Wow, is it already the 40th Anniversary of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? The original I mean, not the Burton remake.
The first time I saw it was at my friend Justin’s house. He was one of the lucky few people that I knew in the late 70’s/early 80’s that had cable at home. For those of you keeping score, my childhood home never had cable – ever. Even up until the house was sold in the late 1990’s, there was no cable line. My father refused to have it installed because the line would have to be run through the crawlspace connecting the garage to the house. Which is strange since he wouldn’t ever have been the one installing – it would have been the cable installer’s problem. Anyway, Justin’s house at the time was different and to this day I still think has that weird decorative clear glass walls that everyone was so fond of. I still like the look, even if it was a little dated. I just google mapped it and it’s been remodeled. Shame.
So back to the 80’s, watching the group walk into the main candy room (chocolate water fall, etc), for me, it was kind of like that moment in the Wizard of Oz where everything goes from black and white to color. It was a fairly technicolor rainbow. TV colors were a lot more muted in those days – probably to scale back the horrendous fashion. But being the candy fiend I was, this was like my dream movie.
Shortly after it came out, I bought craploads of Wonka candy and joined the Willy Wonka Fan club. I used to be able to say that I was a proud card-carrying member, but I lost the card. 🙁
I’ve made myself sick before on the original everlasting Gobstoppers and I can’t remember the last time I ever had one.
In 1997, it was the 30th Anniversary (obviously – do the math) and the studio re-released prints to the theaters. Since my ultra cool movie theater job entailed getting in free, I went to a late late showing (completely obliterated) and don’t remember much of it. Of course, it wasn’t as grand as I remembered it to be – but it was still pretty cool.
The major upside for me having watched the original back in the 80’s was that I was turned onto the books by Roald Dahl – who wrote the original “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. There’s actually a sequel to the book that is called “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator” – taking over of course from when they burst out of the roof of the chocolate factory. Of course I’m going to complain that the book was way better than the movie, but the film does some pretty decent justice to most of the candy rooms. Roald Dahl was an extremely inventive writer. While I would never put him up against Kurt Vonnegut, it was a very similar vein. Dahl’s writings were definitely unique. I’m thinking that I’ve read everything he’s ever written, but I need to check on that. There’s still a Dahl book or two on my bookshelf – ghostly stories I think. Kind of like Alfred Hitchcock and Twilight Zone type stuff. Very dry British humor (or humour) which of course I’m pretty partial to.
My copies are pretty worn out.
