Two Doting Dads with Matty J & AshThree Doting Dads feat. Anthony Field from The Wiggles
Would you bloody believe it, we've manage to lock down Anthony Field a.k.a the Blue Wiggle for a chat.
Anthony has lived one hell of a life - 3 years in the army, accidentally falling into a career in early education and then helping create one of the most prolific music groups of all time. The Wiggles have knocked up 30 million combined sales in CDs and DVDs and released 12 platinum albums since their formation in 1991. In addition to this, Anthony is also a great dad to three beautiful kids. He opens up about not ever thinking he'd be a dad, the parts of parenting he misses the most and what it's like to share the stage with his daughter.
If this ep didn't give you the full Wiggles fix you wanted, Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles is out now on Prime Video and it's an absolutely fantastic doco.
Follow @twodotingdads on Instagram here. Or slide into our DM's with any Doting Dads or Mums you'd like us to interview.
Today we have a very special bonus episode we have with us today, Anthony Field. Now know what you're thinking, who is Anthony?
I'll tell you who he is.
He is Anthony Wiggle, the Blue Wig Girl.
I'm sure everyone out there knows the Wiggles, but for anyone who may be thinking, don't know who that is. Wiggles are founded in nineteen ninety one. They are globally one of the biggest children's acts ever ever. They have saved me countless how many times? But only do my kids like watching them? I absolutely love them.
Yeah, They've been a part of my family and I'm guessing your family since the dawn of time.
It was one of those ones where when I'm like, don't get nervous.
Yeah, that was a bit like that.
He's just a.
Normal guy, but he is an absolute legend and we had a quick little chat. We had thirty minutes. He's a man who has wanted right now.
Yes, and it was an absolute privilege to have Anthony Wiggle on the podcast.
So enjoyed this episode.
We're ready, wiggle, wiggle your.
Fingers high in the sky. We're ready, wiggle wiggle. Welcome to three doting dads.
I'm Maddie Jay, I'm Ash, I'm Anthony.
This is a podcast all about parenting.
It's the good, the bad, and relatable.
And if you've come for any type of advice, clear although we when we have a guest, we might get some today. Actually, I feel like if ever there was going to be advice given today, it's going to be from our guest Anthony.
For sure.
But no pressure, no pressure at all.
But I had a good role model with my dad. I think the best thing you ever said to me was I make mistakes.
That's straight away. We just dished out to wisdom, which is amazing. So I'm looking forward to it. Thank you so much for joining us.
I said to myself as I was coming up the elevator, I'm like, I'm not gonna You're not gonna pass you where you go too much. But I honestly mean this when it is an honor to be in your presence totally here.
You've been a part of both of our families. For I mean, I'm a nineties baby, was born in nineteen ninety. Matt's a little bit older, nearly forty. I like to point that out a lot. But now we've both got kids in the era of Wiggles and we're just chatting on the way here about just jogged my memory when I had my first child, and I don't remember being a toddler and being entrapped by the Wiggles as these young kids do. But I remember when I first had Oscar and he was just going mental. I'll try this Wiggles thing and put the Wiggles on and he just shut up straight away. And he's loved it ever since. He's four now and he's just like got the pop out books and got everything. So it's amazing to have here.
But the day will come when he goes Wiggles is for babies, that happens.
I was like, no, it's not, keep watching it.
You'll keep watching it whit kids. When my kids were young at play school as a preschool teacher, I loved play School. I still love it and I would put it on them and they came to a stage where it's for babies and were.
You sure I know it does like that's been on place cool?
Oh yeah, you have well done, mate.
Yeah. I force my kids to watch it before we get into the Wiggles. You mentioned your dad, do you think looking back, were you drawn more towards your mum your dad, or did you have an equal relationship with both parents.
I know I think my dad because I love my mom. But Dad was He was unbelievable. He did revolutionary things like this is how old I am? Right, I'm nineteen sixty three. I was born in nineteen seventy one or seventy. He sat us all down. Now I was only six or seven, but I still remember it, and he said, I'm wrong about the Vietnam War. I just want to say that I'm wrong about it because Dad was all gung ho and even then as a kid on it. Wow, he's set down to tell us he's wrong about something.
How old were you at this point?
