Episode 33 - Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Grab your golden ticket and join our tour of the iconic 1971 film “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” starring Gene Wilder.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
It's the Dearly Departed Podcast, featuringyour host, historian Scott Michaels and filmmaker
Mike Dorsey. All Right, andwelcome to another episode of the Dearly Departed
Podcast. There is no earthly wayof knowing which direction we are going.

(00:30):
Somebody's been watching a movie. I'mMike Dorsey, I'm Scott Michaels, and
this is Dearly Departed Podcast. Andif you couldn't tell, we are doing
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,the classic, the original the well yeah
yeah, I mean yeah, theoriginal movie. It is the original movie.
Yeah, it has to be right, but yeah, yeah. Somebody,

(00:51):
my friend callexually actually suggested that wecall this the Dearly Departed Podcast.
Oh that's good. That's not hatemail, that's like wit, that's like
pun mail. But yeah that's howI think. That's actually how they say
in Boston Departed. You're right,yeah you probably would. Yeah, yeah,
very good, very good. Soundslike we're making fun of Bostoners.

(01:15):
Not at all, not at all. Um, So we uh, some
some housekeeping things were we may beputting ads on this episode. I don't
know, we're trying, we're turningit on. We distribute through pod Bean,
and they have like an AD marketplace. Well we'll see, won't we.
Yeah, so we flipped the switch. We don't know. Maybe an

(01:36):
AD played before this, Maybe itdidn't. We have no idea. No,
probably, well yeah we don't,so we'll see and uh and uh
but yeah, but remember that's youknow, that's how we go living.
So don't if you can sit throughan AD, that'd be really nice.
That's just one, just one.Uh, and of course on uh and
if you want ad free, um, well this maybe ad free if we

(01:57):
failed, but also if it didwork, it is still always it will
always be AD free on our Patreonand our Patreon subscribers keep going up and
up. And we just did anotherspecial we called MINNISO but it was an
hour and a half long episode acouple weeks ago. Just we go over
more current events, deaths and Hollywoodstuff and other and various tripe in various

(02:22):
tripe. Yes, speaking of extrathings, you had an interesting post about
an unsolved murderer in LA history thatI had never heard of. Yeah,
it wasn't it something in frank selectr. Yeah, the I was at David
Olman's house, our mutual friend wholives on Clo Drive. And I met
his niece and she came to I. You know, it was a story

(02:44):
I think I'd heard of before,and then we got to talking about it
and I found out she was whoshe was and uh. And then she
came to the shop and she gaveme this Frankenstein painting that hung in our
hanged I think it's hanged in heruncle's in her uncle's living room and and
it's incredible to do the deep diveand uh, and it was. It's

(03:05):
a pretty fascinating case. So FrankSeletry was the producer. Um got into
the black exploitation thing, most famousfor Blackenstein, which was a riff on
black que law in the early seventies. But then he was he was murdered
and is still an unsolved murder.And and I could officially announce a twenty
thousand dollars rewards. So that wasthat was kind of cool to be involved

(03:25):
in a true crime case. Soabsolutely, I hope something comes of that.
That'd be Really he had been hehad been an attorney. Yes,
Also I think he was involved inlots of different things. It seems like,
yeah, see, I mean,the most curious association with his ex
girlfriend. Her name was Liz Renee, who was a stripper burlesque they would

(03:45):
you know, some would say,and and she was most famous for streaking
down Hollywood Boulevard in publicity for ashow she was going to be opening up
and what's now the Eye of Ourtheater, and she was arrested and charged
with I think it was lude conductor something to that effect. And Frank
Selectry represented her but because of her, and they were boyfriend and girlfriend for

(04:08):
a while. Her ax was MickeyCohen the gangster. So there were all
sorts of like degrees of of ofwho knows what happened to him, because
you know, he was shot inthe head, but there was a screwdriver
there that they used to puncture him, which makes it it wouldn't a fatal
wound, but it makes it soundas if he was tortured first. And

(04:29):
it's just it's really something and andshockingly little information was out there. So
I was really honored to be ableto h to tell the story. And
yeah, it was very nice ofthem to abstind to to do that for
me. So unsolved murder in hishouse and his house was famously had been
previously owned by Well. Now that'sconfusing because he used to live in a

(04:56):
home the Battle of the Ghosts.He lived in in Whitley House, the
Ghostie's House, where he'd correct heit was like one of those old,
you know, quirky sunset boulevard mansionsup in Whitley Heights. But he moved
out and the mansion was torn down. So then he moved into where he
was up in the Hollywood Hills.Um, sort of near that Kretona cult.
You know that's up there. Uh, that was there in the twenties,

(05:17):
and and it's it's it's an oldchapel and everything gets still. It's
another good story. But any oneof the first cults in Los Angeles was
called Krotona with a K. Butthat was it. Like the parking lot
for Kretona is right below his backyard. So um. Anyway, Yeah,
and them the paint in the paintingthat you have, what was the providence

(05:41):
on that? It was his?Yeah, and he it was. It
was the story as it came fromBattle Legosi's home. I don't know how
true that is, but I seeno reason for it not to be.
And he did have all those kindof crazy gothic. Uh uh, you
know, memorabilia, caskets, etcetera. And there is you know,
photoproof of a being in his houseat least, and it was before people

(06:03):
were bragging about memorabilia, you know, trying to pass it off as anything
else. I don't think it wasever even attempted. So you know,
the providences, it was there.And interestingly, because Cindy who gave that
to me, also donated the mirrorthat Zach has in his museum that was
better to goost He's mirror. She'sthe one that gave it. She showed

(06:24):
up on that show Zach was doingand presented her with this this haunted mirror.
And now Zach I think, Ithink they make you sign a waiver
if you look into it. Youcan't sue him if if you get possessed
or something like that, something followsyou home. Yeah yeah, so,
um that's stuff. But but yeah, so that Cindy gave that to Zach
and gave the painting to me,so it was Uh, she's a nice

(06:46):
and generous lady. And I hopesomething comes of it, I really do.
I hope they do it. Soagain at Frank Celetry was murdered in
the Hollywood Hills and it was neverbeen solved, right, and they just
yeah, who knows. Yeah,look it up on my YouTube channel on
a de Leader part online and uhand you will see the video it's it's
at the house and hear the wholestory. It's it's it's anyway. It's

(07:06):
pretty good stuff. I mean,you know, not good for the family,
but right good good for content.So, speaking of Zach, I
can we talked about this a littlebit on the Patreon show, but I
can finally talk about the show I'vebeen doing with Zach Bagans. I've been
I've been the showrunner and I've editeda couple of episodes also for Ghost Adventures

(07:29):
House Calls, which is the newGhost Adventures spinoff, which by the time
this episode comes out will have premieredbecause we're recording this on the eighteenth,
and tomorrow to nineteenth is the worldpremiere on Discovery Plus of that series.
That's exciting. I saw the traileryesterday that you posted. It's really it
looks really good, and I wasrelieved to see a big house because I
was you know, when he goesmy hearted story is going to be like

(07:53):
a one bedroom apartment or something,but to see like a cool proper house,
and there's houses of all sizes.We did eight episodes, so eight
locations, very diverse, and itwas a super interesting, fun series to
produce. So I've been reading HumphreyBogart's biography and I watched Um High Sierra
for the first time. As I'dlike to when I read Hollywood biographies,

(08:15):
I'll watch some of the films asI go along. You know that they
mentioned, so I kind of go, this is where they were in their
life when they did you know thismovie U And that was awesome because they
filmed that actually up in the Sierras. Have you been up there? Yeah?
Well, Um, I made mydocumentary of the Oiler House. The
architecture one was about my house inLone Pine, where my stepmom grew up.
I've been to Lone Pine tons andtons of times. I've and I

(08:39):
in the history of they've filmed overlike three hundred movies and TV shows in
Lone Pine, like all the GreatWesterns, A bunch of them were shot
there. Gunga Din was shot there, like yeah, it's you still see
it in things. It was inthe first Iron Man Movieum was the see
It's you know it stood in forlike Afghanistan or something. So yeah,
nice, well cool. So soyou enjoyed the movie, Yeah, I

(09:01):
see it is great. Yeah,I recommend it. It's it's fascinating because
Bogart, you know, um,he was a B lister in the first
few years of his life. Ittook a long time for him to convince
Warner Brothers that he could be likean A list star. It's kind of
wild to look back on that nowand think of it that way. But
he was just kind of a heavy. He played a heavy in all his
movies. Yeah, and he didn'tget the glamorous death. You know,

(09:22):
he was just good he's dead kindof character. You know. Yeah,
he's he said when I've never developedan appreciation for But how far along are
you in the duck? In thebook, I'm about a third of the
way through. So he's up toHira, is what he's up to now?
Yes, Icierra was the first timetaking a lead role in a major

(09:43):
big you know, in an Alist picture that like established him like,
Okay, he's for real now.Ra was like a major turning point,
is he So he's married to hisfirst wife. Now by then I think
he was married to his second wife, who was a very tumultuous, crazy,
drunken Yeah, house basically from bothof them, you know, wine

(10:05):
bottles, getting thrones at people's headskind of relationship. Yeah, I can,
I can. That's something that's his. And he lived and he lived
with her just north of Sunset Plaza. Um there like a block up now
it's like in a big sixties apartmentcomplex there now. But at the time
of his the house. You know, I say that because the Sierras will

(10:26):
come up again in this conversation.Okay, I don't know that. That's
interesting. I look forward to that. I am older now than Humphrey bog
Are ever wise. What oh mygosh, I know right. He died
when he was fifty nine, andvery soon I will be sixty. So

(10:50):
um so yeah, wow. Whenwhen's your birthday? August? But yeah,
we're both. Here's something that's interesting. My birthday the same day as
Roman Polanski and Vincent BOULIOSI. What, I swear to God, it's crazy
those guys have the same birthday.I know. Wow, you know,
it's it's weird. It's weird.But yeah, sou but that was just

(11:13):
a fact that stumbled upon fairly recentlyabout Bogart, and it's like, oh
my god, those people, youknow, they were doing movies when they
were thirty, and they looked likethey were, you know, eighty,
right, But that's like looking atyour high school yearbook and seeing the faces
of the kids that were seniors andstill they still look older, but they're
only like seventeen, right. Anyway, Um, do you have any hate

(11:37):
mail? You don't, No,I don't, I don't. You know,
they would only be hate comments,and they're really nothing worth mentioning.
It's very disappointing. No more namecalling unless Troy's cut them all off on
me, so maybe that's possible.All right, then let's get into the
main feature, Willy Wonka. It'stime for the main feature. So this

(12:07):
is Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the nineteen seventy one version of the
film, the first film version ofit based on the original book, which
was called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And I thought it was interesting they
changed the name for the film because, in large part because they got Quaker

(12:28):
Oats to fund the film. Thiswas the biggest revelation for me when I
when I found that out, Iwas like, whoa, that's just so.
It was all about then releasing anew candy and they wanted to promote
it, and mel Stewart just said, I know, we'll make a movie.
Right. Yeah, he had herealized. He goes, I have

(12:50):
a movie about a chocolate factory andhere's a major corporation trying to market a
new chocolate candy bar. So thereyou go. I had no idea.
So Quaker Oats put up the moneyfor this thing, and uh and the
story of what happened afterwards is justas fascinating. How you know, Paramount

(13:11):
didn't didn't want it after because itwasn't a success. Uh, And Paramount
got rid of it a couple ofyears later, and nobody wanted it.
So Quaker Oats got it and theydidn't know what they had and within the
Warner got it for like five hundredthousand and he sold it the Warner Brothers.
It's crazy. Yeah, when thewhen the original distribution deal with Paramount
expired in seventy seven, you know, six years afterwards. Yeah, they

(13:31):
didn't see that. They didn't thinkit was valuable enough to renew it's just
nuts because it made some money,but it wasn't a huge it wasn't a
bomb. It just didn't make alot of money. So it was like,
it's it's fascinating. I mean withthose people, they have no idea.
Well, of course it was.Again, it was the days before
DVTs and vhs and and then memorabiliabecame a whole different thing too, So

(13:54):
now you know now probably I knowit's not but just saying like Jane Wilder's
costume probably costs, could you couldfetch as much as the budget of this
movie cost a little bit of anexaggeration, but not that's not that.
Yeah, I think the budget waslike two point eight million. Yeah,
I think maybe three, which eventhen was not was a very small budget.

(14:16):
And that's why they filmed in Germany. Yeah, filmed in Bavaria because
they America was completely out of thequestion with the budget they had, and
they felt like London was too recognizable, too much stuff was getting made there.
And then they looked at Munich andwere like, ah, yeah,
they wanted those timeless anywhere, anymagical kingdom kind of place that was not

(14:39):
you know, even the fashions werequite drabbed. There was nothing really indicative.
Maybe some of the language in themovie was indicative of the time period.
And there were a couple of otherthings I noticed, like antennas.
You know, you wouldn't normally noticeantennas on houses, but when they showed,
like one of the opening scenes,there's all these TV aerials on the
houses and stuff. It's like allthat dates itself somewhat. And uh.

