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Willy Wonka celebrity panel

Pintastic New England·video·50m 5s·analyzed·Jul 4, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Willy Wonka film cast panel at Pintastic New England discusses filming, careers, and new JJP pinball game.

Summary

A celebrity panel featuring three cast members from the 1971 film 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' (Peter Ostrom, Julie Dawn Cole, and Paris Themmen) at the Pintastic New England event discusses their experiences filming, working with Gene Wilder and other cast members, their post-acting careers, and the legacy of the film. The panel also celebrates the new Willy Wonka pinball machine from Jersey Jack Pinball and Warner Brothers Pictures.

Key Claims

  • Gene Wilder arranged for a color stills photographer to come photograph Paris Themmen on his 13th birthday during filming of the Golden Goose Room scene.

    high confidence · Paris Themmen, direct personal anecdote about his birthday experience on set

  • Roald Dahl had a falling out with the director and producer and did not complete the screenplay for Willy Wonka.

    high confidence · Julie Dawn Cole, citing her knowledge of the film's production history

  • Roald Dahl wanted Spike Milligan to play Willy Wonka instead of Gene Wilder, and British audiences thought the role should go to a British actor.

    medium confidence · Julie Dawn Cole, stating 'I am told, I don't have it on official' regarding Spike Milligan preference

  • Fred Astaire reportedly asked why he wasn't allowed to play Willy Wonka, according to a story Leslie Brickus told.

    medium confidence · Julie Dawn Cole, citing a story told by Leslie Brickus about Fred Astaire playing golf in Beverly Hills

  • Peter Ostrom turned down a four or five picture deal contract offered by producer David L. Wolper because he was uncomfortable committing to films he didn't know anything about.

    high confidence · Peter Ostrom, direct statement about his career decision after Willy Wonka

  • The 2004 Johnny Depp film 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' actually helped boost interest in the original 1971 film because viewers would see the new version and then want to watch the original.

    high confidence · Paris Themmen's perspective on the positive impact of the remake

  • The chocolate room was filmed over three weeks, and the entire production took almost five months.

    high confidence · Peter Ostrom and Paris Themmen, discussing the filming timeline

  • The Bavarian Film Studios in Munich (where Willy Wonka was filmed) did not acknowledge the film in their studio tours, mentioning other films like Cabaret, The Great Escape, and The NeverEnding Story instead.

Notable Quotes

  • “I didn't like chocolate at all anyway, so that was that terrible watermelon thing with all that goop in it. That was horrible.”

    Actress discussing filming the candy scenes@ 26:45 — Reveals behind-the-scenes details about the filming experience and use of substitutes for actual chocolate

  • “If you'd just quit smoking, you'd have been in a mansion.”

    Audience member or panelist joking about Grandpa Joe's character@ 22:52 — Humorous commentary on the Grandpa Joe meme about him being bedridden despite smoking

  • “So he was quite funny about it. But yeah, so Roy Kinnear, lovely David Batley, who played the school teacher. So it was a really good cast.”

    Peter Ostrom@ 32:10 — Reflects on the professionalism and camaraderie of the cast during production

  • “There's no worthy way of knowing. We made the film.”

    Panel member discussing the psychedelic boat scene@ 25:19 — Acknowledges the mysterious nature of the famous surreal sequence

  • “God bless you, Gene, because I'm still using them at Comic-Cons.”

    Paris Themmen@ 6:24 — Demonstrates the lasting impact of Gene Wilder's kindness and the enduring use of those photographs decades later

  • “I was a little annoyed with Veruca Salt, the band, because when I tried to get the Twitter handle, they'd already got it.”

    Actress playing Veruca Salt@ 0:35 — Amusing anecdote about modern social media challenges related to her iconic character name

Entities

Gene WilderpersonPeter OstrompersonJulie Dawn ColepersonParis ThemmenpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyWarner Brothers PicturescompanyJack AlbertsonpersonRoald DahlpersonMel Stewartperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Pintastic New England hosted a celebrity panel with three original cast members from the 1971 Willy Wonka film, demonstrating the enduring cultural impact of the film and the community's enthusiasm for both classic films and pinball.

    high · Event structure described with panelists discussing their experiences, audience Q&A, and celebration of the new Jersey Jack Pinball machine based on the film

  • ?

    community_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball provided hands-on support and technical expertise (Eric Minier explaining rules) to introduce the original film cast to the pinball game, demonstrating manufacturer engagement with community events.

    high · Panelists mention Eric from Jersey Jack explaining the rules, and their multi-day experience playing and learning the machine at the event

  • ?

    announcement: Jersey Jack Pinball and Warner Brothers Pictures have released a new Willy Wonka pinball machine that was prominently featured at Pintastic New England with the original film cast.

    high · Multiple references to the panelists playing the new machine, discussing its features (Wankovision, multiball, Everlasting Gobstopper), and crediting Jersey Jack Pinball and Warner Brothers for the collaboration

  • ?

    licensing_signal: The Willy Wonka pinball machine represents a successful collaboration between Jersey Jack Pinball and Warner Brothers Pictures for a major IP license based on a classic 1971 film.

    high · Opening remarks thanking both Jersey Jack Pinball and Warner Brothers Pictures for making the project possible and bringing the cast together

