Line #67 Literature/WheresWally


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4	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/martinhandfordwally&friends.PNG]]
5	[[caption-width-right:250:[[RhetoricalQuestionBlunder He's right over there.]]\
6	Clockwise from bottom: Woof, Whitebeard, Odlaw, Wenda, Wally.\
7	Seated: Martin Handford.]]
8
9	->''"There he is."''
10	-->-- Last line from the cartoon show's ThemeSong.
11
12	''Where's Wally?'' (titled ''Where's Waldo?'' when exported to North America) is a series of British PictureBooks by Martin Handford where each page is a complex scene filled with hundreds of tiny people. The goal is to find Wally/Waldo, a man in glasses, a bobble hat and a red-and-white striped shirt, carrying a cane. Each page has a short flavor text where Wally/Waldo describes his adventures, pointing the reader to other, usually humorous, things to look for. In other words, a non-electronic HiddenObjectGame.
13
14	[[AC: The Where's Wally/Waldo? books include:]]
15
16	* ''Where's Wally/Waldo?''
17	* ''Where's Wally/Waldo Now?'' (retitled ''Find Waldo Now'' in North America) (featuring various historical scenes)
18	* ''Where's Wally?: The Fantastic Journey'' (retitled ''The Great Waldo Search'' in North America, though an updated re-release went back to the former subtitle) (featuring fantasy scenes)
19	* ''Where's Wally/Waldo? The Ultimate Fun Book''
20	* ''Where's Wally/Waldo? In Hollywood''
21	* ''Where's Wally/Waldo? The Wonder Book'' (more fantasy scenes)
22	* ''Where's Wally/Waldo? The Great Picture Hunt'' (A balance between the normal books, and ''The Ultimate Fun Book'')
23	* ''Where's Wally/Waldo? The Incredible Paper Chase''
24
25	Aside from Wally/Waldo, recurring characters include his friend Wenda, his nemesis Odlaw, his dog Woof (who is usually hidden except for his tail) and the Wizard Whitebeard.
26
27	Spawned [[WesternAnimation/WheresWally1991 a short-lived Saturday Morning cartoon show]] that aired on CBS which justified its connection to the books by having a "find Waldo" puzzle before each act break. These were often much harder than the ones in the books, not because they were particularly complex, but because the low resolution on televisions in the pre-HD era made finding him a trying task. Also had an NES game which had an even worse resolution.
28
29	A Google Maps interactive mini-game version of ''Where's Wally''/''Waldo?'' appeared in the app on April 1, 2018. A few days later it was announced [[Creator/DreamWorksAnimation Dreamworks Animation Television]] would be producing a [[WesternAnimation/WheresWaldo2019 new animated series]], which started airing on Creator/UniversalKids in Fall 2019.
30
31	See also ''Literature/ISpy'', another popular book series consisting of hidden object puzzles.
32
33	----
34
35	!!These books contain examples of:
36
37	* AdaptationExpansion: The animated series. Among other things, it gave Odlaw a reason to antagonize Waldo (he wanted to steal his [[MacGuffin magical cane]]).
38	* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: Most of the main characters have names that start with W. Waldo, Wizard Whitebeard, Wilma, Wenda and Woof. There's also the Waldo Watchers, although their individual names are never given. The only one who doesn't follow this trend of course, is [[OddNameOut Odlaw]].
39	* TheArtifact: Odlaw was invented for the American animated adaptation and was given a SdrawkcabName as Waldo's opposite. This name is still kept when the cartoon was redubbed back into British English for a British audience and 'Waldo' is Wally again, so the reference is lost. Admittedly 'Yllaw' would be unpronounceable unless you're Welsh.
40	* BarefootSage: Wizard Whitebeard tends to go barefoot.
41	* {{Catapult}}: In ''Find Waldo Now'', "The End of the Crusades" has a cat loaded onto the rightmost catapult.
42	* ChandelierSwing: In ''Find Waldo Now'' some drunk men do this in "Having a Ball in Gaye Paree". One man is unaware that he's broken the chain, turning it into a FallingChandelierOfDoom.
43	* CelebrityParadox: Tarzan, Paul Bunyan, and Count Dracula make cameo appearances in the "realistic" first book.
44	* ClothesMakeTheLegend: That red and white striped shirt, hat and glasses.
45	* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Waldo (red and white) and Odlaw (yellow and black).
46	* DisasterDominoes: All of the scenes where you have to look for Waldo have disasters happening all around (many of them surrealistic and even hilarious).
47	* DistaffCounterpart: Wenda to Waldo.
48	* DubNameChange: Wally is called Walter in German, Charlie in French, Willy in Norwegian, Holger in Danish, Valli in Icelandic, Efi in Israel (a PunnyName, since the Hebrew word for "where" is ''eyfo'') and Waldo in America and Canada. Additionally, when the cartoon was aired in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, Waldo was changed back to Wally.
49	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The first book is entirely mundane contemporary scenes. Quite the contrast to its successors, which used time travel to historical settings, completely fantastic settings, and some combination of the two respectively.
50	** The scenes also have fewer people in them, compared to the later books. While the first book has plenty of people in the pictures, there's still a fair amount of space between them. The others are ''packed'' with people.
51	* EvilTwin: Odlaw.