(15:01):
And then I noticed there were ads. They were like um uh, posters
for like Sprite and Luke thansa airway, airlines and stuff like that. So
I did notice a couple of oddsort of nuggets here and there. But
he also when Charlie early on,when Charlie is um looking in the window
of the candy store and then hekind of runs were skips away or whatever

(15:24):
he like, kind of he walkspast a big cigarette billboard. Oh does
he I miss that was seeing akids movie. I love that thing.
They picked the magical, weird,odd kind of anywhere in the world fairytale
landy kind of plays, which youknow, Europe has a lot of the
stuff that survived the war anyway,and uh and uh, and that it

(15:46):
was and I guess they used theuh the Munich. They feel mostly in
Munich, at the Munich Gas Worksand which is still amazingly there. Yeah,
the front gate and the two sidebuildings are still there, and then
kind of the in the deep background, the kind of smoke stacky building is
gone now, but the moh isit Okay? I thought it was all
still there. Okay. Yeah,the side buildings in the front gate are

(16:08):
all still the same though. Andwhen we were prepping for this, I
watched a couple of docs documentaries.I watched The Pure Imagination the story of
Willie Walk and the Chocolate Factory,which was made I think maybe in the
late nineties, possibly early two thousands, and there's a book called with the
same name. And then this wasreally fascinating. There was a series about

(16:30):
twenty years ago called After They WereFamous, I think it was a British
series, and they did one onWalking. They got all five kids to
come back as adults and they tookthem back to Munich and took them back
to the gates and everything. Itwas really really fascinating. Yeah, it
was room, took them back tothe hotel they'd stayed in and had them
reminesque. It was really, really, really fascinating. I'll have to look

(16:52):
at that. I missed that completely. I watched the documented the documentary,
and I did watch it, watchthe movie a couple of times, once
with the commentary. They had allthe kids in it, which was which
was kind of fun to listen to. But I definitely want to I've seen
that. Actually, I remember thatshow because they did it. They did
one with um the Sound of Music, and they brought all the kids back

(17:15):
to Streon, you know where theyshowed him, you know, walking down
the you know, balancing on acertain step and they all these kids and
they're like fifties and sixties are.But it was funny too because for the
reunion, you know, they're alladults now. And Michael Bohlner, who
played the Augustus group, he grewup to be six foot seven. He's

(17:37):
still just giant. I don't thinkhe haardly speaks a word of English either.
He does kind of now, atleast he didn't the thing but they
said back when he filmed the moviehe had he did not know English like
at all. You couldn't say fudgea budge. It came out like weirdly,
and he could not do the f'scorrectly. We started up, you

(17:59):
know, I feel hungry? CouldI had? You know? That was
you know, that was when hewent, how does that make you feel
hungry? He was, But thenagain he had food in his mouth most
of the time, too, sure, but right, right, right right,
but uh but yeah, it's hehad very little to say. But
then he was the first kid togo too, so probably his filming was
you know, I was thinking aboutthat. Yeah, he only had probably

(18:23):
like a dozen lines in the commentary. He hardly spoke at all. But
I do think it's a language thingmore so. But then he didn't have
a lot to reminisce about. Andand as soon as they asked him a
question, the other kids were saying, oh, so, um, you
know, what's the first thing wereyou ever on the set for any of
the other stuff after you left?And he goes, well, and then
of course the kids are like,oh, here's the thing I'm in.

(18:44):
You know, it's like totally cuttinghim off. This guy probably had three
lines in the whole commentary. Butyou know, that's just your actory kind
of thing. Here's something that I'mfascinating that I'm in right here. But
poor guy, no, no,but hey, you know, and while
anyway we're gonna we're gonna get intothe gloops. A little bit later we
mentioned the you know, the WillieWonka candy and you know, the Quaker

(19:07):
Roads connection and all that, andyou can't I don't think you can get
the Wonka bars anymore. I thinkthey discontinued them years ago, possibly but
apparently. But the irony was whenthey first put the bars out. Apparently
there was something wrong with the formula, which it's just so ironic considering it's
Wonka and they I think the problemwas that they were melting on the shelves
basically okay, and so they hadto pull them. So here's their big

(19:30):
three million dollar promotional movie that they'vecreated to launch this candy bar with,
and there's no candy bars on theshelves because they screwed up the design of
them. Basically, that's wild andQuake Roads had hung onto the movie,
they'd have made their money back,you know, two thousand folds. Yeah,
it's it's uh, that's quite Imean, it's probably made tens of

(19:52):
millions of dollars by now, becauseeasily just like what you know when we
talk about UM it's a wonderful lifekind of similar thing. Not a huge
hit when it came out, butthen when TV syndication came around, when
to sort of airing it on TVevery year, and VHS came out and
everything, it was like this wholemarket popped up and made these movies bigger
than they were. Yeah, whenI first came out. Yeah, did

(20:15):
you ever watch the two thousand andfive remake with Johnny Depp? I did,
you know? And I even boughtit, but I haven't watched it
since I bought it. But Iremember liking it enough to buy it.
But I can't say I remember muchabout it, just that he was a
very well I could. I rememberthat. I couldn't stop thinking he looked
like Michael Jackson vividly. But butno, I don't remember much about the

(20:36):
movie. Really, I don't either. But all I really remember, and
I know I saw it, butI remember I was working at the Jim
Hinson studio a lot at the time, and they had their rap party or
their premier party or something big partythere for that movie, and the big
courtyard that's in the middle of JimHinson Studios they converted to look like the
set. Wow. And I havephotos that all put up on the video

(20:57):
version of this podcast so you cansee it. I found the old photos
I took that was like two thousandand five. Awesome. I look forward
to seeing those. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really cool. And
they're making another Wonka film that comesout next year with Timothy Shalomi. I
don't know who that is. He'sgreat. Shalom has been at tons of
stuff. He was in the Homelandseries for a season, but he's most

(21:21):
famous. He was an Interstellar,but probably most famous. He really kind
of hit his stride with Ladybird.He plays kind of the the love interest
in Ladybird, the kind of badboy love interest, I guess. And
he's the star of Call Me byYour Name. And he was in the
New Little Women remake they did acouple of years ago. He was just
in the French Dispatch, He's inthe New Dune movie, and now he's

(21:42):
in what they're just calling it Wonka. It's gonna be the name of the
film. Is it the same storyabout, you know, Willy Wonka opening
up his chocolate factory or I thinkit's like it's like a prequel. It's
like young Willy Wonka. Okay,well that'll be dark. I'm sure.
I guess it's interesting because you know, Roald Dahl, we're going to talk
about who's the author of the originalbook. He I don't think he wrote

(22:04):
any of that, any of thatstory. He wrote a sequel book that
was never made into a movie,and he started writing a third book that
he never finished. They put outlike one pair, like one chapter of
it. Yeah, so this issomeone else's, you know, completely someone
in difference, you know, imaginingof what the prequel would be. I
guess, but I don't I don'tknow. Well, I'm sure they're going

(22:26):
to be compensated for that the dollars. I love the cast, Timothy Shallowme,
Olivia Coleman, Keegan, Michael Key. That's you know, it's fantastic
cast. Hopefully they Rowan Atkinson's in. Its awesome. That's awesome. I
just wanted to point out we're talkingabout the Munich Gas works where they filmed
it, and there's that scene,a really haunting scene at the very beginning,

(22:48):
where you know, Charlie buckets walkingin his nighttime and he walks to
the front gate and he sees thetow or the big smokestack with the Wonka,
which apparently wasn't really there. Theylike painted it on frame by frame
on the film itself or on thenegative. But um, he's sitting there
and then and then all of asudden, out of nowhere, this like
guy with this noisiest possible cart onthe planet, which wasn't there. When

(23:11):
he shows up, turns around,it gives a whole scary speech about you
know, the little men, uh, the fear of little men or something
like that, and then he doesthat famous nobody ever comes in, nobody
ever comes out, which is sucha great set up for that place.
Um and except for except for nowwe know slug Worth he must have gone
in and out because because you know, he worked for Willy Wonka. So

(23:36):
up. Uh So yeah, thatwas that. But I just thought that
was kind of kind of funny andinteresting about the tinker who because he turns
around, it moves, and he'sgot like it's like he's got a whole
thing of tin garbage cans and stuff. But he wasn't there at first,
So it's kind of funny but magic. Yeah. So um so Mel Stewart

(23:56):
was the director, and he madethe movie because his daughter Madaline liked the
book basically, and that has happenedso many times, I feel like in
Hollywood history where the kid gets theirparents to do something, usually sometimes as
an actor or whatever. But shereally liked it, and m her and
one of his other sons appear inthe movie. Right Peter, He the

(24:18):
son Peter Stewart is in the candystore when um, he goes scrum dible,
umptuous bar? How does he doit? I think that's Peter.
And then Madaline, I think isin I think she's in Charlie's class.
She's in the black and white stripedkind of sweater. And when the teacher
asked how many candy bars each kidbought so they can talk about percentages,

(24:40):
she's the first one to answer.She says she bought a hundred, and
then Charlie gets shamed because he's poorand he only bought two. Two.
Yeah, well, Peter, youknow Tony that I used to work for
Peter Stewart. He was my oldboss in England. What I know?
Right, So all that I wasworking on a show called Eurotrash and which

(25:02):
was a culty kind of show andthe company is called Repeato, and then
I worked on a couple of otherthings with them. I was one was
called Unzipped and one was called RockBabylon. But I found out that my
boss was Peter Stewart. So Igot to talking to Peter and he's like,
oh, yeah, well, mydad, you know, this is
before the internet. The internet juststarted because we're using it all the time
for the research. But but buthe told me that, you know,

(25:25):
my dad was Mel Stewart, andhe told me that his dad, capp
Gene Wilder's hat still had it anduh and um. But it was funny
because I was I had taped videotapedthe copy of Marilyn Manson's um video called
Dope Hat, and it was itwas like ninety five that that that that

(25:45):
came out and it's a total It'slike Marilyn Manson on the boat. The
whole scene on the boat is redone. It's really well done too, with
Opa Loompa's in costume. The wholebit really well done. And Peter had
never seen it before. So Iwas, oh, no, you gotta
check this out. You can checkit over and he's like, oh,
that's my dad's thing, So itwas kind of it was kind of funny,
but uh, but yeah, Peterwas Peter was an interesting man,

(26:08):
and uh, and I enjoyed.I don't Repeato went under. I don't
know whatever happened to him after that, but but I remember that's how that
by Christian party that year, Igot to hang out and have drinks with
Richard Branson because Richard Branson was partof the one of the people that owned
Repeato. He was like one ofthe partners. It was a bizarre time,
it really was. But working onEurotrash was a lot of fun.

(26:30):
That was a that was a greatshow. Did Peter tell you anything else
about the movie? Or did yearsthey were talking about Wonka, I found
out that they didn't. He andMel had a very complicated relationship, so
it was not And Peter was avery intense individual. So he was one
of those guys that if you caughthim at a good time, it was
really good. Uh, it'd becauthim a bad time. It's just just

(26:52):
yeah, it was. It's verytense sometimes. So no, I didn't,
it didn't come up very much.It didn't come I wish I would
have known more so now I wouldhave been a bit more aggressive with the
questioning. But but I don't know. It was kind of cold to be
able to talk to him for abit about it. Anyway. Um,
his sister who's in the film,Madeline, I think she's a respected interior
designer now in Los Angeles. Ohshe lived here. Okay, yeah,

(27:15):
I believe so, Yeah, Iwonder, I wonder if Peter's still in
England. He's got to be wellanyway, Yeah, interesting, but yeah,
So the kid comes up with thebook and says, you got to
do this, and our uncle isa David Walper, the producer, he
could put up the money for it. Like the little ten year old's going
to say that I'm gonna I'm gonnapackage this deal for your dad. You

(27:38):
can get financing from me. Butbut uh, but yeah, anyway,
but yeah, mel mel Stewart wasah. I didn't know that he directed
the TV show um Ripley's Believe Itor Not either And that was a big
staple on American television, which lendsinto this whole wacky kind of Willie Wonka

(28:00):
feel. You know, all theseweird sort of things different shapes and sizes
and unbelievable and etc. So Yeah, he was mainly a TV director and
producer guy, and this is definitelythe biggest thing he did. But he
also did the Oscar nominated documentary FourDays in November, which was about the
JFK assassination. Oh was it cameout? Which came out like the year

(28:22):
after JFK was assassinated. It waslike an early film on it. Yeah,
he was the director of that.Hm. Wow, good timing anyway?
Was Mel? He passed away onAugust ninth, two twelve. He
was eighty three years old. Hehad melanoma. Scrum diddle, i'mptious,
how does he do it? Scrumdiblely, i'mpshous he had, Yeah,

(28:45):
he had the hat and I lookedit up. He had he had sold
the or the hat sold in twothousand and twelve or seventy four thousand,
Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka hat. SoMel had it. I think it was
the only prop he had. Infact, I did ask that and he
did tell me that his dad hadthe hat. But otherwise, um,
but yeah, seventy four k whoknew well and um Julie don Cole who

(29:10):
played Ruca Salt, who's still alive. I think she took one of the
golden eggs, because that's her bigscene where she exits is the geese laying
the golden eggs. She took agolden egg. I think she kept her
gob Stopper and her golden ticket SmartGirl with her, and I think two
of those were I saw were sold. Had an auction years ago for like

(29:32):
fifteen thousand pounds, seventeen thousand poundssomething like that. The gobstrapper I heard
they went from forty kum. Ohreally, yeah, that's what I heard.
I was I was looking. Itried looking him up on that Heritage
auction site because they, I know, the whole Willi Wonka outfit. They
had him one piece and that soldtoo. I think that was eighty thousand.
Not the hats, but this theshirt, you know, the coat,

(29:53):
The shirt and the pants and thehat was sold separate. I'd be
bound, wouldn't it to have that, like the costume and not the hat.
That would suck exactly all right,We'll rest in peace. Mel Stewart
and the novel was based off ofthe great children's author Roald Dahl, who

(30:15):
I've seen his name pronounced multiple times. I've seen it pronounced Rold. I've
seen rowled, yeah, and thenI've seen a kind of ruled ruled.
It was Norwegian, so it's probablysome pronunciation we aren't accustomed to. Yeah,
I'm going by the people in thecommentary who knew him and dealt with
them, and they were saying,there you go. But yeah, he

(30:36):
was a complicated man as well.He was very complicated. He was sorry.
He was six foot six, He'sa very tall guy, and it's
very odd he flew fighter planes.He was a fighter pilot in World War
Two, which is very unusual forsomeone of his height to be stuffed into
the cockpit of a fighter. Imean, I've known World War Two fighter
pilots and most of them were short, short guys. Interesting, they're in

(30:57):
crapped situations, so it's kind ofunusual. I don't Maybe for the Brits
maybe it wasn't as unusual. Butyeah, he got injured a few times,
he survived a crash, and heknew Um. Seems like everybody knew
this guy in the war. Heknew Ian Fleming, who created James bond
Oh, who also wrote Shitty ChittyBang Bang, who I think Rold worked

(31:18):
on the script for that. Didn'tHe who wrote the screenplay for Yeah,
and Rold also wrote You Only LivedTwice screenplay for it. So yeah,
so that I mean the stuff thatI mean. But he wrote really dark
stuff. I mean, you know, the Matilda and the Witches, I
mean those were and Tales from Ithink it was Tales, the Unexpected Hitchcock
stuff that, you know, it'sall he wrote some really dark set up.

