The Wiggles

The Wiggles are an Australian band that specializes in children's entertainment. Since its formation in 1991, the group has achieved worldwide success with its children's albums, videos, television series and concert appearances.

According to Business Review Weekly magazine, The Wiggles were Australia's highest grossing entertainers for the year 2005, earning more than AC/DC and Nicole Kidman combined.

Formation
Anthony Field and Jeff Fatt had been members of the Cockroaches, a popular pub rock band which had scored a number of Top 40 hits in Australia during the 1980s.

After the Cockroaches disbanded in 1988, Field enrolled at the Institute of Early Childhood Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney. One of only a few male students in the program, Field soon met two of the other men: Greg Page and Murray Cook, both former musicians. Page, the youngest of the group, had come into the program straight from high school, while Cook and Field were mature-age students. Cook had played bass in a minor Sydney pop band, Finger Guns, while also working as a clerk at the Australian Taxation Office.

The group initially teamed up to produce a music performance project for their studies, but they soon began working towards the goal of recording a children's music album. Needing a keyboardist, Field asked his old bandmate, Jeff Fatt, to help out. (Fatt's reply was "Sure, but how long will it take...."). The group received songwriting help from John Field, Anthony's brother and former bandmate, as they reworked a few of the old Cockroaches tunes into children's songs. For example, "Do the Monkey" was originally a Cockroaches song with different lyrics. Another Cockroaches song, "Get Ready To Wiggle", inspired the new band's name.

The band also received keyboards and songwriting assistance from fellow Macquarie student Phillip Wilcher, a so-called 'fifth Wiggle' who left the group to pursue a career in classical music shortly after the release of the Wiggles' 1991 self-titled debut album.