One more. Just one. Once Mike Teavee was gone, Willy Wonka's plan would finally fall into place.
"I wanna pick a room." Mike Teavee demanded. They were on the flying glass elevator and Mike was getting bored.
A devilish smile, full of loathing and evil entered Willy Wonka's face. "Go ahead."
Predictably, he picked the Television Room. Oh, just priceless! No doubt the child would be easy to provoke. He had been fairly civil for most of the tour, but Mike had made it quite clear he loathed what Willy Wonka stood for.
The elevator entered the pure white room. Oh, how glorious this would be. Truly a remarkable experience. He would have his final act of vengeance against the four slimy creatures that had desecrated his precious factory with their existence, while the white sheep would inherit his world. Hypothetically, if Teavee were to avoid this little test, he and Charlie Bucket would co-inherited the factory. The thought of Mike Teavee having a part of his factory, even only fifty percent, terrified Wonka. He had seen the way the child massacred his majestic pumpkins, but what really appalled Wonka were the words he spoke on the elevator.
Candy is a waste of time.
Wonka had wanted to open the doors and push the child off the elevator and into the depths of Fudge Mountain right there and then.
No, there was no way the child could resist. It would be a beautiful show. Mike Teavee's parents had surrendered him to technology, and it would eat him up. Charlie would be cast out as the heir, and his chocolate empire would reign in glory for the ages.
Wonka gave each of his guests a pair of unusual goggles, less they have there eyes burnt out. "We wouldn't want that, would we?" Wonka said, waiting to see if that boy would take them off just to spite him. He didn't. Oh, well, on with the main event.
"This is the testing room for my latest and greatest invention: television chocolate," Wonka explained, "one day it occurred to me: 'Hey! If television can break up a photograph into millions and millions of tiny little pieces, and send it whizzing through the air to be reassembled on the other end, then why can't I do the same thing with chocolate?'"
Nobody responded, though Mike was irritated. Sending chocolate through television? Wonka had really lost his last bit of sanity, hadn't he?
"Why can't I," Wonka continued, "send a real bar of chocolate through the air, ready to be eaten?"
"Sound's impossible." Mr. Teavee observed.
"It is impossible," Mike Teavee said, "you don't understand anything about science. First off, there's a difference between waves and particles. Duh! Second, the amount of power it would take to convert energy into matter would be like nine atomic bombs."
"MUMBLER!" Wonka roared. Can't this child shut up about "facts" for once? "Seriously. I can't understand a word your saying."
Mike glared at the chocolatier.
"Okey-dokey," Wonka said happily as he turned away from Mike, "I shall now send a bar of chocolate from one end of the room, to the other... by television!"
No. you won't, Mike thought. He didn't know how Wonka had done the other things, but this was self-evident.
"Bring in the chocolate!" Wonka called.
Six Oompa-Loompa's carried the biggest chocolate bar that any of the guests had ever seen to what was presumably a video camera.
"It's got to be real big, because you know how on TV you see a regular size man and he looks this tall?" Wonka asked, demonstrating with his fingers, "same basic principle."
Wonka pressed a red button and the chocolate began to defy gravity, rising into a glass tube. A flash of light surrounded the tube and the chocolate bar disappeared.
"It's gone." Charlie said in shock.
Wonka turned to his heir-to-be. "Told ya. And that bar of chocolate is now rushing through the air above our heads into a million tiny little pieces. Come over here! Come on! Come on!" Wonka began running to the television seat watched by a Oopma-Loompa. "Watch the screen!"
Mike looked at the screen and recognized the film as 2001: A Space Odyssey. A Wonka bar was right in the middle of the film.
Wonka tapped Mike's elbow. "Take it." Wonka said. He knew the boy wouldn't, but was hoping to get a rise out of him.
"It's just a picture on a screen." Mike insisted. He had no idea what happened to the candy bar, but Wonka couldn't just avert reality when he wanted too.
"Scaredy cat," Wonka said, then turned to Charlie, "you take it."
Charlie looked at the chocolatier with an unfathomable expression. Wonka could do many things, but this just seemed impossible. But then what happened to the chocolate? Charlie slowly extended his hand, half-expecting to hit the screen. His hand entered the screen. It's real! Charlie grabbed the chocolate bar.
Mike's stomach felt sick. How can this be real? It can't be. But that poor kid definitely has a chocolate bar. How?
"Holy Bucket's." Grandpa Joe exclaimed.
Charlie looked at Wonka, unsure what he was supposed to do now that he had the bar.
"Eat it," Wonka suggested, "Go on! It'll be delicious. It's the same bar, it's just gotten smaller."
