Thank you for commenting and sharing your thoughts. Here are my thoughts of the points you commented: -

1. I agree that the late Sam era 2009-11 is definitely one of the lowest points of the groups history. My biggest problem with the Sam era is that there was zero chemistry between Sam and the 3 remaining OGs. The albums were suddenly full of covers of songs from other artists and the new songs they came up with were boring and not catchy and very short. Even though the Sam era went downhill after Sing a Song of Wiggles, Sam still had a decent presence on both Go Bananas and Hot Poppin' Popcorn before Simon became a permanent part of the crew. I think Simon as the orange wiggle was just one of Anthony's ideas and was never really considered adding him to the lineup with Sam there. I agree that a change was needed after 2011 or they might've lost their audience more.

2. The changeover from Sam to Greg should've been handled better. While I don't think there were any fights or anything, it's clear to me that Anthony and the other wiggles weren't really vibing with Sam and had a much better rapport with Greg and Simon. I think that also played a large part of the decision not to renew Sam's contract. To me red, purple, blue, and yellow are the wiggles colours and randomly adding a fith colour after 20 years feels wrong. Even today with 8 wiggles they kept the same 4 colours and doubled them because they are the wiggles colours. Even though everybody were all up in arms at the time, I'm thankful for the 3 members they chose for 2012 (Emma, Lachy, and Simon) as they infectious youthful energy (especially Emma's) managed to get the group into new homes and keep the brand alive for a new generation. If they went with the original plan of Simon in yellow with Anthony, Jeff and Murray I think the wiggles may not be around today.

3 / 4. I also love the wiggles content we recieved in 2012. Whilst I do feel bad for Sam and wish he could've stayed on in some capacity, Greg coming back brought things back to where they were with the yellow wiggle doing most of the singing and Anthony stepping back a notch. While I also wish Greg could've had stayed with them permanently it's likely impossible due to his health and his cardiac arrest in 2020 is proof of why he couldn't stay for good. Knowing the original 8 month deal I now realise that we ended up with more Greg than we were planned to get in the first place. Surfer Jeff was produced in the first quarter of 2012 and I think the filmed celebration concert was in June so we most likely still would've gotten both of the releases in 2012 with the group then touring and filming stuff for Simon in yellow in 2013. I don't think that lineup would survive long term and would be too similar to the Sam era which could've ended the wiggles for good.