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| Conspicuous, yet hard to find. |
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| An example of the heavily detailed world of Martin Hanford. |
British illustrator Martin
Hanford always had an interest in crowds. Growing up, he would delve into
Hollywood movies that featured a heavy amount of extras in their scenes and had
exciting battle sequences. Hanford constantly drew crowd scenes, blending in
elements of everything he enjoyed as much as possible including history and
swashbuckling epics. Eventually graduating art college, Hanford drew his
elaborate pictures for editorial and advertising clients until David Bennett, art
director for Walker Books, asked to see
Hanford’s work for a children’s publication and suggested a unique character to
serve as a focal point for his illustrations.
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| The first Where's Waldo? book. |
And so, Wally was born. Wally,
British slang for someone who is absent-minded, is a world and time traveler
who sports a red and white striped shirt with matching bobbled hat, large round
glasses, and a walking stick. Coming from the Land of Wallies where everyone looks
the same (with some minor differences, such as different stripes, missing
accessories, etc.), he wanders around to new lands encountering its strange
inhabitants, amongst which the reader is charged with finding him. In 1987, after
two years of development and up to 8 weeks spent on each two-page drawing, the
first book in the series, Where’s Wally?, was published and became a sensation.
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| Where's Waldo? abroad. |
The book reached international markets, resulting in Wally’s name being
changed to reflect where the book was printed, leading to his being known as
Waldo in North America, Charlie in France, Hetti in India and Sri Lanka, Walter
in Germany, Effy in Israel, Willy in Norway, Valli in Iceland, Holger in
Denmark and Hugo in Sweden. In his first appearance, Waldo was loaded down with
gear that he’d lose piece by piece in each successive scene, giving the readers
something else to look for besides just him, such as a snorkel mask, a camera,
and camping equipment. The back also featured checklists of various other
things to find. Each scene would be introduced to the reader via a “postcard”
from Waldo with text edited by David Lloyd.
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| Odlaw, Wizard Whitebeard, Wilma/Wenda, Waldo and Woof. |
To heighten the challenge with each successive book, additional items
were placed around the illustrations to be found, including an equally elusive
supporting cast: Wizard Whitebeard (The Great Waldo Search, 1989), the
one responsible for sending Waldo on his quests and who constantly loses his
magic scrolls; his dog Woof, who was only seen as a tail at first as he’d be
often scared and go into hiding; his original girlfriend Wilma, who dresses
like Waldo with a skirt instead of pants, triangular glasses and carries a
striped umbrella (both appeared in Where’s Waldo: the Ultimate Fun Book,
1990); Wenda, Wilma’s twin sister who would replace Wilma in the books as both
a featured character and Waldo’s girlfriend; and Odlaw, an evil version of
Waldo with a brown and yellow color scheme and a mustache (both from Where’s Waldo: The Magnificent Poster Book!,
1991). Waldo Watchers (also from Ultimate
Fun), a group of loyal Waldo fans who dressed like Waldo and Wilma/Wenda,
were included to add extra confusion for the reader. Originally, there were 99
of them, but later books kept the number to 25. Waldo’s appearance would also
be altered slightly by Hanford, gaining a slimmer face after his first book.
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| Waldo with an Underground Hunter. |
At the height of the series’ popularity, it was decided to adapt Waldo
into animated form. Developed by Rowby
Goren, the cartoon was a joint venture between Sei Young Animation,
The
Waldo Film Company, and DiC Entertainment. The
show followed happy-go-lucky Waldo (Townsend Coleman) and his dog, Woof (Dave
Workman) as they were sent by his friend, Wizard Whitebeard (Brad Garrett), to the
far-off lands featured in the books to help solve problems and puzzles for
their inhabitants, while also picking up items to add to his collection. They
traveled via Waldo’s magic walking stick, which allowed him to open teleportation
portals by drawing a circle in the air. However, Waldo’s evil double, Odlaw
(Julian Holloway), would always be lurking around trying to steal it. Twice an
episode, there would be an homage to the books in the “Waldo Minute,” where an
image would be frozen on screen giving the audience a minute to find Waldo.
Much like the books, the names of the characters were changed depending on what
market the show was broadcast, while the same actors were retained to record
both the American and United Kingdom audio tracks.
Where’s Waldo? debuted on CBS on
September 14, 1991. It was written by Goren with Evelyn A.R. Gabai, Bill Matheny, David Schwartz, Julianne Klemm and George Atkins.
The theme was composed by Jeff Barry, whose
lyrics were altered along
with the show’s title and Waldo’s name in the dialogue depending on the region.
The rest of the music was composed by Michael
Tavera. Unfortunately, the series only lasted a single season of 13
episodes as it was pitted against NBC’s wildly
popular Saved
by the Bell and suffered from poor ratings as a result. It was
nominated for the 1992 Young Artist
Award for “Outstanding New Animation Series”, but ended up losing to fellow
CBS program Back
to the Future.
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| Where's Waldo?: The Birthday Blowout VHS cover. |
During the run of the show, Waldo was featured on boxes of Quaker
Life Cereal, accompanying box prizes, send away item offers, and also
featured adapted Waldo scenes on the back. Waldo returned to the boxes in 1997
for the release of The Wonder Book. Little Brown & Co. released two
books based on the show after its cancellation called Fun With Waldo and More Fun With Waldo, which featured print versions of the
“Waldo Minute” scenes as well as new images and puzzles. Various episodes were
released to VHS in the United States by 20th
Century Fox Home Entertainment, FOX Kids
Video, and CBS Video
and by Abbey Home Entertainment in
the United Kingdom. There were also four 30-minute direct-to-video
specials released between 1992 and 1997 utilizing elements of the show. In
2009, the DVD Where’s Wally? Vol. 1 – My Left Fang was released in
Australia; the only DVD release of the series to date.
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| The Where's Waldo? Sunday strip. |
While the cartoon may have been short-lived, the Waldo franchise was not.
It’s comprised of 28 books from both its main series and its activity book
spin-off, merchandising including figurines and dolls, video games for
home consoles and mobile devices, and even a comic
strip. From 1993-98, Waldo was a Sunday comic strip drawn by Stephan Martiniere and distributed by King Features Syndicate. Candlewick Press collected the strips
into four activity books: The Complete Crazy Activity Book, The Really Remarkable Activity Book, The Simply Sensational Activity Book and The Wildly Wonderful Activity Book.
In the late 90s, Waldo was also the star of two educational international
magazines called Wally’s World and Wally’s History of the World. In
2019, NBCUniversal acquired the
rights to the character and began airing a new animated series produced by DreamWorks Animation Television.
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| Waldo on a poster for the NYC Explorer Pass. |
Waldo has also made constant appearances outside of his usual printed
form as well in numerous tributes and parodies. In 1994, an actor dressed as
Waldo made an appearance in the comedy Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. In 2009, the city of
Chicago hosted a real life recreation
of the books, with people dressed up as all the characters which had to be
found throughout the city. In 2010, Waldo was included in Howard Hallis’ “The Picture of Everything”,
a massive drawing of many characters from various media that took over 13 years
to create. Also in 2010, the British sitcom Miranda featured a Where’s
Waldo?-inspired game in the episode “A New Low.” In 2012 for the 4th
season of Comedy Central’s Tosh.0,
host Daniel Tosh would dress up as
Waldo at the end of each show giving the home viewer 2 seconds to find him
amongst the audience. Waldo was one of several dozen cartoon characters
featured in the 2012 MetLife Superbowl
commercial “Everyone”
(you’ll have to find him, of course). In 2013, Waldo became the official
mascot of the New
York City Explorer Pass.
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