Willie, Augustus, and Me

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opens today, and I have seriously conflicted feelings about seeing it.

I was just a kid when the original movie version came out, and I can remember that fateful day IN ITS ENTIRETY. There are just a few days of my childhood that I can recall in complete detail: my 10th birthday (celebrated with fireworks at Disneyland), my 8th birthday (a disaster of epic proportions if there ever was one), my first day of kindergarten (Ah, the young and nubile Miss Wick...) – and the day my sister took me to see the story of Willie Wonka’s amazing chocolate factory.

I remember it so well: Paula was 20, I was 6. We’d gone to Everett to visit our Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Austin, who owned a second hand store across the street from the theater. They never seemed to sell very much stuff, but it was paradise for a kid like me, because it always meant you got to have a comic book or two from the huge dusty pile they had sitting by the back door.

Anyway, after lunch with the fam Paula and I walked across the street to the theater, where Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was playing. Red Vines in hand, we sat back and watched Gene Wilder and friends bring the story of Charlie, the Oompa-Loompas, and all of their associates come to life. And what an amazing world of pure imagination it was – chocolate waterfalls, gummy-bear trees, plants filled with sticky jam! It was too good to believe!

And then Augustus fell into that chocolate river. Uh, oh.

I remember my total, absolute, wide-eyed fear: Holy crap, that fat fucker is going to drown! (Okay, that’s not an exact quote from the time, but it was probably something close to that, albeit without the “fucker” part.) Then it got worse – Augustus got himself stuck in the tube. Why wasn’t anyone trying to save him? Listen – he’s yelling for help! Mr. Wonka? – he’s just standing there, smiling and saying, “the suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts.” For God’s sake - help him, you sadistic bastard! Help him!

Anyway, we all know what happens next. The pressure in the tube builds up, Augustus shoots off to God-knows-where, the Oompa-Loompas take Mrs. Gloop away, then they all stand around and sing a ditty about guzzling down sweets, eating as much as an elephant eats. And there I sat, shocked out of my little skin. It’s a good thing I was a kid known for excellent bladder control, that’s for sure.

Life goes on, and so did the movie. The remaining four kids and Wonka got into his not-so-much-Love Boat, and off they went for more touring and adventures...but yet my heart remained back on Wonka’s factory floor, wondering what the hell happened to poor Augustus.

Even at the end of the movie, when Charlie, Grandpa Joe, and Wonka are soaring over their non-descript European town in the Great Glass Elevator, and Wonka assured Charlie that all of the now-missing kids would be returned to their usual, rotten selves, I still wasn’t convinced. Where exactly was Augustus, hmmm? If he is truly okay (as Willie ‘Sick Bastard’ Wonka claims), why won’t he show him to us? Oh, sure – horrendous things happened to Violet, Veruca, and Mike Teevee, too, but Augustus – he shot out of a chocolate tube, shouting for help all the way!

It’s truly amazing that I’m not repeating this story to a psychotherapist to this day, isn’t it? Some kids were traumatized by Bambi’s Mom or Chernabog, the demon in Fantasia, but not me. Nope – I was mentally screwed up by the fat kid stuck in Willie Wonka’s chocolate tube.

Long story short, I had Augustus-in-a-tube nightmares every night for a month afterwards. My sister felt really bad about it – and being the wise-ass kid that I was, I tried not to make her feel *that* guilty about emotionally scarring me for life. And hey – she did buy me a box of Everlasting Gobstoppers the next afternoon, hoping that Wonka’s candy would somehow soothe my trepidation about eating something that could very well contain little chopped up bits of a fat German kid.

Over the past 34 years, I’ve seen the original film at least 100 times; most recently last weekend. I can quote large parts of the script, and my e-mail address is derived from a classic Gene Wilder line about the powers of Butterscotch, Buttergin, and Butterrum. It’s truly one of my favorite movies, and yet I still find myself having to turn away a little bit when Augustus takes his Dip of Doom.

So if you go see Johnny Depp and Co. this weekend on the big screen, be sure to show a little consideration for the 6 year olds sitting around you. For while you’re enjoying the amazing 21st century special effects and CGI world of Willie Wonka, there could very well be a poor frightened, overly concerned, totally freaked out child in your midst.

The sleepless nights you prevent might just be your own...