Mr. Wonka
I had heard many stories and rumors of a secret hidden behind the Willy Wonka story, but I had never really believed them. I thought of them as nothing more than silly jokes and/or fanfiction. You know how people like to take things that are normally thought of as happy and whimsical like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and label Wonka as a pedophile or some shit like that. I never took anything like that seriously, and just thought them to be the byproducts of people with overactive (albeit creative) minds.
To me, the Wonka story was nothing more than a happy and innocent story made for children to enjoy. Until the day I decided I would actually find out for myself.
I decided to mail someone who was once acquainted with Roald Dahl (I was told not to give anything about this person away) just to see if any of this was true. Considering nearly everyone had said something about this story having some kind of sinister subtext, I thought I would check myself to be sure. I was told in the mail, and I quote, "You seem interested in this subject. Many people prefer to speculate, but you are the first one who is genuinely curious. Seeing as you want to know as much as you do, I will send you a tape in the mail. Check it within a week."
It was a couple days or so later when the tape finally arrived. It had, "The True Story of Willy Wonka" written on it in black marker. The only other words on the case belonged to a copyright dated 1963 (a year before the book came out). At first, I thought this was strange, considering VHS tapes were not around back then. Then it occurred to me that it had probably been on film originally and put on tape later. So I stuck the tape in and played it (after rewinding to make sure I hadn't missed anything).
It started out a bit odd. For one thing, it immediately began with the title (taken directly from the first edition book cover) with no fade; it just sort of popped in, causing me to jump. What came afterwards also gave me a fright: the delayed yet abrupt appearance of the music, which was loud and sounded like fast, angry jazz. Anyway, the credits began to roll, showing names I had never seen before. The only ones I recognized were Dahl's, Patricia Neal's, and some guy named John Black.
The tape looped back to the name of the Animation Checker about 15 times. I thought there was something wrong with it. Right as I went to take it out, it cut immediately to the outside of the Buckets household, the camera zooming in. The art style was really weird: black and white and with an odd misty, cloudy look about it - cross-hatched. There was a deep male voice speaking, likely the narrator's, but the quality of it was horrible. It was muffled, and at such a low volume that I could barely make out a word he was saying.
We entered the Buckets' house. The mistiness was even weirder inside. The family's movements were all wavery and wouldn't stop, like those old Zelda CD-i games. Plus, the shading was cross-hatched, which meant there was a lot of extra movement. Sometimes it was hard to make out what was going on.
The characters behaved oddly. It seemed Charlie was either gay or highly effeminate, as he spoke with a girly voice and of his love for dolls and princesses. Everyone feared Grandpa Joe; we find out later that he was involved in World War I. It is never explained how, but it's made clear that he was responsible for ending it. Charlie's parents also displayed odd behavior; the dad appeared depressed and the mother paranoid, suffering from some major form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The other grandparents never spoke at all.
From here on, things are not too different from the book, except for the fact that Charlie sings songs about a dress he wishes to wear. The story about Wonka is also changed: apparently, he is a Grinch, and appeared out of nowhere with an impressive factory that no one saw being built. No one worked in his factory, nor did it ever have any problems causing it to shut down. But when Charlie finds the ticket, it happens halfway through the scene.
Also, we don't see any of the other kids giving their interviews as they win. And the message on the ticket found in the book (or any other film adaptation) is absent. In fact, the ticket is blank. There's no mention of it being gold, but everything's in black and white, so it's hard to tell.
The big day comes and everyone is waiting at the gate. It's very similar to the book version, except there are six kids, and Charlie is wearing his dress. The lines spoken by the extras are changed from the book; there are talks of Wonka being a Grinch, how his factory got there, and how he became rich. There's also a news story about Prince Pondicherry's death, him having drowned in Wonka's chocolate palace. More topics are discussed, but then the wind picks up, drowning them out, though nothing is ever seen blowing. It's only a sound effect.
There are bells that chime for when it's time for the gates to open, just like the book. Surprisingly, I could still hear them over the loud, howling wind, but then it hit me that the chimes aren't church bells like the book describes - they're funeral bells. Very strange. But that wasn't even the weirdest part.
The weirdest part would be Wonka himself. When the gate swings open, you can see a dark, shadowy figure standing at the doorway, and then Wonka comes out of the factory, hopping and prancing. He certainly does not appear human, though it is somewhat hard to tell due to the style of cross-hatching and the lack of color. His eyes are what's most unsettling. He has a reptilian stare that quite literally sent chills down my spine. His hair kept moving, too, not even because of the constant motion and cross-hatching. It just moved like he was underwater.
The wind was even louder now as he pranced and hopped towards the gate. Once he arrived, he spoke. Strangely, I could hear his voice loud and clear, despite the cheering and talking from the audience being barely audible. His voice was high, like explained in the book, but it wasn't the kind of pitch I expected. He sounded like Michael Jackson speaking seductively.
