Comprehensive information and links about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory "Original book cover of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with illustrations by Joseph Schindelman" (1964Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a children's book by British author Roald Dahl. The adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric candymaker Willy Wonka is considered to be one of the most beloved children's stories of the 20th century.

was first published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1964, and in the UK by George Allen

The book tells the story of a young boy, Charlie Bucket, who lives in poverty in a small, two-roomed house, with his parents and his four bedridden grandparents. Charlie is a kind, sweet, caring boy who loves his family despite their shared hardships. His greatest love in life is chocolate. Due to his family's poverty, however, he only receives a bar once a year on his birthday.

Near to Charlie's house is the largest chocolate factory in the world, owned by Mr. Willy Wonka. Wonka is the largest and most inventive and innovative producer of chocolate, producing all kinds of wonderful and delicious sweets, including some that seem impossible (such as ice cream that never melts or chewing gum that never loses its flavour). Due to corporate espionage that came close to ruining the Wonka factory, Wonka closed his factory to the public and the factory is now only seen to house mysterious workers within.

Wonka, in a surprise move, decides to open his factory to the public, by initiating a lottery. Five Wonka Bar wrappers conceal Golden Tickets which will admit the finder and one or two members of his family into the factory for a guided tour by the chocolate maker himself. Winning the golden tickets are a fat pig-like boy called Augustus Gloop, a spoiled brat called Veruca Salt, a compulsive gum chewer named Violet Beauregarde and a television-obsessed little boy called Mike Teavee.

By a near miracle, Charlie manages to find a Golden Ticket and he and his Grandpa Joe enter Willy Wonka's factory, where they encounter Wonka's many wondrous confectionery creations - including some prototypes which cause rather hair-raising side effects. The other Golden Ticket winners misbehave one by one and end up in bizarre, near-fatal predicaments which require removing them from the tour.

Once inside the factory Wonka reveals to his guests that his mysterious factory workers are the "Oompa Loompas" - a group of people from the nation of Loompaland who agreed to become Wonka's workforce because of his ability to supply unlimited quantities of their greatest delicacy, the cacao bean (the raw ingredient in chocolate). Through the book, they occasionally break into verse

Augustus Gloop is drinking from Wonka's chocolate river when he falls in and is sucked up by one of the pipes leading to the Fudge Room. In the book, his fate is to become skinny. In the movie, he is covered in hard fudge. Violet Beauregarde tries an experimental piece of three-course-dinner gum and is transformed into a very petite blueberry, requiring her to be sent to an infirmary of sorts, to be squeezed into her normal dimensions (although the blue skin is permanent). Veruca Salt is thrown down a garbage chute by squirrels trained to find and dispose of the "bad nuts". Her parents, in shock, are thrown down the chute, too! Later she and her parents are covered in garbage. Mike Teavee is miniaturized by a television camera designed to deliver chocolate bars by TV and is sent to the gum stretching room to be restored to his normal size (but is overdone with Mike becoming a very skinny giant). Each of the children pose as an allegory for the various vices found within the personalities of children in those days. Charlie is clearly outlined as the ideal child, humble, kind, and "unspoiled."

At the end of the story, it is revealed that the lottery was a ploy for Willy Wonka to choose his successor. As the last Golden Ticket winner left standing, Charlie inherits the factory and goes on a trip in a glass lift with Willy Wonka, the story continuing in the sequel

Rooms

There is a selection of themed rooms in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory which highlight a certain product or product development. Children on the tour meet an ironic calamity in many of the rooms. A good example of this is . Everything in the room is edible, including the grass. It has a chocolate waterfall that mixes the chocolate to a perfect texture. There are pipes that move the chocolate to different points within the factory. Augustus Gloop falls into the chocolate river and is sucked into a pipe that goes to the Fudge Room.

Other rooms which are predominately featured are the

Book revisions

Responding to criticisms from the NAACP, Canadian children's author Eleanor Cameron, and others for the book's portrayal of the Oompa Loompas as dark skinned and skinny African pygmies working in Wonka’s factory for cacao beans, Dahl changed some of the text, and Schindelman replaced some illustrations (the illustrations for the British version were also changed). This new version was released in 1973 in the USA. In the revised version the Oompa Loompas are described as having funny long golden-brown hair and rosy-white skin. Their origins were also changed from Africa to fictional Loompaland.

, starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. It has also been produced by Swedish Television as an animated series with still animations narrated by Ernst-Hugo Järegård. Another film version entitled , directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, was released on July 15, 2005. Both film portrayals are fairly faithful to the original story, yet add some new material. The Burton film in particular greatly expanded Willy Wonka's personal backstory. Both films likewise heavily expanded the personalities of the four "bad" children and their parents.

There is also a line of candies in the United States and Australia that uses the book's characters and imagery for its marketing.

On July 11, 2005, the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory video game was released for the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo's Game Boy Advance, and Windows PC by developers Backbone and High Voltage Software and publisher 2K Games.

In 2006, the British theme park Alton Towers is to create a new family boat ride attraction in the Cred Street area themed around