There was a time, not that long ago, when most Australian parents were very, very familiar with Emma Watkins.
As the first female member of kidsworld powerhouses The Wiggles, her toothy, red-headed, yellow-bowed visage was hard to avoid.
Such was her prominence - it wasn't unusual to see a sea of big yellow bows, even on the boys, outside a concert - that when she quit the group 10 years later, you'd be forgiven for thinking the woman would sail off into the sunset having made millions, and never have to work again.
The reality was very different.
In fact, Emma Wiggle was a teensy cog in a very large machine, and became, to all intents and purposes, a no-longer-employed staff member when she stepped away.
And she's not complaining; she certainly doesn't miss the relentless schedule which, at its peak, saw the group performing four shows a day, six days a week.
And when she decided to quit the show, in 2021, it was because the COVID-imposed lockdown had given her a taste of the quiet life, and time to work on her own project - a PhD on how to artistically integrate sign language, dance and film editing.
Thesis done - she's now Dr Watkins, thank you very much - she's appeared as her unvarnished self in several reality TV shows (including The Amazing Race)
And she's aware many find it difficult to take her - the once-ubiquitous Yellow Wiggle - seriously.
Never mind that she's completed her PhD.
"People think it's an honorary doctorate," she says, laughing.
She's also reinvented herself in a new act, Emma Memma.
It's still girly and dance-focused, but aimed at younger kids and incorporates sign language into music and dance.
"I never left to do something that was a copy-paste - the whole point was to actually look at some really important research about how we can include more visual language on screen," she says.
"So going away and doing our own show, even though it might be in the children's space, we have very different audiences."
She says the world of children's entertainment is often misunderstood as being overly simplistic and lacking in nuance.
"I think people just go, 'Oh, children's entertainment is one bucket'," she says.
"But we spent a whole year basically visiting as many preschools and daycare centres as we could here in Australia and New Zealand. And I have just learnt even more in the last three years about why children connect with us and our music, and why that's so important, as opposed to other things that they might watch on TV.
"So we've really done quite a lot of deep research in thinking about this new chapter."
The "we" she's referring to is her tiny team of three - herself, husband Oliver Brian and sister Hayley - but building a new brand from the ground up has paid dividends in terms of finding a niche and filling it.
She says she realised, through her studies, that even something as all-inclusive as The Wiggles really wasn't so inclusive as all that, especially for hearing-impaired kids.
"Being able to step away from something that was so commercial, and to be able to be there for the community and learn from them, I just have these amazing deaf professionals in my life that have really shaped my thinking and the way I approach everything now," she says
"I don't do a TV interview anymore without an interpreter, because mostly I get texts from deaf friends saying, 'Well, what was that interview about?'"
Emma Memma, the act, is now booked out for the next year, and best of all, she can do it all on her own terms.
"I just can't believe how young I was," she says, of becoming a Wiggle.
"I guess for the last couple of years, I've really done a lot of reflecting, and wow, I was put in the deep end, wasn't I? I really didn't know what was going to happen."
The "world's best apprenticeship", as she now calls her Wiggles era, has fed into her sense of discipline and work ethic, and she doesn't take her newfound, self-created image for granted.
"It's pretty beautiful to be able to walk into a theatre now, with 800 to 1000 children just screaming 'Emma' ... wanting to show me how they twirl." she says.
"The children really want to show me what they've brought to the concert, whether that's their outfit, whether they've learned the words to the song, or whether they've learned the sign language for the song. I think that's something that's very special or very unique to our audience."
- Emma Memma: Boop & Twirl is at the Canberra Theatre, 10am and 12pm on November 9. canberratheatrecentre.com.au