As normal, the kids had to show him their tickets, which he stuck down his pants. Then they walked inside. It wasn't that different from the book from here, except for when they started down the hallways, which were designed like demented Tim Burton-style artwork. They kept getting narrower and sloping further down the longer they went on. They also seemed to twist more as the characters entered each new hallway. There was no dialogue in this scene, except for a line from Verruca about needing to use the loo. Her father tells her that probably won't be possible until the end of the tour.
The howling winds from earlier begin again, slowly increasing in volume. I found it strange that such a thing would be heard inside the factory. The cast enter an even more twisted, looped-looking hallway, and we hear those funeral bells chime. The odd thing is that the art style once they enter this room changes completely; it remains cross-hatched and wavery, but now it was like something Tim Burton might draw. The narrator from earlier also returns, but he is somewhat clearer. I could tell it was the same voice clip from earlier, though, because I recognized a few of the same inflections. Oddly, he didn't seem to have been talking about the Buckets like I would have expected for the intro. I still found him hard to make out, but I managed to catch a few words, such as 'Grinch' and 'Wonka'. He went on to say something about the Oompa Loompas. At this point, I had goosebumps. I actually did not want to know what he was trying to say here, but I was still very curious.
Then the tape was interrupted by a black screen with a long message in white text. The writing was in another language; it looked like an odd mixture of Greek and Korean in Blackadder ITC font. There was no sound at all here, though the howling winds show up again a couple minutes in. I expected things to go back to normal here, but the screen remained for few more minutes before returning to the show.
Wonka, the kids, and their parents continued to walk through the twisted halls, the current one looking particularly messy. Shadowy figures of Wonka and the gang making their way through could be seen. The angle changed to a side view, and Wonka was hopping forward until the funeral bells from earlier suddenly sounded. Then he was walking slowly. The way he was doing so reminded me very much of the Undertaker from the WWF/E, specifically in his Ministry of Darkness days. Other than the obvious, what was also freaky about it was the fact that it happened really quickly, with no transitional frames. There was, again, no dialogue, aside from one of the kids (I assume a girl) saying, "I don't like this, Daddy!".
They walk into the chocolate room. There's no door or entrance, but they all walk in regardless. The only sound is that of occasional distant echoes. The room itself looks eerily identical to the one in the 2005 Tim Burton film adaptation, and is not cross-hatched, but instead illustrated in a black and white painting style. The chocolate river... this is one of the more unsettling moments, because the river looks like real blood, the only colored element in the entire film. Not blood done in a realistic style, but as though someone actually painted it onto the screen. Its texture would change slightly with each frame. How were they able to get enough blood to cover possibly seven-hundred-thousand or more pieces of paper?
But it gets worse: the room didn't seem to function like normal. Wonka doesn't introduce anyone to the room or show them around. He suddenly starts speaking about the Oompa Loompas, who are apparently a group of black pygmies he had smuggled from Africa. "Illegally," he adds. They are then shown. Unlike in the book, where they are happy, cheerful, and always singing and laughing, they look miserable. Every time they look at Wonka, they appear terrified. They all flash him looks that essentially say: "Please don't kill me!" I actually heard one say that, though I couldn't quite tell if he said "kill", as he was far away and sobbing. It had more of the sound of "ack" rather than "kill".
The angle from this point was a bird's eye view. Wonka yelled angrily at the Oompa Loompas with a ridiculously loud, high-pitched, and screechy voice. I couldn't even understand him; he could have been speaking in another language for all I know.
Then he turned back to his guests and said something shockingly and despicably racist. And it continued to get worse; he wasn't finished. When he stopped speaking, what he had ended up saying was just plain abysmal, as well as slightly terrifying. I won't even repeat it. It was so bad that even a white supremacist would be offended by it. The Salts were revealed to be racists (not surprisingly), but even they were offended.
Anyway, the old Viking boat arrived, covered in odd reptilian designs for some reason. The gang got in and I heard Verruca say, "Daddy, I want lots of things, but I do not want a dreadful boat like this!" That was all I could hear. The gang did talk, but their voices were drowned out by a group of crying Oompa Loompas and the overly loud sailing of the boat through the chocolate (blood?) river.
They ended up going through a dark tunnel, and it was pretty similar to the one in the Gene Wilder film. You know, that psychedelic tunnel ride? But the art style made everything look convoluted and hard to make out. Verruca commented on her underpants being drenched in pee. The additional sixth child was another girl who spoke some of Violet's lines from the film ("What is this, a freak-out?"). I was absolutely baffled as to who this was, though. I also noticed Augustus was gone, though I assumed he'd fallen into the chocolate river.
Anyway, Wonka sang his rowing song like in the film. His voice was closer to Marilyn Manson's, but with extra vibrato. The fast, angry jazz music from the intro showed up again, though it felt odd and out of place. I noticed the letters 'J.B.' pop up in the background repeatedly (John Black?). And then things became clear, and I could see properly.
The background images showed Oompa Loompas crying. Some were singing something in some kind of African language. Then Wonka's song turned into some bizarre dialect. It sounded like a Yiddish chant, until halfway through, when a slight hint of German could be heard. His eyes and mouth got bigger and his teeth became sharp and snake-like. The tape paused on his face for a few minutes, during which the funeral bells returned.
