‘The Simpsons’ Predicted That Willy Wonka Disaster Not Once but Twice

The Big Picture

• Event organizers failed to deliver a magical Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow, leaving guests disappointed and underwhelmed.
• The poorly executed event lacked creativity and decor, with minimal props and treats, in contrast to the vibrant chocolate factory in the films.
• The chaotic and disastrous chocolate event drew comparisons to a
  Simpsons
  episode that satirized greed and incompetence in event planning.

Halfway through 2023’s Wonka, Timothée Chalamet’s young, up-and-coming candymaker prepares to launch his sweet shop and open it to the public. But it doesn’t take long for him to realize his rivals have tainted the merchandise, poisoning the candy with Yeti sweat and causing the customers to react in shock and rage. A chocolate tree that is a beautiful centerpiece melts when a fire is set in the store by an irate mother, the inferno eating up the sweet shop, destroying Willy’s dream (temporarily) and, no doubt, making this act of arson pleasing to the nose. This fictional disaster was more of an immersive, fun experience than what happened recently in Scotland.

Over in Glasgow, the London-based company House of Illuminati had planned a wondrous event, if their website had anything to say about it. AI-generated images lit up the screen with the promise that Willy’s Chocolate Experience would “indulge in a chocolate fantasy like never before.” It’s safe to say now that this promise did not live up to the hype. Instead of “pure imagination,” the event was around $44 per ticket, an expensive cost for how it was cheaply set up, much to the horror and confusion of the guests. This can only mean that The Simpsons, with its habit of knowing the future, predicated this outcome in two episodes.

‘The Simpsons’ Episodes That Seem to Know the Future

The animated sitcom foretold the Trump presidency, FIFA corruption, and, perfect for what happened recently, a poorly constructed event for kids. Back in 1993, The Simpsons cautioned viewers about someone who wants to make a quick buck but who doesn’t want to put much thought into the idea. In Season 5’s “Bart’s Inner Child,” Homer (Dan Castellaneta) picks up a free, old trampoline from Krusty the Clown (Castellaneta), and even though Homer can’t even pronounce “trampoline” correctly, he sees the money-maker it could become as an easy way to get cash from willing participants. In his head, he imagines the trampoline as the first step in creating “Homerland.”

It’s a place with a $50 admittance fee, where the Springfield youth can walk around a large field, sparsely decorated with rides. They can bounce on the single, old trampoline, or they can play in “Muckville,” a giant area of mud. To end the day of fun, the kids can then crawl through a fort made of soiled mattresses, the fumes nearly getting Milhouse (Pamela Hayden) ill. The amusement park idea quickly disappears when the Simpsons find their lawn full of hurt kids, all of them with various injuries that they suffered by using the trampoline. Homer’s sudden pipe dream gets clogged, but it certainly seems to have predicted what would happen over in Scotland in 2024.

Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory Should Be a Place of Fun and Imagination

No one except those in charge of the House of Illuminati (and maybe the prophetic Simpsons writers) could have known what was in store when guests walked into the themed warehouse. It was only this past December that Wonka was released and, with the franchise being fresh on everyone’s mind, the Glasgow incident seemed like a smart way to profit from it. While there were many reckless injuries in that Season 5 episode of The Simpsons, no one got hurt at Willy’s Chocolate Experience, though it did leave many with their dreams dashed upon seeing what they had walked into. On the event’s website, the promises for guests were that they could enter “a place where chocolate dreams become reality” and it would be “a journey filled with wondrous creations.”

This included the Enchanted Garden, the Imagination Lab, and the Twilight Tunnel, which, based on the names, could go quite well with the imaginative sets in the adaptations of Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel. The room in the factory with a chocolate river and waterfall is a spectacular, magical setting, with the central group of kids having stepped out of reality and truly into a place of “pure imagination.” It’s where nearly everything is edible, from the meadow grass to the humans (except as Johnny Depp’s Wonka cautions, that would be cannibalism, and it’s frowned upon).

In Mel Stuart and Tim Burton’s versions of the quirky chocolatier, the colors in the factory are marvelous and striking. For Paul King’s prequel starring Timothée Chalamet, the lead character may not have built his factory just yet, but the shop he sets up is still decadent — until the crowd destroys the place. When guests showed up to the event in Glasglow, they didn’t find anything resembling these fantastical, cinematic visuals, instead they walked into a warehouse location that looked more like a liminal space than a candyman’s wonderland.

The Real-Life Chocolate Experience Event Didn’t Go as Planned

The most prominent color at Willy’s Chocolate Experience was a dreary gray on the floor, due to the sparse amount of props and decoration. A small photo-op poster was hung up on a wall that could be big enough for an Oompa Loompa, but not for the families that would have wanted to stand in front of it. There weren’t even any chocolate bars in sight for the young guests, nor any Everlasting Gobstoppers either; the sweet treats that got handed out were one or two jellybeans and, without any Fizzy Lifting Drinks, there was a half cup of lemonade to wash it down.