(31:41):
He liked, like children's stuff that, but it was had a dark
edge to it. Yes. Yeah, he wrote James and the Giant Peach.
He wrote Fantastic Mister Fox. Hewrote the BFG. I mean those
are all vall been you know,adapted, and yeah, I guess,
I mean it probably has something todo because I was looking him up and
if i'd saw the kid that wasfour months old and hit by a taxi

(32:02):
and it developed like this brain fluidcondition. And then he had a daughter
that died of measles. Yeah.Yeah. And then he was married to
Patricia Neil for thirty years and shehad like I'm not laughing, it's not
funny, but she had like threecerebral aneurisms which she was pregnant. I
mean she was talking about I rememberwhen she used to do those Annison commercials

(32:25):
for for Aspirant back in the inthe in the seventies. But it was
like girl needed it because she bothrough she she uh yeah. And if
you don't know Patricia Neil was shewas in the day there should stood still
a face in the crowd Breakfast aTiffany's hud, which she won the Best

(32:45):
Actress Oscar for. Yeah. Andshe played Olivia Walton in the in the
first Walton's movie, Yeah, Homecoming, and didn't didn't reprise it for the
series, but was in like themovie the pre movie Yeah yeah yeah.
Um. She also I read shewon a Tony at the first ever Tony
Awards. Oh yeah, and wasthe last surviving winner from that first class

(33:06):
of winners at the first Evertony Awards. Not anymore, there's some tribute for
you. Not alive anymore though,um years. It's interesting getting back to
Wanka dall Uh was supposed to bethe screenwriter and is the only credited screenwriter

(33:28):
on Willie Walk in a Chocolate Factory. Um, but I guess he never
really finished the screenplay. Mainly justkind of wrote an outline and kept referencing
pages of the book and he quit. Are he quit? Are you think
because he just hated it? Yeah? Well, and then what happened was
they brought in a replacement screenwriter andDall didn't like the changes that he and

(33:50):
Mel Stewart made to the story,and so he disowned the film. Dall
disowned it, and that was it. Yeah, But they wouldn't give the
other guy, Steve David Seltzer.They wouldn't give him a credit screen credit,
right because they had to look likeit was all Roll Doll. They
wanted Doll's name for the marketing tobe the screenwriter, even though he really
ended up not writing it. Sowhatever, Yeah, exactly I was reading

(34:15):
I got there was a list theysay that, um now where I got
this from? But it says thatthere are eight main rules he applied on
all of his children's books. Didyou see this list? I don't think
so. No. Number one,just add chocolate. Number two. Adults
can be scary, which is thatMatilda movie that's one with Danny DeVito,

(34:36):
isn't it They played really awful likeparents? Or I don't remember. Three
bad things happen. This is allin kids books for Revenge is sweet.
Five, keep a wicked sense ofhumor. Six pick perfect pictures. Not
quite sure what that means. Sevenfilms are fun, but books are better.
And number eight food is fun,but bad things happened, adults can

(34:59):
be ay, I mean, andrevenge is sweet. There's you know,
those are kids books that don't usuallyget written. So but good for him,
I mean, you know, forall as him as a human being.
You know, I've heard rumors abouthim not being such a nice guy.
I don't know, because when Iwas doing the actual research, I
couldn't find many examples of him notbeing a very nice guy. Um.

(35:22):
Yeah, he I think he hadsome kind of racist leanings at least of
course, you know, he certainlywould not be acceptable now. Um the
the oopa loopas were you know,black pygmy characters in his book apparently,
and and Melsterer was like, we'renot doing that. Yeah, in our
movie, We're going to make themorangs with green hair, you know,
from the land of Oupaopa or fromLupa land. Um. But yeah,

(35:45):
I don't know. Yeah, theydo say there was a lot of uh
they say, a lot of antiSemitic uh references in his publications, and
his family did come out and apologizeafter he was dead for his you know
action. So he was a geniusas a writer, and you know,
like a lot of people nowadays,they in retrospect, you realize that a

(36:07):
lot of the things they wrote weren'tvery nice. Um and hopefully it doesn't
overshadow the good things. You know, those they should be addressed. I
don't think they should be removed becausethey're indicative of a time period. But
as long as they're acknowledged, youknow, it's like it's like watching on
Netflix. Now there's cigarettes in thismovie, you know what I mean.
It's like the commentary is not indicativeof how I feel or how the company

(36:30):
feels. You know, these areI mean, I think a simple disclaimer.
I'm not going to say that thatthat relinquishes any responsibility. But how
can you say I don't like thatand I like this. It's like removing
removing little bits of things that youdon't like because they make you uncomfortable.
I guess that's yeah, that's that'swhat it's all about. So but his

(36:51):
family has acknowledged that and apologized forthat, and yeah, and you can
adapt, like as they have prettymuch all his films. You can adapt
it and cut out the parts thatare yes, that have not aged well
or not acceptable anymore, and thestory is still good. Yeah yeah,
Um. So he passed away onNovember twenty third, nineteen ninety. He
was only seventy four. He hadmy my alot man my lotus plastic syndrome.

(37:19):
It's probably horribly mispronounced. It's arare cancer of the blood, basically
cancer. He had cancer, Mike, Yeah, he was seventy four cancer.
Don't ask me for details. Umand uh, he said, just
had chocolate, and they did.When they buried him. He was buried
with chocolates, among other really howinteresting. And I think in the book

(37:39):
he imagined that the the Wonka's chocolatewould be kind of like the Cadbury chocolate.
It's very creamy, milky. Youknow. It's funny because they take
that ship very seriously over there inBritain. They do because because cadbury is
made by like Hershey, here inAmerica, the Cadbury's actually a Cadbury.
There's you know, it's a factorythat makes it a certain in Europe and

(38:00):
uh and uh, but but thecabir Here's is substandards to the Cabury over
there, which is interesting. Theythink that's up very seriously. Really,
Cadbury eggs are like my top threefavorite candies. Yeah, and I think
I flew through the airport in Londonyears ago and I remember it wasn't Easter
time and they had Cadbury eggs forsale. Yeah, and I was like,

(38:22):
wait, wait wait you sell theseyear round here, the little tiny
ones. Yeah yeah, yeah,well there's whatever. Yeah. It was
like, oh man, we canonly get those in the easter. Yeah,
you gotta like somebody. Also,they m like, we do chocolate
bunnies over here. They do eastereggs like Violet, Like I'm sorry,
like Arucas, you know, thebig eggs that are chocolate hollow with stuff

(38:43):
inside it. That's their thing,like ours are the chocolate bunnies. But
that's what they do over there.It's just um oh, it's a different
world, a different world. Wellrest in peace, rolled doll. Yeah,
and I and I did do aquick quick look at I know we
shaid work to talk about him,but I did want to mention that David
Seltzer. I don't know if youkept any of that information, but you

(39:06):
know, Seltzer was the guy whenRabald Dahl was kind of on the outs,
they got David Seltzer and to dothe writing and he wouldn't get credit,
but I guess they're going to producea movie for him as a favor
or something like that. He endedup doing the Omen and punchline. But
he's the guy that decided that Slugworthwas going to be a proper villain in

(39:28):
the movie because he wasn't a characterin the book that was a very villainous
character. Yeah, they said therewere no villains really in the story and
they needed one. Yeah, youknow, so as I understand that Seltzer
was the one. He did it. And then filming, I guess supposedly
rapped or at least for him,and he told the story about him going
to some remote island or something wherethere was like one telephone in the whole

(39:51):
village, and it was like yeah, And they finally chased him down because
they needed a line for the endof the movie, which it sounds like
it's been dramatic side the tiny bit, but yeah, but we need a
line, we need a line.And he said that Happily ever after,
and like genius, genius, whathappened to the boy who got everything he
wanted. He lived definitely rid.Oh my god, it's yeah, I
don't know if that's I mean again, people take you know, it's like

(40:14):
the kids were talking about it.That took me thirty six takes well,
you know, no, I'm sureit didn't. You know, probably two
and you remember thirty six. Butif people get prone to exaggeration. But
David Seltzer is still He's still alive. He um wrote the Omen and Burnt
on a Wire and um the nineto the classic nineteen eighty eight comedy Punchline,

(40:42):
the stand up comedy one Yeah,Yeah, Yeah, and Shining Through
with Melan Griffith and Michael Douglas.I'm just reading his Wikipedia page at this
point. But because he's not dead, so we weren't going to talk about
him. But yeah, well yeah, so he did. He contributed quite
a bit to the to the movie, and I think he said during a
documentary that he'd never really done somethinglike this writing wise, he had not
taken on a project like this before, and he was kind of panicked because

(41:06):
he's like, I've made all thesepromises I can do this, and I
have no idea what I'm doing Ithink he did a good job. I
think it's a great script. Yeah, I wonder. Yeah, it'd be
curious to know how much exactly whatwas his contribution and what they kept from
Roobul Dalds. You know. Sowe weren't really going to go into the
producers, but I did want tomention two things about them because there is

(41:28):
an interesting story with them. StanMargolis and David Wolper were the producers,
and Wolper was kind of like thehead of it was his company. It
was like Wolper Productions, I thinkor something, and Stan was his like
his VP, and they produced theRoots mini series. They Wolper was also
responsible for helping to bring the Olympicsto Los Angeles and eighty four and he

(41:52):
produced the opening and closing ceremonies forthe eighty four Olympics in LA which I
thought was cool. He has astar on the Walk of Fame. But
here's why I mentioned the Sierras atthe top of the podcast. So he
um they were producing a documentary seriescalled primal Man about you know, early
Man, and they were they hada big crew working up in the Sierras,

(42:14):
filming up in the mountains. Itwas supposed to be like the Mountains
of Tibet or something like that.I care they were. There was something
with a tiger, and they broughta tiger up there for this thing.
And long story short, the wholecrew gets on a chartered flight out of
Bishop to fly down to Burbank becausethey're done filming and they got to be
filming somewhere else, you know.A couple of days later down in La

(42:34):
and their plane takes off from theairport and Bishop and crashes into a ridge
on in the Sierras and kills.Everybody was Wolper on it. Nope,
Wolper and stand, I think we'reback in La because they were the exact
kid. So they were a story. And all thirty one members of their
crew that were on the airplane died. Wow. And then and that was
in seventy four. It's referred toas the primal Man crash. So this

(43:00):
is Mike pausing the conversation for amoment because after we recorded this episode,
we learned something kind of interesting aboutone of the victims of this primal Man
plane crash that was part of thisdocumentary crew, and it was a makeup
artist named Rolfe Miller and Rolfe wasalso a makeup artist on one hundred and

(43:22):
fourteen episodes of Bewitched, which wasthe subject of our last episode, and
he also received an Emmy nomination forworking on that series. So this is
just one of several odd Bewitched connectionsto Willy Wonka that you know, we
didn't really realize until we've set outto do this. So back to the

(43:43):
show, and it is one ofonly three crashes. I don't know if
this is true, but I readone of only three crashes that the NTSB
is investigated that are still considered unsolved. They don't know why it crashed into
the mountain. How long after thetakeoff? Do you think it could have
been very low? Right, Theywere still ascending, they were still climbing,

(44:04):
and they just didn't They didn't climbat at the correct rate for some
reason. But they were in thepilots were in contact with the tower and
there was no reports of, oh, something's going wrong. They just flew
into a mountain. It was nighttime, so that you know, I'm sure
contributed, but they I mean assumed. I guess pilot error, but you
don't. You don't know what thereason for the pilot error, was like,
why didn't they just what happened?Yeah, I wonder if they,

(44:27):
I mean, if it's unsolved,they still have all that happen somewhere,
I'm sure. I wondered if they, you know, since it's taken so
long, maybe they just kind ofyou know, brushed it aside. But
it's probably all still intact somewhere.Maybe I would imagine, so imagine,
you know, forensically, now thatthey know I know, DNA wise it
won't make any difference. But Iwonder if they, you know, with
all the terrorism it's happened and everything, they could look at it with a

(44:50):
fresh set of eyes. I thinkthat sometimes it's just a matter of the
only people that know were the twopilots, and yeah, and that's that
secret was lost with them, youknow. Yeah. But what wasn't lost
was they were able to recover thefilm footage from the wreckage filmed and they
used it and they they they theseries was broadcast and some of that last

(45:14):
footage that they shot up in theSierras was used. Um I think correctly
they said, you know, thisis what the crew would want. It
was the last thing they ever workedon. A bunch of artists. You
know that you would want you know, it's tragedy. At least the last
thing they did made it to air, right, Um did the tiger?
The tiger must have been on it. Then the tiger. I think the
tiger maybe caught another flight. Idon't know. Tiger probably flew back to

(45:36):
Vegas. Um, so the question, you know, Tony the Tiger.
Tony the Tiger lived. Uh StanMargolis passed away on February twenty seven,
two thousand and one, from lungcancer. He was eighty and Wolper died

(45:57):
on August tenth, twenty ten,eighty eight, two years old, from
congestive heart disease and Parkinson's. Soyeah, man, I loved my air
disasters. I hate flying, Soyeah, I love reading about him.
And I also wanted to mention HarperGoff, who was the art director who
built designed that amazing set. Yes, because he was such a character.

(46:22):
He was the set designer for CasaBlanca. He he back before Disneyland was
a thing. He met Walt Disneyat a model train shop in London.
They were both model train geeks,and Walt Disney recognized Goff's some illustrations he
had done for Esquire magazine and waskind of like, hey, you know,

(46:44):
next time you're in La or whatever, look look me up. And
he did. And Goff did thefirst artist renderings of Disneyland, and he's
he was dubbed the second Imagineer washis name, so and he also helped
designed the Jungle Book Cruise and HauntedMansion rides there. He also did designs
for twenty thousand Leagues Under the Seaum and was kind he's credited as kind

(47:07):
of the father of steampunk design.So that's the guy that designed that amazing
chocolate room set at the heart ofWilly Wonka with the river of chocolate and
all that. Yeah, that wasincredible. And they had, as I
understand they well, they waited muchlike when they when they did the Goonies
and they didn't tell any of thekids they were going to go onto the

(47:29):
sound stage and see that spectacular setof that ship ship. And they did
the same thing with these kids.They just kept it apparently, uh you
know that's what they say. Theykept it quiet. And when they opened
up the door, that's their genuinereaction. And say, when when they
saw the imp Olympus for the firsttime. Apparently they were not notified what
that was. I would have beenlike, what the fuck? It would

(47:54):
have ruined the whole take, Iknow, right, but it would have
been you know, but there wasThey weren't saying that as a as a
an exclamation at that point, butI'd be like, they'd be cutting me
off like a wow, and I'llbe going, yeah, you can't say
f you can't say the F word, and yet are I think our both
our favorite quote from the movie iswhen when Rucas Sault says, I want

(48:16):
it now, what's the matter withthose plots down there? Well, honestly,
she does say twerp. She doessay twerp. Does it does sound
like, yeah, it sounds likeplots exact? No, I'm not,
I'm not. I'm not at allarguing with you because I didn't even know

(48:37):
twerp was a word over there.I knew it was a word here,
but I asked. I asked myfriend Ann, and I got you know,
I lived there for I don't knowX amount of years, and I'm
like, I've never heard that expressionin my life. She goes, oh,
yeah, my dad used to callme that. When I was a
kid. It was a you know, sort of a sort of you're an
idiot, but in a loving,lighthearted way. Not you know, don't
be stupid, don't be daft,don't be a twerp. And so yeah,

(48:59):
that is what she's saying. Butit sure sounds like twat to me.
It doesn't. I thought, maybeit's a British thing. Maybe they
wasn't a bad word back then.Really, they won't even say that on
TV. You know, they'll saythe F word on TV in England,
but not but not the not thedreaded tw word. But it was no.
I took that same video like yousent it to me. I honestly

(49:20):
got to think that very same videoinstead to a friend of mine, I
go, is she really saying this? Come on? Oh my god?
Um so her Harper Goff, theart director. He passed away on March
third, nineteen ninety three. Hewas eighty one from heart failure. He
was posthumously named a Disney Legend,which is a big honor. You know,

(49:43):
the Disney world. Um, andthere is a window in adventure Land,
you know how they some of theirwritings on the windows in Disneyland,
like you know, the main streetand stuff are dedicated to certain people.
It's like kind of mode. Thereis a window in adventure Land that reads
Oriental tattooing by Professor Harper Goff,and the lower pain reads banjo lessons.