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.150

0:00
Shall I sing? Cheer up, Charlie. Okay. We may as well. I have a question. In the 90s, there was an alternative rock band named Veruca Salt. I was wondering if you had ever listened to their music or not. Seether. Yes. Okay. I didn't know about Veruca Salt, the band, but people would come up to me at conventions and say, hey, what do you think about the band? And then somebody gave me the CD. I was a little annoyed with Veruca Salt, the band, because when I tried to get the Twitter handle, they'd already got it. How annoying. So I am at real Veruca Salt, should you wish to follow me. Thank you. But yeah, I have listened to them. We've sort of communicated a little bit, but I've not met them.
0:54
I think, are they Los Angeles or Chicago? Chicago, Chicago, weren't they? Yeah, yeah. But, yeah. So, no, thank you for that. So how much have your pinball skills improved over the past two days that you've been here playing the new... Well, I was probably on minus something or other because I haven't played pinball since I was a teenager. We used to play at youth clubs. That was about all you were allowed to do at the youth club.
1:22
Hooray! Anyway, thank you for coming and I hope you enjoyed the end. Goodbye. Hi. We didn't even know we were late. Oh, boy. You've been ambling over. We did. I ambled in. You strayed away from the tour.
1:40
At least I know that you guys were in good hands. I sang a song. I sang your song. You know, the one that was cut. They enjoyed it, didn't you?

high confidence · Peter Ostrom, describing his visit to the studios 10-12 years prior to the panel

  • Peter Ostrom became a farm veterinarian after the film, inspired by working on a horse farm and developing a good relationship with a veterinarian.

    high confidence · Peter Ostrom, direct statement about his career path

  • Julie Dawn Cole pursued a degree in psychotherapy about 12 years before the panel and now works with cancer patients and their families at a hospital in the UK.

    high confidence · Julie Dawn Cole, direct statement about her current career

  • “Jack Albertson is what I meant to say. And, yeah, no, he was a very, very sweet man, very nice, played with the kids and was a really, really good guy.”

    Panel member correcting themselves about Jack Albertson@ 21:44 — Provides insight into the professional conduct and kindness of supporting cast members

  • “It's quite shocking that Charlie Bucket takes Grandpa Joe and his poor, hardworking mother has been doing that laundry and making cabbage soup and looking after four old people in the bed and you take Grandpa Joe and not your mother, shame on you.”

    Panelist commenting on the film's plot@ 22:21 — References the modern internet meme criticizing Charlie's choice to bring Grandpa Joe instead of his mother

