Headscratchers / Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

For Headscratchers relating to the original book, 2005 film, and stage adaptation, see here.

The Golden Tickets

• When the worker in Mr. Salt's factory finds the Golden Ticket, why in the hell didn't she just keep it for herself? She could have easily stashed it in her pocket before anybody else noticed. Surely a lifetime supply of chocolate and a tour through the factory would have been worth more to her than a one-pound bonus on her paycheck.
  • In the remake, she did try but got caught.
  • Besides, Mr. Salt happens to be a peanut magnate with millions, and that's not someone you want to piss off. If she wanted to claim the stuff the ticket promised, she would've had to go on TV sooner or later, at which point the Salt family would undoubtedly have found out.
    • She still could have sold it. For a lot more than one pound, too. In the remake she does get caught, but in the original Salt is clearly still upstairs in his office, not walking around the floor.
    • The operative phrase there, though, is "she does get caught". Salt might not be down on the floor at the time, but what are the odds that every day after their shift he makes his employees, say, empty their pockets at the very least before they leave?
  • Even if Mr. Salt wasn't there to see her find it, the other workers could. Salt threatened to sack them all if a ticket wasn't found soon, and they'd surely rat out one of their own number whose selfishness threatened to get them all fired. Plus, Salt is the one who owns the chocolate bars and all their contents; the ladies are only paid to unwrap them. He could easily have a worker who tried to walk out with the ticket arrested for grand theft.

---

• Related to the above, the movie goes to absurd lengths to show how coveted these Golden Tickets are. So then why, when Charlie finds the final ticket while standing on a public street surrounded by strangers, no one mugs him for it? You'd think a riot would start at the least.
  • It's a children's movie.
  • Also, Charlie finds that last ticket within walking distance of the actual Wonka factory. If a scrum over the ticket broke out in some other country, Wonka might not hear about it, but he'd definitely read about the incident in the local paper if a little kid (who actually works for the local paper!) got beaten up for his ticket a few blocks away. In which case, the last ticket might simply be declared null and void, so nobody wins.
  • Were you even watching the film? He clearly gets swarmed by a large group of people, and Charlie would have likely been crushed had it not been for the help of the news vendor he works for! Even then, considering the reaction that the crowd has for some one lying about having a ticket, think how the world would react to some one who mugged a child to get one!?
  • Perhaps worth noting that in the original novel, it does initially seem like a scuffle is going to break out after a crowd of people gather around Charlie to try and wheedle the ticket away from him, and things look like they might turn ugly before the shopkeeper drives them off. In this story, I imagine they might have thought that scene was unnecessary/too dark/a bit too much of a distraction/etc.

---

• Why does Veruca Salt need the Golden Ticket anyway? Her family is rich and enabling enough to buy her several hundred servants — they could just as easily BUY her a lifetime supply of chocolate (Or outright buy Wonka out!)...
  • She didn't need it, she wanted it, and whatever she wants, she gets. Since there's only five Golden Tickets in the world, she has to have one.
  • Each ticket also comes with an exclusive tour of Wonka's factory, something no amount of money could buy.

Slugworth

• In the Gene Wilder film Wonka tells Charlie and Grandpa Joe that Slugworth in fact works for him. So why did Wonka make Slugworth one of his rivals to the point his business ended up in
  • Fake Slugworth. The real one is presumably busy.
    • Or deceased. Or never existed—just a corporate mascot designed to sell a second-rate candy, like Tipsy McStaggers.
  • His name is Mr. Wilkinson! Slugworth is a completely different person whose identity Wonka has usurped for the purposes of this test. Did nobody get that?
    • I was under the impression Slugworth was just an identity Wonka invented for Mr. Wilkinson, not an usurped one, hence my confusion.
    • No no no. Slugworth is another candy maker. Where do you think Slugworth Sizzlers come from?
    • Wonka clearly says; "That's not Slugworth!". The real question being; How does Wonka know Wilkinson? Is it like the Disney Brothers, with Wonka managing the creative side like Walt, with Wilkinson managing the business side like Roy?
  • Who's to say that Mr. W didn't used to work for Slugworth, (maybe even a relative-in-law thing?), only to jump ship and permanently join Wonka? He does seem to be the only other human at the factory.
  • There's nothing to suggest that Mr. Wilkinson has a preexisting connection to Slugworth. We're not even sure what Slugworth really looks like - the kids probably bought the cover story because they didn't know what he looked like either.

