Line #39 Trivia/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory


1	* ActingForTwo: Gloria Manon, the actress who played the wife in the hostage sequence whose husband Harold is being held hostage for her Wonka bars, also plays the female reporter who interviews Mike Teevee. She is slightly off-camera, but has one line directed toward Mike.
2	* ActorInspiredElement:
3	** Creator/GeneWilder had input on Wonka's wardrobe. He changed the pants from green to tan, and made the hat shorter. He also came up with the idea of Wonka coming out with the cane and limping before doing a somersault.
4	** Part of the reason Augustus is something of an AdaptationalNiceGuy in this version is that Michael Bollner, his actor, didn't speak much English. As such, he only has about ten solo lines, so being more villainous wasn't possible.
5	** Julie Dawn Cole said she based her character Veruca Salt's personality on some of her boarding school classmates, especially ones that she "could not stand".
6	* AdoredByTheNetwork: Since their days as ABC Family, Creator/{{Freeform}} has frequently run this film as part of their weekend lineups, especially around holiday periods. Until the HBO networks reclaimed the TV rights to the [[Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory 2005 adaptation of its source novel]] in 2014, ABC Family loved running ''both'' versions as a double feature! Creator/{{IFC}} also ran both versions in tandem several times in the early 2020's.
7	* BeamMeUpScotty:
8	** Creator/GeneWilder says "Good day, sir!" and "I said 'Good day'!" but never "I said 'Good day, sir!'" Similarly, his quote while Augustus is trapped in the pipe is "The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last." rather than "The suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts."
9	** In the film, Wonka misquotes John Masefield's poem "All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by." He says "sail" instead of "steer."
10	* {{Blooper}}:
11	** During the "The Candy Man" number, you can see a kid getting thwacked in the chin by the counter the shopkeeper opens. ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerryWillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory'' actually recreated this blooper deliberately.
12	** Mrs. Teavee carries a black purse during the factory scenes, but it turns white in the Wonkavision room.
13	* BoxOfficeBomb: Its original release only grossed $4 million at the box office against a budget of $3 million.
14	* BreakawayPopHit: For several years, the opening number "The Candy Man" was better known than the film when it was CoveredUp by Music/SammyDavisJr, but as the movie became VindicatedByCable, the cover version slowly became dismissed as kitsch. The Davis version has found use as a jingle/theme by Radio/ChrisEvans on his BBC Radio 2 breakfast programme. In the mid-to-late-'70s and early-'80s [[RepurposedPopSong it became better known as a jingle for M&M candies in the US]], leading to Music/{{Zedd}} and Music/AloeBlacc rewriting the song in 2016 for the candy's 75th anniversary.
15	* ChannelHop: Creator/{{Paramount}} distributed the movie during its premiere. After it flopped, they decided not to renew distribution rights. Creator/WarnerBros then added the movie to their library after buying the Wolper Organization, where it belongs to this day, and went on to produce three further adaptations of the original source material (the 2005 film, 2013 West End musical, and the [[Film/{{Wonka}} 2023 prequel]]).
16	* CreatorBacklash: Songwriters Creator/AnthonyNewley and Leslie Bricusse both hated the film's performance of "The Candy Man," which they felt threw away the song with underpowered performance and staging. Newley, a successful actor and singer, offered to work for nothing if the filmmakers would reshoot the scene with him taking over the part, but they turned him down, and shortly before Bricusse died he said he still considered it the worst number in the film.
17	* CutSong: An EditedForSyndication case -- Mrs. Bucket's solo "Cheer Up, Charlie" is often cut from commercial TV airings at the director's request, as he felt it was not vital to the narrative. Since the TurnOfTheMillennium, it's become common to leave this in but cut the boat ride sequence instead. Broadcasts in TheNewTens keep both.