I was six or seven? Yeah?
Straightaway He's like, listen, son, I've got the hard truth for you.
Yeah. One time I came to you know, I'd done something crazy, and he said, Anthony, don't be hard on yourself. It's and don't tell your mum. He was good man.
So then it was your mom, though, who introduced you to music?
Is that right?
Yeah? Mom went through all the grades for the piano, and she loved music so much and she just wanted us to learn music. Have music as part of our lives, and she did it.
We'd love music and so of all you want to seven.
Yeah, you're the youngest of seven seven yeah.
Musically talented wise, who was the best?
Where do you rain?
I think Johnny my brother. He's like an incredible songwriter, just an amazing guitar player. He was also I don't know if you guys are into the sport, he was a cricketer and he played for New South Wales under nineties.
Annoying, isn't it Those people who were good and he says that come on, but aimed.
Some of it for us. Tortured me as a kid like I was batting. It was just.
Down the driveway.
I imagine there was seven kids growing up like that must have been absolute chaos.
The boys were four boys, three girls, and the boys just stuck to each other and the girls just stuck to each other. It was really And by the way, we had four guys in the one room, three girls in another. Oh my goodn't mother and dad and the other. So we had three bedroom house in Laylall Park, which is.
I can imagine that. I can imagine the fights.
And you know, it was funny. There was no preschools. In those days, Mom had seven under six ods, seven kids under six, and she said, you didn't need a preschool because.
Yeah, yeah, you got your own in house preschool.
And now what else? Talking about the old days, Mum would always say, I look at you guys with those disposable nappies, and I'd say, why weren't they around?
You don't have to wash all of them, all the wash.
But I'm sure you guys went go through it and you go, oh, the environment, I'd rather, yeah, do disposable, but.
I'll let him, I'll let him poop in the lawn. I'll just get out there.
Do you do the disposable.
Yeah, Look, it's a path of least resistance. We have occasionally said like, oh the environment, absolutely, it is important. But at the same time, when we're working, we're so time poor. It's just like, whatever is they don't have to easiest route to go down.
Yeah, I was always disposable, so I'm not I'm not. I don't judge. But also apparently it costs so much to the environment washing, Yeah, the emissions from the washing machine. What about dummies?
Oh yeah, well he's a dummy guy. Mine grow out really really early. So I like, sorry, Matt.
But it's not a guilt. My kids were dummies. Dummies they love the ummy.
Matt still has his dummy.
But do you think growing up, I think my first dream was to be a cricketer, Like I remember vividly watching it and seeing it and playing it and going, that's what I want to do. So when your mom introduced to music in your head where you're like, this is it. This is for me as a kid, this is what I want to do when I grow up.
Well it actually wasn't because when I was seven. You know when they when you're seven, you're at primary school and if they still do it, but just to write down what you want to be when you grow what did you say? Write? I still got a teacher, a soldier, or a policeman, and I to two of them because I was a teacher and I.
Was a soldier, so all attainable toys. I want to be an astronaut.
That it's not too late. Were still we could make the policeman, have made the police.
Force, almost joined the police force after the army.
I think that's the biggest surprise, is you know, for anyone who doesn't know you had three years in the army, and I can't imagine there's many people out there who have made the transition for being in the army to then working their way into early education. How did that transition come about?
It was just an accident. My sister was in the early days of the early nineties and late eighties because I didn't graduate from high school. But you could do a mature age test to get into university. And so I was twenty three. I just come out of the army and my sister said, oh, look, I'm doing this mature age test to get into become a preschool teacher. Would you like to drive me? And I said yeah. Then I went, you know what, I'll do the test too if I can. I signed up. So it was all an accident and I passed. She did too, but she didn't want to do it. But I stayed there and it was just an accent. But as the course went on, I realized it was all about empowering children. Preschool education is about. It was like Bill Gates came up with where do you want to go today? That was what was great about preschool education. It wasn't set curriculum like primary school, get sweat to.
Be a bit more creative, much more creative.
And really you'd set up little areas of learning for the children and could pick out what they wanted to do. But when you get to primary school, it's more like nine o'clock to nine thirty. That's math, you know, so very routine. That's it. Yeah, So I loved preschool.
