The Wiggles to feature in their first documentary film

Hot Potato will tell the story of the Wiggles, one of Australia’s most successful musical exports.

Murray Cook and Anthony Field with new Wiggle Tsehay Hawkins, pictured in early 2022 as the group is inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. Picture: Jane Dempster

The Wiggles have entertained millions of fans around the world and provided the soundtrack for countless car trips, but never has the popular children’s group been the subject of a documentary film.

Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles will debut on streaming platform Amazon Prime Video next year as a feature-length documentary, charting the rise of one of the most successful, if unexpected, of Australia’s musical exports.

The group founded in 1991 by early-childhood students went on to dominate the world as “the Beatles for preschoolers”, with sales of more than 30 million albums and DVDs, and eight million books.

Purple Wiggle Jeff Fatt and Red Wiggle Murray Cook, both original members of the group, were at the launch in Sydney on Tuesday of Prime Video’s slate of Australian narrative series and documentaries. Cook says the group’s original line-up – with Greg Page and Anthony Field – are like brothers, who get together when they can.

Jeff Fatt and Murray Cook at the announcement of the documentary film Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles. Picture: Scott Ehler

“You spend so much time together that all the stupid in-jokes and the gags all come out, and there is a real love between us,” he says. “We started something from nothing, really, and it went on to become such a huge phenomenon. We recognise it, but we’re still those four dags who put on a skivvy and started performing for kids.”

The film directed by Sally Aitken will draw on 30 years of archival material, including photo-graphs taken by Fatt, who vowed early on to take a picture every day. “I made that promise to myself,” Fatt says. “Because I’d led a fairly interesting life up to then, I thought I would document my life and remember things better by taking a photo a day.

“But as it turns out, I’m looking back on over 30 years of photos – ‘What’s going on there? Where were we?’”

Prime Video’s slate of Australian-made narrative series includes the adaptation of Holly Ringland’s novel The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, featuring Sigourney Weaver, Leah Purcell and Asher Keddie; Deadloch, a crime-comedy series set in coastal Tasmania; and Class of ’07, about what happens when a school reunion is hit by an apocalyptic tidal wave.

Wiggles Anthony Field, Murray Cook, Greg Page and Jeff Fatt

Forthcoming documentaries on the platform are the second season of cricket series The Test; Dance Life, set at a Sydney dance academy; Hugh van Cuylenburg’s mindfulness special GEM; and The Defenders, the story of Hakeem al-Araibi, the Bahraini soccer player turned political refugee.

There’s also a set of comedy specials featuring Joel Creasey, Rhys Nicholson, Dave Hughes, Tommy Little and Lizzy Hoo.

Prime Video is the latest streaming platform to announce its line-up of Australian programs. The global streaming giants, including Netflix and Disney+, face the possible introduction of Australian content rules, likely to be determined by the Albanese government this year.

Director Aitken says she feels a strong sense of responsibility about telling the story of the Wiggles, whose appeal now crosses several generations – as was evident at a reunion concert of the original group earlier this year, when 12,000 screaming adults turned up at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena.

“I think it’s trying to understand that phenomenon,” she says of the documentary. “The film will touch on the method behind the magic.”