18	* {{Defictionalization}}: While they look nothing like they do in the film, [[http://smile.amazon.com/Gobstopper-24-1-77-Oz-Boxes/dp/B0017OX0HS/ref=sr_1_3?rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1441160849&sr=8-3&keywords=Everlasting+Gobstoppers there actually are real life Everlasting Gobstoppers]]. Appropriately enough, they're basically Gobstoppers (otherwise known as Jawbreakers)
19	** A Willy Wonka Candy Company has existed since 1971, and was originally a tie-in to the film. It was started by Quaker Oats and then eventually became the property of Nestle. The company tried to launch Wonka chocolate bars twice, in 1971 and 2005, but both times they were relatively unsuccessful. Instead, the real hits out of the Wonka line have been candies that have nothing to do with the film at all, but reflect the fictional candy company's quirky ethos. In the late 90s, pre-existing Nestle candies such as Nerds, Sweet Tarts, Laffy Taffy and Fun Dip were moved to the Wonka brand, where they've thrived under new branding. In the late 90s-early 2000s, there were even animated commercials featuring a caricature of Gene Wilder as Wonka (though Wilder did not reprise his role; instead, Creator/JeffBennett voiced this Wonka character).
20	* DeletedScene: One scene, which was filmed but not included, featured a mountain climber finding a guru in the Himalayas. He asks what the meaning of life is, to which the guru requests a Wonka Bar. After opening it and not finding a Golden Ticket, the guru says "Life is a disappointment."
21	* DisownedAdaptation: By most accounts, Creator/RoaldDahl hated the finished film to the point where he refused to allow a movie of [[Literature/CharlieAndTheGreatGlassElevator its sequel]] to be made[[note]]Until Creator/{{Netflix}} managed to grab the rights to the novel well after his death[[/note]] and wouldn't release movie rights to his other children's novels for more than 15 years. This was due to the casting of Creator/GeneWilder (Dahl insisted that Creator/SpikeMilligan should have been cast in the role) and the extensive rewrites done to his screenplay received without his foreknowledge. Not helping matters was that Dahl reportedly butted heads with director Mel Stuart over the film's direction.
22	* DVDCommentary: Originally recorded for the 2001 DVD release that marked the film's 30th anniversary, it reunited the five child actors.
23	* EditedForSyndication:
24	** Mrs. Bucket's song "Cheer Up, Charlie" is often cut from commercial TV airings, and this was the director's idea -- he felt the song was superfluous by that point in the story. Since the late 1990s, Freeform airings often cut the notoriously scary boat ride sequence.
25	** Freeform uses two different cuts of the film: a condensed one that runs for two hours, and a wholesale one that runs for two and a half. Which one they use depends on what else they want to air and, by extension, the mood that they're in.
26	** The version that airs on Turner-owned networks (TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network) as of the 2020's is also edited down to two hours, with some parts slightly sped up and several bits and pieces cut. The cuts range from just one or two lines here and there, to portions of scenes, or scenes removed entirely:
27	*** Nearly all of the "Wonkamania" vignettes are cut, including the therapist scene, the computer scene, and the ransom scene. Only the auction scene remains.
28	*** Charlie's birthday celebration, where he tricks his family into thinking he got a Golden Ticket in his birthday present of a Wonka treat, is cut entirely.
29	*** About half of Veruca's introductory scene is cut. After her mother's first line, it cuts straight to Mr. Salt's worker waving the Golden Ticket she found.
30	*** About half of the "Pure Imagination" sequence is cut, removing the instrumental break that shows individual shots of the guests exploring the Chocolate Room.
31	*** Grandpa Joe's line to Charlie, "Remember you once asked me how a bullet comes out of a gun?" is cut. It's not clear if this was for time or due to the rise in gun violence in the United States in more recent years; regardless, all references to Mike Teavee's gun and his desire for a real one remain intact.
32	*** After the Oompa Loompa song following the Gloops' departure, it cuts straight to the Wonkatania appearing, removing Wonka speaking French to the guests, giving no context to Mrs. Teavee's later line, "That's not French." when Wonka speaks German. Most of the dialogue on the boat before it enters the tunnel are also cut.
