Willy Wonka

This article is about the fictional character from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. For the candy company, see, The Willy Wonka Candy Company.

Willy Wonka
Charlie and the Cocklate Factory character
First appearance	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Created by	Roald Dahl
Portrayed by	Gene Wilder (1971) Johnny Depp (2005)

Willy Wonka was a pornstar in the late 80's known for his exceptional acrobatic feats, and his love of inserting candy of all sorts and flavors into a womans vagina.

Wonka in the film adaptations

A musical film adaptation of Dahl's book Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, titled Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, was directed by Mel Stuart and starred Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. It was released in 1971. It was originally a box office flop, but has since been considered a children's classic by critics, and has attracted a worldwide audience. This film added some dialogue with references to poetry, including Shakespeare, that were not in the novel. The film also included a rival chocolate maker offering the children money if they betrayed Wonka and provided him with an Everlasting Gobstopper, but this turns out to be a morality test set by Wonka to determine the finders' worth. Another departure from the novel had Charlie disobeying Willy Wonka with the encouragement of Grandpa Joe and drinking a soda that made them drift up to the ceiling- although they were able to cancel out the effects before they floated out of the room-, allowing Wonka to deny Charlie's prize at the end of the tour.

Burton's 2005 version added a backstory of the character, in which Willy Wonka was the son of dentist Dr. Wilbur Wonka (played by Christopher Lee). Wonka had a traumatic childhood, as his father locked him into dreadful orthodontics that bore more resemblance to a medieval torture device, and every Halloween, he would burn his son's candy in the fireplace. Eventually, Willy tastes chocolate after sneaking a piece, and starts getting ideas for other candies. When he becomes an adult, Wonka opens his own candy store, with Grandpa Joe being one of Wonka's first employees. Additionally, in Burton's film, Wonka initially refuses to allow Charlie to bring his family to his factory. An eventual reconciliation between Wonka and his father causes Wonka to change his mind and allow Charlie's family to move in with him as well. At this point, it is revealed that Dr. Wonka, despite his dislike of candy, came to greatly admire Willy while he was away, and made a habit of collecting and framing newspaper articles about Willy's great success in the chocolatier industry along the years.

Other appearances

• In the Family Guy episode "Wasted Talent", Pawtucket Pat, a spoof of the Gene Wilder version of Wonka, offers a tour of the Pawtucket Brewery to winners in a plot similar to Dahl's and the 1971 movie version.
• In Dexter's Laboratory, a contest took place in which Professor Hawk gave gold floppy disks to stores around the world; whoever found these golden floppy disks, which were sold amongst normal floppy disks, were allowed to tour Professor Hawk's laboratory.
• In the Futurama episode "Fry and the Slurm Factory", Fry wins a contest to visit the Slurm factory on the planet Wormulon after finding a golden bottle cap in a can of slurm. The factory features a slurm room where Grunka Lunkas (whom Professor Farnsworth detests) sing. The tour guide slug is dressed like Willy Wonka and tells Hermes Conrad he could fire the whole workforce of Planet Express and hire a team of Grunka Lunkas for half the wage and that the Grunka Lunkas are practically slaves.
• In The Simpsons, a Willy Wonka-like gag shop owner named Goose Gladwell claims to own "20 stores in 30 states" and buys Bart Simpson's line of T-shirts. Goose is a former green beret who fought in Vietnam and claims that his experiences from those days are what made him crazy.
• Johnny Bravo once won a contest to visit a jerked beef factory managed by a Wonka-like character named Jerky Jake, who was so impressed by Johnny's jerky-related knowledge he decided to name him his heir but changed his mind after Johnny's display of his usual stupidity during the press conference held to announce Johnny as Jerky Jake's heir.
• In What's New, Scooby-Doo?, the Scooby Snack factory owner dresses himself like Willy Wonka and once held a contest where whoever finds the golden Scooby Snack could pick between a tour in the factory or a trip to Aruba. Shaggy and Scooby win and Velma comments only they would pick the tour instead of Aruba.
• In the Scottish comedy Chewin' The Fat there is a spoof in which a man bites into a pie and then finds a golden ticket inside. This summons Wullie Pie who takes this man and two friends on a trip to the pie factory where they spoof the imagination song and the factory is revealed to be a disgusting and dirty place that makes the men throw up, for which Wullie blames bad pie.
• In Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Rin owns a chocolate factory that parodies Willy Wonka's. Nozomu is refused entry as he doesn't have a Golden Ticket, however he was able to enter because he threatened to notify the health inspectors if he becomes suspicious about how the chocolate is made.
• In The Office, Michael decides to offer 10% discount coupons to clients but accidentally ships all five golden tickets to the same client. He also forgot to mention they cannot be used together and hence has to face delivering 50% off the price of paper to Dunder Mifflin's biggest client. Michael tries to frame Dwight for this, who has never seen or read Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
• In Marilyn Manson's music video for "Dope Hat", several twisted references to the boat ride scene are made.
• In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Toy to the world", Phineas remodels the toy factory and suddenly everything looks like Willy Wonka's factory. A reference to the Oompa Loompas in the same episode is also shown.
• In Superjail, the main character of the show is the Warden, a parody of Willy Wonka. He is also described as a "sadistic Willy Wonka".
• In an episode of Drake and Josh, Drake and Josh's room is filled with candy, and Josh has a similar appearance to Wonka, with the brown top hat and a cane. He even eats the cup he used to contain chocolate milk.
• In Epic Movie, four people are trapped inside a factory with a Michael Jackson-like Willy Wonka (Crispin Glover) who says that they are 'mine now' and tries to take their body parts.
• In an episode of the hit Canadian animated series "BEING IAN" a Willy Wonka inspired episode entitled "Ken Kelley and The Keyboard Factory" features many nods to the original movie. An accident makes Ken realize he needs to find a successor to run the store. While moving a Piano onto a second floor, the bench slips Odbald’s grasp and it hits Ken on the head. He dons a Wonka-ish top hat to cover the bump and so begins the parody. Or, more accurately, the homage. Not only does the accident make him break into song at the drop of a hat, it also makes Ken realize he needs to choose one of his sons to run the store once he’s gone. And when Odbald’s hardworking twin cousins visit and get jobs at the store, Odbald becomes the odd man out.

Nestlé's mascot

Main article: The Willy Wonka Candy Company

An animated version of Willy Wonka, based on Gene Wilder's portrayal and Quentin Blake's illustrations, serves as a mascot for Nestlé's Willy Wonka Candy Company brand. He appears on the packaging, marketing, and in the company's television commercials. Animated versions of Oompa-Loompas are seen on the website.

Personality

The book and the 1971 film adaption both show this eccentricity rather vividly (to the point that Veruca commented, "He's absolutely bonkers!" with Charlie replying "That's not bad."). In the 2005 film adaption Willy Wonka's eccentricity is viewed more sympathetically, as an expression of his creativity. At the same time Wonka's rudeness is shown to stem mainly from his self-imposed isolation rather than deliberate malice, despite his constant teasing of the children. Mike Teevee in particular seems to fire his mean streak and even Charlie seems a target at one point, although at the end it was revealed that he didn't tease Charlie at all, since he was the least rotten of all the children. These negative aspects of Wonka's personality are explained in Burton's version by a strained, perhaps even abusive, relationship with his father Wilbur Wonka.

See also

• Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
• Oompa Loompa
• Augustus Gloop
• Veruca Salt
• Violet Beauregarde
• Mike Teavee
• Charlie Bucket

External links

• Veruca Salt's memorabilia from the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film"
• "Willy Wonka" the stage musical
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film website
• The Willy Wonka Candy Company