(50:04):
He was a banjo player and howthey're traveling kind of jazz band. He
played banjo in Okay, So lookaround for that and see if you can
find that. That is Professor HarperGooff. Harper Goff is the guy that
helped design Disneyland and designed Wonka CoolCool. Yeah, the the Nautilus from
twenty thousand leagues. I mean thatis an incredible That submarine is a fascinating,

(50:27):
incredible design. So yeah, hedid some pretty pretty amazing things and
they say that what well, soGene Wilder said that a third of that
set was edible, but you know, I mean, that's just that's a
bit silly, but i'd be butall that stuff that was going on,
I mean, the ship and andthe uh and the waterfall, the chocolate
waterfall that was actually just colored water, I guess, but they you know,

(50:51):
they just put um and all theedible sort of everything. You know,
it looked so good and even thekids were saying when they're watching it,
they're saying, this looks fantastic,and it doesn't even come close to
the way it looked. You know, it was so absolutely stunning how how
everything looked, and uh, yeah, I know he has a has an

(51:14):
incredible job in that, down tothe ship and everything. It was wow.
Yeah, it's to cut that.For that to come out of somebody's
brain, you know, that islike wild goods. Make it work.
Yeah. Michael bold Bohner, whoplayed Augustus who had to go get in
the water, said it was coldand stink. Yeah, I believe it.

(51:35):
I wonder what they what they diedit with? Um, I mean
what they died. They ended uphaving to pour some type of solution into
it was a bleach or something andto get the smell to go away because
it was just like I guess itgot can overpowering. Maybe they has like
real milk or something. Maybe Idon't know, but he he yeah,
when he had and he said hehad to fall in like six different times.
But he did say that that thatbit about him getting stuck in that

(51:58):
tube was kind of interesting. Howthey you know, they they you know,
he's the one that blew up intothe uh, you know, the
pressure blew up, and all theGilder's like, what did you say?
Something like, oh, the pressure, you know, the tensions building up.
I hope it lasts or something.Yeah, yea, he says the
tension is intolerable or something like that, I hope it lasts. There's so
many great little likes night, youknow, like side out of the side

(52:20):
of the mouth lines that he says. They're so great, which which is
a huge part of the appeal ofthis movie because growing up so as kids,
you don't know those things right anduh, and you know, you
just find it really fun and mysteriousbecause Willy Wonka is this wacky character.
But as adults you're watching it andyou know, could you say that a
little louder next time? A trywill deafen this year? And all the

(52:43):
parent yeah, and all they andall the parent actors get little lines like
that too that you might not noticeif you know you're not paying close attention.
Um, yeah, it's funny.Um. So both songwriters that wrote
the music for it, I'm gotOscar Nams out of this one, and
Leslie Bricus also wrote you Only LivedTwice, and they can You Read My

(53:07):
Mind love theme from the Superman movie, and Anthony Newley was his his writing
partner on it, and he wrotethe music stopped the World I Want to
Get Off, And he wrote thehit Feeling Good, which was, you
know, the one covered by NinaSimone so famously and it's been covering must
time since then. Um. Andwhat's interesting is Newley was friends with Sammy

(53:28):
Davis Junior, and both Davis andNewly himself wanted the role of the candy
Man in the Candy Shop in thebeginning of the movie. And then Sammy
Davis Junior, of course ends uprecording his own cover of the Candy Man's
song Yeah, and that ends upbeing Sammy Davis Junior's only number one Billboard
hit ever in his whole career.That's yeah, that's what I heard.

(53:51):
That he really wanted to be inthe movie, and they just know,
we just gotta we had to suspendreality in your Biggest Star. I think
Peter Sellers wanted it to and uh, and we just can't. We can't
do that. So it's very interesting. And then I was also reading that
leslie Bercouse. I think it wasjust I wrote with gold Goldfinger with Anthony

(54:12):
Newley the lyrics to Goldfinger and likeyou said, the Only Only Lived Twice
both Bond themes, which goes backto Ian Fleming, which goes back to
Raoul Dahl, which is crazy right. Yeah. So he also wrote Guide
to the Married Man, which hewrote with the with John Williams, the
famous composer for the movie The BeachBoys sang it and the Victor Victorian music.
Um did that too, and hewanted to ask her for best original

(54:37):
song Talked to the Animals. Ithink it's what it was from Doctor Doolittle.
Oh really yeah, um. AndBurkas's wife was a Vaughan every Romaine
who starred with Elvis in Double Trouble. Okay, interesting it was an Elvis
connection as well. Yeah, theseguys are swinging in sixties people. Yeah,
there they were. Yeah, Iknow, I know Newly was for
sure. Yeah. Um so Um. Leslie Burkas on October nineteenth, twenty

(55:00):
twenty one, I just recently passedaway. He was ninety and was old
age and newly passed away back inninety nine. On April fourteenth, nineteen
ninety nine, he was only sixtyseven. He had renal cancer. He
was. Now, this is interestingand you'll like this actually, because we
know we always got to go backto this point. Anthony Newley was married

(55:22):
to Joan Collins. Anthony Newley,Uh was attended a Roman Plansky in Charon
Tate's wedding. I knew you weregoing Manson, I knew, I knew
they did. Anthony Newley and uhand Joan Collins. We're friends with Sharon
in Roman and went to their weddingin London at the at the well,
the reception was at the at thePlayboy Club. But but yeah, they

(55:45):
were there, and uh, AnthonyNewley was also here's a here's a piece
of bizarre trivia for you. Hewas probably the second most famous person immortalized
by Cynthia plaster Caster. Oh reallywe who we talked about just on our
Patreon only episode. Yeah, froma couple of weeks ago. Plaster Caster,

(56:07):
the famous groupie who would take plastercasts of so called famous rock musicians.
Although the most famous one she didwith Jimi Hendrix. Yeah, their
penises she would play. She wouldcast their penises, not their whole bodies,
right and and and yeah, AnthonyNewley was. There was Hendricks,
and there was Anthony Newley and therest of them were just kind of like
you know, other bands, butthose were the those are the two big

(56:30):
ones. But Anthony Newley was wasa complicated guy. He was also when
Doctor Doolittle with Rex Harrison and hthere's a lot of sexual exploits which I
don't really get either because I rememberhim from the talk show circuit when he
talked. I know his voice wasdifferent early on when he did that song
from Uh Stop the World, Whatkind of wool am I? I was

(56:52):
listening to that today and it wasn'tso bad, but I remember him,
like in the seventies of late seventiesdoing that. The way he spoke,
the way he sang was like thatreal. I mean, it was so
exaggerated of a vibrato. It wasit was, it was. It was
distracting. Um it was not pleasant, but he was, you know,
an amazing talent. Apparently in Englandhe was huge and and and Anthony Newley

(57:15):
died on April fourteenth, nineteen ninetynine, in Florida of renal cancer.
Yeah, he was only sixty seven. Livehart die young, right, right,
that's swinging sixty seventies music scene,all right, let's do the cast
and you you start with uh withuh one of the greats, Gene Wilder

(57:35):
as Willy Wonka. Yeah, yeah, he was, he was, and
I did I didn't, you know, doing the research, and I didn't
know he was in Bonnie and Clyde. You know, I had no idea
he was in Bonnie and Clyde.I haven't seen that movie in many years.
But yeah, neither that Ye Dunawayand Warren Beatty. You know,
it's a shock to me, souh but yeah, um uh. Fred

(57:59):
Astaire wanted the Walker role, wasone of many actors that wanted it,
but they judged he was I thinkhe was in his seventies by this point.
It was just a little too tooold for the character. And Peter
Seller supposedly begged Roll Doll for thepart, and I didn't get it.
Um. They held casting, youknow, they held auditions, and they
said that when Wilder walked in,like two or three sentences in, they

(58:22):
were like, he's the guy,and they basically they they they before he
left, they offered him the role. It was like done. The likes
he's Wonka. There's it's something abouthim and I don't and I probably said
this before. I have like twostories and I repeat them over and over
again. But in London, Imet him and he was doing a show
in London. I went to seeand I went backstage and met him,

(58:44):
and I you know, I onlyI knew him. Of course I knew
who he was. This had havebeen in the late nineties and uh,
and I remember, you know,that's like I was seen Wilder. Didn't
really care because because they didn't reallythink much of him. I liked him,
don't get me wrong. But anyway, when I met him, it
was like bam. His eyes.I mean it was incredible. It just
it was and it sounds so weirdto say this, but they were like

(59:06):
magical eyes. Like you looked andyou just I'll say this and it sounds
wanky, but you could just seeyou see he was good. By looking
in his eyes, there was somekind of weird twinkle. They were so
so very blue. But honestly,guy, it was like a feeling.
I got this guy's a good guy. And uh, it's just it's just
weird. But he but he butthat's I'm sure that's what they saw in

(59:28):
him. You know. It wasjust the magic in his eyes and he
did have incredible eyes. And thekids on the movie all loved him,
the kid actors, they all saidthat, which they you know, looking
back, they were like, youknow, someone was always wanting to be
next to him or sit on hislap or whatever, and he never got
tired of it, you know,he was never like, please give me
something, give me some time tomyself for a second. Um. So,

(59:49):
yeah, I haven't heard a negativething about him except Terry Garr from
Young Frankenstein. There's did you knowshe did that interview and because he was
a jerk? You know, No, she may have just been having it
a weird day and just got sickof being asked the stupid questions. But
she does that whole interview and shegoes, yeah, he was just a
jerk because she she dated him fora while when they were making Young Frankenstein.

(01:00:12):
So but that's you know, that'sthat's that's exist. I mean,
you could find that, but Ifind Yeah, to me, it seemed
like she was just tired and tiredof answering questions. He's a jerk,
Stop asking me about him. Yeah. So he was a last minute replacement
for the lead and Blazing Saddles andwe talked about this. There is a
Bewitched connection because he replaced Gig Young, Gig Young who would have been married

(01:00:38):
to Elizabeth Montgomery of Bewitched. GigYoung who later on UM murdered his next
you know, a later wife andthen killed himself. Um. He was
a gig Young was an alcoholic andhe on the very first day of filming
Blazing Saddles, he collapsed on setfrom alcohol withdrawals and was immediately fired.

(01:00:59):
And they old Gene Wilder and we'relike, can you please get on a
plane and fly out here and makethis movie? And he agreed. Interesting,
that's why it happened. Yeah,so there's a Bewitched connection. So
go go back and listen to orBewitched episode. Yeah. He was also
in the producers Young Frankenstein, whichhe wrote. Um. He was with
Richard Pryor in four films. UM. And of course he was married to

(01:01:22):
Gilda Radner, who was his thirdwife until she died from cancer in nineteen
eighty nine. Um. And there'sa really great documentary about her and of
course their marriage called Love Gilda,that came out a few years ago.
That was, Yeah, that wasthat was That's Gilda was one of those
people that you just just tears yourheart out, you know, people when

(01:01:43):
Lorraine Newman said that, I thinkwe talked about this, and we did
a Saturday Night Live episode talked aboutGilda. But you know, sometimes you
can see some kind of weird Carmeninvolved, and sometimes you know, you
just kind of go, what thehell is that. It's like Terry gar
It's like a Punicello. It's youknow, these are people that you just
look at and smile and think thatthere's nothing and then terrible things happened to
them. It's just it's awful.But um he and Guilty even said,

(01:02:07):
but I did like this, andI again probably repeating myself, but when
she wrote her book, it's alwayssomething about her struggle with cancer and that
had you been you know, shewas an insecure, really insecure individual,
and he stuck with her through thewhole thing, and when she came out
of it, you know, Ithought she was in the clear, or
she was for a short period oftime. Um. She said, after

(01:02:30):
reading my book, women from allof the world, all over the world
will fall in love with Gene.Unfortunately, they're all going to have terminal
diseases, which is sweet, butbut he was, you know, he
was one of those people that hewas when he did the whole gene,
when he did the Willy Wonka thing, I guess he said that he would

(01:02:52):
this a stipulation, This is howI want to make my entrance. And
with the thing with the cane,he was acting as if he had like
a limp leg He was walking witha limp and he had the cane.
And then the cane gets stuck inthe bricks and he tumbles forward like he's
going to fall in does a summersault, and everyone goes hooray, and Willy
Wonka, you know, opens uphis candy shop. But then that's another

(01:03:13):
point where all the kids, thisis their first scene that they shot.
You know, little the kids werethere and this is the very first scene
these people were shooting for the movie, and they didn't know who June Wilder
was. And this guy comes outof this this weird door and hobbles out
and then does this whole thing thatthey were just as shocked as everyone else
was to see it happened. Theydid a lot of almost what I would
call forced method acting the kids becausethey did that, they didn't know that

(01:03:37):
he was going to do that stuntso they'd get a real look out of
him. They didn't show him thebig sound stage until they walked in and
saw it. And then at theend when he yells, he gets mad
and he yells, you know,good day, sir, and you lose
good day. Um. They theydidn't know how hard he was going to
go on that take, and thatkind of shocked expression, especially on Charlie
is Yeah, he didn't know he'sgonna star shouting it's horrible. Yeah,

(01:04:00):
it's terrible, No, it's itis. And then though it also was
really disturbing, is that like hisyou know, his his hair would go
manic. You know, his hairwill go crazy, and you know,
I think period, you know throughthe film it gets worse and worse,
you know, and then you knowit's just at the end, it's like
it's all over the place is flyingand uh, and that just makes it
even more intense when you when yousee that scene, you know, you

(01:04:21):
don't want that sparkly eyed person comingaround and screaming at you with his maniacal
hair. And but I think thatwas the whole thing. He started the
whole shoot with the with you know, throwing people off guard by doing that,
uh that tumble and they, youknow say they some people say that
that was a stipulation. If Ican't do it this way, then I'm

(01:04:43):
not going to do it. Um. I don't know if that's true,
but it's a good story. Yeah, he supposedly said he wouldn't take the
rule unless they let him do thatstunt there. Yeah, okay, now
I know if it's true or not, but it works because to the rest
of the movie, you don't knowwhat's up as sleep, you don't know
if he's telling the truth. Hetalks some weird languages, he tells bizarre
stories and um, you know,talks about kids, you know, being

(01:05:05):
you know, oh, she's downin the incinerator. Now you know,
it was like, oh, okay, you know, take him to the
taffy room so we can stretch himout. I mean, it's like awful,
terrible things. But they're like veryelastic at that age or whatever he
says. But but yeah, hewas something. But that whole psychotic monologue
in the in the ship in thetunnel, and yeah, that was terrifying.

