Imagine how Willy felt when Mike from the 2005 movie said he didn't like chocolate. I enjoyed writing that part in!
Let me know what you think.
Five Children.
Willy looked on in frustration at the display in front of him - the three-course gum had been a wonderful idea when he had come up with it, but there was something about the pudding part of the formula which caused the test subjects to fill up with blueberry juice while they became giant living Oompa-Loompa blueberries right down to their skin tone; Willy had come up with many bizarre things in the Inventing Room in the past, but this was perhaps one of the most stubborn of all of his recipes and concepts - before he irritably waved his hand.
"Oh, get him out of here!" He snapped, but the Oompa-Loompas knew he wasn't angry with them, they knew he was frustrated with this never-ending disaster. If he didn't find a way to solve this problem, then he would just scrap the three-course gum for good; with the way these tests were going that option was becoming more and more likely every day, with every result of the tests. "Take him to the squeezing room," he added in a calmer manner, and he watched as the transformed blueberry who had once been an Oompa-Loompa who had volunteered dubiously for this test to the nearby squeezing room where the blueberry juice would be squeezed out of his form.
He sighed and turned to one of the other Oompa-Loompas nearby. "If we don't find a way to stabilise that formula, that's it. I have just about had enough. That's the twentieth time this week alone. I want to see the Television Chocolate room in a moment, lets see how that's going."
The Oompa-Loompas nodded solemnly. Ordinarily, they would joke and laugh around, but nothing about the tests where one of their own transformed into a blueberry was funny, and there was nothing remotely funny about the Television Chocolate experiment. In any case, they saw their boss's mood, and they did not want to be on the wrong side of Willy's mood. Everyone in the factory knew that room was lethal.
Willy left the inventing room and, escorted by the Oompa-Loompas, entered the Great Glass Elevator, and they travelled to the Television Chocolate room in a matter of moments - he didn't bother looking through the glass walls of the elevator and look around the workings of his factory, he was too busy thinking about the next test he wanted to see for himself in the Television chocolate room. The tests in that room were going well, although some of the teleportation tests came out wrong.
Sometimes the massive pieces of chocolate being sent through the Television device would come out…scrambled, with the wrapping paper and foil lost in places, or the chocolate had materialised in quarters. It was a miracle that he and the Oompa-Loompas had worked on the problem and it was increasingly rare to have those kinds of problems nowadays.
He was just relieved those experiments were, more or less, easy to rectify compared to the three-course gum problem, to say nothing of the fizzy-lifting drinks, and truthfully Willy wasn't really worried about the Television Chocolate experiments to the same extent since there was more progress being made there; yes, alright, the early days had been problematic for him but it had gotten easier.
When Willy and the Oompa-Loompa assistants walked into the white-painted and sterile Television Chocolate Room, the assistants went immediately quiet; they all knew how dangerous this room was, especially as an Oompa-Loompa had nearly gotten killed by accident. Willy was just relieved nothing had happened at that point, and the Oompa-Loompa had survived. But it had emphasised the dangerous nature of the technology in this room, and even Willy himself had been surprised when he realised for himself the dangers of the technology.
"I want to see a test of the Television chocolate," he said to the Oompa-Loompa in charge of the room during this shift. "I want to see how far it will go. I want to know if we're ready for the next phase of the experiments."
The Oompa-Loompa nodded silently before he turned and gave instructions to his fellows for the final preparations of the experiment. The other Oompa-Loompas moved around in a well oiled, well-trained way as they made the preparations. A group went into the nearby storeroom to bring out the giant Wonka bar, while other technicians prepared the Television equipment. For now, the Television Chocolate room transferred the bits of the large chocolate bars from one point to another within the same room. Willy had been trying to refine the Television sender and receiving sets for some time, developing safeguards whenever something went horribly wrong, such as the chocolate bars not being sent to the second receiving point and turning out warped and twisted, and building new receiving sets to perfect the process enough before the Oompa-Loompas could build a second terminal room in a different part of the factory.
Willy stood to the side and he watched as the Oompa-Loompas brought in one of the massive chocolate bars and placed it on the sending platform. The Oompa-Loompas, moving with practiced precision moved quietly to their stations and they powered up the teleportation device. The chocolate levitated as the local gravity 'blinked' - Willy wished he understood how that was possible, but he had just accepted it was an unexpected side effect of the process.
The focusing lens of the Television teleporter automatically switched on - they looked like 'lights' but in fact, they were secondary cameras that created a 'field' that mapped out the chocolate from every angle. They'd been installed after the first few experiments where the chocolate came out all mangled, warped and shapeless the other end, and Willy had them put into place when the different angles of the chocolate bar came out either flat or mangled while everything else was okay - and they followed the chocolate bar as it floated upwards, constantly scanning every inch that they could in order to send the chocolate to the next point.
The chocolate disappeared into a flash of light, and Willy turned and checked the receiving set. A moment later the chocolate bar slowly began to appear. The effect was rather like a magic drawing book where a pencil rubbed across a seemingly blank page revealed instead a hidden picture. The outline of the chocolate bar appeared first before the finer details of the wrapping and the foil. After the outline and the finer details of the wrapping and foil covers materialised, the rest of the chocolate bar appeared. When the colouring of the wrapper finally finished its materialisation, Willy reached a hand into the set and took it out. He inspected the wrapping and foil covers carefully to see if anything was missing, but when he found everything was okay he tore off some of the wrappings and he snapped a piece of chocolate and popped it into his mouth. It tasted as milky and as delicious as always.