    • David L. Wolper
    person
    Veruca Saltorganization
    Johnny Deppperson
    Spike Milliganperson
    Fred Astaireperson
    Pat Coombsperson
    Roy Kinnearperson
    Eric Minierperson
    Pintastic New Englandevent
    Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factoryproduct
    Willy Wonka Pinballproduct
    Bavarian Film Studiosorganization
    Game Room Expoevent
    1:52
    Did you get all your Veruca questions out of the way? Now it's time for Peter. No, I answered all of yours, and now we're moving on to mine.
    2:00
    Well, she was 13 years old on the day that they sang I Want It Now. Anyway, no, we waited for you. Very good. Sort of. So first I'd like to say thank you to Warner Brothers Pictures and Jersey Jack Pinball. Without Jersey Jack Pinball and Warner Brothers Pictures, all of us wouldn't be here celebrating this miraculous pinball machine and film. I also like to thank the staff of Pintastic New England and Game Room Expo for putting on the show that you all enjoy.
    2:32
    So let's get started. Can I just finish off the other question? Because you asked just as you arrived, have we improved our pinball skills since we've been here for the last couple of days? So I said we started off at minus, and we're now on minus minus. I've gotten worse. I like to think I've gotten a little bit better and I have a little bit of wrist stuff going on anybody relate to that? what's that?
    2:59
    I was just getting the same joke no I feel like just a little bit but no it's fun I really like the machine have you all played it yet? have most of you played it? do they give you one?
    3:11
    we're working on it well you know I want one now springs to mind yeah I don't know that much about pinball but it's obviously got a lot of tricks and a lot of good high end technology and I don't know if that's purely a Jersey Jacks thing or if that's just what pinball machines have become now there's so much in it that we were saying because we are pretty rubbish at it that our skills level we will never get to hear all the stuff that's further on when you advance so it's like we're never going to hear it it's embedded in the game Yeah. I heard one of the guys saying, well, you know, so what we do is we just sort of take off the glass and, you know, bling, bling, bling, and make it all happen. But I said, no, I don't even want to consider that that's a possibility. No cheating. You're the purist. Do you have a favorite feature in the game? Well, Wankovision, you think?
    4:09
    Yeah, no, it's, we had, was Eric, was that his name? Yes, Eric. Well, Eric's explained lots of the rules to us, but when I was playing with, well, no, when I watched, I wasn't playing with Jack, but when Jack was playing, I saw the multi-ball thing happen, which is, that's pretty cool. And the everlasting gobstopper, that's pretty cool, but I don't think if I play it, I'll get there somehow. Someday, someday.
    4:36
    So I have to ask this. What was it like working with the legendary Gene Wilder, you know, Blazing Saddles, Frankenstein, and then Willy Wonka. Well, his career, I mean, those films were made after Willy Wonka, so. He was very well known prior to doing Willy Wonka, and shortly after Willy Wonka, not really, not because of Willy Wonka, you may argue that now, but his career really took off working with Mel Brooks. Very humble, very kind person. You know, nothing but, you know, good memories working with Gene. I was 12. 12 turned 13. So, you know, he, you know, I don't have any, people want, you know, dark secrets about making Willy Wonka. I don't have any. It was a good experience. I look back fondly, and both Gene and Jack were wonderful, wonderful people to work with. For my first experience, it was my last experience, not because of them, okay, but I have fond memories of them. Yeah, good people.
    5:56
    I can see the microphone is empty up there. Anybody could question. My memory is well. Gene didn't beat you, did he? He didn't beat me. He was the opposite. I had my 13th birthday filming the Golden Goose Room scene. It was shot over five days, but one of the days was my 13th birthday. And back then, all the stills photography were black and white. But for my birthday, Gene arranged for a color stills photographer to come in and take a color set of photos for me. So God bless you, Gene, because I'm still using them at Comic-Cons.
    6:29
    The gift that keeps on giving. Same, he was a very nice man, very, would sort of fix you with his intense blue eyes, but, you know, wasn't, it was never that sort of crazy Gene Wilder, just more like at the end of the film, you know, very nice guy. The most recent time that I saw Gene, he was doing a thing, sort of a charity performance for a revival house called the Avon Movie Theater in Stanford, Connecticut, where he lived. He lived in both coasts. And they were showing Silver Streak, and after the performance, I went back and had my Willy Wonka poster under my arm, and I said, Hi, Gene, I'm Paris Thumb, and I played Mike TV. And he looked at me and he said, Oh, you were a brat.
    7:20
    And I said, Yes, yes, you know, I'm 50 now, and so perhaps I'm a little bit less of a brat them, I go, oh yes, certainly, Paris, of course. And he signed my poster to my favorite brat. . Question? Did any of you get to meet, children's librarian here, did any of you get to meet and speak with Roald Dahl? We did. I did. I had dinner with him because I was out there a little before you, recording my song. my song and I had dinner with him, very tall, very doer man, you know, very serious, very stern. And I asked him why he called Veruca, Veruca, because a Veruca is a planter's wart.
    8:08
    And he said he called her Veruca because she was the wart of a child. So it's always funny. I'll see, I saw the other day on social media, someone named their daughter, Veruca, and I had to sort of chuckle to myself. They didn't really know. Poor kid. I mean, even without the wart thing, they were sort of really asking for it, weren't they? So my impression of Roald Dahl,
    8:33
    he's listed as writing the screenplay for us, and he did initially, but had a falling out with the director and the producer and didn't complete the script. And I think it's difficult for somebody like that with that imagination. Okay. And his characters, Charlie, Ruka, everything's in his mind. And then when you meet the characters that are actually going to play the characters in his mind, it never matches up. So I think that was difficult for him. Mel Stewart, the director, his counter-argument was you don't make a film of a book. You make a film of a screenplay. So that was the kind of take on it. Yeah, he was a tricky man. He was known to be a tricky character before we even started filming. So the Quaker Oats representative, a guy called Robert Newman, was brought on board to wrangle Roald Dahl because they'd grown up together and the kids had grown up together. And so, you know, they already knew that it was going to be tricky, tricky. But you know, Mel Stewart was a difficult man as well, so yeah. But the success of Willy Wonka really goes back to the success of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I mean it was kind of laid out. It's a great story. Right, great story and again like every fourth grade teacher reads Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So it was kind of laid out for success. I believe because Gene wasn't known in Britain, certainly, there were thoughts about who should play Willy Wonka, and I am told, I don't have it on official, but Roald Dahl and various other Brits thought it should be Spike Milligan.