33	*** The lickable wallpaper scene is cut entirely.
34	*** Charlie and Grandpa Joe doing somersaults during the Fizzy Lifting Drinks scene is cut.
35	*** Wonka's singsong line, "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men." is cut. Aside from the minor adjustments in speed, everything from "I Want It Now" onwards remains unedited.
36	* EnforcedMethodActing:
37	** The cast wasn't allowed to see the Chocolate Room set until the scene where they first emerge into the room was shot, so their reactions are genuine. Likewise, the Inventing Room was also off-limits to the cast before filming.
38	** Charlie's reaction to Wonka declaring he would get nothing due to defying the contract ("''Good day sir!''") is also genuine; in rehearsals Peter Ostrum was not told that Creator/GeneWilder would be shouting at him. Since Wilder and Ostrum had become friends on the set, Wilder desperately wanted to tell Ostrum that he would be shouting so that Ostrum wouldn't think that they had stopped being friends.
39	** Speaking of the riverboat, it was on a track under the water, but the Oompa-Loompa supposedly steering the boat wasn't told this.
40	** During the scene with Wonka's somersault, everyone was caught off-guard and Denise Nickerson (Violet) genuinely thought that Gene Wilder (Wonka) had injured himself.
41	** Mel Stuart deliberately ran Paris Themmen through the lines when Mike explained the technicalities of television to Wonka in the Wonkavision Room so often that Stuart got the right "nasty and pissy" attitude from Themmen he wanted for the scene, as that was how Themmen naturally felt at that point.
42	** When the group hangs up their coats in the factory, they did not know that the hands were real and were going to grab their clothes.
43	** Violet's look of discomfort as a blueberry is not acted. Denise Nickerson was sandwiched between two halves of a styrofoam ball which took some forty minutes to get in to, meaning she couldn't get out of it for lunch. In addition, the costume was nearly as wide as the Oompa-Loompa actors were tall, and she had to be rolled around a lot by them. According to Denise, the Oompa-Loompas "didn't have their blueberry driving license."
44	** The factory scenes were (mostly) filmed in sequence. Once their respective downfall was filmed, the kids went home, which reinforced the dwindling party mentality amongst the actors. However, Denise Nickerson's shoe broke shortly before filming the blueberry scene, and a replacement had to be flown in from New York, causing them to switch Violet and Veruca's final scenes.
45	* ExecutiveMeddling:
46	** The film underwent a full-script rewrite after Creator/RoaldDahl, who was commissioned to write the original screenplay, kept failing to meet deadlines due to his notorious perfectionism.
47	** According to the film's director, the producers changed the title of the film not only to promote the Wonka candy brand, but also due to the racism revolving around the name "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."[[labelnote:Explanation]]"[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Charlie Mister Charlie]]" is a slur used in black communities to refer to a white man in a position of power, and "chocolate" can easily be misconstrued as an insult to black people for obvious reasons. Thus, fear of offending African-American audiences became a big factor in altering the film's title, especially in light of the original novel containing several elements of ValuesDissonance (the naming of an Indian prince as "Pondicherry" and the original depictions of the Oompa-Loompahs as African pygmies).[[/labelnote]] However, other sources say the name was changed due to Charlie at the time being a slang term for Vietnamese soldiers.
48	* FakeBrit: Paris Themmen [[WordOfGod mentions]] in the DVDCommentary that he and Denise Nickerson "hung around Julie (Dawn Cole, who played Veruca) too much" and Julie's British accent rubbed off on them as a result. Paris points out certain lines in the film where he and Denise affected British accents for no good reason, and the takes were kept. He also discussed that loved ones watching the film could not recognize that the lines were spoken by Violet or Mike and not by Veruca.
49	* FriendshipOnTheSet: The five child actors became friends into adulthood, even recording the film's DVDCommentary.
