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Artist Creates “Where’s Waldo?” Easter Egg for Google Earth

by Shabana

A young artist and web designer has created a game that she hopes will take off. Melanie Coles has hidden an enormous 55 ft painting of Waldo – the nerdy, lanky spectacled character clad in a red and white striped top and cane, from the Waldo books – on a rooftop of an undisclosed location in Vancouver, in the hope that it will be picked up by Google Earth satellites.

Aerial Building

The location of the painting is top secret, and the anticipation of when it will show up on Google Earth is part of the fun, Melanie says. Since Google Earth does not publicize their schedule, no one knows when Waldo will show on a computer screen somewhere. The project has sparked off an international buzz with net users, who are keen to be the first to spot Waldo.

Melanie hopes that by making Waldo available to all through an open source program and template, she can set off a game that will spread virally to become an international hit. Her dream is of a “Where’s Waldo?” game being played across the globe as people begin creating and hiding their own Waldos in their cities.

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Related topics: News, Vancouver

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Share Your Thoughts

Mark Schoneveld
April 15th, 2008

That’s awesome. Straight up!

lauren
April 16th, 2008

found the location. but no waldo yet!!!

Kat
April 28th, 2008

If I hid him in my city of 600 or so people, I think he would stick out like a sore thumb.

Greg
May 12th, 2008

Its wheres wally not wheres waldo..

Smarter than Greg
May 13th, 2008

-Greg- You are the embodiment of the word idiot.

Charlie
May 15th, 2008

I have to agree with greg, as the Where’s Wally books were a vital part of my childhood i know that the initial release of the franchise was in the UK and later released in america where they changed it to Where’s Waldo, the american version did rise to fame much better than the UK version but maybe this was because there are many more people in america, this may also be the reason why Greg was called an idiot because not so ‘Smarter than Greg’ is himself being an idiot despite his use of one long word.
More to the point, i think this idea is great.

Miles
May 16th, 2008

Charlie, agreed.

This would be very nice.

snorski
December 29th, 2008

still trying to convince my boss to do something similar with our own offices…

… but apparently he had never heard of GE and, now that he has, he doesn’t believe it is going to last….

so mad props to Melanie and the owner of the roof for actually having a 21st century vision!!

Smarter than Smarter than Greg
December 29th, 2008

UK=Where’s Wally?
US=Where’s Waldo

Maxx
December 30th, 2008

i live in England, and you dont see any ‘Wheres Waldo’ books, its mainly ‘Wheres Wally’.
I’m not sure in which country it originated though.
saffee

Mahatma
January 1st, 2009

No no no! You are all wrong! The ORIGINAL book was made in India in the 1920s and was entitled “Where oh where is Pooti-yamma?” (roughly translated). It was wildly successful.

artist
January 2nd, 2009

so mad props to Melanie and the owner of the roof for actually having a 21st century vision!!

Sarah
January 7th, 2009

Found him.

Osama
January 9th, 2009

Would still take a long time to paint something like that :P

Reuben
January 12th, 2009

To borrow from Picasso, “its clever, but is it art?”

Dave
February 7th, 2009

No, no, no, no! Mahatma & Greg, it’s neither Waldo, Wally nor Pootie-yama. It was Lawrence Welk and the German song “Wo, oh wo, konnte mein kleines Hundchen Stechengeblieben haben? Oh, wo, oh wo konnte er sein?” roughly translated: “Where oh where has my little dog gone, oh where oh where could he be?” Super wildly popular and admired by all except Ed Sullivan.

Christoph C. Cemper
February 9th, 2009

Would be a funny idea, but this image above looks fake to me.

Linky Pimp Friday 13/02/09
February 13th, 2009

[...] Where’s Waldo on Google Earth. [...]

John
February 25th, 2009

yeah the painting does look fake becuase look how his right leg goes straight over an a/c without any shadow…. it looks like it was simply cut and pasted… but im still looking for it

[...] the Books Were Bad Posted on March 7, 2009 by Der Wolfanwalt Apparently somebody has decided to turn Google Earth into a massive game of “Where’s [...]

Jon
March 26th, 2009

Where’s Wally? What the hell is Where’s Wally? It’s always been Where’s Waldo.

Drew
March 31st, 2009

Seriously? How many of these supposed easter eggs are there? I see this kinda photoshop crap every week.

jim w
July 11th, 2009

anyone find out if it’s real?





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