Where's Nickelodeon?

So, speaking of terrible ideas that won't work, there's all this buzz on the internet about how Universal also picked up the rights to Martin Handford's Where's Waldo? series of books. FilmDrunk mentions that it's a stupid idea, and reels that Universal reportedly paid at least a million dollars for the rights, but this is made twice as staggering by the fact that they already tried to do a Where's Waldo? this decade and failed miserably at it.

Apparently people don't remember, but in 2002 or 2003, Nickelodeon and Paramount had the rights to the character, and they had already concocted a crappy enough plot to get a greenlight at most studios. It made Waldo a janitor who invented a time machine and ended up going back to important historical periods and getting lost. He might have been chasing Odlaw, and I think Waldo's girlfriend was in it too.

There was also that Saturday morning cartoon show with Waldo, which awkwardly paused for a true Where's Waldo? frame at every commercial break. It didn't really work in the cartoon, and we've already failed at making a movie once, and yet the rights to this doomed or at best extremely unwise attempt at franchising an 80's relic is still worth more than a million dollars?

I had better get to work on that Koosh Ball movie I'm working on. I see big money in my future!