50	* HypotheticalCasting: Creator/RoaldDahl felt that Willy Wonka should be British, so his ideal choice was Creator/SpikeMilligan. He was displeased that Creator/GeneWilder was cast.
51	* InMemoriam: After Creator/GeneWilder's death, Freeform aired a special broadcast of the movie, and AMC brought it and ''Film/BlazingSaddles'' back to the big screen for a limited time.
52	* IronyAsSheIsCast: Julie Dawn Cole actually hated chocolate and was not a fan of filming the scene in which she scoops melted chocolate from one of the candy eggs. Reportedly Dahl himself thought Julie was a weird girl for not liking chocolate.
53	** Additionally, Cole describes her childhood as the opposite of Veruca Salt - she was raised by a single mother in a council house, which she referred to as "a struggle".
54	* LifeImitatesArt:
55	** Julie Dawn Cole, who played Veruca, swiped a few props from the set, including a Golden Ticket and an Everlasting Gobstopper. However, she nearly lost [[PrettyInMink the mink coat that was made specifically for the movie]], having apparently left it on the back of her chair when she went to lunch. The director yelled at her until she cried when he found out. According to her memoir, Cole later found the coat where she left it.
56	** Not only that, but she also got a peek at the Chocolate Room early (the other children only saw it during the main filming).
57	** On a darker note, Denise Nickerson (who played Violet), made her scenes and returned to school... and then, after two days, her face and hands start to turn blue! OhCrap It turned out that the paint used to make her face and hands blue went deep under her skin, and then slowly resurfaced during next few weeks. Talk about art imitating life!
58	** Also, she ended up with fifteen cavities from all the gum she chewed as Violet.
59	** The actors actually behave a lot like their respective characters during the DVDCommentary:
60	*** Denise Nickerson, Julie Dawn Cole, and Paris Themmen have a lively conversation throughout, with Themmen periodically making witty observations along the way;
61	*** Peter Ostrum was basically MrExposition, having been the first of the five main children to arrive for filming and the last to leave;
62	*** Michael Bollner says very little, and then only when prompted;
63	*** [[BookEnds Denise Nickerson asks for gum at the beginning and end of the commentary]].
64	* LoopingLines: Günter Meisner (Mr. Slugworth) had some of his lines looped by Walker Edmiston in post-production.
65	* MidDevelopmentGenreShift: Mel Stuart originally didn't want the film to be a musical... but producers convinced him by pointing out the success of ''Film/MaryPoppins'' and ''Film/TheWizardOfOz''.
66	* MilestoneCelebration
67	** 25th anniversary: A limited theatrical reissue and the first-ever CD release of the soundtrack album.
68	** 30th anniversary: The special edition DVD release, which reunited many cast and crew members for its bonus features, and the making-of book ''Pure Imagination''.
69	** 40th anniversary: A LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition Blu-Ray package that included the previous disc's bonus features, the ''Pure Imagination'' book, and a few other physical extras.
70	*** In a somewhat related note, 2011 saw the release of ''[[http://www.bearmanormedia.com/i-want-it-now-by-julie-dawn-cole-with-michael-esslinger?search=julie%20dawn%20cole I Want It Now!]]'', Julie Dawn Cole's memoirs, featuring, in-depth, a first-hand recollection of her experiences filming ''Willy Wonka'', as well as the subsequent reunions and commemorations of the movie over the years, with plenty of rare photos taken during the movie's production. As of 2015, she is the first and only "Wonka kid" to have published any recollections of making the film.
71	** 45th anniversary: The film's soundtrack was re-released on vinyl for the first time since 1980.
72	** 50th anniversary: 4K Blu-ray and digital re-releases and another theatrical reissue.