(01:05:30):
And uh and you know with thechick, I mean It's really quite
graphic. The chicken getting its headchopped off in the worms and everything.
That was really um, I meanthat was a real proper chicken getting its
head chopped off. It wasn't aspecial effect that was stock footage or something.
Uh and uh yeah, there's theworms and insects eating other insects and
stuff, and then the whole youknow, he said, I was just

(01:05:51):
a couple of like the fires ofhow and the Grizzly Reaper, and you
know he's talking to these little kids. I thought it was going to be
a show about candy. And Ithink Violet says something, I guess,
is this a freak out or somethinglike that. I love it's a freak
out or something. Yeah, funnybut um but yeah, Jane, So

(01:06:13):
Gene Wilder, Um, as youknow, after after living through that whole
thing with Gilda Radner, which iswell documented, then got married again and
lived a happy life. But hiswife kind of stayed out of the out
of the limelight because he was alwaysgoing to be sort of mister Gilda after
that. You know, he waslived in the same house. Yeah,
did they I didn't know that.He couldn't not. She was always going

(01:06:38):
to be looked on as a villainistsyou know, or a villain by by
being the new woman in Gene Wilder'slife. That was that was never going
to work out well because she wasso because Guilder was so loved. Yeah,
yeah, so. Um. Healso was you know Wonka for the
rest of his life, you know, all the all the roles he did.
And he did tell a story thathe was like in a grocery store

(01:07:00):
one time and this mother walked upand was like, you're Willy Wonka.
Can I Can I tell my kidyou're Willy Wonkas your kids with her?
And he said something like yeah,but but uh, only if you whisper
it, if you say it quietlyso that don't get mobbed, you can
come over. And so he wasvery he kept honoring that. Um,
you know the legacy they added forplaying that character. And he died from

(01:07:20):
Alzheimer's and um, he apparently keptit quiet in parts so that he wouldn't
he said, so he wouldn't makeWilly Wonka fans sad to know that he
was suffering with you know, thisillness. Hmm. Isn't it interesting?
All those movies he did and youknow Wonka is always going to be probably
the biggest. It's iconic, YoungFrankenstein to be a second. M Lazing

(01:07:44):
Saddles probably third. Yeah, huhwow, rest in peace. So he
died. They say he died whilehe was listening to Eli Fitzgerald singing over
the Rainbow. They'd play it forhim, which was and and ironically,
Um Ebert when he reviewed Wanka themovie when it came out and said it
was the best kids movie since wizdof Oz. Hmm, it's interesting.

(01:08:10):
I mean I remember seeing it whenit first came out, and I remember
being really blown away by the lookof it, but I never really I
guess it was so much of itwas uncomfortable in me, and that was
his maniacal sort of you know,rants and things like that. I didn't
understand a lot of that. Istill find it. It's got more of
an edge than the Wizard of Ozmost certainly well which of Oz had its

(01:08:30):
edge two considering this nineteen thirty nine. But but yeah, it just seemed
a bit more sinister because the goodguy was also this bad guy, Whereas
you know, the lines were prettyclear in the Wizard of Oz. Who
was what? And and Willy Wonka. Was that weird when the teetered back
and forth? M what was thatfamous that famous description of wizd of Oz

(01:08:53):
it's so good. Hold on Itwas from a newspaper, I think,
or like a TV guide. Itwas transported to a surreal lance cape.
Young girl kills the first person shemeets and then teams up with three strangers
to kill again. It's perfect,It's awesome. Oh so, Geane Wilder
passed away on August twenty ninth,twenty sixteen. He was eighty three,

(01:09:15):
and it was Alzheimer's So rest inpeace, Gene Wilder, r ip so.
The next actor on the list iswas the second build in the film,
which is kind of interesting, andthat is um Jack Albertson, who
played Grandpa Joe yep, like uhhuh, who would have only been around

(01:09:38):
sixty sixty two, sixty three maybewhat the time he died. He died
ten years later and he was onlyseventy four. So he was only five
years older than me when he madeWilly Wonka. Yeah, only five years
older than me, maybe maybe likethree or four. So just so we're

(01:09:59):
to to catch people up here,you are you are older than Bogart and
you're a few years away from yourGrandpa Joe phase. Five years younger than
Grandpa Joe. In a few yearsyou can start just living out of your
bed like full time. You knowwhat. The amount of vitriol on the
line about Grandpa Joe is fascinating forme. Piece. But there are websites

(01:10:25):
devoted to how much people hate himabout Facebook groups. There's a let's say
I dislike that piece of shit thatis Grandpa Joe from Willy Wonka. That's
him of a Facebook groups. Thegroup. Yes, there's a website called
say No to Grandpa Joe dot combecause they're like, because they're like,

(01:10:48):
because he wouldn't. They're like,he wouldn't get out of bed to support
his family, but he got outof bed to go to a chocolate factory.
He wouldn't get out of bed,and he complained to the mother because
maybe the floor was too cold.Okay. The keep of the family are
eating cabbage water, and he's justdeciding to give up tobacco just then,
you know, And then the kidbuys a loaf of bread and he's like,

(01:11:10):
Oh, we're gonna have a realbanquet tonight, you know, And
bosly, but he's been smoking tobacco, so so yeah, there's, there's
there's. People get really angry abouthim, and it's kind of funny.
Now, I was here's what Iread on say No to Grandpa Joe dot
com. In the early stages ofthe story, it's clearly established that Grandpa

(01:11:30):
Joe does not contributed to the householdin the meaningful way. He does not
work, and in fact, isnot left to bed in twenty years.
He offers criticism of the situation,but it's unwilling to work to help improve
it. He initially claims that he'sunable to help and offers a litany of
excuses why he cannot get out ofbed. Things change rapidly when Charlie finds
the Golden Ticket. He's suddenly ableto get out of bed and engaging quite
a stunning display of physical prowess,you know, and he's like, I

(01:11:56):
got a golden ticket, I gotit, I got it. It is
interesting knowing all this and going backand watching it. And another thing,
Missus Buckett did laundry for a living. Charlie's Charlie's mom. Yeah, yes,
did you see that night shirt hewas wearing? It was all brown
stained in the front of it.I mean, it wasn't ye all brown,
but it was like the brown likeprobably tobacco juice stains, you know,

(01:12:19):
I mean, or cabbage water stains. But still, she did laundry
for a living, and he's init with this dirty, nasty, nasty.
It's funny. Say no to GrandpaJoe, say no to I do
think though that, you know,because I watched it again for you know,
prepping for this episode, and heCharlie is definitely a little bit better

(01:12:41):
version of a person than Grandpa Joeis, because you remember at the end
when they get told off and inthe office and Charlie's like, you know,
or Grandpa Joe's like, come on, Charlie, let's go, you
know, sell that gop stopper.Basic, let's go you know someone who
can buy that gop stopper. AndCharlie's like, no, I'm gonna give
the gob stopper back to Waka,And that's what wins him the grand prize.

(01:13:02):
Yeah. So yeah, And sofor the for the quick, just
a quick explanation, ever lasting gobStopper is a piece of candy that Wonka
is just inventing and Throughout the movie, these five children win these golden tickets
to get a tour, these fivegolden tickets to get a tour of the
chocolate factory. And every time thatyou know, kid wins one this this

(01:13:23):
villain shows up and whispers in theear. We find out later that he
says he's slug worth a competing chocolatecompany and will pay them for one of
those gob stoppers to get the wholerecipe because Zee will put him out of
business. And so that's the wholething. And then, you know,
so at the end of it,Charlie has the gob stopper and they're gonna

(01:13:43):
leave, and Willie Wonka just toldhim off, saying, get the hell
out of here, and Grandpa Joesays he'll get his gob stopper, We'll
sell it to him, and Charliesays no, and thus he wins,
and going forth with that, WillieWonka saying, you know, because I
know if a grown up did it, they'd want to do it their way.
And that's why I need a kidto do it my way, so
I to run the chocolate factory afterI'm gone. So um, it's interesting,

(01:14:04):
very interesting. Yeah, and italso ties into The reason that Wonka
shut the factory down and become arecluse in the first place is because people
kept his employees kept acting as spiesand stealing his creations. Yeah, giving
them to the competition. So thatmakes sense. That's his big test,
as I need someone who's not goingto do that, right, And so

(01:14:25):
we hired the spice. Slug Worth, however, called the spice slug Worth.
But all through the movie there isSlugworth candy, So Slugworth was a
real person. Was Willi Wonker reallymaking Slugworth candy, you know and putting
it out there as probably was theguy who just posing as slog slug Worth.
It wasn't the real slug Worth.Yeah, yeah, I don't know

(01:14:45):
it. Maybe so, but itwould be probably in the book I've ever
read it, you know what Imean? I read that when I was
a kid. I don't remember.I don't remember. But did you did
you see that video I posted ofJack Albertson licking the wallpaper? Yes,
so creepy, something don't ever needto see again. Scary tunnel scene,

(01:15:06):
Yeah, that was that was somethingelse. Immage you're not going to get
out of your out of your mindfor a long time. No, and
there was a girl. One ofthe people who commented her name was Sarah
Love. She said that she hadseen Jack Albertson in a show called I'm
Not Rappaport just before he died andneeded a Q and A. And someone
asked him about licking the wallpaper,and he said, what the hell do

(01:15:28):
you think it tasted like? Itwasn't lemons tasted like wallpaper? Um.
He started out in vaudeville and inradio. He got three fourths of the
way to an egot because he wonan Emmy and Oscar in a Tony.
The only thing he didn't win wasthe Grammy. Um. He was also
in a Poseidon Adventure which we didan episode on UM and he won an

(01:15:51):
Emmy. His Emmy he won forChico in the Man television series UM.
And his last film role was hewas a voice actor in The Fox and
the Hound, for which was oneof my favorite movies when I was growing
up. Oh really yeah? Niceum. And there's also another Bewitched connection.
Hm. His sister was Mabel Albertson, who played Phillis Stevens on Bewitch

(01:16:13):
too, was Darren's mother. I'vegot a sick headache, Frank and she
died just ten months after her brotherdid Jack did. Uh and from Alzheimer's
interesting that you know, they're makingCheeko on the Man, which is a
huge show with Freddie Prince or JackAlbertson and Freddie. Jack Albertson outlived Freddie
Prince because Freddie Prince killed himself anduh, and the show went on.

(01:16:35):
I forget what they called it,but it was they took out the cheeko
bit. It was just the Manand yeah, and just started, you
know, kept the show going.I don't think it lasted, but because
he needed that, you know thatuh, that chemistry that was gone after
Freddie was but uh, but yeah, they did try to make a go
of it after that. Um yeah, that piece of shit Grandpa show.

(01:16:59):
Love that guy. That's so funny, but people hate him. I mean
I would be really angry because youknow, he's just in bed that whole
time and doesn't let his mom bethe one to go to Did she did
she not want to go? Whatwas going on with it? Didn't ask?
Nobody asked. I guess. Imean they were close, you know,
because Grandpa Joe did you know sneakhim the candy bar and uh so

(01:17:19):
they were they were close. Butuh yeah, that makes makes more sense.
Well if it makes the grandpa JoeHayters happy. Jack Albertson died on
November twenty fifth, nineteen eighty one. He was seventy four and it was
colon cancer. Hm. I thinkthey were both scattered to see both you
and his sister. Yeah out inthe Pacificum, Roy Keaneer, we'll do

(01:17:45):
some of the parents. Who wasmister salt rucas Sault's father. Um,
He was a successful character actor andhis dad was a professional rugby player who
was also named Roy Keaneer, andhis dad died when he was only thirty
eight while playing rugby with the RAFin nineteen forty two, you know,
during World War two. And ifyou're a rugby fan listening to this,

(01:18:05):
the Scotland Rugby League named their StudentPlayer of the Year award after Roy Kaneer's
dad, who was also Roy KingHere. Nice didn't know that very interesting?
Did you know? That Roy appearedin a bunch of stuff. He
was one of those character actors whowas in tons and tons of things.
He was in the Beatles, Help, he was in the Hammer horror movie

(01:18:26):
Taste of the Blood of Dracula Tastethe Blood of Dracula with Christopher Lee and
his wife was Carmel Crying Crying Cryan. She was Brenda Boyle in east Enders,
Brenda Boyle. M have to lookthat one up. I don't know
that name. I know you're aneast Enders fan, so I figure,
yeah, yeah, and his daughter, because the girl played Arukas Sault was

(01:18:49):
also claimed she was in east Enders, so I'm like, I had to
look her up and she was like, nah, well she probably was in
a couple episodes, but but no, that Brenda. I feel like that
one up. I don't know thatKara there. This is something that's kind
of interesting that I didn't know untilI moved over there. But a veruca
is actually a wart. It's aplanner's wart that you get the bottom midle

(01:19:11):
of that foot. Yeah, Andso I would see these ads on commercials,
commercials for like, you know,if you have a Varuca, do
this, and which makes sense.Old would call this character Varuca because she's
an awful little girl. So Varucais actually a wart on the bottom of
your foot. And uh, it'sjust and I thought it was kind of
clever, and I knew Rucas Saultalso as the rock band from the nineties.