The same clip of the narrator speaking played again. This time, he was in the middle of his speech rather than starting at the beginning. His voice was now very clear. He mentioned the Oompa Loompas being illegally smuggled from a deep, dark forest in Africa, and what peaceful lives they used to live. There were shocking mentions of horrid things Mr. Wonka did to smuggle them. Again, I will not repeat them. Just as the narrator begins talking about what happened to the rest of the Oompa Loompas and how the factory got there, his voice ceases and we cut to a room where I can barely make out anything going on. Had no one said anything about it, I would have never guessed it was the inventing room.
From here on, we just keeps skipping to different rooms, a child disappearing each time. What actually happens to them, I couldn't tell you.
I still don't know who the sixth child is, but I think I heard someone refer to her as "Miranda", unless that was the name of one of the parents (who are mostly unnamed in the book). I'm pretty sure they were referring to this mysterious sixth character, though. At least, she spoke when the name was said, but the funeral bells in the background made it hard to hear what she said.
Anyway, the last room they appear in features Wonka making 'sick powder'. The sixth girl does not seem very pleased about it. Wonka gets extremely angry about this and shouts right in her face, in that same loud, screechy, unintelligible voice from before. The fact that it wasn't distant made it even worse. It sounded so loud that it even echoed through the room.
The girl ran inside the door to where the 'sick powder' was being made. Wonka's face the filled the frame, slowly zooming in closer and closer. He had a huge, rapish grin. It was very spooky. I didn't want to keep watching, but I had to see what was to come, so I reluctantly did so.
Some creepy background noises could be heard, but they were muted and muffled-sounding. Wonka's face, once it zoomed closer, had a disturbing texture that looked reptilian. It appeared his eyes were slowly getting wider, his pupils morphing into slits and his teeth once again becoming sharp and snake-like. Then everything went silent as the black screen with white text appeared once again, looking just the same as before.
Wonka began to chant something in what sounded like Yiddish. It was clearly different than last time, but it had hints of German again, albeit more so now. The text then flickered to an English translation, but it happened way too fast for me to stop and read it.
The picture returned to a still image of the group standing around the room, with nothing but funeral bells able to be heard. It lasted another few minutes, then began moving again once the funeral bells stopped. I heard someone shout "Miranda!", which finally convinced me that was the sixth child's name.
Anyway, 'Miranda' and her mother ran off into another room as Wonka stared down at Charlie. Honestly, I had practically forgotten he was there, because he was barely shown throughout the whole thing. In fact, Veruca and this mysterious Miranda girl were shown the most. I almost felt like Mike and Violet were not even in this, considering their names were never spoken. I had also forgotten that Charlie was in a dress. I probably thought he was Violet or something.
I heard him speak again and remembered he was gay/highly effeminate. Wonka told him he had won, but instead of taking him onto the great glass elevator or whatever, he said to wait a minute. He then hopped off into another room. Every one of the kids were in there, except for Miranda. He said something that I did not quite understand. It was English, but it had a rather convoluted meaning. The children, lying down on the floor, could be heard crying and moaning, similar to the Oompa Loompas. The parents were nowhere to be found.
He then turned on the radio and slowly began to strip. The one thing that gave me goosebumps was the song that was playing. Melodically, it reminded me a lot of one of those songs you would hear in an old Mario game when you fight Bowser, despite it being in a typical early 60s style, like something from The Beatles or The Monkees, but one singer only. It was also quiet and distorted, and sounded like the keyboardist didn't know exactly how to play it right.
Anyway, I couldn't pick out any exact lyrics, but I did hear the singer mention some freaky shit that would happen to a bunch of different people by 2014. It was like a bunch of random names being spurted out, but he obviously seemed to know who they were. What was supposedly going to happen to these people is too horrible to mention. I don't even remember half of them. It took a second for me to sink back into the video as my mind drifted away, absolutely stunned by the music. When I did, I saw Wonka take off his shirt, throw it on the floor, and then drop to the ground.
After that, the credits rolled. There was no more sound from here, and the odd names from the intro appeared again. The screen faded to black, but I kept the tape rolling to see if anything came on afterwards.
A message came up, one that seemed to have been put in later considering the look, quality, and style of it was very early 90s. It read: "Don't Let Felicity Know". Then the tape stopped.
I did not know who Felicity was until I looked it up and found out it was the name of Dahl's second wife.
As you may guess, I was quite shocked by what I had seen, but also relatively confused about what any of this was. I asked the person who'd sent me this tape, and he told me:
"This was how Dahl had originally written the book. He always made films of his books before he wrote them so he could keep track of every idea he had and also check and see what the dialogue sounded like spoken aloud. What happened from there and how it ended up the way it was, I really do not know. I did not know him long enough. But I started to question the man after I got a hold of this tape."
I then asked if this person wanted the tape back, but they refused and seemed glad enough to get rid of it. They did not want it to be gone forever, though. They wanted the proof and information to stick around. Ever since I saw it, I have been looking around to see if I could get any information on it anywhere, and so far, I cannot seem to find anything.
Written by Crasta
Originally uploaded on December 6th, 2012
Content is available under CC BY-SA