Hey, do you remember Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory?

Hello and welcome, Hey Do You Remember, a Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose tinted glasses to see how it holds up.

I'm Chris.

I'm Donna.

And I'm Carlos.

And today we're revisiting Willy Wonka and the Chalkoacac Factory.

Thank you. And today we're revisiting Willy Wonka and the Chalko Factory. We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.

These opening lines of Arthur O'Shaughnessy's poem Ode are impossibly intertwined with

Gene Wilder's performance as the titular character in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate

Factory.

But they don't just represent a memorable moment in the film.

These words are almost a mission statement for the way Wilder lived his life.

In its entirety, the poem depicts artists as romantically tragic figures, who might appear

inconsequential, but whose work transcends, inspires, and sometimes even changes the world.

There's also something about Wilder's delivery in that scene.

It's not just a reply to Varuka Salt's petulant challenge. It's a rebuttal. The implication being that

embracing our creativity isn't just an opportunity, it's a responsibility. It's fitting that the

movie's title swaps out Charlie for Willy Wonka, since he truly is the heart and soul of this

picture,

which is not to say that the other elements are unsuccessful or don't perfectly coalesce because they

do. But there's no denying that from the moment Wonka enters the frame, something magical and

transformative occurs. The movie that was unfolding in a fairly straightforward manner suddenly

...