Where's Wally?

Where's Wally? (called Where's Waldo? in North America) is a series of children's puzzle books created by English illustrator Martin Handford. The books consist of a series of detailed double-page spread illustrations depicting dozens or more people doing a variety of amusing things at a given location. Readers are challenged to find a character named Wally (or Waldo) and his friends hidden throughout the pages.
Wally is identified by his red-and-white-striped shirt, bobble hat, and glasses, but many illustrations contain red herrings involving deceptive use of red-and-white striped objects. Later entries in the long-running book series added other targets for readers to find in each illustration. The books have also inspired two television programmes (Where's Wally? the 1991 animated series and Where's Wally? the 2019 animated series), a comic strip and a series of video games.
As of 2007, more than 73 million Where's Wally? books had been sold around the world since the debut of the series in 1987. The series has been translated into 26 languages and is published in over 50 countries.
In 1986, illustrator Martin Handford, a graduate of the University for the Creative Arts in Kent, was asked by his art director, David Bennett, at Walker Books in London, to develop a book of detailed crowd scenes, inspired by Bennett having seen Philippe Dupasquier's Busy Places series. Whilst the book was being prepared for Bologna Book Fair, someone at Walker Books suggested the idea of adding a distinctive-looking character whom the reader could search for in the crowd scenes. After much thinking, Handford came up with the idea of "Wally", a world traveller and time travel aficionado who always dresses in red and white. Sometimes it would take him up to eight weeks to draw a two-page sketch of the elusive "Wally" and the characters surrounding him.
The first Where's Wally? book was published on 21 September 1987. Where's Wally? books were published in the United Kingdom by Walker Books and in the United States under the title Where's Waldo? first by Little, Brown and Company before being taken on by Walker Books' American subsidiary publishing company Candlewick Press. The first four titles were originally printed in Italy, but later reprinted in China. The books became extremely popular and were localised for many different territories, with name changes for Wally in certain regions. The franchise also spawned other media in a more storyline-based form, including a 1991 television series, Where's Wally?, a comic strip, Where's Wally? and a series of video games.
As the series goes on, Wally progressively becomes harder to find, reducing his size on the page and surrounding him by more characters. In the first book, Wally was on average 0.99 square centimetres (0.153 square inches) big. This was reduced to 0.80 cm (0.124 sq in) in the second book, 0.33 cm (0.051 sq in) in the third, and between 0.20 and 0.17 cm (0.031 and 0.026 sq in) in the fourth through seventh books. He has also been surrounded by more characters, from 225 on the first book's first page to about 850 on the last book's first page.
In January 2007, Entertainment Rights purchased the Where's Wally? franchise. On 1 April 2009, Entertainment Rights went into voluntary administration. On the same day, Boomerang Media acquired all of Entertainment Rights' subsidiaries including Entertainment Rights itself, Big Idea and Classic Media. The following month, Boomerang Media began preparations to unify former British and US subsidiaries of Entertainment Rights under the name "Classic Media", while Big Idea would operate under its own name. The Entertainment Rights PLC company was folded in December 2010. In 2012, Classic Media was acquired by DreamWorks Animation. DreamWorks Animation was then acquired by NBCUniversal in 2016, thus Universal Pictures gaining the rights to most of Entertainment Rights' catalogue of works.
As of 2024, there are seven primary Wally books. The books were released both in hard-cover (for the original books) and subsequently in paperback. Each contains around a dozen scenes with Wally hidden in them. Each book has additional hidden objects and/or characters hidden in each scene specific to that book. The books usually reserve telling the reader about some item(s) to find until the end of the book so that the reader will have to go through the book again. The books contain checklists for each scene of interesting things or people to find.
There have been three rounds of revised editions. In 1993, to coincide with the publication of In Hollywood, the first three books were reprinted with Wenda, Woof and the Wally Watchers added to the original illustrations, and the books were numbered on the cover. A "pocket edition" of the first book was also published, in a tiny A6 format (105 by 148 millimetres; 4.1 in × 5.8 in). Wally is even harder to spot when shrunk to this degree, and later printings included a free magnifying lens.
In 1997, to coincide with the publication of The Wonder Book, special "Tenth Anniversary Editions" of the first four books were published with a distinct silver border on their front covers, and added later-introduced characters and objects to look for in every scene, and also moved Wally to different locations from the original versions. These special editions appeared in both standard and "pocket" formats.
In 2007, for the 20th anniversary of the first book, the special editions of 1997 (and The Great Picture Hunt) were re-released with a new cover into paperback format. The silver borders on the books were removed and instead, the books were numbered in the top left-hand corner of the cover. Aside from the new numbering system, some of the front covers were also revised otherwise; for example, the "NOW?" on the cover of Where's Wally Now? was given a 2D effect, but it was originally designed to look like a 3D shape.
