Late last month a bunch of children were likely scarred for life by a little event called “Willy’s Chocolate Experience.” Who’s Willy? Wonka, of course — the subject of the recent hit movie Wonka. The Glasgow, Scotland-held event, with its carefully-worded title, wasn’t actually an official spinoff from the estate of Roald Dahl. Far from it. Instead it was a modestly festooned cheapo cash-in that left kids crying and parents instigating such a revolt that police had to be summoned. The fiasco has already inspired a forthcoming horror film. Now it’s getting a musical.
Per the BBC, theater producers are amassing a team of writers for Willy Fest: A Musical Parody, which will do just that. Among the creative team is Riki Lindhome, one half of Garfunkel and Oates (with Kate Micucci) as well as an alum of the Knives Out franchise. (She was one of the suspects in the first one.)
Much like the as-yet-untitled horror film, the musical will be arriving sooner rather than later. Producer Richard Kraft, whose CV includes a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory concert at the Hollywood Bowl, said he amassed his creative team in “less time than it takes for someone to sing the first verse of ‘Oompa Loompa Doompa-Dee-Do.’” It appears Kraft doesn’t want the “Chocolate Experience”’s infamy to be forgotten by the time the show is mounted, saying it will arrive some time this year.
“Willy’s Chocolate Experience” lasted but one day, on February 24, promised patrons a “chocolate fantasy like never before.” It was even pricey, about $45 American. Actually, it didn’t even last a full day. By the afternoon it was shut down after severe backlash over its sparsely decorated warehouse, unedited AI scripts, and an ostentatiously adult-sized Oompa Loompa.
i cannot put in words how enchanted I am by the willy wonka fiasco in Glasgow. cops called, kids crying in terror, all in an abandoned warehouse. this is the organic esoteric horror we’ve been missing for ages. a pure lust for chaos no multimillion dollar business could recreate pic.twitter.com/HOHAcB7V4l
— jen (@f0X_j3n) February 28, 2024
One could easily make a delightful musical out of this, just as one could easily take the same idea and milk it for a terrifying horror movie — or, failing that, a Razzie-Hoovering piece of crap like that movie where Winnie-the-Pooh is a murderer.
(Via BBC)