And before you took a test to go, did you have a list of things that you wanted to study or did you just go? I want to teach the young minds that no.
No, I had no idea. I didn't even want to study. I just left the army. I was trying to get into the police force, which I would have done, and my sister just went, come and do this, and okay, he's the male testosterone thing. I had three years in the infantry and I was surrounded by men, learning about you know, weapons and more. Driving out of my personal carrier, just go on to the campus and I look around. There's there's women everywhere, and it was so great. So I just felt peaceful and like this is the play. It really was. I thought, that's sober. I said Colleen, I'll do the test too, and I did. That's how I've become a pre school teacher, but it was never in my ambition. But honestly, as it went on, I was sort of going wow, this world and putting into perspective. There was only three men in the one hundred and two years at the Institute of Early Joldo that had graduated before us, so it was really strange that a man was doing at that time.
Well, even now, you know, Ash and I were pretty hands on parents, and sometimes, you know, if I go to the pub and I'm talking to mates who work full time and they have a more traditional setup, I sometimes feel, I know self, I guess like insecure about my role as a parent, because you know, sometimes I feel like I should be the man who goes and works and brings home the money. When you're talking to your mates, did you ever feel insecure about saying, oh, I'm going to be a preschool teacher.
Not really, because my mate so I was always a bit musical and always really was the matcho man at the time. But it was really different on that especially in ninety nine ninety eighty nine when I went through U we had a part of our course that we had to do as males called there's a man in our preschool. Wow, what it was was it was to protect yourself and to be above suspicion because it was so strange even though men are parents and we should be part of children's Yeah, totally, but.
You know, there would have been some stigma, of course, like as there is with a lot of things.
And I mean.
That's good that they've have that module where it's like covers you and puts a lot of parents at ease.
That's right, so total hands off. Little children come, they fall over and hurt themselves, they come over, well, I would always direct them to teacher's assistance. Yea, no nap be changing, which was the greatest thing. I was going to argue that, you know, so can I get home? But I had this really great friend of mine. I went through this studio child with Andrew, and he went on a pract teaching at a primary school and he was waiting outside like the toilet time, and he would you directed the kids in there. He was waiting outside the toilets and a passing mum call the police. Oh my goodness, so poor Andrew. I mean that was the sort of it.
Wouldn't traumatize you a little bit too, Like just the I know, it's like the mum's probably just been extra cord.
That's right, that's for him. He would have been like, yeah, this guy suffered from anxiety anyway. But I'll tell you another funny learning thing. What I was teaching. Now. You know, children are very very concrete thinkers, and when you give an instruction, it usually should go one instruction only, like overload. It was probably my first week of teaching, and the kids came into the classroom with the three year olds and I mean, okay, if you five over there, go to the toilet, wash your hands out to be fantastic. So they went to the toilet and wash their hands in the toilet, and I walked it.
Yeah that was there, because you know, it wasn't the same toilet.
But the teaching help up said that what stands in the toilet? They still call the bathroom the toilet, and you go wash your hands in the toilet.
I think, so, yeah, that's the terminal.
Adults we know, okay, you don't mean washing, You've got to be more specific in the bathroom the toilet.
While she was studying, that's when the original cast members of the Wiggles came together. Do you remember what it was like that very first time that you guys, I'm not musically inclined myself, but had a jam and played together.
Yeah. Well the jam sesh was playing nursery rhymes. It wasn't playing rock and roll. We had a music in theater education component of the course, and I had this idea because I was listening to ABC and the artists that were out at the same time, and they were doing some good stuff. Don Spencer, Peter Coob lifting to the Canadian guy called RAFFI was fantastic, and I thought, well, we've got the early childhood of education. Why don't we Well, I don't make some music and I can't sing, so we came in and I said, guys, let's have a bit of a jam. And came from that.
Wow.
So the first gig that you played at this point where you're thinking, oh my gosh, we could be we could be something really big here.
Never thought that. No, it was we were real education heads. So let's put what we know from child development and see if we do a little show for children that they respond. And that's all it was. You know, the guys you see street performers and all, that's something we was busking. We just liked we.
Sort of you're just doing it for the love of it.
That's all it was, and it still is really, but that's all it was.
