Dear Wiggles: When Your Childhood Becomes “The Olden Days”

When a four-year-old discovers old black-and-white photos of Grandma and Grandpa, it sparks the big question: did the world used to be black and white? This week on Dear Wiggles, Simon and Lachy talk childhood photos, grandparents who were once little, TV you couldn’t pause, landline phones, DVD players, Game Boys, Blockbuster trips and the very strange feeling of realising your own childhood now looks ancient to your children.

HOSTS
Simon Pryce
Lachy Gillespie

PRODUCERS
Produced by The Wiggles and Mylk Media
Madeline Joannou
Nick Webb

To submit a question for the ‘Dear Wiggles’ segment, email us at [e-mail] or head to thewiggles.com/podcast to send in a voice note.

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About The Wiggles' Podcast - Wiggle Talk

Think you’ve got parenting figured out? So do Simon and Lachy - until the toddler throws a curveball. On Wiggle Talk - a podcast for parents, Red Wiggle Simon Pryce and Purple Wiggle Lachy Gillespie tackle the tricky, funny, and unexpected moments of raising little humans.

Simon, dad to son Asher, and Lachy, father to twin daughters Lulu and Lottie and stepdad to Jasper, share the highs and lows of parenting in the early years. Alongside their own stories, they welcome guests - from parenting experts to well-known personalities - who bring fresh perspectives and practical wisdom to the table.

Each week also features Dear Wiggles- where listeners send in their questions, the things that keep them up at night, or the dilemmas they’d love another parent’s take on. Simon and Lachy talk it through with honesty, and when needed, they call in expert friends to help provide thoughtful advice and reassurance.

With decades of experience in children’s education and entertainment, The Wiggles bring their trademark warmth and playfulness to conversations on everything from sleep and routines to tantrums, play, and the big feelings that come with family life.

Two dads, no filter, figuring it out as they go.

About The Wiggles

For over three decades, The Wiggles have been a beloved cornerstone of children's entertainment, captivating and educating millions of preschoolers—and their parents—around the world. Known for their high-energy performances, catchy songs, and colourful characters, The Wiggles have built a global legacy rooted in the power of music and movement to inspire early childhood learning.

With a mission to make education fun, The Wiggles create content specifically designed for pre-K, preschool, kindergarten, and nursery school age groups. Their unique blend of music, dance, and educational content not only entertains but also helps children understand the world around them. Generations of fans who grew up watching The Wiggles are now sharing that same joy with their own children.

The Wiggles’ impact is truly global: they’ve achieved billions of music streams and YouTube views, and have sold more than 30 million albums and DVDs, along with eight million books worldwide. The Wiggles continue to dominate the preschool entertainment scene, connecting with new generations through various platforms. Their live shows consistently sell out across three continents, and their videos are enjoyed on countless broadcast and digital platforms in over 190 countries.

The Wiggles continue to dominate the preschool entertainment scene, connecting with new generations through various platforms. You can watch them on ABC Kids, Netflix, Prime Video, and Stan, and stream Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles on Prime Video. Stay connected by visiting www.thewiggles.com, subscribing to their YouTube channel, and following them on Instagram, Facebook, a

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Wiggles acknowledged the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia
and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay
our respects to elders, past, present and emerging.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome to wiggled Talk, our podcast for parents. My name
is Lockey Gillespie. Purple Wiggle twenty thirteen two present.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Oh hello, they're lucky, my Simon Price. I'm the Red Wiggle. Yes,
twenty thirteen to present. Yes, yeah, well the same we
say at the same time. I know we are.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
We've nearly hit the fifteen.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
We've hardly changed.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Ah, you're fifteen years Wow? I know how about that,
don't we look at Yeah, you've aged very well.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
I saw you. Thank you. I turned fifty four the
other day. That confused me. Actually, I don't know. I
just the age thing is weird. That the perception of
what what I thought a fifty four year old person,
I don't perceive that. But you know, then I see
photos of myself and I think, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, you really do fifty four. That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Well that Simon, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Looking well. I'm forty and I can I tell you
about a moment please, And the other day not not
good I got in the car. It was an early morning.
I mean to use that as an excuse. And like
most cars now you maybe not most, but a push
button start, which means the key has to be in
the car. Yes, drive to work.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
It's got to be pretty close in the seat with
the key, and it won't actually start.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
No, So somewhere in the vicinity of the front drive
to work park, turn the car off, get out of
the car, get my bags from the back seat, Go
back to the front seat to get my wallet, phone.
Where's the car key? Look in all my bags. It
has to be here because if you turn your car
off and the key, if you've driven off without your key,