    10:28
    So that would have been different, very different. But then Leslie... Joel Grey. Joel Grey was one. But from the Brits' point of view, so from Roald Dahl's point of view, he wanted Spike Milligan. If you look at the illustrations, obviously, in the original books, it didn't look at all like Jean. And then Leslie Brickus, who's a friend of my agent in the UK, tells the story that many, many years later, he was playing golf with Fred Astaire in Beverly Hills, and Fred Astaire plaintively said to him, why wouldn't they let me play Willy Wonka? So Fred Astaire wanted to play it. So kind of interesting if it had gone down that route.
    11:12
    Got a question for Peter Ostrom. So you're a veterinarian now, actually. And what made you a veterinarian, particularly a farm veterinarian? Because they don't answer back.
    11:28
    So after the film, I started actually working on a horse farm and just fell in love with it and had a good relationship with the veterinarian and this person really enjoyed what he did. And when you're a kid, 13, 14, there are certain things that click for you and that clicked for me. I said, hmm, this looks like something I want to pursue and did the things that you needed to do to pursue that. and there was a point in high school when my choice of getting back into theater was a possibility. It didn't work out, but I had other doors that were open to me, and I pursued those. So still a great fan. I love movies. I love theater.
    12:19
    But it's just not the career that I chose. You had an offer right from Paramount or Walper or somebody Somebody made you an offer Well yeah Wolper Wolper and maybe yeah did the same thing I mean back then they had no idea whether or not the film was going to be successful and they wanted to kind of corral us if it was. Just think, it could have been Willy Wonka 15 by now, right? Maybe, yeah, maybe. So we had an options contract to do three more movies, but they never made any more movies. Right, I was a pretty independent person, and I was uncomfortable. They had no idea if I was going to sign a four or five picture deal. I can't remember what it was.
    13:05
    But they had no idea what those films were going to be. Obviously I didn't and I was uncomfortable signing to something that I didn't know what I was signing up for. A bit like going in the factory. Right, a little bit. A little bit. So I didn't sign. but again it was a mute point because Wolper never did another feature film after Willy Wonka did the opening of the Olympic Games and he did some time in tons of television roots roots yeah I mean he did but not movies right but no more feature films so it would have been a mute point anyway so so Julie you were actually an actor for quite some time actually before Willy Wonka and afterwards, but now you're actually a psychotherapist. Yes, I am. And I was wondering what made you pursue that career field?
    14:00
    I carried on acting for 30, 40 years or whatever it was. It's got to be about that. So about 12 years ago, I made the decision to retrain, and I took my degree, university degree in psychotherapy, to do something. I know acting is meaningful, but I wanted to do something on a different meaningful level. And so I became a therapist. I work with cancer patients and their families. So I work at a hospital in the UK. We support patients at diagnosis, during, after, and their families. And a large amount of my work is working with kids whose parents have cancer or working with dysfunctional kids. How interesting. How ironic. I think I have some insight there. We've got a chap on the microphone. Can we? Yeah, just one question. What's a snozzberry taste like? And how is grandpa? Was he like a nice guy?
    15:02
    Snozzberry? Who ever heard of a snozzberry? There's a lady with a T-shirt. Has she gone? She had a really cool T-shirt on that said snozzberry or whatever. Snozzberry. So I don't know what a snozzberry tastes like. But the wallpaper tasted like wallpaper. We know that. With their life stories I'm starting to feel like maybe I should have become an anesthesiologist or something. So returning back to over here. So Paris, after Willy Wonka you actually became a real estate broker, a commercial casting director and now you're an entrepreneur. you always an entrepreneur or did your acting experience in Willy Wonka make you become interested in what you're currently doing? That's actually a partial list. I'll throw out another couple things. I was a financial advisor at Smith Barney for six years. I was an Imagineer at Walt Disney Imagineering for a couple years. I was in film production, behind the scenes. I started a couple of companies. It's like there's three or four other things I could throw in.
    16:13
    Did it, you know, it was actually more of a reaction. I started when I was six, and I was doing Broadway and commercials very young, and then did Willy Wonka, then did more Broadway, and by the time I got out of theater school at 21, 22, I was ready to not be an actor anymore, so I went in the direction of travel, actually. I started working at a travel agency, a travel service in New York, and then I opened a travel service in New York. And it meant that I could get on planes for free, basically. So I would go out to JFK, I'm going to get on these flights, and I caught the travel bug. And I eventually went to 62 countries around the world with a backpack, jungles, Mount Everest base camp, and all these different, like, lots and lots of adventure travel.
    17:03
    And my life just sort of went in a different – I figured out that there was life after art. Question? The chocolate room is every child's dream. What was it like being in there, going in there? Was it as brand new and magical to you as it looks like on screen?
    17:26