---

• It's been explained that the Slugworth plot was put in to give a more realistic moral to the story, about learning from your mistakes. But from what I can see, it only makes things more unfair on the other kids. Yes, it was made pretty clear that Violet, Veruca and Mike intended to give him the gobstopper... but they never got a chance to give it back to Wonka. The only reason Charlie could was because his mistake hadn't got him killed, or at least taken away by the Oompa Loompas. Surely they all should have been given a chance to speak to Wonka before they left? And Augustus never even got a gobstopper! It just seems unfair that only Charlie actually got a chance to redeem himself.
  • The Teevees were always planning on working with "Slugworth". ("Just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.") I assume the other kids would be, as well.
  • To be fair, the only reason they 'never got a chance' to return the gobstopper was because their own greed and character flaws (and refusal to acknowledge them) got them into trouble before they could. Of course, off-camera they could have been discovered with or refused to own up to stealing the gobstoppers, but in essence, they denied themselves their own chance at redemption. No one else is to blame but them.
    • No reason the others couldn't have handed the gobstoppers over to the Oompa-Loompas that rescued them and/or restored them to normal. They just didn't, preferring to get back at Wonka for the indignities they'd suffered (however self-invited) by selling the treats to "Slugworth".
  • But Charlie still didn't earn it any more than they did. He still stole — against Wonka's specific orders — exactly the same as Augustus did. The only difference is that Augustus had the bad luck of being whisked away in a tube right afterward while Charlie lucked out, got to escape via burping, and got to keep going. If he was taken away as soon as the wrongdoing happened like all the other kids were, he never would have gotten the chance to redeem himself.
    • You'll notice that Willy Wonka didn't try to stop Charlie and Grandpa from slipping off, even though they were supposed to stay with the tour. I'm guessing that Wonka suspected that this would expose Charlie's weakness of curiosity; so he saw no need to stop them, anymore than he did the other kids. But while the other four just ran ahead without thinking, to disastrous results, Charlie wanted to look around and explore, a process that takes a bit more thought, an idea which Wonka would promote, so he gave them a bit more time to see what they would do, maybe sending one of the Oompa-Lommpas or Mr. Wilkinson to keep an eye on them just to be sure.
    • ^By contrast, Willy Wonka tried very very hard to stop Augustus from eating the chocolate river. Watch the scene, he's practically screaming at Augustus to stop, and the little butterball just keeps on stuffing his face. The tour is not about merely one test, it's about a long series of tests, possibly ones tailor-made to each child. Augustus failed the gluttony test. Charlie passed the honesty test and he resisted all the other temptations that tripped up all the other children. Charlie more than earned his reward.
    • All the other kids had an opportunity to escape their fates, Charlie and Grandpa were the only ones to actually work out how to do it. If they'd actually hit the blades, then you can bet the Oompas would have stopped them being shredded completely while singing an appropriate song. They worked out how to get away from the blades on their own though. Test=passed. (Otherwise, "Oompa loompa doompadee dah./If you don't touch stuff, you will go far./You will live in happiness too,/Like the oompa loompa doompadee do!")
    • Did the other kids really have the chance to escape, though? If the fizzy lifting drink fiasco was Charlie's "test," then his test was wildly different from all the others. He commits the initial crime (stealing the drinks), thus succumbing to greed/curiosity/what have you, and then he's presented with a clear and obvious threat (the fan blades) that he has to work out a way to avoid. This wasn't the case with any of the other kids. When, say, Violet commits her crime, she immediately starts blowing up and turning blue. It's not a puzzle. She's not given time to think. There's no apparent way to stop the transformation. Her punishment follows her crime directly, immediately, and inevitably, and it's not even something she could reasonably see coming, the way Charlie was aware of the fan blades. It's completely unfair.
    • She doesn't 'immediately' start blowing up. She went through multiple courses with Wonka telling her multiple times to spit it out. When the guy that invented a food is telling you to spit it out, you should probably listen. If anything Charlie's was TOUGHER than the others. It's not exactly rocket science to not swim around in a chocolate lake, not eat highly experimental foods when the inventor tells you not to do it, not to step on a scale that can dump you in a garbage chute or not to try to beam yourself using a transporter meant for chocolate.
    • Perhaps, but Wonka himself was there for the other kids, trying to warn them against what they were doing, "Stop! Don't!" even as they ignored him. Violet didn't swell up right at first, only after chewing the first two flavors, the others ran off to do whatever and wouldn't listen to warnings. Charlie, in the fan tunnel, was more on his own.
    • Exactly. Violet should've just spit it out. As for Mike, he sealed his fate by calling "Lights, Camera, ACTION!"
    • Augustus=had Wonka shouting at him to stop drinking from the river; Violet=had Wonka say before she took the gum that it wasn't quite right yet and then tell her specifically not to eat it; Veruca=had been repeatedly told by many people throughout the day to stop demanding things, then had Wonka say (uncharacteristically firmly) that she couldn't have a goose; Mike="Stop. Don't. Come back." Also, Wonka did mention the process might have "some messy results". The only way you can argue that the other kids weren't warned at all about what they were doing is if you completely ignore Wonka's presence in each of their last scenes.
    • We're kind of pulling a bit of a Draco in Leather Pants / Ron the Death Eater here. It's less "Augustus had the bad luck" and more "Augustus had the disgusting greed to refuse to stop drinking the chocolate river despite pretty much everyone telling him to, and fell in as a consequence". Charlie made amends by clearly demonstrating guilt and making reparations, Augustus only "never got the chance" because of his own greed, arrogance and entitlement.
    • Also, "completely unfair"? These aren't puzzles you need to be Sherlock Holmes to solve; you just need to have, you know, a basic moral compass and willingness to listen to someone else instead of immediately and recklessly fulfilling your own selfish urges. The way to "solve" the problem Violet found herself in was to not eat the gum in the first place. It's not unfair in the slightest that she immediately found herself smacked by the consequences of her own poor and selfish decision, it's just the consequences of her own poor and selfish decision.
  • Think of it as a contest with elimination rounds. True, Wonka could have made it a one-round contest, with one test, and every kid gets the same test: will you steal the Gobstopper? If you do, you lose; if you don't, you win — either way, game over. But instead, he made it a contest with multiple rounds — after you win the proverbial quarter-final and semi-final matches, you get to go to the final match, but if you're eliminated before the final match, you don't get to proceed to the finals, which means you lose. You had to pass the first round (or first 4 rounds, depending on your interpretation) to get to the final round: will you steal the Gobstopper? The other 4 kids were eliminated before they could get to the final round, so they lost as fairly as football teams that are eliminated before going to the Superbowl. In this game, you have to pass the first round to earn your opportunity to compete in the finals (in this case, the Gobstopper test). Charlie advanced to the finals, won the opportunity to receive the final test, and passed it. Even if the other kids would have passed that test, too bad — they lost before they could reach the finals. Saying the losing kids deserved to compete in the final round after being eliminated is like saying every football team eliminated during Superbowl season didn't really lose because they were forbidden to compete in the final game. Competitors being eliminated before being given an opportunity to compete in the final round isn't at all unusual in competitions.

---

• This was probably all a part of Wonka's plan to begin with, but from the kids' point of view...why did no one think to ask how Slugworth/ Mr. Wilkinson found out about the Everlasting Gobstopper in the first place, if it hasn't been released yet and no one ever comes in or out of the factory?
  • He'd just have to say "factory spies".
    • Maybe, but then why do these spies not steal the candy in question themselves ? My guess is that another way to pass the test was to be clever enough to answer Mr Slugworth that the whole thing precisely didn't make sense and that it was presumably some sort of trap. Charlie found another way to pass the test, of course, but this one was initially previewed by Mr Wonka too.
    • Technically, Charlie's the only one who has a reliable account that no one goes in or out of the factory at all. The public knowledge seems to be that the factory isn't open to visitors. And anyway, they're kids, and if Charlie is any indication, they were all deliberately approached alone; they can be forgiven for not understanding how corporate espionage works.
  • If pressed, "Slugworth" would probably have claimed that Wonka had been doing some on-the-sly market research into how an everlasting candy treat would affect his own sales, and Slugworth's people found out about that.
  • "I have ears everywhere." How are the kids going to know to argue with him? They're kids.