Have you ever had a song that you've written in the studio and thought we're onto something here, played it to an audience of kids and it's just not hit the mark.
Well not really because you don't see that. But what we did once it was my idea, and it was it was bad, It wasn't great. It was called Dorothy's question Time. Okay, so we would stop the concert, I'd say it's Dorothy's question time, and we had Dorothy day. I got a question for Dorothy. Now I point to you know, look put their hands up and say, I'm four. It's not quite a question to someone else. I've got a dog.
What we realized just Dorothy's statement times.
We realized that children that age don't understand what a question is. I have to learn that. So the next week we change it to Dorothy's news time. If you got news to Dorothy, I'm four, that's clear, and it became. But what Murray labeled it, in his very humorous way, was the Dorothy question Time. He said, you should call that Dorothy's Crash and burnt.
Tiement was it adapted to the audience, which is great. During the time when Early Days started to play shows, you were doing like city hall, town halls and stuff like that. And then it just exploded. Do you remember what that was like as a group, You're like, oh my goodness, Like, how do you wrap your head around how big?
It just went well in Australia. It was really just a word of mouth because you don't get played on the radio with Dorothy the Dinosaur or Rockway Beer, and it just we called it the Bush Telegraph and we were the only group doing like a male group doing children's shows, and it just the words spread and then we did twenty one Days in a Row of urselves raising money for the Nursing Mother's Association, and it just grew and grew, and we got on television. Then we went on The Ray Martin Show, which is a big show. Yeah day it just ABC signed us, but America was a different batter. We I don't even know how we did that. It's unclear to me how we got over there the first time, I don't remember, but it just exploded.
It really, Yeah, like that time like there was no social media, so it was just like, yeah, have you heard of these guys? You heard of that? Eventually it's going to cross over the ocean to someone that they over there.
They put our TV show on Disney Channel. Oh wow, And the Disney Channel was four times a day. And I remember when the American fella from the Disney Channel came and saw us and said, you know, we've got eighty four million subscribers, you know, and we went, my goodness.
Really wow.
Just like Australia. When you look back at the history of the Wiggles, this may be a tough question to answer, but is there one particular memory or achievement that stands out as being one of your favorites.
I really look, all the og stuff was so much fun and ridiculously accidental success. And you know, doing the Macy's Day Parade, we did three of those with a young fellow, you know, Steve Irwin. We were in the same bus as Steve. Are just laughing about it, you know, had a lot of great moments with Steve. I think the Macy's Parade we played straight after nine to eleven and it was very emotional, and I think that was one of the great great moments. Playing Madison Square Garden in America again was a brilliant Australia just been able to tour and keep touring. But I really love how the Wheels have expanded now and we're more representative of the cultures in Australia and the gender we're gender balanced, and I love that too.
I thought you were going to say doing this podcast and doing the.
Podcast, it's one of the best playing to adults and then playing to kids the crowd, what are the differences you see in the crowd?
Will we do the original Wheels reunion tour and over eighteen's come to that and during one of the first time we did the crowd we're going crazy and quick whispered into my year. They've spiked the right Benus. That is fun and the other ones are fun. But the children's performances there's much more of a responsibility.
Of course that you can be a bit loose with the adults.
Well, well we keep it the same though. We keep the show the same because people don't You don't want to ruin someone's memory.
Yeah, I swear and all that stuff, so you know, I didn't know AGREE had such a mouth on it.
That's true.
You know why that?
Yeah?
Yeah, it's crazy because I can imagine, like you see, like you know, rock bands all sort of stuff playing to adults and they've got a mosh pit, and then you guys are playing to kids and they've got their own little you know, a bit of call and response wash pit. Really, so it's interesting, different dynamic, you know, the kids in the wash.
Pit because a lot of the shows we have not seated and children and parents can sit down with their children, which is great. But if they ever come up to the stage, they never push. Children just stand there and they know about it. It's just adults later become pushes.
Yeah, it's like, okay, just respect the distance because I can imagine those young ones, like you know, when they store Dorothy from a distance, for example, they'd be like, oh my god, Dorothy. But then when they got right up and close of it, oh my god, that's right. So they get too close to you, they.
Might be like, that's it, that's true.
Did you always want to be your dad?
No?