(01:58):
it will be firstly when you start driving, but then
also when you're about to turn the car off, it
beeps again, saying present.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
So so let you If you've driven off and somehow
the key's fallen out of car.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
It will be as soon as you start driving, right,
But then you can weirdly still keep driving, can keep driving.
But then when you turn the car off, it'll say
straight away, keynot here. But it didn't say that, so
turn the car off. Couldn't find my key anywhere? Did
I think you drove past.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
By the way, I just waved it.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
You try to keep it cool. I was looking under
the seats. I'm like, okay, well, it's falling out of
my pocket, gone right down the seat, like in the seat,
and I just can't find it. Looked all my bags again,
then left my car unlocked because we had to start work.
Came inside, had a bit of time, so I have
to go look for it again. When I got outside
my park next to a garden bed, and I stood

(02:45):
in the garden bed and my boot opened and hit
the back wall, and I'm like, what what is happening
right now? My car is like lost it. It's god like,
got a mind of its own. Then I thought, no way.
I look in the garden bed like thick jasmine, like creeper.
I can't find it. Then I look in the car again,

(03:14):
under the seats on the other side. Nowhere, I think
I'll have one more look in the jasmine. I lifted
up and like thick, old, dark like dead leaves in there,
I just see this little glimmer of half my key
and I'm like, but it's down, so I must have
stood on it and stood on the only little bit

(03:36):
of the key that had them zoos. Wow, and then
I find it. We could have sent out the entire
wheel's crew and we wouldn't have found my key. It
was the weirdest anyway, that's a classic Lockie found my key.
But what it made me realize it's just a little
standalone key. I need to put an air tag or

(03:56):
I need to put like house keys on. Oh will,
I'll put a purple labooboo. That's a very good idea.
Thank you. You still buy the boos. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
I don't know what it is. I just keep hearing
about it keeps telling me I'm driving with my eyes open,
keep closed, eyes detected morning, I know, but maybe it's singled.
I don't know. And so then I have to lean
right over. I don't know where the sensor is. It's

(04:35):
looking at my eyes. So I just opened my eyes.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Lean forward.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Because if I sit back in my normal position, my
eyes it's just keeps beeping louder and louder at me,
thinking I'm falling asleep. And so I'm leaning over with
my eyes wide open.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
And that's just ow boarding. I don't know, sleepy eyes.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
I'm wide awake.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Wigle talk talk talk Wigle Talk.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
It's Dear Wigles, authorized by Simon Lockie.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
I'll read you the question today. Okay, how would you
like that?

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Okay, Dear Wiggles. My four year old son recently found
old black and white photos of Grandma and Grandpa as
children and was absolutely baffled that Grandma was ever little
and why she was once gray. Now I'm being asked
whether the world used to be black and white, whether
I grew up in the olden days, and why things
from my childhood already seem prehistoric. I'm a millennial, so

(05:34):
I grew up with VCRs, cassette tapes and landline phones,
and then a little later, dial up internet CDs and
a game Boy game Boy. There's something so fascinating for
children about realizing that adults around them were once little too,
and suddenly they want to know everything about how different
life used to be. Have you gone through this with

(05:56):
your children? And what kind of things do they find
hardest to believe? That's from Michael on your Michael.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Thank you, Michael. Well, it's probably black and white photos
of me. I don't know. We don't have a lot
of old family photos. They must be around somewhere. The
old photo albums. Yeah, that's fascinating. That'd be great for
I should have a look.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
At My mum had made them of all us. But
then she's got some which I was I'm actually going
to just reminded me to show Jasper but dad, because
Jasper's really into cricket. My dad used to be a
state level cricket player. But there are Mum's done a
whole album of all the newspaper clippings with his absolute
long ridiculous Yeah, and which Jasper will find really interesting.

(06:38):
But we haven't quite got there yet. But I don't
think we've got there with the kids either.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
About it happened the other day with Asher talking about
his pop Loso's dad and Loss's mum, and because of
Loss's fortieth her cousin Amber said you should do a
collage and have that with the front. When everyone turns up,
they see photos, and so Lots started going through all

(07:03):
boxes of old family photos and everything to try to
find and it got completely overwhelming and so didn't end
up following through. But in going through that went through
all these photos and Astu was seeing them lying around
and there were so many photos and he was confused
about seeing pop whose he knows today, then the younger
version of pop in colored photos and black and white photos,

(07:25):
and then trying to grapple with that understanding that they
were young ones too, which is a conversation. We then
had to say, well, we were all your age once
and you grew up like you are every single day,
every single year, and sort of getting that understanding. The
first time we ever really talked about something like that
at the olden times was with regards to television and

