Banned Books Week: Where’s Waldo?
When I saw the titles of books that had been banned I was pretty shocked to see “Where’s Waldo?” on the list. I could not imagine how a book of pictures featuring a guy who appears to derive great enjoyment from hiding in crowded places would offend anyone.
Silly daddy! There’s always something.
In this case, the problem is a Waldo wardrobe malfunction.
In the original 1987 edition of “Where’s Waldo?”, this following image appears:
As you can see, the woman has removed her bikini top, presumably to enable a more even tan. A small male person, perhaps a child, is dumping water on the woman’s back, causing her to leap up in surprise and show her “girls” to a rather happy looking gentleman who appears to have some brown substance smeared on his chest (I’m color-blind, so apologies if that color isn’t brown). If you look really really really closely, and are more than a little bit uptight, you might even say that there is a nipple showing.
The image was altered for a 1997 “special edition:”
As you can see, the painted jezebel has covered up. Now children everywhere are safe.
But I think the new image doesn’t go far enough! As some folks point out over on snopes.com, the top left corner of this scene clearly shows two men in a compromising position
oh.my.god. a nipple! Oh, wait, pretty much every human on earth has TWO of them! Even the poor kids looking for Waldo have them. Sheesh. Dogs and cats have eight, but do we make them wear 4 bras to hide them all? No. Lots of the kids who saw the “unedited” version probably saw as much nudity or more anywhere else they looked (like in mom and dad’s room while mom was getting dressed).
haha…i totally remember finding this image when i was a kid! that was juicy stuff back then. clearly having things like this is a good educational tool, it helped sharpen our eye for detail and encouraged patience!
You know, if they’re going to ban Waldo for this image, they ought to ban the book “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” by C.S. Lewis. It features a picture of topless mermaids showing more nipple than the Waldo illustration.
I remember finding this little gem in my Where’s Waldo books as a kid. I was shocked and amused. What a shame that is was covered up!
That’s an ice cream cone, not water.