---

• How the hell does Mr. Wilkinson/Slugworth know where to be for the golden tickets to be found? Was the contest a set-up all along in terms of that each golden ticket's location was known, at least down to whatever shops they were to be sold in?
  • My theory is that Wonka had a fair idea of where the tickets were going (think of the opening scene in the remake). He just had to pick five random shipments that were ready to be delivered across the world, and trade out a regular bar for a golden one. Then he would just tell Mr. W to fly to that location and hang out at a hotel until the ticket was found. He very well could have even staggered the tickets so that Wilkinson wouldn't have to worry about one being found in a city he wasn't in. Add to that that the only time we ever see him meet up with a child immediately after winning (other than Charlie, but he lives right next to the factory anyway), it's Veruca, who had literally an entire factory staff peeling wrappers for her. He knew that the odds of her getting the bar were astronomically high, so he just bribed security to let him hang out on the factory floor until the ticket was uncovered.
    • A simpler theory would be that the chocolate bars containing the tickets weren't actually shipped out: Wilkinson himself could have just planted each one on a store shelf with the "normal" bars and then waited nearby to see who bought it. Or, in Veruca's case, he planted it in one of the boxes in the factory and then waited until someone found it for her. Since Mr. Salt's workers had been searching for five days by the time it was found, that probably means that word had gotten out of how incredibly spoiled Veruca was, hence the decision (whether it was Wonka's or Wilkinson's) to target her specifically for lesson-teaching rather than another random person.
    • Or he snuck in. When that scene opens, there's a delivery guy who looks pretty similar to Wilkinson carrying a big box of Wonka bars onto the factory floor. That's probably got the lucky bar in it.
  • He sneaks into to meet Augustus, Violet, and Mike by posing as a reporter. So he could have heard where the reporters were going, and then just went in with them. Veruca's father bought so many boxes that he could have just figured one of them probably contained a ticket, and snuck, bluffed, or bribed his way in. The real question is how he learned about Charlie finding one. Either the news spread very quickly, or he did indeed know where the last ticket was all along.

Grandpa Joe's legs

• Grandpa Joe can walk, right? As evident in his climbing out of the bed and standing up and finally dancing merrily about the room in minutes. So why did this man let himself be a burden on Charlie and his mother who are already living well below poverty level. I can understand the other elders as they're probably sick/crippled. But this guy? I thought he was being an ass when I first watch him slowly get up.
  • There's also the issue that if he did spend so many years in bed pretending to be ill, his muscles would have atrophied to the point that he really couldn't walk anymore.
  • He just wasn't inspired enough to walk. He was old and sickly and frail, and had to really get up the gumption to get over being eighty-six (or was it ninety-six?) years old with twenty years of atrophy under his belt, and possibly a history of polio.
    • Actually, I'm going to posit parkinsonism. Oliver Sacks talks about it some in Awakenings and also in Musicophilia: strong emotions can sometimes shake patients out of it temporarily. For reals.
  • As a side note, everywhere else he merrily jumped out of bed right away. I can chalk that off as being hilarious but...
  • Actually... he didn't magically hop out of bed, it took him a while (and falling on top of Charle) before he really got his second-wind.
    • In the book, he did.
  • It's also entirely possible that there was nothing for him to do. The story took place in 1971, and Grandpa Joe was already very old by that time. The town looked fairly suburban, and it's entirely possible that he's a feeble old man with no real job skills and possibly very little education. Any of the back-breaking unskilled labor jobs that he could do would probably be dangerous or at least unsafe, and would very likely be given to someone younger and healthier (you could throw in a bout of depression, which can be bad enough to leave some people bedridden all by itself.) He probably could handle what he assumed to be a few hours in a heated, clean factory a lot easier that he could handle 8, 10, 12-hour days chopping wood or some other job that's crippling to people a quarter of his age. Although, why he doesn't help Charlie's mother with the work she does, I still don't get.
    • It's probably partly psychosomatic. He feels useless, so he has to justify his uselessness by convincing himself he's bedridden. If he hopped up to help out with the household chores, only to have nothing to do but go back to bed, he'd feel even more worthless than he does already. Convincing himself he's physically an invalid is less painful than admitting that society has just deemed him useless.
  • England, particularly Victorian Britain, had a tradition of some folks Taking To Their Beds... it was just something some people did. Most likely a period of illness turned into a lifestyle.
  • Maybe, having no realistic prospects for work and no other reason not to stay in bed all day, he's been faking invalidism so he can keep his genuinely-disabled wife company. Knowing her husband is in the same situation might make her feel less ashamed of her own incapacity and inability to help out.
  • All of these are a huge stretch. It's always pissed me off that he'd crippled in bed for literal years and then suddenly when he gets to on a fancy tour he can suddenly walk fine (after 30-seconds of trying)? If Reality Ensues there's a 10-minute scene of Charlie's mom berating him for being lazy while she's been busting her hump to feed all of them for years.
    • In that case, remember the MST3K Mantra. It's just a kid's movie, there's no point in getting "pissed off" about it.

Cheer up Charlie

• The mother's song: "Be grateful for what you have." in her Cheer Up Charlie song. I didn't get that. Just what does Charlie have? Oh sure, a home and a mother and four elders that do absolutely nothing worth dick but lay there on the bed. Other than that, he's almost to Oliver Twist poverty level. >____>
  • The song was more about being grateful for being himself (i.e. an great kid), and that things will get better for him (even though they're shit now) because of his merits.
  • Wasn't it about being grateful for a loving family and [pauses] Erm...
  • He still has a home. He still has a family. He gets to eat most nights, even if it's just cabbage soup. He has an upright job. He gets to go to school. He can even get sweets occasionally. Oliver Twist would probably think Charlie's a rich bastard in comparison. He does have plenty to be grateful for, that's the point of the song... it sucks in comparison to what other people have, but he's got something, including much more of a chance for a good future than someone with literally nothing.
    • Not to mention his own health. Just imagine if he'd been unable to work due to blindness or something, or even if he'd suffered some crippling injury that caused him to be bedridden just like all his grandparents...
  • He's also got a teacher who seems to like him - at least, we see him single out Charlie to help him with a class demonstration - and he's got a strong sense of responsibility. Most importantly, he's got his whole life ahead of him, which is a lot more than the other people in his mother's life - her parents and in-laws, who are bedridden, and herself, a widow who barely ekes out a living by taking in other people's laundry - appear to have. Having "lots" to be grateful for is a matter of perspective.

What happened to the other kids?