Wonka then clicked his teeth in a final plea. Charlie unwrapped the chocolate and took a miniscule bite, half-afraid it wasn't real chocolate.
"It's great." Charlie said.
"It's a miracle." Grandpa Joe said breathlessly.
"So, imagine," Wonka said, "your sitting at home watching television, and suddenly a commercial will flash on screen saying 'Wonka's chocolate's are the best in the world. If you don't believe us, try one yourself.' And you simply reached out," he motioned the act of reaching out, "and take it! How about that?"
"Mr. Wonka, can you send other things?" Mr. Teavee asked, "say, like breakfast cereal?"
"Do you have any idea what breakfast cereal is made of?" Wonka challenged, "it's those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners."
"But could you send it by television if you wanted to?" Charlie asked.
"Course I could." Wonka said.
"What about people?" Mike asked curiously.
"Why would I want to send a person?" Wonka asked, "they don't taste very good."
"Don't you realize what you've invented?!" Mike asked angrily, "it's a teleporter! It's the most important invention in the history of the world! And all you think about is chocolate." Mike added in a tone of disgust.
"Calm down, Mike," Mr. Teavee said, "I think Mr. Wonka knows what he's talking about!"
"No he doesn't! He has no idea!" Mike insisted, "you think that he's a genius, but he's a idiot! But I'm not!"
Mike began running towards the machine.
"Mike, don't you remember what happened to the other's?" Mr. Teavee said.
Mike stopped dead in his tracks. He remembered all right. A chocolate river, a blueberry, a garbage chute. Come to think of it, why he been so stupid as to nearly run toward that machine? He would have shrunk!
Mike gave a sigh and walked back to the others.
Wonka's face looked murderous. "I'm very glad you acted sensible, little boy." Wonka claimed, hoping reverse psychology would work.
"Let's go to a different room." Mike suggested.
Suddenly, the television changed to a Oompa-Loompa newscaster, which caused Mike to raise his eyebrows.
"TURN IT!" Wonka roared in desperation, causing the four guests to look at him in astonishment. If they learned that he had written all of these demise songs in advance...
The Oompa-Loompa's were now playing with toy robots.
"Turn it to something else!" Wonka roared in panic.
Back to the news anchor. "The most important thing."
Wonka felt a knot in his stomach. Hadn't he ordered them not to play the songs if the demise didn't occur? Why... No, actually, he hadn't. Because he had been so sure these four kids were all doomed.
That we've ever learned
The Most important thing we've learned
As far as children are concerned
Wonka snatched the remote from the Oompa-Loompa's hands and clicked upward, turning it back to the toy robots.
Is never even let them near, a television set
Or better yet just don't install the idiotic thing at all
Mike's eyebrows rose in anger at the lyrics. Wonka clicked another button. It was a black and white image, and somebody was walking into a shower. But Mike had seen Psycho enough times to know this was not from the film.
Wonka clicked another button, then gave a nervous chuckle. "He, he, the crazy things on TV these days."
A Oompa-Loompa rock band appeared on the screen and began playing some notes.
It rots the senses in the head,
It keeps imagination dead!
It clogs and clutters up the mind!
It makes a child so dull and blind!
"What?" Mike shouted in anger, but he didn't bother to turn to see Wonka's reaction, too transfixed by the performance.
He can no longer understand, A fairy tale, a fairyland
His brain becomes as soft as cheese!
His thinking powers rust and freeze!
He cannot think, he only sees!
The Ooompa-Loompa drummer hit threw his drumsticks in the air and a powerful note broke out as the scene slowed. Then, confetti surrounded a yellow and purple sky and showed four Oompa-Loompa musicians that reminded Mike of the Beatles.
Regarding little Mike Teavee
Mike was taken aback. Why is my name in this song?
We very much regret that we
Shall simply have to wait and see
The Oopmpa-Loompa's were now smashing guitars, shoving knives around a black and white shower.
Wait and see, wait and see, Wait and see, wait and see, wait and see,
We very much regret that we,
Shall simply have to wait and see,
If we can get him back his height,
But if we can't,
The original Oompa-Loompa news anchor slammed his bulletin on the table.
It serves him right.
A eerie quiet filled the television room. Privately, Wonka was fuming. He had waited all day to tell his "one half of your son" joke and now he couldn't! Worse, they was no way Mike would be eliminated now. He had two heirs.
"Well, that was odd." Grandpa Joe said after the tension became too much for him.
"Yeah." Wonka agreed with a nervous chuckle.
Mike's face was unfathomable, he seemed to be analyzing what just occurred.
"On with the tour." Wonka said.