    Initially it was. But you have to remember we were in there a long time. How many weeks? Three. Yeah. Yeah, so the novelty wore off, but initially it was pretty cool, and it was still cool at the end, but you have to remember that, you know, an hour and a half film, you know, I was there five months practically, filming almost five months. And there was something about, you know, it was great to be in the chocolate room, but you knew that there were so many other exciting scenes coming up, so it's like, next, you know, what's going to be tomorrow's thrill when we move out of this one into the next one, so it was exciting. I used to, they often would be playing the soundtrack and testing it at lunchtime and doing all sorts of things. And I would take my lunch from the canteen and sit by the river and have a pretend picnic listening to the music. It was cool. On the plastic grass. On the plastic grass, yeah. Astro turf. We went back, I don't know, at least 10 years ago, I guess, maybe 12 years ago. 2004. We went back to Munich. We did a sort of a where are they now kind of documentary where we revisited Bavarian film studios and the gates that are still there and some of the locations around town. And it was very interesting and nostalgic to be in the same sound stages. The Chocolate Room was a massive sound stage that they just built. As you probably realized, it was almost no graphics like CGI. Their solution at that time was, well, let's actually build it. So the boat ran on a cable underneath the river, and it was all what they call practical props and scenery, which made it that much cooler to be in at the time. But the local Germans and the people at the Bavarian Filmworks really weren't aware that we had shot there particularly. There was a gift store. You could do a movie tour, so you can go around the studios. you do a studio tour and they mentioned Dust Boot and Neverending Story and Cabaret. No mention of Willy Wonka.
    19:34
    Cabaret came in right after us with Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli, The Great Escape, one of my, Steve McQueen, that was filmed there. Oh was that at the Varian Film Workshop? Yeah, but they had no, and the film studio had really transitioned to television also. But it's like they black marked Willy Wonka Nobody had any idea that we were there, which is kind of interesting. Bob Fosse used to come in because we were overrunning at the end, like most movies would be. And Bob Fosse would come in with a cigarette in his mouth and go, God damn it, haven't you finished yet?
    20:08
    Had you really never seen the soundstage before you entered? Most of us. There was one of us who actually had seen it. Oh, the soundstage. Oh, I beg your pardon. So I thought you meant a soundstage. Oh, no. Yes. Like little Georgie Washington, I cannot tell a lie. Someone let her in. Somebody let me in and showed me around first. So I have a question here. So Charlie Bucket's family in the film is poor, and Charlie's making money as a newspaper boy, and it's assumed that his mom works somewhere to pay for the house or whatever.
    20:48
    So maybe Diana Soul was trying to become a professional singer, after going to a beautiful chorus of Cheer Up Charlie. So when Charlie finds the golden ticket, he presents it to Grandpa Joe. And it's revealed that he could have walked all along rather than being bedridden as he jumps out of bed. This actually spawned an internet meme in 2004 making fun of the incident. What are your thoughts on this? Because when I initially saw the film, I didn't think anything of it until I saw the meme. and now I think of, you know, oh, there you go. Come on, Grandpa Joey Cook, help tell Mom. What a slacker.
    21:30
    I realize now we didn't address the question of was Jack Nicholson a nice guy, and the answer is very definite. Jack Albertson. Sorry, did I say Jack Nicholson? Nicholson, yeah, he wasn't in our movie. I have no idea if Jack Nicholson is a nice guy.
    21:44
    Sorry, Jack Albertson is what I meant to say. And, yeah, no, he was a very, very sweet man, very nice, played with the kids and was a really, really good guy. But yeah, I mean, I've seen, you know, that... It's quite funny thinking of, yeah. He has like a Coke nail. If you look, one of his nails is long. And, you know, people have these theories about the seven deadly sins and all these things. And I think they're really sort of filling in the lines a little bit to suit their own, you know, obsession. But I don't think any of it was really intended by Raoul Dahl. I think it's quite shocking that Charlie Bucket takes Grandpa Joe and his poor, hardworking mother has been doing that laundry and making cabbage soup and looking after four old people in the bed and you take Grandpa Joe and not your mother, shame on you. Shame on you. My wife would agree. She's always like, oh, Grandpa Joe. You could have bought your mother a lipstick, for goodness sake.
    22:44
    Smoking tobacco. Always the first thing he says is, you know, and me? Yeah. He's always like, can I come too? If you'd just quit smoking, you'd have been in a mansion.
    22:57
    Anyway, there you go. I guess we could take a question. Thank you, folks. A treat to have all three of you here. I was very pleasantly surprised when last week I found out you'd make your appearances here. In any case, another movie-related question. Not sure if you've gotten this or not. As we know, a remake starring Johnny Depp, back in 2004, was made, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I've only seen bits and pieces of it, but what I saw I was not very impressed with. I'd like all three of your opinions of that movie. I'm sorry, of a what?
    23:33
    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Charlie and the Chocolate... Who? I'm sorry, I'm a little deaf in this. You have to open your mouth a little wider when you speak. I'm sorry. Does anybody have a real question?
    23:50
    Okay. I'll answer it. I like the film. It's very different. But it's in a different category. I mean, there's Johnny Depp and there's Gene Wilder. It has a following, but it really helped us because a lot of kids saw that film and then their parents saw it and they said, yeah, that's nice, but you need to see the original. So it kind of gave us a boost. you know so that's good take on it that's good thank you another question just to follow on that i saw that movie and that's when i realized that the all the kids lived i thought that they died as a child watching that film so i was kind of like oh they lived great you know because i followed straight you know they're actually horribly named in the book i mean there's a One line I think about, they'll all come out in the wash. Yeah, when I went back and watched it. Something about a little wiser or something. But you didn't hear that bit as a kid, do you? Just, they're dead. They're dead. Yeah. Well, a mere like 50-50 in the boiler or whatever, in the furnace. Furnace wasn lit luckily every other day Sporting change Yeah yeah So did you have therapy for that Are you okay now Made me the person I am today Straight and narrow But my question the scene when you guys get onto the boat, if I can get some more clarity on that psychedelic trip, I don't know where it was going, so if you can help me. There's no worthy way of knowing.
    25:22
    We made the film. Yeah. it was kind of shot in two halves so we'd get on the boat in the chocolate room then cut and we moved to a different sound stage where the boat is now up on ladders up on a rostrum kind of thing so that they could project the movie that you see behind us so you saw it for a couple of minutes we saw it all day long and I think I seem to remember there were worse things that got cut from the final edit So yeah, we were up on that boat and then Jean did the crazy You know we'd seen the script obviously but there's reading the words and seeing what he did with them in that crazy way with the flashing lights and everything so it was