• There's no closure as to what happens to Agustus, Violet, Veruca and Mike. Where did they go? Were they okay? Did they get to go home? I'm pretty sure the book explains that they got sent home with huge supplies of chocolate, but nothing is said about them in the movie after their big misdeeds. When I was a child I was completely sure they'd all been killed, which terrified me no end.
  • In one of the final scenes (either in Wonka's office or the glass elevator) Wonka explains to Charlie and Grandpa Joe that all the other children will be restored to their original selves (I believe "old, terrible selves" is how he words it), but that they are hopefully now a little wiser. It's a little bit throwaway, but it's in there.
  • If anything, the book (and remake) is even *more* scary than the Gene Wilder movie. The book explicitly shows the other kids survived, but with "reminders" of their misbehavior. Augustus is thin as a rail from being squeezed through the pipes, Violet is purple, Veruca is covered in garbage, and Mike is a 10-foot giant (the end result of being put through a taffy puller to de-shrink him). Personally I thought the movie's ending was a lot better.

The Fizzy Lifting Drinks

• Why the hell did they add the scene where Charlie and Grandpa Joe drink the fizzy-lifting soda? Surely the whole point is that Charlie's the only well behaved kid? It also makes Joe out to be a complete jerk.
  • Because otherwise Charlie comes off as a Marty Stu. He learns from his mistake.
    • Exactly. The real test wasn't whether the kids could keep their hands to themselves, it was whether they would do the right thing and keep Wonka's secret, or betray his confidence? Which makes much more sense than the premise of the book.
    • That, incidentally, was one of the biggest problems with the Depp remake.
    • Plus, they needed something for Wonka to yell at them about at the end for the final test. If Charlie didn't do anything, Wonka couldn't pretend to get angry with him and deny him the prize.
    • It also adds a more realistic moral to the story. It's impossible to never make any mistakes, but the real test in the 1971 version is whether Charlie can get himself out of the mess he made, and then whether he's honest and humble enough to admit he was wrong, even when he seems to have an opportunity for revenge. The other kids could have done that too, but they not only couldn't resist their temptations, they also couldn't figure out how to save themselves, and then they kept blaming Wonka, their parents and everyone else even as they were getting carted off for treatment.
    • So it's okay to get in trouble [by breaking rules] as long as you can get yourself out of it? That sounds like a terrible moral.
    • Hard Truth Aesop at most, really. As far as Charlie knew, he didn't get out of anything. He broke the rules and admitted it. He lost the contest, but the contest itself was out of his hands; if he wanted to get back at Wonka for punishing him he could have just as easily taken the the Gobstopper back to Slugworth and gotten a material reward anyway, but he doesn't. Giving the Gobstopper back proved to Wonka that he's basically a good kid, but more importantly, it proved to him that he was capable of admitting when he did wrong and accepting the consequences of his behavior without having to lash out in anger at being called on it. If anything, the moral is "It's okay to get in trouble, because as long as you show others that you know what you did wrong, apologize, and accept your punishment graciously, they'll forgive you".
    • Also, "get yourself out of it" here translates to "admit you stole something, return it, and accept the consequences of your actions". Charlie's not exploiting a loophole here, he's admitting fault, making restitution and accepting responsibility. All things we should be telling kids to do. Frankly, it seems a bit fatuous to be complaining about that.
    • Also, many people are being too hard on Grandpa Joe. Remember this man has been confined to a bed for a long time. In many ways he's as child-like as Wonka. Can you imagine what kind of mischief Wonka would get into if he'd been bedridden for so long and now had the strength to walk again? He'd get into all kinds of trouble, and when he got caught he'd naturally throw a tantrum.
    • I think it's more just the case of Joe's unconditional love for Charlie. Joe only cares about Charlie being happy and gets angry when Wonka wounds him on a perceived technicality. Charlie, the one who violated his word, feels his conscience nagging him.

---

• What would have happened if Charlie and Grandpa Joe hadn't burped in time? Presumably, they would have been killed by the fan, which of course would have eliminated Charlie from the running, leaving Veruca and Mike. Veruca would then do her "I want it now" bit and fall down the chute, leaving just Mike. We see at the end of the film that (unlike in the book) Charlie didn't win the factory by default just by being the last one standing, so presumably Mike wouldn't either. So what would happen then? I can think of two possible scenarios:
  • Wonka would continue the tour onto the Television Chocolate Room with just Mike and his mother left. Mike would then pull his television stunt and be eliminated, meaning no one would be left. Wonka would either have to choose an heir another way, or hold the Golden Ticket contest all over again.
  • Wonka would end the tour when there was just one child left, just like in the version we're shown. Being one of the "bad kids," Mike in all likelihood wouldn't get his lifetime supply of chocolate. (Wonka would probably use his theft of the Exploding Candy in the inventing room as the justification for denying him the prize.) Mike doesn't seem to have a conscience like Charlie, so he probably wouldn't return the Everlasting Gobstopper. He would probably go and give to to "Slugworth." But since "Slugworth" actually worked for Wonka, he wouldn't give Mike money for it—maybe he'd just pretend he didn't want it anymore, I don't know. Just like in the above scenario, Wonka would have to find an heir another way, or repeat the contest.
    • So it seems that Wonka would have been doomed to repeat history if it hadn't been for those fortunate belches. Unless there's a scenario I missed...
    • Possibly, though it's a stretch. During the Fizzy Lifting Drinks scene, notice Grandpa Joe's hand when it nearly misses the fan blades: His fingers are touching a circle of plate glass. It's another illusion.
  • Not impossible that Wonka made certain that the Fizzy Lifting Drink had a belch factor mixed into it, so that, if you drink enough to fly up you'd automatically belch (and come down) after a certain point. The room may have been deliberately designed to check out a safe "flying level". If the Oompah Loompas test it here, they probably are tied to cables to avoid the fan.
  • The belching was an homage to the book. An old Oompa Loompa refuses to belch, drinks it outside, and never comes back.
  • Are you sure that Charlie doesn't win by default? Because my interpretation had always been that he did. At first, Wonka kicks him out and says he doesn't get any chocolate because of the soda incident. Then, when Grandpa Joe comes back to yell at Wonka for raising and then dashing Charlie's hopes, Wonka is reading something and muttering to himself. It's only after that that he tells Charlie he "won." I assumed that Wonka was re-reading the contract and noticed that it said something about how if none of the kids truly passed his test, the factory would go to the one who came the closest.
    • You obviously missed the part where Charlie goes in and gives Wonka the Everlasting Gobstopper back to Wonka, proving that he was a good kid at heart, even though he had made a mistake by drinking the Fizzy Lifting Drink.
    • Add to that Wonka was reciting poetry. I believe the words were about how bright one act of kindness can be in a world of darkness, meaning giving back the gobstopper, not trying to sell for profit despite his family's need for money is a selfless act beyond compare.
    • This is correct, and the quote is, "Thus shines a good deed in a weary world". It's from The Merchant of Venice.
  • The implication is that all of Wonka's tests are designed to be uncomfortable but are carefully controlled to leave the kids with only embarrassing memories. The fans would not have seriously hurt them if they'd bumped into them. The pair would presumably have been pulled up into the ceiling by some mechanism and sent out with the rest of the failures.