73	* NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals: While most of the child actors were professional and well-behaved (especially Denise Nickerson, who already had a substantial career), Paris Themmen was an absolute nightmare during filming. At one point, he removed a glass dome in the inventing room that contained a colony of wasps. The set had to be evacuated and he was stung multiple times. Creator/GeneWilder, a notable FriendToAllChildren who loved working with the rest of the kids, admitted that there were times he wanted to give Themmen a good swift kick.
74	-->'''Interviewer:''' How are you getting along with the child actors?
75	-->'''Gene Wilder:''' Oh, four of them are great, and one of them I'm gonna shoot in the head tomorrow.
76	* NonSingingVoice: Diana Lee sang "Cheer Up, Charlie" instead of Diana Sowle.
77	** Averted in Peter Ostrum's case. Despite not being a professional singer, and despite being told they would get someone else to sing for Charlie in the final cut, Ostrum's voice was left in for "(I've Got a) Golden Ticket".
78	* OnSetInjury:
79	** In the candy forest room, Veruca Salt bashes a giant gobstopper against a jagged rock. While it is not acknowledged, her knee is bloody in this shot. Behind the scenes her actress, Julie Dawn Cole, actually cut her knee on the rock, and still has a scar there today.
80	** During the scene where soap foam is shot onto the boat, it is actually real soap. This high concentration directly on them caused all of the actors on the boat to have severe skin irritations and deeply reddened their skin. Several weeks passed before the actors had recovered and were ready to film again.
81	* RealLifeRelative: Madeline Stuart (Mel Stuart's daughter) as Madeline Durkin, the girl in Charlie's class who tells Mr. Turkentine she opened "about 100" Wonka bars.
82	* RealLifeWritesTheHairstyle: The length of Veruca Salt's hair becomes progressively shorter throughout the movie, as the filmmakers kept burning off Julie Dawn Cole's split ends.
83	* RomanceOnTheSet: Julie Dawn Cole and Denise Nickerson both had a crush on Peter Ostrum, so they would hang out with him on alternating days. It was a congenial version of a LoveTriangle.
84	* StillbornFranchise: Any plans to adapt ''Literature/CharlieAndTheGreatGlassElevator'' were abandoned when Creator/RoaldDahl refused to turn over the rights.
85	* TechnologyMarchesOn: The supercomputer scene. Technology has come a long way since the early 1970s. The scientist would likely be working with something much smaller and more efficient (though perhaps still as unwilling to cheat). [[Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory The next movie adaptation]] shows Mike using a computer to find his ticket.
86	* ThrowItIn:
87	** According to her memoir, Julie Dawn Cole thought it would be in character for Veruca to do a LyingFingerCross when they promise not to show the Everlasting Gobstoppers to anyone. The director was unfamiliar with the gesture, but once she explained it, he filmed it in a closeup.
88	** While filming "Pure Imagination," the only rule for the cast was that they could not stand in front of Gene Wilder. Cole and Denise Nickerson decided to throw in some shoving of each other as they descend the stairs. Also, Paris Themmen improvised the bit where he steps in front of Wilder and doesn't step back with him.
89	** According to Paris Themmen, the "educated eggdicator" line was thrown in by Jack Albertson.
90	** Gene Wilder and Creator/RoyKinnear also ad-libbed adjusting each other's ties for the last bit of the golden goose scene.
91	** Roy Kinnear also added the weak addition of "Rowing..." during Wonka's poem.
92	** Not so much "throw" as "work," the (real) restaurant where Augustus is interviewed actually became a favourite of the cast and crew during shooting. That restaurant burned down in UsefulNotes/TheEighties, but was rebuilt, and is still open today.
93	* TroubledProduction:
94	** Both Julie Dawn Cole and Paris Themmen claim that director Mel Stuart was unpopular with the child actors, who all went as far as to call him "mach es nochmal Stuart" during filming. [[note]]"mach es nochmal" is German for "Do it again", which is what Mel would frequently yell at Michael Bollner (who's German) whenever he messed up on a scene.[[/note]] Themmen also released a bunch of wasps onset, which delayed the filming schedule.