    26:10
    Entertaining were you traumatized by that too? Just curious just curious Okay, just feel responsible for your childhood. I just want to make sure you're okay
    26:23
    or a child therapy thing, I think. So how did that make you feel? That's all. Another question? OK, so after filming, how put off were you by candy? She was kind of put off by chocolate before filming. I didn't like chocolate at all anyway, so that was that terrible watermelon thing with all that goop in it. That was horrible. But we did some trick-or-treating around the studio because we were there for Halloween. We had to teach her what Halloween was. Because we didn't do trick-or-treating in the UK back then. So my first trick-or-treating, I got Wonka bars. It was pretty cool.
    27:09
    So I still like chocolate. I like chocolate. I still like chocolate. But it was interesting. You know, here we are in Germany. Great chocolate. and the scrumptiously anxious bars were Peter Paul Mounds bars. And so a lot of that chocolate got shipped from the U.S. and it was old. You know how chocolate turns kind of white when it's old? So some of it wasn't very good. But things like, really? Here we are in Germany. Just go next door to the drugstore and get some really good chocolate. But they didn't do that. The opening credits with all that wonderful chocolate. Actually, my friend's daughter used to rush up to her TV screen and lick it. So I think she was probably thinking lickable wallpaper. I believe that was shot at Mars. The Tobler factory. Tobler? Tobler factory next door.
    28:03
    And they had a department for that. They had people that would make things out of marzipan or, you know, make the – people ask, was it all edible? And, you know, I don't see too many kids here. The example we use is if there was a gummy bear made out of plastic this big, there's an ear that was gummy. So you eat that and they get the shot. But no, they had someone who was a food stylist, I think they called them, and they would make little things. I particularly liked Violet's gum, which was actually sort of a tasty, taffy thing. But that was amongst the things that we were surprised with every day when we got to go to work. if you will and uh yeah i still like candy so one of the perks of being in this film is you get to do kind of neat things and so we had the opportunity to do uh we were judges on just desserts back
    29:01
    so that was that was very that was very fun and i actually got to go to a chocolate factory with rusty goff one of the umpalumpas the first chocolate factory that we went to switzerland and it was their 200th anniversary, and we got to make chocolates as well. So, yeah, sometimes we do get some cool stuff, but Top Chef. Well, we did because your daughter. Right. She was a huge fan. She was very interested in culinary arts, and her career kind of took her in that direction. But I said, I'll do it as long as my daughter gets to come along too. And I said, sure, sure. But they described what they did with the photography and everything as food porn. I had never heard that before. And then we've been to the Jelly Belly factory where we were king and queen of the candy festival. I have some nice pictures of us with the headgear. With the hairnets on and everything. So actually, Jelly Belly is my candy of choice, I'm afraid.
    29:55
    I did an episode of Cupcake Wars, which was Wonka-themed, and I had to be the host there. And so, of course, every time I opened my mouth, they wanted me to sort of tie it back to Willy Wonka. So I would say things like, yes, no, I do like that one, but it needs just a sous-son of snozzberry.
    30:16
    Sound like I know what I'm talking about in the food world. So several actors in the film that you actually worked with were actually famous prior to Willy Wonka. And, for example, Nora Denny, who was my TV's mom, she was in Get Smart. Grandpa Joe was Charlie's grandpa. He was Jack Albertson and he was in many TV shows and movies, including Mr. Ed. Chico and the Man. Roy Kinnear actually. This is pretty cool. He was Rupa Salt's dad and he was in The Beatles' Help and Wash It Down. There are so many other actors in this film that were actually uncredited, some of the Oompa Loompas in fact. you know what was it like working with these people I probably was more aware of the woman that played my mother Pat Coombs was a very well-known comedic actress in Britain so I knew of Pat Coombs which I was kind of how Timbrook Taylor who played the computer salesman if If anybody is into British comedy, The Goodies, Bill Odie, Timbrook Taylor, and Graham Garden, famous. That's what he would be known for in the UK. I did a play with him a few years ago. We did a summer stock kind of thing. Anyway, I was in the Channel Islands. We were doing a comedy there, and he was talking about his scene when he did the computer thing. He said it was clearly the last scene to be shot of the movie. and right down the studio corridor, all the suitcases were lined up. Everybody's luggage was there waiting to go and it was kind of like, you can just say this and get out of here. You know, we've all got a plane to catch. So he was quite funny about it. But yeah, so Roy Kinnear, lovely David Batley, who played the school teacher. So it was a really good cast. And we all love the favourite, it's our favourite, the woman whose husband has been kidnapped with the ransom.
    32:25
    How long have I got to think of Elva? But we don't know her name. A lot of the actors she was just talking about were British, there were some Americans. We shot it in Munich, Germany. And so a lot of the non-speaking roles were Germans. People like your other grandparents, the other three grandparents, Arthur Schlagworth and other people, they were all German and we shot it in Germany. So I was just calculating, it was about 25 years after the end of World War II. So here we have an American and a British cast in Munich shooting the film, you know, with German, English, American cast. It's kind of a nice thing. They were building the Olympics, the 72 Olympics in Munich, which I guess brings up other issues. But yeah, it was interesting to all be working together. There was the story about the other grandfather, not your Grandpa Joe, so Grandpa George, who didn't speak any English. And when the grandparents were in the bed and they were going to shoot, they're looking under the bed with the chamber pot and everything, they needed to move their shoes, because he'd got into bed and he'd taken his shoes off, and he got really upset that somebody was moving his shoes. And then with a translator, an interpreter, it turned out that he had really suffered in the Second World War, and so losing his shoes was such a psychological thing that they had to explain that he was going to get them back. But that's quite sad. I have a nice segue from that. It's another shoes story. Oh, yes. This is an Oompa Loompa story. So the Oompa Loompas, you're probably getting there, but anyway, they were a rowdy bunch, and they liked to get drunk and have parties and be naughty Oompa Loompas. And one day they were in a businessman's hotel where they all stayed, and the thing is the businessman would put out their shoes in the evening, and then someone would shine them and put them back and in the morning they'd go to work. Well, the drunken, rowdy Oompa Loompas ran around at 1 in the morning and took all the shoes and took them all and tied them all together and threw them in the lobby. And that's where everyone found their shoes in the morning.