---

• On the scene where Charlie and Grandpa almost get chopped up by the fan why doesn't the wind from the fan blow them back down (or, if it's on reverse why don't they get sucked in anyway if they are that close to it)?
  • Because the fan wasn't strong enough to pull them in or push them back down. It would take an extremely powerful fan to actually do that to a human being.

Geese vs Squirels

• Incidentally, why did they change Veruca's test from squirrels to golden geese?
  • Possibly an allusion to "The Goose that laid the golden egg?"
  • I heard it was an animal training problem. They couldn't get squirrels to act as directed, whereas geese, who lay eggs and are associated with the Golden Egg myth as mentioned, can easily be trained to just sit there.
    • I'm not so sure about that, since the film didn't use real geese anyway. They were puppets.
    • Maybe geese were easier to fake convincingly, then?
    • It was almost certainly because of how difficult it would be to use squirrels. If they stayed with squirrels they would have had to make dozens of fake animals that could run across the floor and tap on Veruca's head and then carry her off. Geese require a few large puppets that shift from side to side with some sound effects dubbed in. A lot easier to accomplish especially since CGI wasn't around.
  • A more subtle possibility would be that doing away the squirrels was a good pretext to get rid of the squirrel scene (which is deeply uncomfortable to watch for many, carrying assault implications). Note that the musical restores the squirrels, but still axes the assault.
  • Given that the script had to be re-written heavily at least once, might there originally have been plans for a mid-spring release, rather than June...? If so, the geese might've offered a potential seasonal tie-in with Easter, for marketing purposes.

Charlie's Candy Bar

• Little Charlie had to buy his Wonka Bar, but during The Candy Man song the start of the movie the shop owner was seemingly throwing away free candy to the kids, even letting them behind the counter to grab whatever they want? I doubt he could keep track of what they all owed him afterwards.
  • Yeah, I didn't get that. Might be in the clause of "Musical Numbers Don't Really Happen." It was common joke among this troper's family why he wouldn't just go in and grab a couple of candy bars. The assumption being that the Candyman who owns the shop is in cahoots with the local dentist who gives him a share of his cavity profits. More money then 2-dollar chocolate bars.
  • Although that was before the Wonka Bar promotion kicked in. Presumably he clamped down on the free chocolate musical numbers after that point.
  • He knew each of those children by name ("A Triple Cream Cup for Christopher. A Sizzler for June Marie..."). Even as a child I presumed that he had some sort of periodic fee set up. Every day you get one candy bar of your choice. All that other candy given out was during the musical number, and really didn't happen. Charlie was not known to Bill the Candy Shop Owner, so he had to pay up front for his candy.
  • I assumed that the song was symbolic: the candy man wasn't actually giving sweets away, we were just seeing the scene through Charlie, for whom being able to afford a bar of chocolate after school every day is practically the same luxury as being able to eat all the candy in the store for free.
  • I always thought it was because candy was a lot cheaper back then. Charlie gives him a coin and gets two candy bars from it. It's not too hard to believe the kids just hand him a dollar or two at some point.
  • It could be some sort of flat fee. Give a nickel, get as much of (cheap, low-quality) sweets you can catch and eat. Note that really good, expensive chocolate (like bars) wasn't given away.
  • Speaking from personal experience here, and this goes especially for people who are shy or have low self-esteem...For them, it can be hard to just walk in and start participating in something they know they're not a part of or think they don't belong in, and that can still go no matter how much you want something - it's a fear of being rejected, not being good enough, that holds you back. Charlie is supposed to be the kid from a poor family, who doesn't seem to realize how good a person with a good family he is - of course he's not going to feel comfortable just joining in the musical number, even if the owner probably would've openly given him some candy if he had. And he has to pay later because, of course, it's not like they would do a happy musical number every time someone comes into the store.
  • All those kids are in the store to buy candy to begin with. It's just a kid's-movie-musical-number way of showing the store owner fulfilling their orders. Movie musical numbers aren't statements under oath in a court of law which must reflect the exact truth on penalty of punishment, there's room for them to bend reality in the name of artistic license.
  • (From a Youtube comment) Some candy stores allow you to get a tab much like alcohol at a bar.
    • But you also have to pay back tabs, something that Charlie's family might not be able to do.

---

• Related to the above...during the mania for the Golden Ticket, the news reporter shows a heap of boxes filled with Wonka Bars that have been opened, searched, and left on the curb as trash. He implies that this was happening all over the city and indeed the world. Why didn't Charlie start looting those piles for discarded chocolate bars? That's tens of thousands of valuable calories free for the taking! (We're assuming that the risk of diabetes, malnutrition, and tooth decay is outweighed by the very real threat of starvation. Hell, those calories couldn't be any emptier than a diet of cabbage water.)
  • Eating candy that's been opened and handled is unsanitary and unsafe, and this is a world where sanitation and contamination are real issues. The Buckets are poor, but they haven't reached the dumpster diving stage of starvation yet (in the film, at least).
    • One of the chapter titles in the book at this point in the plot is literally "The Family Begins to Starve". A child who is not merely "hungry" or "sick of the same cabbage soup every day" but starving isn't going to stop and wonder where that chocolate's been.
    • Operative words there being "the book". There's no indication in this film that the family is facing a starvation crisis, just that they're poor.
  • For all we know, the reporter was exaggerating the extent of the wastage. Also, someone with an enterprising turn of mind probably came through and collected all those discarded chocolate bars, if not for human consumption then for other uses (rendered down for cocoa butter, mulched as fertilizer, bait for rat traps, etc).
    • Well, in the movie, Charlie is shown to be a good kid at heart, so, to him, "looting" would be like stealing.
  • With poverty, there can come pride—There are people who are desperate but they're not a whole different level of "desperate". With the Buckets' food situation, bread w/ margarine, boiled potatoes, and cabbage soup (the book mentions they eat these, so it's more than "cabbage water", though I think in the movie, they do have canned foods—ICR) would add up to 313 calories per week, about 939-1,252 calories per month, so the Wonka bars (360 cal. for 1 bar) might make their nutritional situation worse, at least, in the long run, anyway. In terms of "starving", maybe their malnutrition is catching up to them, they had to start rationing their food (Mr. Bucket was the breadwinner in the household and he lost his job), they had to go without eating at different points, and all of the above. They are poor, after all.