I didn't. I never had. No.
I thought someone who worked in early education, it would have been something that you would have always wanted to become.
No, look again, I suffer from depression and never thought I was good enough, and I just I thought, nah, it's not for me. Family is not for me. I'm not good enough. I don't want to be able to do. You know what sort of world am I bringing the kids into? You know, all that sort of stuff. So I really didn't. And Mickey, my wife, she got told by a doctor because she had bad in demetriosis, that you never have children. So we got married and went, Okay, we're gonna have party on dude, we're going to go. I was forty forty one or forty two. Yeah, you know, we're just gonna have fun.
Yeah.
And then nine months later we had a child. Nicky was the same. Would we change it? Of course? Not. Most beautiful, beautiful thing I happened to us.
Being a dad and a wiggle. I mean, when your kids are at the age where it was like really influential to the Wiggles, we're doing daycare drop well from kids would be like in.
Awe or look, you know, we've got the documentary out at the moment and my kids went So I went watched them with my kids and after it they said, we three of them, we didn't realize until we've seen this how close friends you were with Murray, Jeff and Greg because we were on the road nine months, ten months a year. That's the truth. I was away so much. They never saw Murray, gregor Jeff because the last thing you're going to do when you get back to australiaut the guy. So that was you know, my boy has a little bit of anxiety. He's sixteen years old now, six foot three, big boy, but he has anxiety which comes from when he was a kid because I was away so much. So there's looked the good side. We provided great education and lovely home and all that sort of stuff. The other side they had to put up with me been gone so much, you know, So it's you know the way it is.
I guess did you ever have to perform at one of their parties like a kid's party?
Oh? I know. We provided Dorothy all that for the local schools and stuff. But when they got to about six seven eight, the wheels were no longer cool. I used to threaten that I'll drop my feat or I go into the classroom seeve potato. Would you like that a joke? Dad? Stop stop now, now it's cool again. But at the time from about eight, dull about you know, fifteen, It's.
Like, I bet, I bet we're at a stage now. Our kids are four and two and already now I'm starting to think about the stages of parenting like a newborn phase. And I'm wondering, like, I wonder if I'm going to miss that the most when I'm old, or maybe it'll be when they're teenagers, you know, when they're adults, that's what I'll miss. Is there a phase of parenting that you look back on and you miss the most?
You know, when young toddlers mispronounced words, that's the best. I love it. My little boy Antonio used to do the wi feil so lollies were yog yes, And I had a great moment with him one time because Mickey, when I came back, she go like, hey, you looking after him? Getting some time? And one time I was taking him into the town and he started going bucked beans. I like bucked beans, buck beans. He started having a freak out, So pulled over and went into was seven eleven. Took him in and I found bucked beans and I said buck beans and he goes, oh, bucked beans beans. He went crazy. Anyway, he's crying, he's on the ground. Buck beans, he's a buck beans and turned out they were jelly beans.
That's amazing. I love her when they mispronouncing him for sure.
Do you think it was ever something that you tried to instill into your kids that the wiggles are something that you could you guys could do as a career.
Never never, never never, really a long way from being a stage dad. And Mickey has been brilliant as again that philosophy go where you want to go, saying that there was a little bit of an influence because outlaunge room there's a full drum kid, a guitar, like you know, there's everything there for them. So if they became a doctor or a lawyer, I would have been disappointment.
But being a doctor and a lawyer that could also play guitar, that's the way to look at totally.
What was it like then sharing the stage with your daughter for the first time.
Again, it was because you know, Lucia went to the Australian Ballet School for three years where she boarded and I was on to it, so I didn't really see her as much as I would have liked to but Maria, my other daughter. She's an actor. And I hate to say, but sometimes you pigeonhole your children. Maria was the singer. We called it like she's a singer. She's the dancer. Antonio is the drama guitar players. Pretty amazing, but it happened. We did the reweigled album. We did all these covers of Australian songs were lime cordial. Because she suggested we did Apple Crumble and we came to the studio she said to be there and I said, okay, we needed someone do the harmony. I never knew she song. She said I could jump in and do it. She did this harmony and our our soundman when we were looking for a blue wiggle, said why don't you sings? And she sings okay, And I asked her, and you well, okay. Never ever pushed her, never was. So it's been great. She's been amazing on the road. And you guys will know as your kids get older and older, yeah, they start giving you, you know, you start being the guy's giving them advice. She's like dad, you know, we've got to meet and greet in twenty minutes, or she knocks so much, or are you ready yet?
