Top 5 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Characters

Voyage of the Damned through Chocolate

“We are the music makers...and we are the dreamers of dreams..."

--Willy Wonka

Most of you probably think of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and as a sweet, light-hearted and uplifting fantasy tale about a child’s wishes coming true, and about the love of family triumphing over crass materialism. I see it as a child’s version of Voyage of the Damned.

So in listing the Top 5 Willy Wonka characters, my list probably deviates radically from yours or anyone else’s (if they put in the longer than five seconds it takes to come up with such a list; most people don’t because they have actual lives involving something other than listing the top five characters from 40 year old movies, startling as that may be). I’ll assume of course that you’ve seen the movie. If not, I can’t really think of any polite way to ask this…what the hell is wrong with you? You probably haven’t seen A Charlie Brown Christmas either. Or ET. Or a Super Bowl. Or know who is the President (hint, its not Nixon). Please crawl out of your xBox and watch a classic.

Anyway, I know everyone thinks this is such a delightful movie, but I can only see a parade of horrors and atrocities rivaling a Brezhnev-era Soviet gulag.

Captive Workers

Shall we start with that human trafficking slave labor factory calling itself “Wonka Chocolate”? Wonka abducted the Oompa Loompas, snuck them past international immigration authorities no doubt using forged and stolen identification documents, and now refuses to let them leave the factory or receive any family or friends as visitors. Oh, sure, he said their land was “war-torn,” and that Vermicious Knids, Whangdoodles, Hornswogglers, and Snozzwangers constantly attacked them, but that doesn’t excuse human trafficking. Working hours appear to last well beyond internationally accepted norms, and the Oompa Loompas receive no visible pay. Unless you consider singing company-praising work songs as “pay.” Wonka forces them to don ridiculous costumes and spend excessive hours in tanning beds.

Beyond just their status and conditions, Wonka forces the Oompa Loompas to work with unsafe and hazardous machinery, with no warnings and inadequate medical care. Experimental foods that risk physical explosion. Chocolate rivers running through high density work areas with inadequate railing or lifesaving equipment nearby. TV transmission devices that irreversibly shrink people (in the Oompa Loompas’ case, they can’t stand much shrinking). Fizzy lifting gas that risks the drinker falling into whirring blades. And as Wonka refuses to allow and/or has managed to thwart any regulatory agency from inspecting the premises, or any Oompa Loompa from leaving the factory to file a worker’s compensation claim, they lack any recourse when injured.

Child Abduction Victims

Then we come to Wonka’s unexplained fascination with using chocolate to lure little children to his factory. This over-40 year old man devises a contest to have a small group of children, with their easily distracted parents, spend an entire day prowling through his factory. Which as we’ve established lies outside any law enforcement monitoring or control? Then when they arrive, they’re exposed to the aforementioned dangerous conditions, only worse, because as children they’re naturally vulnerable to such “attractive nuisances.”  Wonka carefully obtains legal releases before the tour (using such indecipherable print that most modern Western judicial systems would refuse to enforce such waivers), then provides no or insufficient warnings, employs no safety measures or preliminary “be careful on your tour today” instructions, and fails to have adequate medical care standing by in case of accidents. He sings creepy stalker songs and alters speed, sound, and light to distract the tour group, rendering it more susceptible to the factory’s dangers. Little wonder every child eventually suffers some significant physical danger. Then, having promised to give each one a lifetime supply of chocolate, he surreptitiously sends his assistant to play Slugworth, to induce the kids to breach their agreements. The agreements which, as I mentioned before, likely would not stand up in court in the first place. But a court would enforce them when one party induced the other to breach by misrepresentation and fraud. Like Wonka.

Then there’s this Charlie Bucket kid. Possibly the most selfish and spoiled kid in children’s cinema. He has four bedridden grandparents, all living in his parents’ house. They live in destitution. Yet, when he gets a little change in his pocket, what does he do? Contribute to the family’s care? No. He goes out and buys candy. Selfish little jerk. Don’t tell me that his grandpa talks him into it. True character doesn’t sway from evil persuasion. Then he gets his invalid grandpa to leave his sick bed and take Charlie to the factory. All that walking, despite the fact that grandpa has spent most of the last few years in bed. Can you believe this kid? Then, at the factory, despite being specifically told not to drink the Fizzy Lifting Drinks, he does it anyway, thereby demonstrating contempt for rules or anything else standing in his way.

The end makes no sense. First of all, a flying elevator? What, he didn’t have any carpets he could fly around town? What did it use for propulsion, for lift? And how did it land? Why would anyone build a chocolate factory with a flying glass elevator? Then Wonka just hands over his factory to Charlie? No director’s and officer’s liability or premises insurance company, or surety bond company, would cover Charlie. As a minor, he would not be eligible to sign regulatory filings or vendor and distributor contracts. And in installing Charlie as factory owner, Wonka has set him up as the Oompa Loompas’ new slave master, responsible for their physical welfare even though he showed no inclination to help even his own family members.

So I see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory very differently than most other people. Which leads me to a possibly surprising Top 5 list.

Top 5 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Characters:

5.Grandpa Joe. The grandpa spends the whole movie looking out for and promoting Charlie, which is a damn sight more than Charlie ever did for him. The grandpa, though physically impaired, sacrificed to take Charlie on the tour when his parents bailed on him. By the way, did Charlie actually have parents? Because they were never around if so.

4. Slugworth. Though a Wonka flunky, he masterfully and cleverly schemed and persuaded those kids and their greedy parents to take a gobstopper, and thereby void their contracts. Though he plays the rival spy as a sinister, shadowy type, he reveals himself at the end as a jovial, happy sort, albeit in Wonka’s service (and Charlie’s at the end, presumably).

Veruca Salt

3. Veruca Salt. Wow, just some all-time materialistic crazy, in the Britney/Paris mold. But though she steamrolls everyone around her, you have to admire her take charge attitude, certainty of purpose, and single-minded determination. No pretense here, just the doggest pursuit of what’s best for ME. And she has the best line of the movie: “Whoever heard of a snozzberry?” Veruca probably went on to hold a position in the Thatcher Cabinet.

Violet Beauregarde

2. Violet Beauregarde. This girl ate the complete meal candy, and wound up swollen up like a blueberry. Or became a blueberry. I wasn’t exactly sure. Selfish, ok maybe, but what kid could resist a candy that contained an entire meal. Violet demonstrated adventurousness, courage, and resourcefulness. Though a little alarmed at becoming three times her normal size, she didn’t panic, and probably enjoyed all the delicious blueberry cobbler pressed from her. Violet, once drained, probably became Martha Stewart.

1. Mike Teavee. Now this kid was the one who knew everything about television, wanted to be on television, and was ready when his break came. He got on television by God. How could he have possibly foreseen that Wonka couldn’t reverse the shrinking process? Assuming he did regain his size, he probably became Ryan Seacrest.

NEXT-Top 5 People I’d Like to Meet. Hint: no one named Kardashian.