"We'll continue with the current phase for now," he declared his final decision for the Oompa-Loompas. "In…2 months, we'll move on to the second phase."
The Oompa-Loompas accepted the decision. One of them held up a hand.
Willy walked over to the technician. "What is it?"
"The next Golden Ticket's been found."
Willy's heart pounded in his chest. So soon? Quickly he recovered some of his composure. "I need to find out more about this child. I only hope he or she is my hope…"
Willy took in the expressions of the nearby Oompa-Loompas. They didn't look too optimistic, but then again they had warned him from the start he shouldn't get his hopes up about finding a child who was suitable enough to run the factory. Out of all of them so far, the only one who seemed to possess the focus was Violet Beauregarde, and that was for her competitive spirit, but at the same time, he didn't think she had the ability to realise there was more to life than competition. It looked like the Oompa-Loompas had been right, do not get your hopes up. You might end up disappointed.
X
When he got back to his apartment and listened to the radio announcement, Willy wondered more about this newest winner called Mike Teavee, but as with the other winners shortly after they'd found their tickets, and announced finding them information was hard to come by. Willy took off his jacket and threw it carelessly over a chair and he sat down, and he switched on the television.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The sounds alone made Willy terrified something wrong had happened to the television set - that was the problem with so many businesses, they could never make something that lasted; they had to build into their products something that would make them go bang quickly - but then he realised the sounds of the explosions were coming from the other end of the set. What in God's name was happening?
Willy got over his shell shock as he saw the boy for the first time. He wasn't fat like Augustus, he didn't seem arrogantly entitled as Veruca, he didn't seem competitive like Violet. No, Mike Teavee was…just too busy playing video games on a games… thing. He wasn't sure what it was called, and Willy didn't care either. He just wanted to know more about this boy. Unfortunately, given how he seemed more interested in aggressively wrestling with the joystick on the game…thing, and not really interested in saying anything else, Willy was not too hopeful about this one, either.
What was it they said? Third times the charm.
Well, in Willy's mind, whoever said that was either drunk or a pathological liar with limited experience. Willy winced again, and he wondered what kind of game Mike was actually playing to make it so loud.
"All I had to do was check the manufacturing dates, offset by weather, and the derivative of the Nikkei index. A retard could figure it out," Mike said, clearly paying more attention to his own business rather than enthusiastically boast about what he had done. But Willy was bothered, and he wasn't sure if it should be because this boy had clearly known what he was doing. Willy had to admit Mike certainly seemed to possess a strong IQ when it came to technology, and he certainly hadn't adopted the same approaches the other children had employed.
Mike hadn't porked his way through hundreds of chocolate bars.
Mike hadn't demanded his parents search through hundreds of Wonka bars for a ticket.
Mike hadn't approached the whole thing like it was a competition.
No, Mike… he had done his research, and it seemed he had only needed to buy a single Wonka bar to find the ticket. But the second thing that bothered Willy the most was Mike did not seem to care, at all about the hunt.
Willy didn't understand that. Was it because the competition was drawing to a close? Or was it something in Mike's personality that made him seem indifferent? He certainly didn't seem bothered by the finding of the Golden Ticket.
"Most of the time, I don't even know what he's talking about," the balding, dull man with glasses - Mike's father - spoke for the benefit of the reporters. "Kids these days, with all the technology."
Willy held back the urge to sigh. Yet another set of parents who had messed their children up, somehow. He winced when Mike yelled at his television set, "DIE! DIE! DIE!"
Why was this boy even interested in finding a Golden Ticket when he seemed more interested in the television in front of him? Mike's father seemed to have a point about the technology, but what he seemed to have failed to realise was it was the parents' fault for indulging their children in that manner in the first place. If they took responsibility, then it wouldn't be so bad. While Willy didn't believe the children with technology was a bad idea, in theory, it would be better if moderated.
This was not moderated.
"Doesn't seem like they stay kids for very long," Mr Teavee said. Why were the parents just standing there? Why was Mr Teavee a robot, just speaking briefly? Why weren't they forcing their son to speak so then everyone could get an idea of his personality? That was important; Willy needed to find out more about the boy. All of the other children had conveyed their personalities loud and clear, but the only thing Mike seemed focused on was his games and his television. That was it.
Fortunately, the game ended, and it was clear Mike had lost but Willy couldn't find it within himself to care. For the first time in just two minutes, he gave all of his attention to the reporters in his living room.
"In the end, I only had to buy one candy bar," Mike said in a bored voice.
"And how did that taste?" One reporter asked.
Mike snorted. "I dunno. I hate chocolate!"
The scream that echoed in the corridors and hallways near Willy Wonka's apartment emptied of Oompa-Loompas. They had never heard anything so horrible in their lives, and they had lived in a world full of vicious monsters. They quickly realised that the sound came from their boss. But they were mystified by what had made him shriek like that anyway.
In his apartment, Willy was looking at the image of Mike Teavee in disbelief. He could not believe what he had just heard, and it made him physically sick. Willy just could not understand what he had just heard. He did not like chocolate? If he didn't like chocolate, why had he even bothered in the first place? Was it to prove something? Willy didn't know, but as he looked at the boys face, he felt nothing but contempt for Mike Teavee.