---

• How did Grandpa Joe manage to smuggle in chocolate bars for Charlie if none of the grandparents have been out of bed in 20 years?
  • In the book, he gives Charlie a coin and then tells him to run there and back. Presumably they just wanted to shorten the scene.
  • There is a theory about that not being chocolate bars in the WMG section.
  • "Hey, Charlie's mother, I saved up the money Charlie gave me for tobacco to get him a chocolate bar for his birthday present instead. Would you buy one while you're out?" "Sure, Grandpa Joe." And mystery solved.
    • Then why's he keeping it a secret and only revealing his purchase in the middle of the night?
    • Maybe he thought being dramatic and secretive would be more fun.
    • But why didn't Charlie give the money to his mother instead of giving it to Grandpa Joe who would then give it to Charlie's mum? Alternatively Grandpa Joe has a friend who visits him and it's (s)he who gets the tobacco (or the chocolate in this case).
    • To designate that the money was meant for Joe's tobacco, and so that he could give it to Charlie's mother when he wanted her to buy the tobacco. As opposed to his mother carrying a small amount of loose change with her, not spending it on anything until Joe tells her to.
    • "Hey, Charlie's mother. You know the money you normally use to buy my tobacco? This week, buy a chocolate bar for Charlie with it instead. And give it to me when you get back so I can surprise him for his birthday."

---

• Is this the only Troper who noticed the Wonka Bar Charlie opens on his birthday was not a Wonka Bar, but a Marshmallow Cookie. And yet everyone acts surprise when they're no golden ticket. Is Grandpa Joe being a dick again?
  • Not just a marshmallow cookie, but a Wonka Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight Chocolate Bar! The film states that the Ticket could be found in a Wonka Bar, the name of which seems to refer to the plain chocolate bars, but we see scenes of people snatching up all kinds of Wonka chocolates, which implies it's understood the Tickets could be in any Wonka chocolate product (plus the book makes it a bit more clear that any chocolate under Wonka's brand could have a Ticket). Grandpa wasn't trolling; he just picked a random one and hoped for the best.
    • It's also likely that even though the contest specified that it was any Wonka product, people latched on to the idea of it being the plain chocolate bars that had the highest likelihood. Those would have thus been harder to get and maybe more expensive, Grandpa Joe might have had to "settle" for one that was cheaper at the time. Either that or it's just the one Charlie's mother bought because she's not paying as much attention to the hysteria as everyone else and just thought "A Wonka bar's a Wonka bar, right?"

Setting

• Love the movie, but where is it set? It was filmed in Germany, the book was set in Britain, and the actors mostly seem American. Is it just some amalgamation of the three, because that's what it feels like to me most of the time.
  • The movie seems to be set in America, based on the news reports we see. The news reports clearly come out of the U.S., based on the fact that the first golden ticket was found "while we in America slept" and the second was found "right here in America." So unless we assume that Charlie and his family live in England but watch American news, it seems likely that it is set in some American town with a serious English/German influence. Perhaps in Pennsylvania somewhere.
  • A bit of trivia is that the film-makers deliberately kept the country where the factory is located vague. "Slugworth" presents the money as "of these." Not stating if they are pounds or dollars.
  • This is a Where In The Hell Is Springfield situation. The filmmakers deliberately created this ambiguity in order to give the movie a timeless, universal feel; it's not set in the real world, it's set in a storybook fantasy land. There is no right answer to the question, because it's not really a question at all; it's intentional, because it's really set anywhere that children love chocolate, which is pretty much everywhere.

Augustus' Hands Vs Boat

• When Augustus dips his hand in the chocolate river, Wonka begins to scold him since his river had "never been touched by a human hand before." Presumably he doesn't want the river to get dirty, which is quite understandable. So...why in the world exactly does he have a giant boat that could just as easily dirty it up, from paint, rust, or what have you?
  • The book confirms that the boat is really a giant hollowed-out hard candy. The worst that could happen is it might melt a bit and add extra sugar to the river.
  • The boat could be carefully cleaned, sterilized and waxed (with the wax that's used to make candy lips!) between uses so it won't get dirty. Human hands are constantly shedding oils, dirt, skin flakes, germs...filthy. Especially the hands of a boy who had been previously shoveling sweets into his sticky, drooly maw.
  • More likely, Wonka is just a Consummate Liar and simply said that the river needed to stay clean as part of Augustus' Secret Test of Character. If we believe that the chocolate in the river will eventually end up in commercial products, there'd have to be some unseen mechanism to remove impurities in the chocolate given how we see Oompa-Loompas working by the river without any sort of sanitary equipment.

Wonka's Office Scene

• Why do Grandpa Joe and Charlie follow Wonka into his office? Before his final morality test, Wonka collects his mail, answers Charlie's question about the other children, and then politely, but curtly explains how busy he is and shows them the exit. This makes perfect sense, Wonka seems to be the sole administrator of a multinational company and as he says, has numerous letters, invoices, etc., to deal with. This should be completely reasonable, Wonka may be whimsical, but his job clearly isn't touring his factory all day, and Charlie has had the tour; there are no other children left. All the other children have met some grisly fate, what did Grandpa Joe want to do, press their luck? Ostensibly, Grandpa Joe wants to get the lifetime supply of chocolate for Charlie, but did he think it would be stored in Wonka's office? Did he expect to be loaded down with crates to walk home? This troper would have thanked Mr. Wonka and gone out the exit, presumably to meet with an Oompa Loompa about the lifetime supply, or expect to have it delivered to my home, not gone into to his private office to bother him about it then and there.
  • Perhaps after a lifetime of disappointment, Grandpa Joe wasn't taking anything as a given. He might have been going in there simply to find out when they should expect the first shipment. And to be fair, he was right to be suspicious—if Wonka wasn't bluffing about that contract, it meant that by breaking the rules, they had forfeit the prize without realizing it. If Grandpa hadn't followed Wonka into the office...imagine Charlie and Grandpa going home, assuming everything was taken care of. Imagine the whole family waiting for that first miraculous delivery that meant that no matter what else happened, they would never go hungry again. Imagine them waiting...and waiting... (Bleak Existential Despair ending aside, the book confirms that every child, even the rulebreakers, finds a truck full of candy waiting for him or her as soon as they exit the factory. Charlie would've been fine.)
  • Wonka's whole demeanour in that scene before he heads into the office is completely different than it's been up to that point. He's dismissive both of Charlie and Grandpa Joe, fairly blunt instead of the whimsical eccentric he's been so far, and plus he makes that comment about the day being "a whole day wasted". Something is clearly off about him, hence Charlie wondering if they did something wrong. They're not even out of the factory yet, and since Wonka's obviously had this tour idea set up for a very long time, it's pretty safe for Charlie and Joe to assume that means he planned to set aside the entire day. Think about it this way: you've just had what was probably the best and certainly most surreal day of your life, led by a man who seems maybe a little strange but certainly a genius and someone you can't help but admire, and then you find yourself essentially being brushed off by said man with a very quick and generic goodbye. Joe's initial inquiries about the chocolate are just an excuse; he wants to find out why Wonka's suddenly acting as though he can't get rid of them both fast enough.

