We weren’t even born when the first Everlasting Gobstopper rolled off the conveyor belt at Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory; yet we wonder if someone’s still sucking on it. We were probably barely potty-trained when we first saw Charlie Bucket unwrap his golden ticket, but it still shines just as bright.
The movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, based on Roald Dahl’s children’s book, is almost twice our age. But as the film continues to fascinate generations of little kids, it still holds some magic for those of us who pretend we’ve already grown up.
The movie is still so popular, 30 years after its initial release, that Warner Bros. reissued it this week in a deluxe DVD and VHS edition. So we can all enjoy that trippy, psychedelic boat ride in DVD quality. We bet you can almost hear those bright colors.
We can relate to this movie. Charlie’s teacher, Mr. Turkentine, sounds just like some of our professors: “I’ve just decided to switch our Friday schedule to Monday which means that the test we take each Friday on what we learned during the week will now take place on Monday before we’ve learned it.”
We derive great satisfaction from seeing karma kick back at the chocolate factory. Whiny, gum-popping kids all get their due in the most creative ways. Next time a tyke behind you in the grocery store line starts whining in the dangerous decibel range, imagine him ballooning into a giant blueberry or being sucked up into the chocolate version of a photon torpedo tube. It’s less stressful than waiting for your eardrums to bleed.
And “no whining” is pretty much the only rule in Willy’s wonderland. Once our age reached double digits we noticed that there are all sorts of things that just aren’t appropriate anymore. Whining being just one of them. But at the chocolate factory, we can still eat bubble gum for dinner or lick the wallpaper if we want to.
Though he almost never leaves the chocolate factory, Willy knows a lot about college life. His formula for invention: “93 percent perspiration, 6 percent electricity, 4 percent evaporation and 2 percent butterscotch ripple” sounds a lot like the way we study for exams, except Wonka forgot the 54 percent intoxication part.
He knows, too, how we feel about whether we’re going to graduate or not: “The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last.” We get that same feeling after our last final.
Though the factory is a pretty wacky place, things all turn out right in the end. Charlie Bucket, the humble kid who never whines, inherits the factory, Oompa-Loompas and all in the end. We wish things were that hunky-dory here at ASU. Maybe if we had Oompa-Loompas running the show here on campus, our college careers would have more happy endings.
Perhaps the biggest draw to the movie is the stuff little kids are oblivious to, like the dark side to the chocolate factory. Like Wonka, we know that there is more to life than chocolate. “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker,” he intones, teaching a lesson ASU freshmen seem to learn the night after move-in day.
And though that boat ride looks suspiciously like something you’d see while experimenting with funny cigarettes, Wonka espouses a tamer message than most of the stuff that came out of the 60s: “A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men,” he says, reminding us not to take ourselves too seriously.
Because we may think we’ve grown up, but we’re music makers and dreamers of dreams.