    34:41
    Naughty Oompa Loompas. And shoes. Just saying. A question? Yeah, actually it's probably a two-fold question. The first, Julie and Paris, I think you'd done other work before this.
    34:58
    Peter, you hadn't, I don't think, not much. A little bit. Okay. I was just curious about the casting process for you and how that worked. And I also, as a second part, which is kind of unrelated, I just want to know about Paris and why you auditioned and appeared on Jeopardy. Oh, okay. You want to do that? You want to go first, Peter? Sure, sure. So I worked at the Cleveland Playhouse and had a well-known children's theater. Joel Gray got his start there. Margaret Hamilton, Wicked Witch of the West. And so it had a good reputation. And so when they were casting the film Marion Doherty out of New York, they were looking and they thought Cleveland, the children's theater there, would be a good spot. So cold call to the Cleveland Playhouse, do you have anybody in your group that you would recommend? And my name was given to them and I was in the right place at the right time. And they came out, the representative from Marion Doherty, very nice. I was in sixth grade, early June, and we had no script. I just read from the book. She had a tape recorder. She had a Polaroid camera. And so they took my voice back and my picture back to New York, said, you know, don't call us, we'll call you if we're interested. And I'm thinking, yeah, never hear from these people again. And one step, you know, a couple more steps later in August, I'm in Germany, you know, ready to film. So another trivia question, does anybody know what film Gene Wilder did before Willy Wonka, just before? So I saw this film in New York with my father because I had no idea who Gene Wilder was. Anybody? The producers yet? No?
    36:49
    Oh. Quacks or Fortune has a cousin in the Bronx. So hard film to find but very nice film. So maybe you should segue because you also auditioned for. Yeah, but I'm saving my Jeopardy stuff. You go second. Okay. so I was at theatre school in London and I had only done one job before I'd been in a production of Peter Pan in London over Christmas playing Liza the Maid and a mermaid and a wolf and an Indian and various other things in Peter Pan and by this time I'd been for a few other castings for things and didn't get further than the first audition because they would say what have you been in and you say nothing so anyway Willy Wonka came along and I went for the original casting and they lined up all the girls in the school hall at my theater school you you not you right height right whatever you know and so we were now being shortlisted and they gone around all the british theater schools so then i got recalled and we're down to like i don't know 50 20 whatever it was and this is the point that they actually start to talk to you and so i met Mel Stewart and Stan Margulies at a hotel in London, Kensington, and they said, what have you been in? I thought, right, now here's where I get creative, because if I say nothing, I'm not going to get any further. So I exaggerated. I got creative. I told them I'd been in Oliver. I told them I'd been in Melody. I told them I'd been in another, and I figured, well, they're American. They won't know if I name all this British stuff. You couldn't Google it. Exactly, exactly. So got away with it. That's how I got my part. So you've always been naughty. I have. And so children, when you're not getting what you want, lie.
    38:35
    Good advice for us all. Yeah. Just briefly on the audition thing, I was a working child actor in New York City. I'd been on Broadway. I started when I was six. And I read the book with my mom the night before and then auditioned a couple times. They read me for Charlie as well, but I was... And they didn't see you as Charlie. Isn't that interesting? I wonder why. Why that is.
    38:58
    The Jeopardy thing, my wife... Well, first of all, I'm a gamer, actually. I'm a geek like most people here, I think, and I'm a board game geek. So I've got a couple hundred board games, you know, European board games. Some of you guys will know what I'm talking about in my house. So I'm a gamer, puzzles, escape games, pinball. Why not? That's a game. And so I kind of already have that in my blood. I've been on Trivial Pursuit the Game Show with Wink Martindale. I was on one called Duel, and the gag was I stand in the shadows, and they describe who the next person is going to be, and then they pick who they want to face next. But they always picked around me. They picked the guy with the normal job and the normal, not the child actor. They're like, I'm not playing against that guy. Who's that guy? I don't want to know. So I never got on that one. I went on Win Ben Stein's Money and didn't.
    39:58
    And then my wife is a two-time Jeopardy! champion. She was on Jeopardy! three times. Her name's Nikki Gryllis.
    40:09
    Generally speaking, they thought she looked great and did great, but at least one person said she looked like Phil Mickelson, which she didn't dig. because the Internet's a cruel place.
    40:21
    Another person said her breasts were too far apart. Anyway, sorry, I digress. Then I went on, and I studied very hard. I really did want to do well, and I came in second place. And honestly, for reasons I won't go into, I think it really hinged on one question, that if I'd gotten it right, I probably would have won. But it was a great experience. It was a lot of fun. and I'm sorry I'm babbling, but one more thing is that the internet kind of blew up because he didn't mention Willy Wonka. Did anybody see any of that press? No? Oh, how quickly we forget. So yeah, apparently like ABC, CBS, Hello Giggles, everybody,
    41:03
    they were all like, my TV was on and nobody mentioned it. And it got way more press than if you just said, oh, I see you were a kid, you were a Mike TV. What was the question? The question? Oh, all right. The question. You know, it's funny. The question that I didn't get, I don't know, but I know the question that was, oh, I do. That's the same question.
    41:29
    Okay, this strait in the South China Sea separates the mainland from a well-known small island in the area.
    41:42
