Waldo the Magnificent

Waldo the Magnificent is best known as the magician who gave Jeff his magic hat, turning him into a person. Waldo visits the gang in the store from time to time, and you never know what will come out of the time sometimes.

One of Waldo's notable attributes is that his spells don't always work as expected. Jeff's magic hat is a perfect example. We never learned what Waldo was actually intending to do with the "all-purpose magic hat" trick from his book. The only thing he did that he had intended to do was follow the directions. "Step one: Find magic hat." He found a red hat sitting on top of a fire hydrant. "Step two: Repeat magic words." He said, "Hocus pocus alimagocus". And the hat rose up off the fire hydrant, and went on its merry way. He most likely had no intention of bringing a mannequin to life that day and getting to know the night staff of a department store. But instead of his getting to do whatever he was intending to do, the hat flew to the mannequin factory, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Of course, on one occasion, a spell not working as expected works to an advantage. In Moods, to test whether or not he got over the "grumples", Waldo cast a spell to Muffy's teddy bear into a black stallion. What it actually did was change Waldo's outfit from a regular one to a fairy's one, complete with wings. Because this was the way it always worked for him, he considered it an old favorite.

In two of his appearances, in Buttons and Moods, Waldo was able to remember everyone's name with one notable exception: Sam. In those two episodes, he called Sam just about every other "S" name except the right one. You name it: Sid, Stan, Saul, Sven, etc.. He tried "Sue", but realized that that wouldn't work unless he shaved off his mustache. He even tried "Segoonch", but then realized that that wasn't even a name.

Waldo is also married to a woman named Matilda. They were celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary in Mrs. Waldo. We learned there that while he was very successful with his magic act, he managed to get so caught up in it that he forgot his anniversary! He did make up for doing so, however, with everyone's help.