to be objective about a film when every single one of the songs makes me want to get up and dance along. 

Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles leans hard into that nostalgia, pulling clips from the original shows that a lot of people from my age range would’ve watched on a loop. It takes the time to carefully explain where each fun little detail came from, learning that the song Hot Potato began its life as Hot Tamale or that Dorothy the Dinosaur became a ballerina because one of the Wiggles kids was into ballet was just a couple of the fascinating little facts about the band that get thrown out with a pure sweet joy that makes for an engaging film. 

Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles takes this band as seriously as possible, treating this as though it’s a documentary on The Stones or Bob Dylan by delving into the intellectual elements behind the bands’ creative process or the harshness of their touring schedule. Sure, it might sound a little silly to hear “Oh the tour for the Wiggles was exhausting”, but then you learn about how many shows they were doing in a day and seeing how energetic it was and you not only gain an intense respect for these performers but you will be stunned there isn’t more footage of them just collapsing on stage (no wonder Jeff kept falling asleep, I’d be exhausted too with their schedule!)

What’s also genuinely fascinating is how Hot Potato: The Story Of The Wiggles manages to pull back and put the bands success into a wider context and talk about them on a grander scale than just how they toured, from seemingly simple things to the toll that the tour took on their health and families to how 9/11 changed the trajectory of their careers (yes, this documentary about THE WIGGLES stops to bring up 9/11, it’s objectively a shocking turn where they even show a little bit of the footage of the towers on fire but it works in full context). It takes time to touch on the weird reaction people had to a girl wiggle and even the recent additions of extra Wiggles so the band could be more diverse and inclusive of more people, and to have a good dig at the idiots who have a problem with that.

Throughout the entirety of Hot Potato: The Story Of The Wiggles what’s amazing is that there isn’t an ounce of cynicism to be found anywhere. This isn’t a joke documentary which it easily could’ve been, considering the subject matter it’s hard not to find it a little silly at first. The contrast of a conventional interview-based band documentary/concert film about The Wiggles is something that shouldn’t work but they commit to it completely with such sincerity that soon enough you are enjoying the exploration of this classic children’s band and by the end, it’s hard not to start welling up at the sweetness of it all.

Perhaps the greatest set of images that exist in Hot Potato: The Story Of The Wiggles are from the OG concert tour in 2022. Seeing the original Wiggles, men who range between 50 and 70 years old performing to an audience made up entirely of adults who are gleefully singing and dancing along to these children’s songs without a single person making a joke about it is absolutely heartwarming. It’s a testament to the power that this band has, they’re a part of so many childhoods and seeing how they have shaped the culture over the years is fascinating (hell, it isn’t a part of the documentary but if you want to see how intense this can get, watch this video of The Wiggles turning up to do several songs during a Kid Laroi concert… even at that kind of gig, the audience is putting everything they have into dancing along to Fruit Salad). Seeing how they’ve adapted and grown and refused to let silly culture wars stop them from doing what they do best is something that should be respected, and Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles gives them that respect.

Hot Potato: The Story Of The Wiggles should be considered one of the greatest music documentaries of all time, were it about any other band it probably would be. It treats the audience and the band completely seriously, shows the highs and lows with absolutely heartbreaking honesty (including showing footage of Greg Page’s heart attack, which is still shocking to witness) and never once acts like it would be silly to do a documentary like this. This is a well-deserved and fascinating tribute to one of the greatest bands in history, a film that will wiggle its way into your heart with incredible ease.