    I'm giving you a paraphrasing. It was the Taiwan Strait. Wow. And I had been studying geography in the area, and Hainan Island, which is a less important island, is right over here, and Taiwan's right over there. And I was like, I couldn't, I knew that he didn't want this one, he wanted, and I was like, couldn't think of it. And he said, I'm going to need an answer. And I was like, Hainan. And he was like, yeah, no. So that was it. And it will haunt me. So thank you. Sorry. So turning back to you folks now, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was actually released June 30, 1971. And it was just actually at the time mildly praised from critics. And it did just OK in the box office.
    42:35
    It actually went to television and VHS, and it blew up from there, much in the same way Wizard of Oz in fact why do you think it has connected to so many children and adults since that time I think you should ask these guys that question I don't know it's a it's a it's a thing that appeals on many levels I suppose it was a bit ahead of its time when it came out is that you know they were with my guy at the back you know they were killing children which you know didn't Disney didn't do, yeah. Disney didn't do that. So showing unpleasant children hadn't been done before. And then I suppose, you know, then there are lots of layers in it. So there's all the poetic references and the little quotes that you get when you're an adult, you don't need to get when you're a child, you know, but it's quite fun, isn't it? To kind of go, oh, you know, Rachmaninoff, no it's not. It's the marriage of Figaro and all of those things, you know, so there's a lot of good jokes in it. But of course, it's for children. It's winning the lottery, isn't it? You know, if you were a kid and you won your own factory and it's a fantasy and you'd live there happily ever after in this amazing place, you know, who wouldn't want that? It's a pasta factory. Yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, I think that's some of the appeal. And how many films can a whole family go to and everybody gets something out of it? And there's not very many films like that. And because it was Roald Dahl, because there was a dark side. It's funny. It wasn't Disney. It wasn't Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Around about, we'd had Mary Poppins, you know, with Michael and Jane and, you know, delightful children. Some of us weren't delightful.
    44:26
    So in book form, there was an unofficial sequel because there wasn't a film, actually. It was called something. Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. The Great Glass Elevator. Mm-hmm. If they were to make a film, what would it look like with Charlie running the factory? There was competitors to Willy Wonka. Slugworth wasn't a competitor. Spoiler alert. What would it look like? Would it be Willy Wonka trying to beat his competitors or? Good question.
    45:03
    I thought it would probably be pretty dark and Willy Wonka would probably have to be confronting immigration and who's going to run the factory and all those things. OSHA requirements? Who knows?
    45:15
    It's a good thing that they didn't make a sequel, I think. It's left alone. It didn't need one. A question we get that's kind of related to that is where do you think the characters would be today? What would Charlie be as an adult? Well, I think he'd be running the factory. And Veruca? Well, I used to say that she'd probably be living in Trump Tower, but that's not quite so amusing these days. I don't know, it depends on where you sit. So no, she'd certainly, maybe she'd be a Kardashian. I think she'd be a Kardashian. That'd be Veruca, wouldn't it? That's a little safer. Yeah, I'll stick with that. We think Violet would be on community service scraping gum off pavements. And we figured that Mike TV, he'd be running a kind of... Like a TV executive or something like that. Or in jail. Netflix.
    46:03
    Or in jail. Or in jail, yeah. Possibly, sure. And Augustus. Or, you know what could happen, actually, it could be like a stand-your-ground thing where he tried to, he pulled his gun on the wrong car or something.
    46:15
    That's why you're in jail. And I think Augustus would be running a fast-food outlet, dunking donuts, maybe. Dunking Augustus.
    46:25
    Yes, young man. Hi, thank you all for being here. My question is, what is your least favorite item that was ever made with your image and likeness on it? And what is your most favorite item ever made with your image and likeness on it? Now that's just interesting. Think about that carefully. You're not waiting for the answer. He knows what the answer is. What would be your favorite item? Actually, the machine is cool. If you haven't played it, then please do. It's great fun. But as we said, we're probably never going to get above that level one. So that has been terrific.
    47:06
    My least favorite. No, it's not necessarily my least favorite. It's probably my most curious. And if you're social media people, I'll try and find it and Instagram it or tweet it or Facebook it again, at Real Veruca Salt. We were in Kansas City, Paris and I were there, and a lady in the audience, a bit like this, said, you know, can I show you something? And you're always a bit nervous when somebody says that. You're like, okay. So she came down to the front of the thing, the audience mostly had gone there. She pulled up the back of her shirt, she was quite a large lady, and her entire back was covered in a tattoo of me. Which was kind of, so I have a photo of it, and it's me doing that, going down the chute with the egg decatur in the background and everything. I was so stunned, I didn't ask why. I just said, oh. And so that was the. You might not want to know that. No, exactly. I think it's possibly an answer I shouldn't know. So yeah, an entire tattoo of me. And I guess it's probably going a little bit. Can I have a spreadsheet over there? Yes, yes. It'll be going a little bit saggy around the edges, a bit like me too. But you know, that's, anyway. Nothing's coming to mind as far as a least favorite item. I do remember that on the set they measured me for an action figure and as an 11 year old boy, I was very excited that I was gonna be like G.I. Joe or something like that and that never happened. I will recall out. You had a small action figure when Doro picks you up. Oh, right, but I don't have that prop. I mean, like something in production, in actual production. Yeah, they did use a little doll to represent the Mike TV that she picks up like this. but that's a whole other thing. No, I was gonna say two items for the favorite. Honestly, it's really true. The Jersey Jacks pinball machine is, because it's the most interesting, and again, I'm a gamer, so it's a huge, massive toy that I'm part of. I mean, I honestly, without pandering, would say that that is the single best one. If he wasn't here, we'd say the same thing. And the only other one that would maybe come close is I'm also a pop vinyl figure, And that I consider very cool for the same sort of pop culture geek reasons. It's very cool to be included in all of that.
    49:23
    Well, we've run out of time. And we thank you so much for coming out to Pintastic. Thank you. A round of applause. Thank you.
    49:45
    Thanks for watching!