(01:19:32):
Oh was there one called that?Oh? How cool? Okay,
Yeah, they had um they hadthe song um seeither was their big like
their big big hit. He uhroy can hear? Rucas Sault's father died
a really weird tragic way. Hewas filming The Return of the Musketeers in
Spain in nineteen eighty eight, andhe fell off a horse and broke his

(01:19:56):
pelvis and sustained internal bleeding and hedied the next day from a heart of
heck really, you know, asa result of those injuries. Oh interesting,
Well that's sad. I mean,that's yes. He was only fifty
four. It was September twentieth,nineteen eighty eight, and his family ended
up suing both the production and thehospital, and between the two of them
got about one and a half milliondollars. Good them, I mean,

(01:20:17):
I guess they're they were really atso the hospital um screwed up as well
as the ps. What they feltlike, Yeah, the production they said,
I guess was you know, unsafewith the way the horses and the
way they were kind of overworking him. Or something. I can't remember what
the charge was, but yeah,yeah, died from a horsefall while filming.
While filming, I think that's abummer. Yeah he's only fifty four.

(01:20:40):
Gosh, yeah, you know,I'm I'm six years older. He
didn't Royking here ever got when hedied. Yeah, that's because you don't
ride horses. Yeah yeah, didyou watch? Did you watch? I
know you probably didn't any of theJewbilee that you know, The Queen's Jubilee
just started happening this week. It'sgoing to be like an entire month or

(01:21:01):
so of celebrations. And they hadthe horse show on Sunday, and it's
just, you know, I'm abig I don't pay for him. So,
you know, I feel differently thantoday. The royal family or you
know, I love them. Ithink they're lovely and I get caught up
in their you know, day today and they're you know, I read
the gossip and all that sort ofstuff family, and I love her.

(01:21:23):
I think she is you know,she she is the only one in the
family who hasn't embarrassed the family.And I'm very fond of her. And
to see her show up at thesethings, I saw today also she unveiled
the new subway line, uh,the Elizabeth Line, and so it's but
it's neat to see her because youknow, we're like, you know,

(01:21:45):
it ain't gonna be very long,and so it's neat to see her there
for this jubilee, which is youknow, just the the Golden Jubilee.
I was there for that and thatwas just an incredible time and people like
the British you know, you canget caught up in a lot of bullshit,
you know, but but in dayto day politics, et cetera,
taxes, etc. But it's soit's so wonderful to see you know,

(01:22:08):
that kind of people camaraderie for somethinglike that and something everyone gathering up for
this happy you know for a lotof people, happy occasion. Seventy years
on the throne is incredible. Soanyway, it was it was neat to
see that. And I don't knowwhat what got me started on that.
The horse show, That's what itwas, the horse show. But yeah,
it's so there's gonna be this wholeconcert. Tom Cruise was at this

(01:22:30):
thing the other day, but yeah, he's like become friends with them.
It's bizarre because you know, everythingelse. Everyone else is British, British,
well not at all Brits, butthey're all part of the Commonwealth.
And then Tom Cruise, you know, it's like all right, well but
um you know, I guess theywant the name the name, but uh,
I don't know, but it isit is that. Did you ever

(01:22:53):
see that they're in the Golden jewBelieve when they did the big concert and
Grace Jones did the whole thing witha hula hoop? No, she's got
this like ten minutes set and duringthe whole thing's it's it is awesome.
That's awesome. But anyway, soyeah, but I okay, went off
on a tangent. But I alsolooked up Brenda on east Enders, and

(01:23:15):
I tell you, I don't itjust happened. I watched it during this
time too, and I don't rememberthis character at all, so like as
her having to do with all thesepeople, I know, but I don't
remember her, so um so yeah, sorry, oh wait, she got
married to Charlie Slater. I didn'tknow that I should know this, Okay,

(01:23:36):
anyway, now you do, ohmy gosh. Yeah, uh all
right, all right, I'm gonnaput putting that part away. Putting the
part of my light boy. Allright, we're moving on to someone else's
dad. Leonard Stone, who playedmister Beauregard, who was Violet's father.
Um another character actor with too manyroles to list. Pretty much name a

(01:23:57):
TV show from the sixties to theeight he appeared on it, probably,
Yeah. He was also a nightCourt my favorite. Yeah, I was
gonna say, I knew you'd pickedthat one up. And he was even
on Wheel of Fortune in two thousand, which is wild. He was a
Soiling Green, which is a fantasticmovie, a night to remember, and
it was not the first Titanic movie, but it was one of you know,

(01:24:18):
one of three that are very famousand for nineteen fifty six and uh.
And also one of my favorite thingshe did was he he was Farnum
in Lost in Space. He playedhe had he owned the Intergalactic Zoo and
he would show up with these wildanimals or creatures from other planets and stuff
like that. But but he wasyeah, he was just he was a

(01:24:42):
staple in television, showed up onevery everything. And Shaky's Gun in the
West, it was another movie hedid which I loved. But night Coort,
Yeah, that was. I knewyou'd find that one. I need
to look him up and see whatepisode it was. Well, I did
find out I did see it actually, okay. And he plays He plays
a chacter called Nikolai Karpov. Andthis is Yakov's brother. Yakov, I

(01:25:04):
guess is a is a character onNight Court. Yakov, his brother,
wants to defect to the United States. In short order, Harry's courtroom was
overrun by Russian circus troop agents ofthe KGB and CIA and a pair of
hot tempered arms negotiators. So,um, that's what that's what they say.

(01:25:25):
Wow, that's cool. I'll tolook up that episode because I'm sure
I saw it. Um he uh. Leonard Stone was the last surviving parent
who toured the factory. He wasthe last one. He lived the longest
of all the parents who comes upwith these facts. He died because he

(01:25:46):
did not outlive Charlie's mother, theactress that played his mother, but she
didn't tour the factory. So ofthe adults have toured the factory. He
was the last survivor, okay,he was. He was the last survivor
with the initials LS that were themoon base that also right. Yeah.
He was also um this is likehe gets into like baseball stats. He
was also the third longest living lefthanded outfielder now. Um. He passed

(01:26:13):
away on November second, twenty eleven. He was eighty seven. He had
cancer just one day before his eightyeighth birthday. He almost made it.
But he's another one life. Itwas always at the always at the autograph
show. So he's a nice guy. I talked to him a few times.
I mean, I know, no, no, I mean, nothing
to speak of, but he wasalways there, and he was always really
nice. And and god, Iloved those autograph shows. They were I

(01:26:36):
will you know, I always talkabout those, but you know, god,
they were great. They were sogreat. Well. And Denise Nickerson,
who played his daughter Violet, wasalso I think a staple at the
autograph conventions and stuff as well.Um. And she started out as a
stage actor when she was only fiveyears old, which is crazy, and

(01:26:57):
she continued acting for another eight years. Was after Wonka. Um. She
was also in the kids show TheElectric Company and the Sixties and she was
in the soap opera's Dark Shadows andSearch for Tomorrow, which were soaps in
the sixties. And seventies. Um. And she was also in an episode
on the final season of The BradyBunch when Peter Brady goes on two dates
and one night. She was oneof the dates apparently. UM and also

(01:27:20):
I read she lost out to LindaBlair for the Exer System. Doesn't everybody
claim they lost out to Linda Blairfor the ex is that like a thing?
It's up there, it's up there, it's up there with Scarlett O'Hara,
and uh and uh, there's yeah, there are, there are several
people that claim that. But uh, why would you know? I didn't

(01:27:40):
get that part. I wouldn't bebreaking about that. There's another thing I
didn't do. But but no,it's but electric part. It just makes
my head spin. Oh, you'reso angry. Um. So she retired
from acting when she was only twentyone, and then she found out her
parents had spent all her money.So it was one of those other one

(01:28:01):
of those situations. Yeah, somuch so. She ended up becoming an
office manager in an accountant for adoctor. Um. Did the fan conventions,
did the public cast reunions that theydid? There were there were several
over the years. Um. Andthen she had a stroke in twenty eighteen,
and a year later she overdosed onsome type of medication. I don't
know if it was intentional or unintentional, and she died at the hospital.

(01:28:25):
A couple of days after that.She had a do not resuscitate, yeah
order, So there's only sixty twotechnically die from pneumonia. And it was
July tenth, twenty nineteen, sojust a few years ago. She um,
you know it was it's so backwhen, you know, I was
doing my research on the Rocky HorrorPicture Show book and that got to be
friends with with Pat Quinn, whoplayed Magenta in the movie. And you
know, they they they would theonly money they ever got was for the

(01:28:49):
original play soundtrack. They got likemore money than that than they ever got
for residuals for the movie. Butyou know, they had to live with
this legacy the whole time, whichwasn't a bad I think to do.
But even Barry Bostwick was like,come on, it's been forty years.
Share the wealth. You got yourbaby ds, you got your jackets,
you got your buttons, you've gotyour all this other stuff, you know,

(01:29:10):
Share the wealth. So it waskind of neat that these people did
live long enough to be able tocapitalize on their Wonka stardom more than because
the kids. I guess they madesix hundred pounds for the whole set.
Julie don Cole played Ruca Salt says, you got sixty pounds a week for
ten weeks. Six hundred pounds,yeah, which was aqual of like a
thousand dollars today, you know,six hundred pounds is like a thousand bucks.

(01:29:31):
And and Paris Thimmen, who playedMike TV. He could tell in
the documentary or in the after theywere famous thing, you could tell he
was bitter about the money situation.Yeah, but he's he's also he's no
different than his character. I meanthat that Paris guy is much like my
TV. But you can tell therewas definitely some they're a little bitter about

(01:29:53):
the fact that everybody else kept makingmoney off this and they they least from
the film. Now they can gointo the convention. But that's also that's
more work too. It's not likeSid I'm a residuals check. He knows
all the job. But it's truethat you do have to work. But
I'm just saying the lunevity. That'sjust you know, I understand i'd be
a bit bitter too. However,it's something we've talked about a lot on

(01:30:15):
this on our show too. Ijust you're given this opportunity to make you
know, money, and it's cashmoney, and so I don't know,
it didn't seem like, uh,it didn't seem like the kids had that
much of a jobbing actors is allthey were after that. You know,
there were no big movies. Theywere never going to get any bigger than
Willy Wonka, which is kind ofweird to peak at that young of an

(01:30:39):
age as an actor. But alot of them are still working as actors.
Well, actually no they're not.I think Julie Julie Coles that what
her name is, played Farruca.She's the only one it's actually working.
The rest from her, literally allof her accounts, I think she is
mostly retired now. But she wasby far the most successful acting career.
Afterwards. She was in a bunchof TV and film stuff in the seventies,

(01:30:59):
eighties, nineties. Yeah, sheworked a lot. Yeah, it
was six weeks of their lives.Well, they say it was a five
month shoot, so maybe it's fivemonths for Peter Ostrum had played Charlie,
but the rest of him it waslike six or eight weeks or something like
that, or ten weeks and tenweeks of your life, you know,
and and international celebrity for the restof your life. And yeah yeah.

(01:31:20):
Also supposedly Denise Nickerson, Violet andUm and Um and Julie Cole ruc Assault
they both both actresses, supposed theyhad a crush on Peter Ostrum Charlie while
making the film, and they wouldtake turns hanging out with them in they
had free time. So it wasa little set crush team crush going on

(01:31:42):
because they were all like twelve orthirteen except for Um I think um Um
paris them and Mike TV was likeeleven. He was yeah, yeah,
yeah. They even Gane Wilder alludesto him not being a very nice kid.
It's like I like him now,but back to then. Yeah.
Well also you know there's that therewas the one of the machines had the
bees. Yeah, and he's headmitted that he let the bees out,

(01:32:04):
like yeah, yeah he was.He got the pay I think yeah,
but she now was It was interestingto finally get an explanation as to um,
you know when they blew her up, what that was, you know
what they actually did to her.And it was one thing that said it
was a metal thing, but theother one sounds more legit that it was
styrofoam, a styrofoam ball and theycarved her shape out of and uh and

(01:32:28):
and uh they said she said that. Um again, these things get embellished
over the years. I don't knowhow much of it's true, but they
she said that she was. Imean, you could look at it and
see her. The ball of herbody was bigger, taller than the Oompa
loompa's were. And they didn't knowhow to steerers. And she said she
got bashed into a doorway more thanonce from from faulty Oompa loompa steering.

(01:32:49):
So but uh, and the theand the well, the three actors,
uh, the Oompa Loompas that theyhad on that documentary, they also they
think they kind of confirmed, Yeah, that happened, but none of them
wanted to take credit for it.Yeah, and the one guy's like,
hey man, I was holding thedoor open. It couldn't have been me.

(01:33:10):
So um So anyways, rest inpeace, Denise Nickerson, Nora Denny
aka Dodo Denny was missus TV Mike'smom and she was another character actors a
bunch of stuff. She was inGreen Acres and Petticoat Junction and Bewitched and
Heart to Heart, Get Smart.She was also in Splash Um. But

(01:33:30):
I thought this was interesting. Hertwo sons formed of the seventies punk band
the Weirdos in Los Angele didn't knowthat's interesting. Yeah, they were brothers
that founded that that punk band,and they were I mean, they were
contemporaries of the Ramons. They youknow, the Ramones were big influences on
them, and and I think theyhad a big influence on because I was
in the pop punk, especially Californiastuff in the nineties and they you can

(01:33:51):
definitely see the influence the Weirdos hadon that scene. And one of the
brothers was almost almost joined the RedHot Chili Peppers at one point also but
didn't didn't work out. So thatwas interesting. Said, I didn't know
she had that many kids. Shehad two sons. That's very cool because
I've heard of the Weirdos. Ididn't know that. Yep. I know

(01:34:11):
that she um back in because theKansas City they were trying to make a
Elvira character or actually it was vampireback then, and they and she did
that back in Kansas City for thelocal news. I think Maryland the Witch
is what they called her. Butshe was haggy. She wasn't going to
be like sexy Maryland. She waskind of haggy and uh but that's really
us. She got her start inshow business and she was another one that

(01:34:32):
was a regular umbwitched, you know. So that's what how many that's Mabel
Anderson, that's Dodo Denny and JackAlbert's. Um No, there was a
gig Young connection. Gig Young that'swhat it was, or three self far.
Yeah, and she was supposed tobe at the house on Cello Drive
in the night of the murders.She's just said that or she really was.

