In the world of Jimmy Rees, there are two types of people. The first group is made up of parents of young children, who may or may not watch ABC2 regularly, but are bound to have caught a glimpse of Rees on Giggle and Hoot at some point. They know who is he is (the 'Giggle' to the blue owl puppet's 'Hoot'), what he does (sings songs, wears silly outfits, converses with puppets) and what he sounds like (highly energised and shriek-y).
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And then, there's the rest of humanity – the childless, the parents of older children, foreigners – who, thankfully have no idea who he is. He is thankful for this because, in the first group, there is a distinct sub-set of people – mothers, mostly – who think nothing of screeching his name and barrelling up to him in public places, kids in tow, to snap selfies and generally go nuts.
"If you saw a celebrity down the road, you would go, 'Oh, maybe I won't go up to them. Should I? Shouldn't I?' But when you're doing it for your kids, it's like, 'Come and get a photo!'," he says.
Which, he adds, will be soon, as his wife is due to give birth to the couple's first child this year. And over the phone, he sounds really excited about it. His Facebook page and blog are filled with happy-go-lucky exclamation marks, and, while I'm openly relieved that he speaks over the phone in a normal voice ("I know – speaking in my TV voice would be a little irritating"), he does sound annoyingly upbeat. In fact, Jimmy Rees sounds excited about pretty much everything, which is just as well, because considering his rise in the (children's) entertainment world over the past five years, he's been damn lucky.
Because, as he tells it, it was sheer luck of draw that saw him transformed, virtually overnight, from a vaguely dissatisfied media studies student to an ABC sensation.
"I was just doing a media course and I was taking drama as part of that, and media and communications where you had to write essays and I wasn't so keen on that, but TV studio production was my favourite one," he says.
"They had a mock-up TV studio there and you got to go round the little bits and pieces and be the director and the cameraman for a bit, then the talent on the screen, and put together news broadcasts. It was good fun, but the thing is about uni - it's probably just the course I chose- but that was two hours a week and that was all. I wanted to do that full-time."
Upon learning that ABC was casting around for young talent for its children's network, he sent in an audition video on a whim. He got through to the second round of auditions, but when he didn't make the cut, a casting director sent his video to the producers of a new show in Sydney, called Giggle and Hoot.
It was his first and only audition, then, that got him the lead in what would be become, over the next five years, a hugely popular show in its own right, rather than the "wrapper" show it began as. In the beginning, Rees and his fellow cast members – essentially a couple of owls – would appear to introduce each show. Nowadays, though, they sing their own songs and rarely mention the other shows at all – a sign that Giggle and Hoot was its own entity. It even has a whole album of songs – many written by established Australian musicians - Lior, for example - or up-and-coming acts sourced through Triple J.
Not that it didn't take some getting used to, Rees says. He had to learn how to look puppets in the eye, rather than the normal-looking, and often hilarious, people providing the voices behind them.
"Nick [Richards] who plays Hoot is so different. He stands up and speaks in a normal voice, but as soon as he does the Hoot voice and does something silly, it's hilarious," he says.
"Especially when you're on set, in the studio, and the cameras aren't rolling, and he's speaking like an adult, not in his character - he's commenting on national politics, or something - it's like the funniest thing ever."
Of course, performing a live show – Rees and the gang are currently touring the country – is something else altogether, with an entirely new kind of energy that comes from 1000 kids screaming your name, and just as many cynical parents looking on while you don pyjamas and fall down a lot.
In fact, says Rees, he sees no reason why he won't just do this job forever.
"Absolutely. I'll ride the wave as long as I can," he says, laughing.
"I'll be there with a walking frame and be like 'I'm still here' [here he employs his full Jimmy Giggle screech], and I'll be past it but Hoot will be still young."
And so, presumably, will the audience. Just make sure, if you're there, that you have some fun. Rees sure will be.
Giggle & Hoot and Friends is at The Canberra Theatre on January 24-25.