Just keeping you as a dad, what do you think your most proudest moment is with your kid?
You know, each kid, each child makes you proud, you know. Like Antonio, he suffers from an aphlaxus, so he's in a phylactic and I'm so proud of him the way that he just accepts it and goes okay, and he kind of very sensible about it. When you're a parent, when they're four and too, that's one of the most frightening things that someone could give you a child a nut. Yeah, and you know, but I've been so proud of the way that he's taken on that challenge, you know, and that's been great. Maria's works and works and works at his studies and stuff like that. She wants me to acting and she's brilliant, and the same thing. I'm just proud of them, how they've just got their own destiny. Marie is the one because she was the singer. I said, would you ever like to be wiggled? She said no, no, no, And I'm really happy with that, you know.
So Yeah, time is running out. I'm going to ask one last question. Can you confirm the official term for a young wiggle a toddler wiggle? Is it a wiglet?
Oh? I know, because that'd be a female usually.
Is there an official term for a young wiggle fan?
No, there should be. Yeah, have you guys got to know?
No, back to the.
Drawing board, so we didn't even think about that. We've got to keep a gender neutral Matthew.
I do just want to before you go on, behalf of parents from not just Australia, but from all around the world. Thank you for everything you've done to make our lives just a little bit easier.
From all the dads. Thank you guys for handing out the advice.
An absolute pleasure. Anthony, thank you very much.
That's the quickest half hour.
Is that a good thing?
I hope, I know it's we could do this all day. But thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you so much.
Holy shit.
And I felt a bit like that afterwards, because such a great guys. It just felt like a really good chat.
I blinked my eyes. It was over, and thirty minutes was up. I was and I was like, don't go. I felt like you wanted to stay.
Yeah, I'm sure. If we had a couple of beers in the fridge crack them open.
I say that fucking guy who came in and knocked on the door.
It's like, don't have enjoyed this too much?
It's like, does have any anything you're interrupting.
One of the reasons why we had the opportunity to sit down with Anthony Wiggle Anthony Field is because there is a cracking new documentary that's just come out tells the story of the Wiggles.
And no, the opening scene gave me goosebumps, just the VHS segments in that just nostalgia and I really really just brang back a whole lot for me early on, like straight away, oh shit, here we go.
There was a really well done doctament. Like I'm not not just saying it because we spoke to Anthony, but it was really well done.
Yeah, if you grew up with the Wiggles and you're in your thirties, now watch it, because you just brang back so many memories for me, Like I brang back memories from you know, spending time with my grandmother. She used to VHS everything, and then all these little things about the nineties and that just I'm like, shit, I forgot about that.
But also with some of their songs. There was because the guys met when they were in early childcare at UNI when you're studying. A lot of the songs were written with like what they were being taught at university at the forefront, so like, you know, kids like actions, they wanted action.
A lot of child psychology in a lot of the songs.
Yeah, and it's amazing to get that background on those songs. And even like how they came up with Dorothy.
Captain feather Sword. I was like, because Anthony in the doco actually says everyone was going to parties dressed as but it was a pirate and a dinosaur. But we want it, we want the guns, weapon or weapons, so feather genius.
Yeah, it's so good. It is such an awesome docco And if you want to watch it, it's on Prime Video and it's called Hot Potato The Story of the Wiggles. It's out right now and we absolutely bloody loved it. And also if you haven't listened to The Wiggles, I don't need to say this, but hey, I recommend it. And also if you enjoyed this episode, as always, we would love it more than anything if you would just give us a little review subscribe five stars, send it to a mate and if there's any other parents out.
There, could be guys, could be girls.
Let us know who'd want us to speak to and we will try and get them on the podcast.
We will stalk them, hunt them down, get them on.
But we'll see you guys next Wednesday.
Thanks guys.
Two Doting Dads podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and the connections to land, see and community.
We pay our respects to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestraight Islander peoples today. This episode was recorded on Gadagle Land