(01:34:55):
I just made that up. God, I was going to lose my
money. And then she lost outto Linda Blair and the Exorcist, so
you know, oh no. Sheshe passed away on November twenty of two
thousand and five. She was seventyeight, and it was just listed his
cancer r I P like Dodo DennyAlp. I only have a few things

(01:35:17):
on some of the other parents andfolks. Ursela Wright reet right was Missus
Gloup Augustus mom. She was mostlya German TV actress. Um she passed
away in ninety eight. She waseighty four from natural causes. Ursela Wright
who was who played Missus Gloup wasa very successful actress in Germany. Continued

(01:35:39):
to be a very successful actress inGermany, and just playing on the German
thing. I was watching and Inoticed that Willy Wonka speaks in German at
some point. And this is weirdbecause there was no there were no subtitles.
You know, he speaks in French, which I'll talk about in just
a second, but he talks inGerman too, And so I recorded it
and I sent it my friend RachelKay and she this is before the they

(01:36:03):
get on that vehicle that they gowith. It spits out all the foam,
all the gassy stuff, and whathe says, he she said,
this is a Willie Wonka says,Please give me your attention. You're now
entering into the most interesting and atthe same time most secret room of the
factory ladies and gentlemen, the inventingroom. So and then then when they

(01:36:28):
go through that thing, and they'respraying all that juncle of him, and
then they go through the squeezy bitsand uh and and he also and then
he starts singing this bizarre song whichisn't even a language. I mean,
it's like it sounds there's like acouple of German words in there. But
but otherwise, I mean he justspits out this bizarre you know, these
these these bizarre words. You know, it's really it adds to the Wonka

(01:36:50):
character most definitely. But yeah,she was but I love that the most
secret room of the factory, theinventing room. But they said, German,
how are kids going to know that? You know, for this information
we needed to know? Man,Well it's it's you know, it's it's
a bit odd. If it's themost secretive room, then I need to

(01:37:11):
know that information. Yeah, Iguess said they did there for the German
audience. I guess. Um So, Ursula passed away on November ninth,
nineteen ninety eight. She was eightyfour, and it was natural causes.
She was in a ton of GermanTV shows I've never seen, but that's
she had a great, big career. Um and and kind of ironically,

(01:37:31):
I guess her. The actor whoplayed her son Augustus. Uh, he
was not an actor. He wascast. He was really cast because he
had the look that they were goingfor. He ended up doing a great
job considering he didn't speak English andwas not an actor, and he did
a few more TV roles after Wanka. But then he became a tax accountant.
Don't they all except for Ruca asyou do? Yeah, well,

(01:37:56):
no, Charlie's a vet now,so no, he's not either. But
both of Violet and Paris and Augustusall went into account thing. Interesting.
Yeah, probably because they didn't getpaid much and they're like, what they'll
happen to all my money? Youknow? Would you like at a fart
out sick when you're a kid sixweeks of your life and you become this,

(01:38:17):
you know, and you wish thatthat would have happened. Wouldn't that
have been pretty cool? I mean, not that you want to. I
used to be anything, but butI don't mean it like that. But
it's like, what a great triviaquestion that would be. You know,
guess what I did? Yeah?Well, And and the actor who played
Charlie, Peter Rostrum, he saidthat you know, he has kids.
Now his family was owned now andyou know when when his kids were younger,

(01:38:40):
they would see the movie and theydidn't really they didn't put two and
two together. That's dad. Itwas that they had to get quite a
bit older before he was able totell, like explain to them that's me
when I was your age. Yeah, it's hard to explain that to kids,
but yeah, I thought that wasinteresting. Yeah, he became a
like a livestock veterinarian, like likecows and yeah, very understated. Seems

(01:39:02):
like a decent guy. Yeah,yeah, well I guess that was his
real passion animals, So you knowworked out. Yeah, I mean,
I guess the thing is, yes, you can be bitter about not having
the money, they still are happythat they did it, that they were
part of it. And if youwere to tell this a kid, like,
hey, you can be in oneof the biggest movie kids movies is
ever going to be made, andyou won't make a lot of money,

(01:39:24):
but you'll have that for first ofyour life or you cannot. The trouble
would be trying to catch up withthat peeking when you're eleven years old,
and if you want to make itin the business, you'll never ever get
that big again. Even though WillyWonka was not a successful movie when it
came out, but it turned intonever Gonna Happen again. So that is
lightning in a bottle, and that'swhat this movie kind of was. Diana

(01:39:47):
Soul and I am pronouncing that right. Salsehoul was Missus Bucket, Charlie's mother.
Her song in the film was dubbedthough that's not her singing. Yeah,
I didn't know that till I wasdoing this research of a weird resume.
She was in some bit parts,but like the two bit part things
she was in were both in nineteenninety four. She had small parts in

(01:40:08):
Clear and Present Danger and Guarding tests. It's like twenty years later. Yeah,
that is Oh, I know shewas living in Germany when when she'd
been living there when she got castshe wasn't you know she was American and
uh but yeah, that's uh,that's interesting. But yeah, now not
a huge career. But her husbandwas m was sergeant first class in the

(01:40:32):
army. Oh wow. Yeah,and she's she's buried in Arlington, which
surprised me. Yeah. Her songthat Cherub Charlie business, that was like
that was like the beauty school dropoutthing from Greece. It's like it was
early on in the film, butit's like, okay, now we can
go to the bathroom. It waslike it's a really long song, but

(01:40:53):
uh and yeah. But she wasum and she had she had that mop
of hair like Jane Mansfield used tohave at the end of Terrible Wigs.
That was it was. And here'ssomething that that that when when Charlie gets
the Golden ticket, you know,and and he's like I got it and
he's got it up in his seam, did you like scream like, oh
my god, run take it.Yeah, he's open the air and people

(01:41:14):
are grabbing his arm and stuff likethat. It's like no, no,
no, no, they're gonna rosethe pieces. I was so upset.
I was like, no, runkid, no, get they're gonna take
it from you. So um becauseI mean they showed him like, you
know, holding people for ransom toget their wonk up bars and stuff like
that. So Diana Um passed awayon October nineteenth, twenty eighteen. She
was eighty eight, and it wasnatural causes because she was missus Bucket right

(01:41:42):
yep. And Um Scott is stilldrinking down his dwindling taps. I know,
very very few left, all right, Um, Aubrey Woods, who
was Bill the candy store owner,the one that Sammy Davis Junior wanted,
the role that he wanted, whosings the candy man song? Um,
And that's kind of all I knowabout him. Yeah, he I mean,
he was another one that was hugelysuccessful in Britain doing he was in

(01:42:05):
a couple I think he was ina couple of Doctor Who's but he was
in a ton of television programs inBritain. But something I found very interesting
is that there's this conspiracy about aboutWilly Wonka, not not in real life,
but in within the movie, andthey're saying that Bill was actually an

(01:42:25):
informant for Willy Wonka and he wasgiving he was testing out the kids to
find out, you know, whowas going to be worthy of it.
And he was supposedly on Wonka's youknow, payroll, and because he's given
all that candy away and just seeinghow the kids are going to react.
Because at the end of it,when Charlie you know, gets the one
thing and he eats it and it'snot the one but he just says I'm

(01:42:46):
giving another one, and then goutand Bill goes to the display. He
says, like, if you're aclassic one, and he gives it like
right in the center, right stock, not when where you go. We're
gonna keep that. One day hejust talk him into getting a different type
of wakah and that particular one thatwas front and center. And they're saying
that, you know, Bill mighthave been working for Willy Wonka in that

(01:43:08):
regard, and that would explain theslug Worth signs all over the place too,
because maybe slug Worth was a phonyname and uh, and they just
had it in that one candy shop. I don't know, but it was
just a very I liked that.I liked that idea that because we got
so we already know that he hada he had a mole, uh,
slug Worth whatever. The actor whowas playing this this bad guy, so

(01:43:29):
it would make sense that that hehad and who better. But again,
that was a candy shop, absolutely, and uh. When they first meet
Wonka coming in the gates, Wonkatells Charlie, I've run all about you
in the newspaper, and then atthe end he says, you know,
I knew it would be you orI knew it was I knew it was
going to be you kind of thing, he says, he when he suddenly

(01:43:49):
he was like, yeah, youpassed you you passed the test. He's
like, I knew you would.I knew you would. It kind of
does maybe, um hinted a fourknowledge of the type of person that Charlie
and the fact that they, uh, there was a news crew on set
every time one of those things wasdiscovered, that Slugworth was Agworth was always

(01:44:10):
there, always right there. Sothey're saying Willy Wonka had planted these things
and uh and knew exactly where theywere going to be discovered, which makes
sense, which also leads me to, well, let's finished on Aubrey Woods.
Um, it's funny in that wayhe kind of stacked the deck in
Charlie's favor because the other four kidswere like the most selfish kids on the
planet. Yeah, and why wouldn'tyou Why would he why would he make

(01:44:30):
sure that they were going to bethe ones to get them? Um?
Right, that is uh, it'skind of interesting, but U but yeah,
but the news cruise being there,Well, okay, so let's finish
on Aubrey Woods because I was goingto hit the others. So he died
May seventh, twenty thirteen. Hewas eighty five years old. But so
natural causes. I was doing thedive about the people in this movie,

(01:44:55):
and I was really curious about andyou maybe you did this too, but
I wanted to know more about thefake winner. You know, the picture
that was in the newspaper, theguy that pretended to have won, and
because he didn't, he didn't.There was no news crew there, There
were no photographs, you know,it was always a solid picture in a
newspaper saying that this guy won.It said his name was Alberto Minaltta knew

(01:45:16):
that lived in Paraguay and he wasthe only one that did. They have
news cameras there. And that photographwas actually a photograph of Hitler's Nazi like
private secretary Nazi Martin Borman. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it was
a real picture of this Nazi criminalwho was supposedly hiding out in Paraguay.

(01:45:38):
So they put this this, thisis it's true and uh, and they
put it in this newspaper. Hewas a wanted Nazi war criminal and he
was supposed to be living in Paraguay, and uh, and he ends up
in the Willy Wonka movie and nobodyreally caught onto it, and so and
in His body was found buried inBerlin in nineteen seventy two, but it

(01:45:59):
wasn't positive identified until nineteen ninety eightusing DNA. So this picture is in
the newspaper of Willy Wonka is aNazi criminal. Just fascinating and Gunter Meisner,
who played Arthur Slugworth, was aGerman actor who played in almost all
German productions. He played Adolf Hitlertwice and often played kind of you know,

(01:46:21):
Nazi soldier, heavy type bad guys, officers and stuff and a lot
of it because he had that look. I guess, yeah, he had
a Nazi bad guy natural look.So how weird, weird, what a
weird place to pick guys picture forI'm guessing that that was a makeup scar,
That's what I'm guessing. I'm prettysure it would be made up,

(01:46:41):
but it was well done. Butyeah, I would I just had this
idea, not an idea, butit was probably based on the Boris and
Natasha had that bullwinkle, the enemiesand they had their fearless, fearless leader.
It was the Natzi in general,and looked just like him with the
monocle, this guy that glasses.But but yeah, just your stereotype stereotypical

(01:47:02):
Nazi and uh run but uh butyeah, yeah that I was going back
into the whole conspiracy thing because itis kind of he's actually, you know,
the guy that works for me andI forget what they said his name
was. But interesting, Yeah,I mean counterpoint. They didn't even know
what the last line in the moviewas going to be, so how deeply

(01:47:24):
did they think about this? True? I don't know. True, maybe
as Royal Doll that did it,though maybe you know roled Dolly script his
original script, he put these nuggetsin there. Uh. But as far
as there was a contrived decision thoughthe Nazi picture wasn't an act. Yeah,
it was down to I think itwas down to um uh Mel Stewart

(01:47:46):
that did that, I believe.But but and it's interesting also maybe it's
to counteract the Royal Doll you know, Nazi anti anti Semitic rhetoric in some
of his books. I don't know, was that guy was? Was that
guy's they still looking for that guyin nineteen seventy one, Well, he
wasn't found until seventy two, soyeah, yeah he was so maybe they
put his picture in the movie hopingit get out there and people are like,

(01:48:09):
hey, I recognize that's thought.And a year later he gets arrested
like yeah, yeah, or found. Yeah, but they found a barrier
really want so in Berlin. Soit wasn't like somebody ideed him. You
know, I've seen that guy ashis corpse hasn't aged a day. Um.

(01:48:31):
David Batley who played mister Turkentine,who was the school teacher that was
opening. Yeah, he has agreat opening monologue too about when he's doing
He's donna do the quizzes now beforethe week, at the beginning of the
week, before they've learned the stuffthey're gonna be quizzed about. But it's
Tuesday to day, so don't worryabout it. I don't worry about it.
Yeah. There's a lot of alot of jumping. Yeah. The
the text was kind of funny inthis movie sometimes. Um. He was

(01:48:58):
born with a hole in his heartart um, but lived to be sixty
seven, did ultimately die from aheart attack. Um, and he passed
away in January twenty In two thousandand three, hmm, yeah, because
I remember, well Gina Shock hadthat I believe um from the Gotos had
that hole in her heart business andhad to have surgery on that one too.
But I guess technology moved on inthis regard when she when she got

(01:49:20):
it was it was treatable. Butyeah, but yeah, huh well um,
and we already mentioned that. Youknow that Madeleine um Stewart, the
director's daughter, was in the classroomscene, yeah, with him, with
him as the teacher and answers thefirst question that he asked about how many
how many? Yeah, by andthat's when Peter Peter burst in the room

(01:49:43):
saying, well, Lee Wanka hasopened his chocolate factory, and so yeah,
he got two Peter got two goodlines in the movie, went in
the candy store and went in theschool, and ended up being the only
one of the two siblings to getcredited as a result of that. Yeah,
it's interesting. I wonder, well, I don't even think she filmed
anything else, the daughter. Idon't think there's anything else. And she
was always kind of a yeah,I'd be mad if I was this if
my life. Yeah, but youknow, sibling rivalries, Yeah, you're

(01:50:05):
both in the picture and your brothergets a credit and you don't. Oh,
and it was your idea to makethe movie in the first place.
Come on, Yeah, no kidding, she should have got a producer's credit,
right, I thought this was funny. Speaking of classrooms, um,
Julie Cole, who played Rucas Sault, said that she based her character on
a girl that she knew at boardingschool. So there was a girl who

(01:50:29):
really was a ruca assault awful personthat she drew inspiration from. Yeah,
that's good. I mean she wasreally a good brat. She was a
really good brat. She was youknow what, it's one of those roles.
She's so um, she's such agreat breath. You don't realize what
a great job she's doing. Hislittle actress. And one thing I did
notice, I think I think thedirector was very complimentary toward her, especially

(01:50:53):
her acting. So it's not asurprise of all the kids in the movie,
she ended up having the most successfulcareer after that, yeah, adulthood.
But she said also that when they'refilming that scene when they were trapped
in that little room, uh anduh, that first one, that that
was all black and white, notnot the different, not the lickable wallpaper
one but one of the other ones, and she said she flubbed a line.

(01:51:16):
And she said meld was was relentlessmel Stewart, which is like just
ragging on her big time, justyou know, really making her feel like
an idiot, which is also youknow, in character with him because he
was a taskmaster and m and probablyshouldn't have been according to a lot of
people, not just saying this that, you know, they said, of
all the people to be working ona kids a movie, it shouldn't be

(01:51:39):
mel Stewart. But because there's there. It's the running joke in Hollywood since
I first started, especially if you'remaking any movies, low budget movies,
is you know, the golden therule is no kids, no pets.
Yeah, because they will slow yourproduction down to a halt. Yeah.
And so yeah, if you're especiallyin you have a tight budget and a
tight you know, production schedule,and you've got kids flubbing lines. Yeah,

(01:52:00):
yeah, frustrating. It did theright personality to deal with that,
I guess. But they said theyhad like a dialogue coach with them,
who you know, every day beforethey filmed their scenes, they would go
over their lines over and over withthis dialogue coach before they would go out
there, so they would be totallyprepped and ready as much as possible.
And they're still going to be kids, and they're still going to be kids
kids. Yeah. Um. GunterMeisner, who we mentioned who played Slugworth,

(01:52:21):
did mostly German films and he diedalso while filming a TV series,
which is interesting. He had heartfailure when he was sixty eight years old.
On December fifth, nineteen ninety four. He had heart failure while shooting
a show. He's a good villainGermany. He's a very good villain.
Yep. So that boat scene,that crazy boat scene, it's voted one
of the scariest movie moments of alltime, which which it does. I

(01:52:45):
think it qualifies completely and just oneof another one of those odd sort of
you know, Gene Wilder talking inforeign languages. It just came out of
nowhere. To me. I wasa kid, you know, ten twelve
years old or something hearing somebody speakFrench. I know it's you know,
sounded like, but he does.He speaks when the boat comes out,
and he speaks this line in perfectFrench. So finally I asked my friends

(01:53:08):
Jeff and Dana Hartman to translate itfor me, and they did, and
it's just very simple. But it'swhen the boat comes out. He's his
ladies and gentlemen, Now we aregoing to take a little trip by boat.
You are now entering Wonka Tania,which is really yeah, that's what
he says. So that's that wasthe name of the ship. And he
introduces completely in French, and thenDodo Denny goes, oh, you know,

(01:53:28):
something like trejeall Lee or something trajeallLee. Uh when she gets on
the thing. But uh, itjust um, it was just a cool
touch. Um. Do you wantto talk about some oopa oopa's I don't
know anything about loop loopas. Ireally don't. I had to stop.
I was like, I'm done.I can't do anymore. Okay, well
let's there's there's there's like one thatI was going to mention um. Probably

(01:53:49):
the most well known or that youknow of the Upa Loopa actors um who
has passed away was Malcolm Dixon.And Malcolm Dixon was in He had a
pretty big role in Time Bandits.He was one of the named ewoks in
Return of the Jedi. He hadextra work role and Flash Flash, Gordon,

(01:54:11):
The Dark, Crystal Labyrinth, Willow. He was in with them Hints
and People pretty good. I guess. He was also in music videos for
David Bowie and Duran Duran, whichI thought was interesting. And this is
what's weird about him. So hepassed away on April ninth, twenty twenty,
no cause that I could find.But there's some sources that say he
was eighty five, and there's othersources that say he was sixty six.

(01:54:35):
Oh interesting, I don't know.Some like if you is. Wikipedia says
he was born in nineteen thirty four, and therefore he was eighty five when
he died, But then other mediareports from when he died claimed that he
was born in nineteen fifty three andthat he was actually sixty six, and
find a Grave says he was sixtysix. So I guess sixty six is
what I go. I would gowith that. If he was a Dwarf,

(01:54:56):
I would go with the sixty six. Then you know, I'm not
saying they don't have they generally,don't you know that the physical Dwarfism is
a you know, a melody thatcould be considered a handicapped to some people.
Nine handy, capable, whatever youwant to say. But but dwarves
have more maladies than than most physically, so it would the younger age would
make sense. Apparently there were Idon't know, I heard eight. I

(01:55:17):
think I counted nine at one timein a scene of oompall Oompa's. I
read an interview where they said therewere ten. Most of them were British.
There was a woman. There wasa female in Balloompau. There was
one from Turkey, one from MaltaI think, and one from Spain.
So they had a hard time followingorders from me. Couldn't give them directions.
Yeah, yeah, but I'm notsure. I was kind of bummed

(01:55:40):
now because there was I believe onegirl, one woman in there. There
was a midget, not a dwarf. And I kind of wish my friend,
my friend Sadie was in there becauseshe totally could have been in that.
She was a little person. Shewasn't ewok. She was in the
Frankie Goes to Hollywood video for Relax, she was in you know, Rocky
Horse. She was in a tonof stuff, and I'm all disappointed,
But I don't know. Maybe shedidn't like the costumes they are wearing hers

(01:56:01):
and then she played it elf.So yeah, and yeah, so she
got into costumes. I don't knowwhy. I wish I had asked her
about that. But um. Anotherupolumpa was named George Clayton, and he,
you know, we talked about howRoy Keaneer was in Help, George
Clayton was in Magical Mystery. Toher was hemm, so like a circus
performer. Probably, you know,they the little people just were like that.

(01:56:24):
That's the way they were used inin movies, right, Yeah,
they were just curiosities. Um.And then Marcus Powell who was also in
Time Bandits and he was in anElephant Man. Um, he was in
the original the first Star Wars movie. He's an extra at the bar in
the CANTEENA. Oh cool. He'sthis little guy who can barely see over

(01:56:45):
the top of the bar. He'sgot white hair, and he kind of
looks over at Luke and Obi Wanas they like walk up to the bar
basically and then the fight happens wherethe guy gets his arm cut off.
Um. But yeah, he's right. You get a pretty good look at
him sitting at the bar. AndI even saw somebody made like an action
figure out of him. How fun. And he has a name and they
gave him a name, so yeah, it's kind of funny. Wow.
Seeah there's another thing. It's like, all, how would you like to

(01:57:06):
be in a frame of Star Wars? You know, I mean, that's
so cool. I would have thatframe framed on my wall. That would
be amazing. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, I had UM. I
worked with a lady years ago whowas an extra in the Um, The
Enchantment, Under the Sea Dance andBack to the Future, and I was
she described the dress that she waswearing, and she's not she was not

(01:57:28):
an actress at all. She justgot picked, you know, at a
mall somewhere by a casting person likewe need more people, we need people
like you. And I found her. She's in clearly visible on two shots.
The one shot where them when theystopped playing, and the and they
cut to the principle and he's coveringhis ears with his hands because Marty's just
played the big guitar, so she'sstanding right behind him, like right over

(01:57:48):
his shoulder basically. So I printedout the two of them and gave him
to her to frame, and sheput up in her office I'm like,
I would have this up, likeI tell everyone I'd be in my business
card. Yeah, it's enchanting tomeet you. Yeah, I mean everything.
The girl who worked at our shop, Terry Bola was you know,

(01:58:08):
she was one of the girls thatthrough tampons at carry at the beginning of
the movie, you know, andit's like I was given it. I
gave Terry tampons to autographed for people. You know. It's like that with
a great claim to fame, youknow. I mean she's been in a
lot of movies and stuff, butbut yeah, so iconic to be you
know, plug it Up. Plugit Up. Had as producer I worked
with years ago. He um wasa musician on the side for fun and

(01:58:31):
somehow I think he was on aproduction in England with George Harrison and he
goes, yeah, we ended upgetting on a helicopter and flying to George's
mansion out in the countryside, andand he goes and I got to play.
I played guitar with him, likein his living room and just hung
out and I went, what yeah, And he goes, yeah, He's
like I got a picture of it. I'm like, yeah, he brought

(01:58:51):
he brings he brought the picture tothe office the next day and it was
kind of like wrinkled a little bitand like just creasing. I was just
he goes and it's a beautiful photoof him sitting on the floor with George
Harrison playing guitar, and I'm like, oh my god, Like what you
jammed with a beatle? That's prettycool. Yeah, He's like, oh
yeah. I was like, dude, this would be like blowing up the

(01:59:13):
size of a white wallpaper in myyes, Like you meet at parties.
What's your name? My name isScott. I used to jam with George
Harrison. What's your name? Enchantedto meet you? So um. The
other four kids outside of the actressthat played Violet are still alive. Peter

(01:59:34):
Olstrom, who was Charlie. Ofcourse, he became a veterinarian Um.
Julie Cole who was ruc Assault.She wrote a book in twenty sixteen called
I Want It Now. She's Great, all about her experience making the movie
Paris them In who was Mike TV. He did some acting and then he
bounced around a bunch of different gigs. And when he did that, you
know, after they were famous.Thing he was working in investments. I

(01:59:58):
think something in the Fine It's World. And then Michael Boehner, Augustus Gloop,
we already said a group to besix foot seven and he's in a
tax account in Germany and who knows. I mean that was as of,
you know, whenever they made thatshow, like twenty years ago. So
I'm sure a lot of them havesince retired, yeah, from even from
their second career as even yeah yeah, wow. Well, like I said,

(02:00:19):
he's six weeks of your life.You become an American icon, You've
become a cinematic icon. And it'snot so bad. Not so bad.
I mean, look at Butch Patrick. You know, Butch Patrick has been
dining out on the Eddie Munster thingforever. It's just been it's become his
career. You know, he is, and and good for him, you
know, something a job he hadalmost sixty years ago. But so you

(02:00:41):
know, he's he's he's he's makingit work for him. It is.
Granted it was a little bit morethan six weeks for him, but h
but still it's it's why not people, that's what they're gonna know you for.
I feel like, if you can'tmake it a big career, as
an actor. That's like the nextbest thing. Yes, I agree,
you had that one iconic role that, like you said, you can dine
out on the Yeah. Yeah,wow, and a great and a great
one. And in longevity, youknow, the longevity of this movie is

(02:01:05):
is fascinating to me. And it'sgoing to be fifty years soon. I
got the forty fifth anniversary and itwas just fifty years. It wasn't already
fifty Oh this right. I wentto see Oh my god, it was
like it was fifty years last year. Yeah. I think they played it
here in Palm Springs and I wentto see it at the movies. I
was only like five people there,but it was a fiftieth anniversary screening.

(02:01:28):
There was no I mean, itwasn't any cash members. It was just
seeing it on the big screen again, and it was it was really neat
to m to see it again inthe movie theater. But fifty years,
my gosh, well there you are. It means eight years from now it'll
be older than a Humphrey bill Guard. It's actually it wasn't fifty this year,
my gosh, it is twenty twentyone. It came out in nineteen
seventy one, so twenty twenty onefifty. Yeah. The only other thing

(02:01:51):
I was going to say is that, um, the you know, the
longevity we talked about the auction.I guess there was a golden ticket that's
sold for it was Verruca's Julie Cole'sgolden tickets over thirty four thousand at auction.
And um, and they say theall time most popular meme is the

(02:02:12):
Willy Wonka meme, the one thatthe condescending Willy Wonka meme they call it.
Yes, where um, you know, oh, really tell me more
kind of things, right exactly?Yeah, which is there? But yeah,
it's an independent study of two thousandBritish adults concluded that it was all
their whole time favorite. It's like, well, okay, I absolutly room
full of people. But it's funnybecause there's probably a younger generation that knows

(02:02:34):
Gene Wilder because of that meme,probably from any of his movies. But
I do the Wonka one is isyou still see it a lot? And
uh and uh and I think thatsays something about longepitty. Yes, I
guess that's it. All right,Well, everybody, thanks for going on
this. Uh this Journey to WankaLand with us. Yeah, you're going

(02:02:58):
to see it on Wonka Vision eventuallyon YouTube. Yeah and hopefully and check
out um aut you can watch thatum after they were famous episode with the
Waka cast. He is on YouTubethe whole episode. We should put a
link to it when when you sendme the Kyle, remind me and I'll
put a link just underneath it.Watch that. That'd be cool, um
and you can also you can alsofind the making of documentaries might also be

(02:03:20):
on one of the DVDs that theyput out. I think that's originally what
that was made for. Possibly itwas for the first DVD release back in
the Night, Yeah, because theywere still talking about Leonard Stone like he
was alive, you know, whenit was that's an old documentary. It
was great. They interviewed everybody.Mel Stewart was in it and the director
and uh and the the the screenwriterwas in it and not rolled all but

(02:03:43):
the one that didn't get his nameon it. Yeah. So I reckon
both of those. And they're nottoo long either. They're both like half
hour program so basically you could havewatched it five times in the time that
we are taking to make this podcast, but you laugh a lot more listening
to the podcast to us tell thestories from it in our own words.

(02:04:04):
I'm gonna go, I'm gonna goin lick wallpaper now, okay, tongue.
Oh, it's so creepy. It'sso creepy. That is so creepy.
You think he's spelling out the alphabet. I don't know. All right,

(02:04:27):
everybody, It's been fun as always. Thanks for joining us and we
will see you on the next episode. And check out our Patreon Dearly Departed
Pod. At Patreon, you getyeah, click below this and you get
you get advanced access to the episodeslike this one, plus the ones we
do um that aren't about like specifictopics that we do between the main shows

(02:04:49):
that are only on our Patreon.It's always helpful, but we will continue
to put these out to the generalpublic regardless. So thank you so much,
Thank you very much. This hasbeen an episode of the Dearly Departed
podcast. Dig up more episodes atDearly Departed pod dot com and on iTunes

(02:05:10):
and Google Play. See you nexttime. M