Wonka Bars and the Teleporter

• Why the hell do they shrink down the giant chocolate bars when teleporting them instead of just chopping a big one up into thousands or normal size ones and selling them normally?
  • Or take an extreme close-up of a normal-sized bar and have it come out giant on the other end, rather than vice versa?
  • The joke is that "that's the way television works" — when you send a picture through the tv, it's smaller than the corresponding life-size subject in the image, so when they send a physical object through the tv, it comes out smaller than it originally was. The goal of the project was not to shrink a huge chocolate bar small enough to sell but to send it instantly to the customer through the tv. Waste of resources, yes, but that's applying real world logic instead of Wonka logic.
    • It's still experimental and proof-of-concept at this stage, it's not in actual use yet, they're trying to perfect it. All sorts of technologies cost huge amounts of money and take a LONG time to get to the profitable stage - when computers were first invented they were utterly MASSIVE and incredibly cost-inefficient. Jump back in time and look at early word processors and a whole bunch of people would say 'why would we spend so much money when a typewriter works just as well'. Wonka has literally invented a teleporter, now he just has to work on it and develop it to reduce the size loss when it transports.
  • Mike actually asks this question in the book. Wonka just shushes him.
  • On the same topic: why does Wonka only ever use the machine for shrinking chocolate bars? Obviously, a shrinking machine would have tons of other applications. To name just one, couldn't it be used to shrink cancerous tumors to a thousandth the normal size, making them easily removable?
    • Probably because it's safer to shrink candy than tumors. As another troper pointed out, the technology was still really new.
  • For a real world explanation, there's plenty new technology that could be used for medical benefit but it ain't at the stage where it could be tried on a person, especially for something as complex and risky as tumerectomies.In the case of WW&TCF, Mike getting shrunk is prolly why Wonka's factory decided to shrink chocolate bars and limit it to that—Getting stretched in the taffy puller doesn't sound painless, you know.
  • Also... Willy Wonka uses the device for making chocolate products instead of curing cancer because he's a chocolate maker, not a cancer surgeon. It's his business to make and sell chocolate, not cure cancer, and just because he somehow created a device for shrinking things doesn't mean he'd have the first idea how to go about curing cancer with it; there's not a heck of a lot of overlap between the skills of a chocolatier, even one who can master shrinking, and oncology. If we need an answer for this, it's almost certainly because he figures that his messing about with the bodies of cancer patients with his shrink ray will likely cause more harm to them than good and so decides to just stick with what he's already good at.
    • Furthermore, for all we know Wonka is in negotiations to make his shrinking technology available to those who might be able to find a way to cure cancer with it; it just doesn't come up because, let's face it, cancer is kind of a mood killer.

Oompa-Loompa Songs

• During the Oompa Loompa's song to Violet why do they keeping going on about the evils of chewing gum too much rather than point out her actual Fatal Flaw (being too prideful and stubborn and refusing to listen, which is really what led her to eat the gum and get in her current predicament.)
  • Basically because some of the songs are clearly more about things that annoyed Dahl personally rather than about actual character flaws. It's an odd contrast that a writer most famous for writing books that use a child's perspective on the world was actually a very grumpy old man.

---

• During the Oompa-Loompas' song to Mike, they say "if you're not greedy, you will go far," which is one that they already used for Augustus. Mike didn't necessarily show any greed, just over-eagerness of being sent through television. Was it an error on the songwriters' part, or did it have some other meaning?
  • Mike does evidence a little more greed than any of the other kids, though. He's the only kid we see blatantly conspiring with his mother to sell Wonka's secrets to Slugworth. And unlike the others (who might be driven to go to Slugworth after getting kicked out of the Factory), Mike and Mrs. Teevee are planning on betraying Wonka even as things are still going well for them. I'm guessing Wonka and the Oompa Loompas overheard their scheming.
  • They might just feel that Mike / kids in general could use a helpful reminder: Hey, don't be greedy. It's a useful message in general, really.

Mystery Surrounding the Gobstopper

• What would have happened if any of the brats had made it out of the factory with the Gobstopper? Would they end up delivering it to the real Slugworth? Naturally, they'd probably get suspicious when they find out he looks different from the dude who approached them, and Sluggy would be a little confused about them saying he recruited them^note especially given the revelation that the real Slugworth is a Black man, but they'd still be able to give him the Gobstopper to reverse-engineer and take over the candy world, I don't think he'd concern himself with that detail so long as he got it.
  • Likely Wonka would have their Gobstoppers revoked from them as they were leaving the premises since they broke some rule in their contract (the thing was so massive that even if they hadn't gotten themselves broken off from the tour he probably could have worked in some loophole as an excuse to deny them). If not, he would have probably sent Wilkinson to intercept them when they were a significant distance from the factory, still pretending to be Slugworth, then having them hand over the Gobstopper. Whether or not Wilkinson would actually pay them is up in the air.
  • It seems doubtful he would've paid them when he had no reason to. It's not as if he had a contract with them or anything.
  • Considering that Wonka set up the fake Slugworth, the chances are close to 100% that he also set up the Everlasting Gobstoppers, which are equally almost certainly nothing of the kind. If he suspects that he can't trust the kids with his secrets, then he's probably not going to put the actual top-secret prototype right in front of them, simply because it might backfire on him. The Gobstoppers the kids steal are probably just bait to weed out the untrustworthy kids. So even if the other kids manage to get the gobstoppers out of the factory and to the real Slugworth, they will almost certainly discover that the "Everlasting Gobstopper" is in fact nothing more than a regular gobstopper. One last little Bronx kiss from Mr. Wonka.
  • To add to the above, everything we know about the Everlasting Gobstopper comes from Wonka himself. There might not even be a "real" prototype.