95	** The filming of Violet's dismissal had to be done out of order, after the Egg Room scene, because one of Violet's shoes broke, and a replacement had to be flown in from the United States.
96	** As noted in OnSetInjury, the concentrated soap in the Wonka Wash scene irritated everyone's skin, leading to heavy rashes and several weeks of filming delays.
97	* UncreditedRole:
98	** Walker Edmiston wasn't credited for looping Mr. Slugworth's dialogue.
99	** Creator/PatCoombs as Henrietta Salt.
100	** David Seltzer was an uncredited script doctor on the screenplay, credited with heavily shaping the film's tone and writing several key scenes.
101	* VindicatedByCable: The film was a failure at the box office, but quickly found an audience via TV airings, with a heavily-promoted Creator/{{NBC}} broadcast on Thanksgiving night 1974 especially boosting its profile. It was also a much-repeated cable TV staple starting in TheEighties, and became a classic because of it.
102	* WagTheDirector: Creator/GeneWilder insisted on the disability fake out/somersault bit being included in Wonka's introduction because he had read the book, and saw Willy Wonka as something of a trickster. Mel Stuart, who had basically waived audition protocol and simply given Gene the part based on his resume, was not about to turn Gene down. Gene was also in full control of his costume, from the dimensions to the colors to the number of pockets. Read his thoughts [[http://www.wmagazine.com/story/gene-wilder-willy-wonka-costume here]].
103	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
104	** Creator/JonPertwee was the first choice for the role of [[Characters/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactoryWillyWonka Willy Wonka]] before Creator/GeneWilder was cast. However, Pertwee turned down the offer due to scheduling commitments to ''Series/DoctorWho''.
105	*** Creator/SpikeMilligan was Creator/RoaldDahl's initial choice for Willy Wonka, but was turned down due to CreativeDifferences, [[DisownedAdaptation much to the unhappiness of Dahl.]]
106	*** Creator/FredAstaire, Creator/PeterCook, Creator/MichaelCrawford, Creator/JoelGrey, Creator/FrankieHowerd, Creator/DudleyMoore, Creator/RonMoody and Creator/PeterSellers were considered for Willy Wonka as well before the casting of Wilder.
107	** Creator/JeanStapleton was offered the part of Mrs. Teevee before the casting of [[Film/RideWithTheDevil Nora Denney]], but turned it down due to filming conflicts with ''Series/AllInTheFamily''.
108	** Creator/SammyDavisJr and Creator/AnthonyNewley were considered for the role of Bill before [[Literature/NicholasNickleby Aubrey Woods]] was cast, but were turned down due to the producers wanting to cast a lesser-known actor.
109	* WordOfStPaul: According to Rusty Goffe, who played the head Oompa-Loompa, all of the kids survived their ordeals. Despite Wonka's reassurance in the film, and the book containing a chapter in which their survival is confirmed, a common fan theory is he killed them.
110	* WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: Slugworth was added to the film during shooting so there could be a token villain. Furthermore, Mel Stuart and screenwriter David Seltzer had no idea what Slugworth's motivations were for the majority of production. The twist that he was actually working for Wonka all along was made up during the shoot.
111	* WriteWhatYouKnow: Julie Dawn Cole says that Creator/RoaldDahl was a candy enthusiast and that he could accurately recite the dates that specific candies were debuted to the public. Dahl's fondness for sweets and especially chocolate began as a schoolboy, when he dreamed of inventing new chocolate bars for the Cadbury company. In his globe-trotting days as an adult, he made a habit of searching for the best local chocolate everywhere he traveled. A feature of his dinner parties was the box(es) of gourmet chocolate in the center of the table, which he invited his guests to sample. He even kept a box of chocolates in the backyard shed he used for writing.
112	* WrittenForMyKids: Mel Stuart directed the film because his 10-year-old daughter loved the book and demanded that he make it as his next film.

Context Trivia / WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory