‘Don’t be malicious’ and other commandments of Jimmy ‘Giggle’ Rees

Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Jimmy Rees. The 36-year-old entertainer played Jimmy Giggle on the ABC kids’ show Giggle and Hoot and became an online comedy sensation during lockdown with more than two million followers on Instagram and TikTok.

“No one has ever seen me swear in public. I bleep out certain words.”Credit: Janis House Photography

BODIES

You recorded so many episodes of Giggle and Hoot, and Jimmy Giggle had such a distinctive voice. Did you have to do anything to protect your throat? The director would say to me and the guy playing Hoot or the girl playing Hootabelle, “This is the first time you’ve done it! The kids just wanna come along on the journey with you! It’s the most exciting thing you’ve ever done.” Naturally, our voices went up higher. We’d all just try to match each other. Everything was so loud and it did get tiring at times. But in fact, my vocal coach said, “That’s actually healthier for your voice than your actual voice.”

In that case, should you be using your Jimmy Giggle voice constantly? I’ll go to a pub and if I’m using my normal voice and yelling over people, I’ll lose my voice. But if I spoke like Jimmy Giggle, I’d apparently be fine.

So in conclusion, Jimmy Giggle is your inner healthy voice. Who’d have thought!

You’ve become a surprise sex symbol through your entertainment work for kids. There was even a Facebook group called “I Could Teach Jimmy Giggle a Thing or Two”. How did you navigate that? It was all fun and games when we first saw it. I’ve never been a vain person, so it’s hard to see myself in that way. And I’d be self-conscious if someone asked me to take my shirt off to be Bachelor of the Year or whatever – which, in the early days, someone asked me to do, saying it could be funny. Wearing skimpy budgie-smugglers is something that would fill me with fear if someone said I had to do it.

When do you feel most comfortable in your own skin? Anytime I’m playing a silly character. It’s funny: Jimmy Giggle is just like a piece of clothing. When I do socials, I literally put my hair up in a man bun …

And that’s enough. But I wouldn’t walk down the street with my hair like that. I feel super-comfortable when people know I’m being silly.

DEATH

When you were growing up, what were you told about what happens to us after we die? My grandparents were Catholic and my parents would still say they are, too. I went to a Catholic primary school. I was brought up with the belief that we go to heaven. The body stays here and the soul goes up to heaven.

What do you believe in now? That when we die, we’re gone, and we try to remember the people that were here by upholding their legacy. Recently, my nephew passed [Rye, aged 11, last year]. He was heavily disabled and it was a few years coming. My kids know he’s not here, but some people have told them that he’s gone to heaven and some people haven’t. It can be confusing.

They’ve got questions. Yeah, they’ve got questions. But I’m upfront with them in a way because when it boils down to it, he’s not here. They ask about heaven and I’m, like, “I don’t know.”

I’m so sorry to hear about your nephew. How do you make sense of his loss – as his uncle, and as a dad yourself? It’s tough and really sad. He was dealt the cards that he was dealt, but we can learn a lot from his time here as well. It was his birthday the other week. My wife and I bought his family a tree to put outside their house to remember him by. They put purple lights on it – his favourite colour – and we all stood around the tree the other night and just remembered him and what he’d taught us. It’s a hard topic to talk about, but for me, it’s just baked in reality. We’re here, then we’re gone, and we should cherish what we have.

RELIGION

What are your commandments for your comedy? ”Don’t be malicious.” I’m not a nasty person; I still have an ABC filter up from doing 10 years of Giggle and Hoot.

So you have ABC editorial policies lodged in your brain. One hundred per cent of the time, even when I’m talking with people. No one has ever seen me swear in public. I bleep out certain words. That’s just something that’s ingrained in me. “Keep it clean” is another commandment, because it makes the comedy available to a broad audience. If the older generation hear someone using the c-word, they’ll switch off. It’s easier for kids to digest as well; they don’t have to feel, “Ooh, I’m doing something naughty here.”

Which of the seven deadly sins – pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth – are you the most susceptible to? I’m leaning towards sloth. And maybe – especially with the online stuff I do now – a little bit of envy. Sometimes I spend all this time doing something I think is clever, and I’ve made it look cool, then someone posts the oldest joke in the book and it goes viral. I’m like, “Are you kidding me?!”

Complete this sentence for me. “Other people go to church, I go …” Watch my kids play sport. It’s fun.

Jimmy Rees’ national “Not That Kinda Viral” tour kicks off in Melbourne on August 30.

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