(07:48):
the concept of that you can't just watch anything you
want to watch when you want to watch it. When
we grew up, there's the Television Guide and at nine
o'clock on a Saturday morning that was the Cartoon Network
or whatever it was, and that was the only time
you could watch it. Yeah, and that was a really
tricky concept for Asha to understand.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
It's just changed so much that we don't even kids
obviously they don't know any different, but we're just so
far from.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
What Yeah, I think so, but what you're saying, you
bought DVD players old school.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
We got them in the car.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, for the car.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
They're very hard to find good things to watch. You
got to order them online mostly, but yeah, we'd still
play them. But even trying, yeah, I suppose trying to
explain to them, the TV used to just be that
we're actually going out to my mum's this weekend, so
I'm going to get there, get the baby pictures out
so the girls see what they say, Yeah, that's good.
We've got a It took us ages to set up
and brought us and you know one of those digital

(08:44):
frames you put on the kitchen bench and it just plays.
But the girls love it, and only it's more photos
of themselves as kids. But every time you walk past
the kitchen, you just, oh, who's that? They don't even
know which one is that?

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Me?

Speaker 2 (08:58):
That is you? But yeah, that's really nice too. But
we haven't actually done a lot of this is great, Michael,
I haven't done a lot of the looking back, and.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
No, I think, yeah, it is kind of hard to
explain in a weird way too, because I think you're
right because when it comes to technology and everything, we
just move on and you forget about the landline phone. Yeah,
and you know you'd bring someone that was engaged. So
that was it. Well, I'll try back in half an hour,
I guess still engaged. Oh well, yeah, is that funny?

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
I told Jasper the other day that we were having
a few gaming chats, and I said, but we used
to wait till school holidays and hope that whatever Blockbuster
or Video Easy had either the Xbox console to hire
and just hope we could get it. I remember racing
down after school finished, and a lot of the time

(09:50):
it did. But you're hired at like for three days
or five days. You have to pay extra or something.
But we had to literally hire a console. You'd choose
one or two games, and a few of them were
dodgy or scratched or whatever. But how amazing, that's what
I mean, Like, how far they've just got every game
under the sun. The idea of having to wait, yeah,

(10:12):
to see if you can hire one is just Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
I remember my grandparents had holiday house at the Oka Beach,
Central Coast, and the milk bar at the beach had
a Space Invader's machine. Well you'd sit down either side,
and that was the only time we'd ever play, yeah,
any sort of game. Or then there was that Donkey
Kong thing, Remember Donkey Kong with the individual handheld thing,

(10:36):
which I never had one. I never got one, but
that was It's fascinating, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Danna just bought me for my fortieth a purple game Boy.
Well it was a purple straight to the Purple Room.
But I had the number of comments I got. Really,
I just put it up on the story things, Thank you,
Danna Banana, and so many people went, oh, that is
it was one of the game Boy colors. Then my
brother reminded me that they're the ones that first had

(11:03):
the Pokemon games, which were massive. But yeah, there's a
number of comments. How I went back in people's minds.
I loved the game Boy and yeah, it really wasn't
or maybe it was long ago. It wasn't it?

Speaker 3 (11:15):
It was now. But it's funny there's nostalgia attached to
all of them. But what will nostalgia be for our
children's generation. I wonder when they when they're our age,
what do they look back and go, oh, I had
the simplicity of that time when I could watch anything
I wanted to watch, whenever I wanted to watch it.
You know, what, what is it going to be? Yeah,

(11:35):
that's fascinating, isn't it. I mean the old Wan being
a little thumb drives like, yeah, what do you do?

Speaker 2 (11:42):
With it floppy disc do you remember again? I remember
getting it was like cricket something in the week pics
what what? What must have been a floppy disc in
the week pis packet to it being because you kind
of download it. It was the best game, but the
whole The cricketers were named slightly differently, probably for copy

(12:06):
our reasons of the actual cricketers. It was such a
good game, but wow, wonderful.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
I just remember there was a computer game where it
was like two little lines on the other side a
little dot.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, it was like tennis. Yeah, you had had to
stop it from going past.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah. Fascinating, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Michael, have we done anything?

Speaker 3 (12:31):
We've done nothing. So we've done what we only do
on Weigle Talk.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
We are we're going to go home and look, Oh
yeah we're going to We're going to do the photo albums,
show the kids and see what their reaction is. Who's that.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, it's a really lovely thing to do. I don't
know if as has seen the photo of me when
I was Yeah, we're younger, or just your ballet days.
I've still got the tides.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Well, Michael, thank you, and they thank you for encouraging
us to get the old photo albums out. Yeah that's right,
It be fun. Yeah that's all for will Talk today.
If you've got a question you'd love us to tackle,
send it through podcast atweels dot com dot au.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yes, thank you for listening to wiggle Talk. It's a
podcast for aging parents.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Come bye, see you soon.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
Bye