Fans of the 1971 Gene Wilder classic will probably remember how menacing the movie made the presence of Slugworth (Günter Meisner), having him lurk in the shadows. His agenda, in the end, was benevolent, but the same can’t be said for a new character that appeared at the Glasgow event. Slugworth’s villainy is replaced with a surreal, masked entity known as The Unknown that had kids crying at the sight of it, while dressed in what looked like a hurried purchase at a nearby costume shop. Then, in yet another prediction from The Simpsons, viewers might have seen what would happen to one of Willy Wonka’s favorite helpers.

‘The Simpsons’ Did a Depressed Oompa Loompa First

In Season 13’s “Sweet and Sour Marge,” the residents of Springfield break the record of being the fattest town. Marge (Julie Kavner) finds her inner Erin Brockovich and takes on the town’s obesity by fighting against everyone’s reliance on unhealthy, sugary products — like Choco-blasted Baby Aspirin — all of which is made by the local-based, Motherloving Sugar Corporation. Homer is excited his wife went to the factory, but when he asks her if she saw an Oompa Loompa, Marge’s reply is bleak, “There was one in a cage, but he wasn’t moving.” Marge’s efforts soon cause a ban on all sugar products, which then leads to Homer smuggling in bags of pure sugar for Motherloving Sugar Co., but he will only deliver the goods if he can see the Oompa Loompa. When he catches sight of the little fella, the Oompa Loompa is sitting down with a cigarette, all the energy of committing to a musical number having been sapped out of him.

That down-on-your-luck energy is transferred over to reality, due to the frustration and stress put on the actors during their time at Willy’s Chocolate Experience. They have become the face of the Glasgow event, stuck with a sloppy script that referred to the iconic character as “Willy McDuff,” an unintended nod to Homer’s favorite beverage, “Duff Beer,” because of House of Illuminati creating this as an unlicensed event. The added irony of “Sweet and Sour Marge” is how there was a lack of sugar: Springfield had its ban while, in real life, there was that strictly regulated serving of jellybeans. Two of the Oompa Loompa actresses talked to BBC about their time, one being Kirsty Paterson, who described the event as “bizarre” when she saw how poorly it was decorated.

She went on to say, “I think all the parents who attended can vouch, we were lovely, we didn’t make the children cry, we really tried our best.” As for Jenny Fogarty, the other Oompa Loompa actress, she added, “It was really difficult, there was children coming in with birthday badges, some dressed up as little Willy Wonkas, they were just so excited coming in and we had to be like ‘sorry this is it’.” They got a script 12 hours before the event, but after three 45-minute performances with it, the actresses were told to forget the script. As for the actors playing Willy, one won’t be forgetting the botched incident any time soon either.

Willy’s Chocolate Experience Was a Bad Day for Everyone

Comedian and actor Paul Connell spoke to The Independent about what he went through, explaining how he was cast at the last minute as one of three actors that would play the role of not-Wonka. He remembered how horrible the script had been, calling it “15 pages of AI-generated gibberish,” and Connell personally saw the event fall apart, with little he could do. “People were shouting, people who put on the event were crying,” he said, “There were arguments, people running around everywhere — the set had been trashed.” The police were then called to calm down angry parents. Connell also talked about the terrifying entity the script created, which he was supposed to explain to guests with the dialogue, “We know him as the Unknown. This Unknown is an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls.” He still has no clue what that character was doing in the story, wondering, “Is he an evil man who makes chocolate or is the chocolate itself evil?”

The only successful part of the “experience” could be the encounters with The Unknown, as the crying and fear it caused for the younger guests in viral videos, could surely have been the desired reaction the creepy figure was made for. While The Simpsons might have foretold this botched event in Seasons 5 and 13, there is no crystal ball sitting in the middle of the writers’ room, the truth is simpler. Collider’s Matt Shore wrote how the show’s writers understand “that the dumbest possible result is often the most likely.” This is how viewers got the numerous jokes poking fun at the incompetence of those in politics, making it seem like Mayor Quimby ditching the town during a pandemic was clairvoyant to when Texas Senator Ted Cruz left his state during a deadly winter storm.

Incompetence strikes again in how The Simpsons created gags that have come true with the scam in Glasgow. Willy’s Chocolate Experience put a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, and it’s fair to say any onscreen version of the chocolatier, whether played by Wilder, Depp, or Chalamet, wouldn’t be too pleased with their name associated with the House of Illuminati’s fiasco. They would definitely send the event down the garbage chute, along with the other bad eggs, bad nuts, and Veruca Salt. Maybe that could be what brings a smile to the face of The Simpsons’ dejected Oompa Loompa.

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