In addition to the primary books, other books have also been published in the Wally franchise. The first alternate-format Wally book was the Ultimate Fun Book. In addition to standard Wally scenes, this paperback activity book featured other types of games and activities, as well as cardboard punch-outs and stickers. The Magnificent Poster Book, which was a large-format book of posters including five scenes from past books and six new scenes (later included in The Great Picture Hunt).
Several other "activity books" have also been published featuring art from the "Where's Wally" comic strip:
The first six activity books mentioned were reprinted in 2009 in a smaller size with different packaging.
A series of geographical magazines for children was published in the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Portugal, Poland, Brazil, Spain, France, Hungary, Czech Republic, Malta, Bulgaria and Russia, called Wally's World. In each issue Wally travelled to a different country or region of the world giving the reader interesting facts. 52 issues were published from January 1997 to January 1998, when Wally's History of the World began, focusing more on history than geography. The first issue was given away free with the last issue of Wally's World.
For several years in the early and mid-1990s, Where's Wally? was turned into a Sunday newspaper comic/puzzle, drawn by Stephan Martinière, and distributed by King Features Syndicate. The strip was later translated and reworked for international markets, including releases in book form in the US, using the regional name 'Waldo'.
Several activity books of the comic strip were released in the mid-1990s:
A 13-episode animated series, Where's Wally?, with Townsend Coleman as the voice of Wally, was produced by DiC for CBS in 1991 for the North American market under the "Waldo" name. The show was later translated for international markets, usually renaming the character to match the books of that country. The dialogue and theme song were recorded in alternative Wally versions, with the same voice cast of the original US production, in order to market the show in the UK. It was aired on ITV in the UK and the distribution rights to the show are currently held by HIT Entertainment.
The second animated series by DreamWorks Animation Television aired on Universal Kids in 2019. The voice cast includes Joshua Rush as the voice of Waldo, Haley Tju as Wenda, Eva Carlton as Odlulu (the female equivalent to Odlaw), Thomas Lennon as Wizard Whitebeard and Ian James Corlett as Woof. The series later moved to Peacock.
A film based on the Where's Wally? series of books has been pursued by various studios. Nickelodeon was one of the studios to take an interest in the idea but when the regime at Paramount (Nickelodeon's corporate sister) changed, the project was cancelled. In June 2009, Universal Studios (who would later obtain ownership of the property through its acquisition of Classic Media's owner DreamWorks Animation in 2016) and Illumination had acquired the rights to turn Where's Wally? into a live-action film, but the project was also cancelled.
In November 2011, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Classic Media announced a live-action film based on the Where's Waldo? series. Screenwriter Todd Berger has been hired to write the story for the film, which was slated to be released in the summer of 2015. In March 2016, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were in talks to produce the film with their producing partner James Weaver and Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir to write the film, under their Point Grey Pictures banner.
The 1994 comedy film Naked Gun 33+1⁄3: The Final Insult, starring Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley, features a cameo appearance by Wally at the end of the film during a scene that takes place at the Academy Awards.
During the 2012 Super Bowl, Wally was featured in a MetLife commercial. As in the series, Wally was hard to find in the commercial.
A number of North American video games were developed using the US/Canada regional name "Waldo":
In the early 1990s Quaker Life Cereal in the US carried various Where's Waldo? scenes on the back of the boxes along with collector's cards, toys and send-away prizes. This was shown in The Simpsons episode "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder" where Homer shouts "Waldo, where are you?!" after looking at the scene on the cereal box as Waldo walks by the kitchen window.
On 1 April 2018, Google Maps added a minigame in which one can look for Wally and his friends around the world – in the Andes (Chile), Surfers Paradise beach (Australia), in the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium (South Korea), at the La Tomatina festival (Spain), in Hollywood and in the Picard crater on the Moon.
In 2009, 1,052 students, alumni, and members of the community at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, captured the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people dressed as Wally. The event raised money for local public schools. In 2011, the previous record was broken when 3,872 people dressed as Wally gathered in Merrion Square, Dublin, Ireland. The record was beaten in 2017 when 4,626 people dressed as Wally gathered in Japan, after three failed attempts.
The Waldo Waldo 5K has tried to break the record in a 5-kilometre fun run to raise money for the Waldo Canyon Fire burn area in Colorado Springs, Colorado, US, every year since the fire in July 2012. The first attempt, on 21 October, had just over a thousand. The second attempt, on 27 October 2013, had over 2,700. The third attempt, on 26 October 2014, hosted 3,104 participants. The fourth attempt, on 17 October 2015, increased the count to 3,400 participants. The fifth attempt was made on 22 October 2016, with a final count of 3,524. The next race was held on 21 October 2017. The last race was held on 20 October 2018, with a final count of 3,809.
On 12 September 2009, a re-creation took place in downtown Chicago. The re-creation featured all of the characters, Wally, Wenda, Wizard Whitebeard, Odlaw, and Woof, hiding throughout downtown Chicago and invited others to come and find them. Universities (such as the University of Exeter) have had Where's Wally inspired societies, in which members may dress as Wally whilst playing games such as hide-and-seek on campus grounds.