What of Charlie?

[Junkyard]

I just re-watched this, and I realized something: Charlie became the new owner of the factory, right? His whole family got moved in?

It seems pretty unavoidable, as far as I see it, that he would have gone insane, just to fit himself into the niche he was filling. And his whole family had to have died within the first year, with all those deathtraps! Either that, or the Umpa Lumpas psychoanalyzed them in song until each and every one of them went insane as well.

Could there really have been a happy ending here?

[ObscureGamer]

I just re-watched this, and I realized something: Charlie became the new owner of the factory, right? His whole family got moved in?

It seems pretty unavoidable, as far as I see it, that he would have gone insane, just to fit himself into the niche he was filling. And his whole family had to have died within the first year, with all those deathtraps! Either that, or the Umpa Lumpas psychoanalyzed them in song until each and every one of them went insane as well.

Could there really have been a happy ending here?

Plus, even if the family was smart enough to not get killed by one of Wonka's many kid-killing devices, and if the oompa loompas didn't annoy
them to death, doesn't something seem inherently twisted about an impoverished family subsisting on a lifetime supply of chocolate? That kind
of reminds me of the Supersize Me guy who came very close to suffering fatal organ failure after just one month of eating nothing but McDonald's.

[Junkyard]

Right, there's no evidence that they ever eat anything NOT sugar based over there.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Well, most of Charlie's family had one foot in the grave to start with.  I don't know that it mattered at that point what they ate.

I'll admit I never read the book....but was there something that was going to make Charlie be a recluse just like Wonka after Wonka kicked off?

If not that means all he'd have to do to wait unil then.....probably having that same kind of argument as in the "Dysfunctional Popcorn" sketch.

(which a small digression, a question I've always wondered about that popcorn sketch - so, if it's against the "Popcorn Creed" to have anything to do with women, how did Grampa there get is son and then his grandson?)

[Junkyard]

Re dysfuncional popcorn, they just pick people out mostly at random. His father worked for Senior, but wasn't related. Senior just fired Junior's dad and kept his kid. That's what I got from it.

But yeah, I guess Charlie didn't have to actually live IN the factory. Or he could have installed a quiet room or some kind, when the insanity overwhelmed him.

[ObscureGamer]

Right, there's no evidence that they ever eat anything NOT sugar based over there.

Oompa, loompa, doompity doo....I've got another puzzle for you....
What do you do when your blood sugar's high
Cutting your feet off just so you won't die?
Insulin shots help a little at first
But won't help with nightmarish thirst!
You'll get no....you'll get no.....you'll get no desserts or sweets!
Oompa, loompa, doompity dat,
Serves you right for being so f___ing fat!

[Junkyard]

Just a note- The only true way to live "in happiness too," as the Umpas say, is to get Lobotomies like Wonka had done for the Umpas.

Be afraid, Charlie's Mom. Be very afraid.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

He doesn't have to live only on chocolate. I mean he is OWNING Englamerica's leading brand of chocolate. He'll pull in enough annual profits to feed the whole family on organic health caviar or whatever.

Now that he owns the factory, he can give the loompahs some decent hunting rifles and send them back to loompahland, then hire some local workers who require more pay than a handful of chocolate but don't make songs out of glib pop-psychoanalysis.

[mattwnelson]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_and_the_Great_Glass_Elevator

And now you know.