Jimmy Rees reveals how he ‘rebranded’ after Giggle and Hoot

Jimmy Rees reveals how he ‘rebranded’ after Giggle and Hoot.

Video transcript

Yeah, well, I thought it was gonna be really hard, um, and so my management, we were kind of looking around for some things and we had this sort of, you know, we, we keep saying, oh, it's baby steps into, you know, entertainment, not kids' entertainment, so it's like, OK, maybe we do this, and in 2019 I did Dancing with the Stars earlier in the year and we knew that Giggling Hoop was finishing at the end of 2019, so we're like, oh, that's good.

I was still kind of under the contract with the ABC though, and I couldn't quite be myself, you know, what I am, what I'm sort of doing now, um, still had to be, you know, G rated, you know, even on a, on a show like that, so it's like, yeah, it was a little bit of a tussle.

Um, and then, you know, I've always, I've always loved editing and, you know, and the technology behind making content and stuff, and I've learned so much being on TV for 10 years.

Then I just had to do it myself.

A, COVID came around and everything went to zero, so I had to do something myself.

I was stuck at home with 3 kids under 5, I think at the time, and in Victoria, yay, um, so yeah, I had to um.

had to kind of do something, so I, I think that kind of catapulted a little bit, um, I, I probably would have done that anyway, but um the fact that the attention was there through COVID, you could put some videos up, make light of the situation.

And your reach was genuinely, you know, like a bit bigger than it probably is usually, it's kind of normalised back now and, you know, you've got to work a bit harder for your, for your um for your views and the attention and stuff like that, so I honestly I thought this is gonna take, A while, do I go, do I do another kids' show, I'm not sure, but yeah, I think just the power of putting your own stuff out there and, but it's I do shows and you know, people will come there and go, who's, Who's who knows giggling hoot, and yeah, I love the vast majority of people, I get you put your hands up if you've never heard, don't know what that is.

And there's heaps of people who just never knew I had that in the past, you know, so I showed some pictures and they were like, now what do you think?

And they're like, what?

You wore pyjamas and spoke to an owl for a living?

I'm like, I did that for a decade, man, you know, and here you are, you didn't even know, you know, so it's kind of an interesting, yeah, like, I, I think the people who watched that and found that are like, oh, he's done something.

New and different, and that's fun.

Um, but then there's a whole bunch of people, probably the majority of people who are following me now on socials or whatever, didn't even know that happened.

So, yeah, it was, and like you say, it was a giant rebrand kind of thing, but yeah, I think it kind of just happened gradually through that time.

And then one thing led to another and then all of a sudden, yeah, I'm making content online now, and then TV opportunities came from that, and yeah, it was quicker than we thought though, definitely.