---

• Why did Charlie give the Gobstopper back to Wonka? He didn't want to give it to Slugworth since he's an honest kid, but he has no idea Wonka knows about Slugworth's offer, so giving the Gobstopper back wouldn't mean anything to him, as far as Charlie knew. Why not just keep it for himself?
  • Charlie wanted to apologize for messing with the Fizzy Lifting Drinks.
  • Alternatively (or additionally), the Fizzy Lifting Drinks incident showed Charlie that he was not infallible (especially when pressured by Grandpa Joe, who had also just made his intentions to give Slugworth the Gobstopper clear), and as such he could have feared that the odds of him giving in to Slugworth's offer, while slim, were greater than zero. Giving up the Everlasting Gobstopper eliminated that risk.
  • On watching back, Charlie's conscience is clearly nagging at him in that scene. Even if he has no intention of selling the gobstopper to "Slugworth", he doesn't feel like he deserves such a wonderful gift from Wonka as an everlasting sweet. It's because he's a good kid, really; having taken advantage of Wonka's trust, Charlie clearly feels it would thus be wrong to also take advantage of Wonka's generosity. Since he indulged in the fizzy lifting drink, he returns the gobstopper as compensation, thus evening the scales. And since Charlie is a poor kid who would either benefit financially from selling the gobstopper or just from having a permanent sweet to enjoy, the gesture is even more impressive.

---

• Why is Willy Wonka so determined to not let Slugworth get the gobstopper at all? It's said to be an invention meant to help poor children who can't afford anything sweet, so wouldn't more businesses mass producing them only help get the gobstoppers to more children?
  • Ethics, maybe? If more businesses produced the gobbstopper, they'd have start charging because making the gobstopper costs, thus, they could become too expensive for their purpose (being for children who can't ordinarily afford sweets). From a more pragmatic view, if your business had a rather novel idea, you're gonna want ONLY your business to profit off said idea, as, if other business took your idea and used it, then it could possibly tank your business—Weird, I know.
  • Same reason Coca-Cola isn't keen on their competitors getting their hands on the formula for making their most famous drink; they had the idea originally, and they'd like to be the ones who profit from it as much and as long as possible.
  • Also worth considering: the only word we have that Willy Wonka actually has discovered an everlasting gobstopper is from Willy Wonka himself. The whole thing is a Secret Test of Character to begin with, to determine if any of them are fit to inherit his factory. Wonka is insistent that no one reveals anything about the gobstopper because he's testing their trustworthiness.

Ticket Time

• Willy Wonka, for obvious reasons, proceeded very carefully with the idea of disseminating Golden Tickets - and yet it turns out that the last ticket was only found a day before the grand event, with a real risk that there just wouldn't be enough time for the winner to actually come to the Wonka Factory. Did Willy actually underestimate how much time it would take for people to find all the tickets?
  • Quite possibly; finding five golden tickets hidden among hundreds of millions of chocolate bars around the world is quite the undertaking, to be fair. Though there is a WMG floating around that Wonka either deliberately chose these specific children to visit his factory or, if we don't buy that he's quite so omnipotent, actually had his "Slugworth" employee plant a "ticketed" chocolate bar at a time and place of his choosing to make sure it was found by someone; if the latter specifically is true, then presumably Charlie's ticket was planted last-minute for dramatic effect, and close enough to the factory that the lucky winner wouldn't have far to travel in order to make it to the tour (or, if the former is true, then Wonka knew Charlie lived close by and so knew he could take his time).
  • And ultimately, if there's no plan and only four out of the five tickets get found, then que sera sera; Wonka just hosts the tour with the four winners instead of five.

Gristly Reaper?

• What the hell is the "Gristly (Grizzly?) Reaper" that Wonka sings about? And why would it be mowing?
  • According to some featurette or behind-the-scenes bit of trivia, Gene Wilder allegedly ad-libbed some of Wonka's dialogue during the tunnel scene. The moment when Grandpa Joe protectively puts his arm around Charlie was said to be a genuine reaction by Jack Alberston to what was happening, as Wilder's performance in the moment was that unnerving.
  • "The (Grim) Reaper" is an old term/personification for death. The Reaper, in most traditional depictions, carries with him/her/it a scythe which is used to cut down — or "mow" — the souls of the living. And he's 'grisly' because his business is rather grim and macabre (he's also technically 'gristly' because he tends to be depicted as a skeletal figure, meaning he's somewhat sinewy). Wonka is basically creeping everyone out by melodramatically pondering whether they've entered some kind of portal leading to their deaths.

Why Are All The Workers At Mr. Salt's peanut factory female?

• Title says it all
  • Because he enjoys watching women working on his Salty peanuts?
  • At the time the movie was made, it was common for working-class women to find employment in the kind of low-intensity, low-skill industrialised food-production job that a peanut-shelling factory would offer; it didn't require skills or much in the way of physical strength, was comparatively less dangerous than other industrial / manufacturing roles, and wasn't really in high demand among men. The "all-women" depiction is likely exaggerated for effect (to distinguish between Mr Salt as the one in charge and the women who are subordinate to him), but it did reflect reality to a point.

Why Aren't The Characters More Upset At Wonka After The Scary Tunnel?

• After they get there, they basically just say "Wow, that was scary", and then they never bring it up again. Why didn't any of them say something like "What the hell was that about, Wonka!"
  • The Doylist explanation is that this would have unnecessarily bogged down the movie. The Watsonian explanation is, well, because it ultimately wasn't that bad, on the other side at least. Sure, it was a Mind Screw at the time, but when you boil it down it was basically a trippy fairground haunted house ride, it's not like anyone died from it. What's anyone gonna do, threaten to sue Wonka for a ride being scary? "Wow, that was scary" is basically the appropriate reaction when the dust settles.

Wonka's Office Decor

• Is there some intended symbolism behind everything in Willy Wonka's office being cut in half, or is it just a random Dahl quirk?
  • It's a joke about how Wonka has half a mind about everything. You can never tell exactly where he's gonna land on an issue.
  • Maybe he got divorced and his wife got half of everything?

Wonka and the Fizzy Lifting Drinks

• How did Wonka find out that Charlie and Grandpa Joe stole the Fizzy Lifting Drinks? He wasn't there, never noticed the two were gone, there were no workers and no security cameras. And yet, after the tour, he knows perfectly well about what they did.
  • Presumably there were some hidden Loompas, workshopping a song about stealing fizzy drinks, if Joe and Charlie hadn't worked out how to burp their way back to Earth.

---