If you’ve never heard of the Australian children’s band [The Wiggles](http://www.thewiggles.com/ “Wiggles Homepage”) then you can learn about them by having a child and raising him or her to the age of three. By then you’ll definitely have run across The Wiggles and can return here and read the rest of this.
From here on in I assume that we all know plenty about The Wiggles.
I was pondering the lack of a green Wiggle. The Wiggles currently wear yellow, purple, blue, and red shirts, buy why no green?
I’m asking two different questions, I guess. First, at the beginning, when you’re deciding which of the four of you are going to wear which colors, why pick purple over green? Green’s a primary color. The children’s games CandyLand and Sorry! both use red/yellow/blue/green game pieces. No one picks purple.
The second question I’m asking is, once you have four guys wearing yellow, purple, blue, and red shirts, why not add a fifth Wiggle and give him a green shirt? Guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, singer: five members is the standard configuration for a modern radio band. Sure, The Beatles did it with four members, but if you’re reaching back to the 60’s for inspiration then your shirts need to be paisley.
I think I know the problem that prevented the emergence of a Green Wiggle: what on Earth should his name be? Currently the Wiggles names are Greg, Jeff, Anthony, and Murray. None of those names are uncommon, androgynous, or ethnic; and they each begin with a unique letter. If those are the rules then our new Wiggle’s name can’t begin with an A, G, J, or M; can’t be ethnic like Hyam or Luigi; and can’t be mistaken for a woman like Chris, Drew, Pat, or Robin. I guess it wouldn’t be hard to find another common name fitting our criteria that begins with one of BCDEFHIKLNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.
But here’s the thing: none of the Wiggles’s names are too common either. They are Greg, Jeff, Anthony, and Murray; not John, Bob, Dave, and Steve. So our green Wiggle can’t have a super-common name.
So my suggestion is Simon. Simon the Green Wiggle.
Whatchya think?
Okay, apparently the real answer for why there is no green Wiggle is “because Dorothy the Dinosaur is green” and they didn’t want to have two characters on stage in green. This answer is from the FAQ on the Wiggles website.
I don’t find this to be a satisfying answer though because Henry the Octopus is purple and they still let Jeff wear his purple shirt.