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| The Great Waldo Search | |
| Publication Information | |
| Author | Martin Handford |
| Illustrator | Martin Handford |
| Published | 1989 |
| Publisher | Little Brown & Co |
| Pages | 32 |
| ISBN | 0316342823 |
| Contents | |
| Scenes | The Gobbling Gluttons The Battling Monks The Carpet Flyers The Great Ball-Game Players The Ferocious Red Dwarves The Nasty Nasties The Fighting Forester The Deep-Sea Divers The Knights of the Magic Flag The Unfriendly Giants The Underground Hunters The Land of Waldos |
| Characters | Waldo, Wizard Whitebeard and the Eleven Travelers |
| Objects | Wizard Whitebeard's scroll |
| Series | |
| Preceded by | Find Waldo Now (1988) |
| Followed by | The Ultimate Fun Book (1990) |
| Special Edition | The Fantastic Journey (1997) |
Where's Wally? The Fantastic Journey was the third Waldo book, first released in 1989. In the US it was originally titled The Great Waldo Search, then later renamed Where's Waldo? The Fantastic Journey.
Contents[]
The book's 12 main scenes have many characters, and in each of them the reader is challenged to find the main character Wally (aka Waldo). The book introduces the second recurring Where's Waldo character, Wizard Whitebeard, and also challenges the readers to find him and his scrolls.
This is the first book where a character from each scene follows Waldo to the last scene in the book (see Eleven Travelers).
Several editions of the book have been released over the years. The 1997 Special Edition moved Waldo and inserted new things to find in each scene: Woof, Wenda, Odlaw, Waldo's key, Woof's bone, Wenda's camera, and Odlaw's binoculars. There are also 25 Waldo Watchers throughout the book, who are dressed like Waldo. And there's a mystery character who appears in scenes 1-11.
Other editions have added additional lists of things to find. The 2019 edition included a scene on the inside back cover which also had travelers from the main scenes, although they're different than the travelers on the other pages. For example, a witch from scene 6 appears in scenes 6-12. But on the inside back cover, scene 6 is represented by a vampire instead of a witch.
Scene change[]
The third scene was originally called The Carpet Flyers, but starting with the 2013 edition, it was changed to The Dragon Flyers, possibly because the original version was considered culturally insensitive. They kept the traveler from the original version of that scene, so she no longer has a similar appearance to the rest of the people in her scene. They might've forgotten to include the mystery character in the new version of that scene (at least, I can't find him). In the 2019 edition they also might've forgotten to include a traveler from that scene on the inside back cover (at least, I can't find one).
Video game[]
There was a multi-platform video game loosely based on this book which featured Waldo, Whitebeard and Woof. It was ported to NES, Super NES, and Sega Genesis. All three versions had the same five levels (The Carpet Flyers, The Underground Hunters, The Battling Monks, The Unfriendly Giants, and The Land of Waldos).
Land of Waldos[]
The book introduces "The Land of Waldos" and the concept that Waldo is just one of many Waldos. The scene would become one of the most popular and well-known Waldo scenes, finding its way on to more merchandise than any other Waldo spread. The Land of Waldos would reappear in The Ultimate Fun Book (known as WaldoLand) and The Great Picture Hunt (known as WaldoWorld). It would later be shown that Woof and Odlaw also come from worlds of many like them with the introduction of "The Odlaw Swamp" and "The Land of Woofs" in The Wonder Book.