52	%%* EyeGlasses
53	%%* FlyingCarpet
54	* FunnyBackgroundEvent: All over the place, which is part of the fun.
55	* TheGhost: You never really get to see Woof outside the intro to each book, where in each scene all you can see is Woof's tail. [[spoiler:This is only averted in one scene that takes place in a dimension full of Woofs; you instead need to find the Woof with five stripes on his tail]].
56	* GoodHairEvilHair: Wizard Whitebeard with his long white beard and Odlaw with his small dark mustache.
57	* IHaveManyNames: Wally has many different names, depending on [[http://i.imgur.com/oyJGmbQ.jpg which country]] the book is printed.
58	* LimitedWardrobe: Apparently, his entire wardrobe is brown shoes, blue jeans, a red-and-white striped long-sleeve shirt, glasses, and a red and white toque. [[spoiler: And his red-and-white striped socks.]]
59	** Wenda has a similar wardrobe (although swapping a blue skirt for the pants), as does Odlaw (though he wears black and yellow exclusively).
60	* LivingFigurehead: The first book had a pirate making kissy-face at the maiden on a ship's figurehead, who looked appropriately appalled.
61	* LostInACrowd: The crowds Waldo would walk in the middle of are absolutely massive. Moreover, there are a lot of people and objects in red and white striped clothes, adding to the challenge of looking for him.
62	* LostInTranslation: Odlaw's name obviously comes from the reverse of Waldo. In countries where Waldo is named Wally (or something else; see DubNameChange), Odlaw is still Odlaw, somewhat ruining the joke.
63	* MarketBasedTitle: The objective is to look for our intrepid traveler.
64	%%* {{Mayincatec}}: In ''Find Waldo Now''.
65	* MenOfSherwood: Many picture books show Waldo somewhere in a BigBadassBattleSequence where a group of people (Aztec warriors, villagers fighting giants, Robin Hood's Merry Men, an army of sailors fighting dragons, the dwellers of a magical forest that is being invaded by black knights, etc.) are either curb-stomping a sinister force of enemies or are struggling to win but are stlil injuring or trapping lots of notably stronger opponents from the other side even while taking injuries of their own.
66	* MesACrowd: There is a land full of Waldos. Finding the "real" one is hell, but finding the characters that have joined him in the previous locations is rather trivial because they a) stand out and b) the Waldos all crowd around them in easily discernible clusters.
67	* MonochromeCasting: Thankfully averted, although creator Martin Handford only went so far as to make every tenth person in the crowds black, with occasional "exotic" Asians, Native Americans, and Middle Easterners for CostumePorn.
68	** Then again, adding too many non-whites could make the white Waldo stand out, making him easier to find.
69	* NeedleInAStackOfNeedles: In several of the books, the last challenge is to find Waldo and his companions when they are hidden amongst hundreds of characters dressed ''exactly like them''.
70	* NerdGlasses: Waldo seems to be the "smart guy" type.
71	* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: Waldo seems almost oblivious to many of the chaotic events happening around him, some of which are illegal or downright dangerous. He's either this or an UnfazedEveryman.
72	* OffstageVillainy: Whatever Odlaw gets up to in the cartoon series, in the books, he's just ''there'', and not seen doing anything bad.
73	* OnlySixFaces: Handford's drawing style isn't particularly imaginative, with almost every character having the same basic face with different colors of hair and skin. Even the women simply look like men, with only [[LongHairIsFeminine long hair]] and breasts to differentiate.
74	%%* OurGiantsAreBigger
75	* APirate400YearsTooLate: A crew of stereotypical pirates, led by a Blackbeard clone, are shown boarding a cruise ship at the marina. One of the pirates is chasing a woman in a bikini, while another is pursuing ''men wearing nothing but swim trunks''!
76	* ReferenceOverdosed: ''Where's Waldo? The Wonder Book''.
77	* SceneryPorn: The sheer amount of detail poured into the scenes and crowds of individual people (and all the funny little events they're part of) is truly impressive and makes up part of the fun.
78	* SdrawkcabName: Odlaw is "Waldo" backwards.
79	* SignatureHeadgear: His red and white bobble hat. Several sceneries have a lot of copies of it lying around.
80	* SillyReasonForWar: In ''Find Waldo Now''.
81	* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Wenda, for her twin sister Wilma.
82	* TwoDecadesBehind: When Waldo stops by the airport, passengers are shown disembarking from the jets via external movable stairways like they did for most of the twentieth century (and, presumably, during Martin Handford's childhood), rather than by way of the connected tunnels that were common in airports by 1987).
83	** Although in Britain, particularly for smaller and budget airlines, the movable stairs remain the norm.
84	* UpdatedRerelease: Several of the books were given an anniversary release in which Waldo was moved in each scene, and the supporting characters were added in to the books they hadn't been in before.
85	* VisualPun: Lots of them.
86	** The original 1987 book alone has a "school" of "fish", with the whale in front wearing a professor's mortarboard; an oversized playing card in a World War I-era biplane [[DontExplainTheJoke (a "flying ace," get it?)]], and a literal "one-armed bandit" (a cowboy with an amputated hand) on a carnival midway.
87	* WizardBeard: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Wizard Whitebeard]].
88	%%* YouALLLookFamiliar: [[spoiler:The Land of Waldos.]]

Context Literature / WheresWally