Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/YMMV


 * Alternative Character Interpretation: Mister Wonka is either a genius or a monster. Or a combination thereof.
 * As the contest appears to be a Secret Test of Character, with four basically bratty and self-serving kids being Hoist By Their Own Petard by their vices, and kind-hearted Charlie (who still fell from grace only to redeem himself later), one can look at the story as exploring the relationship between man and God.
 * Crazy Awesome: Who else but Willy Wonka?
 * First Installment Wins: Raise your hand if you didn't know there was a sequel...
 * Harsher in Hindsight: Viewers might view the Oompa-Loompas in a different light once they lean about the real life child slavery issue the cocoa industry has.

Specifically the 1971 film:
"Mrs. Gloop: (as her son drowns in a river of chocolate) He can't swim! Wonka: There's no better time to learn."
 * Adaptation Displacement: The 1971 film is more familiar to many people than the book -- to the point that there were complaints about the 2005 film making stuff up when what it was actually doing was restoring things that were in the book but left out or changed for the 1971 film.
 * Alternative Character Interpretation: Was Wonka's infamous rant (under Memetic Mutation) an Out of Character moment, or a subconcious Berserk Button?
 * Some people think Grandpa Joe is a selfish jerk. He says that he'd help Charlie support the family if he could get out of bed, but the only time we actually see him trying is so he can go to the chocolate factory. Him taking the fizzy lifting drinks and willingness to sell out to Slugworth after Wonka's rant are also sometimes held against him.
 * Also Grandpa Joe accuses Wonka of being an inhuman monster for crushing Charlie's dream.
 * Awesome Music: "Pure Imagination". Among other things, it was repurposed for an ad for some high-tech product recently...
 * Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The tunnel scene, which comes and then is never mentioned again, even though realistically such an event would likely cause the characters to demand to be let out of this factory. Ironically, it's probably the movie's most famous scene.
 * Covered Up: "The Rowing Song", whose cover as "Prelude (The Family Trip)" was made a bit more disturbing by Marilyn Manson.
 * Ear Worm: "Oompa-Loompa-Doopa-de-do, I've got another puzzle for you..."
 * Genius Bonus: After Wonka plays the musical lock, Mrs. TeeVee says "Rachmaninoff" knowledgeably. The joke is that the music is actually from the overture to Mozart's opera "Le nozze di Figaro", a rather obscure reference to non-musicians/opera fans.
 * The man from Paraguay who gets caught counterfeiting a Golden Ticket is represented by a picture of Martin Bormann, the former chairman of the Nazi Party, who at the time was widely believed to be living under an assumed name in South America.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: Despite being known as "the amazing chocolatier", the most popular Defictionalization Defictionalized Wonka-brand candy is fruit flavored, like Runts and Nerds (especially the banana Runts- fans apparently lobby Wonka all the time for a banana-only box). You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who's eaten a Wonka bar, and the other candy mentioned in the book, the Everlasting Gobstopper, seems to have seriously dipped in popularity since the 1990's.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Wonka takes sadistic delight in punishing children in his whimsical death-traps and then mocking parents afraid for their offspring's lives.


 * Both movies' versions can qualify for this in a certain light:
 * Willy Wonka and the: 'Slugworth''s prompt appearance wherever the tickets were found seemed to imply that Wonka knew where said tickets were going to go in some form of Xanatos Gambit. Now true, the first four tickets were filmed, so time could have passed between the finding and the news report, but 'Slugworth' appearing in Charlie's path stretches coincidence a bit far unless Wonka planned for the tickets to be placed in certain locations.
 * The commentary even points out that there was already a news crew waiting for one of Mr. Salt's workers to find a ticket.
 * Charlie and the: The Oompa-Loompas' 'improvisation' also smacks of conspiracy, but ramps it straight into casino territory, as it rather implies that he cherrypicked those kids specifically.
 * Memetic Molester: The candyman...the candyman can? Seriously, kids, haven't you learned not to take candy from strangers? Why can't he just sell them and be done with it? No...he has to practically seduce these kids with SUGAR and dance around them very suspiciously.
 * Memetic Mutation: "You get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!"
 * Commonly used in the "You Must Be New Here" meme.
 * Older Than They Think / Weird Al Effect: Many people attribute the literary quotes by Wonka to this film.
 * Values Dissonance: Charlie being upset by Grandpa Joe's vow to quit tobacco.
 * Vindicated by History / Vindicated by Cable: A box-office disappointment when initially released, it found its audience through TV and home video, becoming the 1970s equivalent of The Wizard of Oz. (Curiously enough, Roger Ebert's original review outright praised it as being the best kids' film since Oz!)
 * What Do You Mean It's for Kids?: Augustus Gloop and the tunnel sequence.
 * What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: The reason why it has earned a reputation as a Stoner Flick.
 * The Woobie: A minor example in Mr. Salt. Did he and his wife spoil Veruca? You bet. Are they responsible for her monstrous personality? No doubt. Even knowing this, does the look on his face when she calls him a "rotten mean father" (As though he were about to burst into tears) make you feel legitimately bad for the guy? Absolutely.

Specifically the 2005 film:

 * Awesome Music: There are so many different genres of good tunes, you'd swear The Backyardigans were involved.
 * Broken Base: Better than the original movie? Or is the original still the best? Woe betide the one who voices an opinion on the subject.
 * Ear Worm: Every last song on the soundtrack.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Mike or Violet. Mike for being an Insufferable Genius Deadpan Snarker and Violet for being a Little Miss Badass Adorable, with attitude.
 * Heartwarming Moments: Grandpa George, a completely irascible curmudgeon who had virtually nothing good to say about anything, tells Charlie, when he offers to sell the golden ticket in order to support the family, that he would be a fool to sell his dream for something as common and ridiculous as money. Considering how cantankerous and irritable he was to that point, it comes out of nowhere that he is the one who speaks out against selling the ticket, particularly in contrast to his stating that Charlie's one bar a year didn't stand a chance in hell of winning in the first place.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: The references to cannibalism.
 * Memetic Molester: Willy Wonka. Beyond the Nightmare Fuel elements of Johnny Depp's performance, when the film hit theaters it was in the wake of Michael Jackson being found not guilty on child molestation charges. As Depp-Wonka and Jackson are superficially similar in appearance, the film was the butt of jokes and questions as to whether this was intentional.
 * Too Soon
 * "Oh, and my name is... Willy."
 * "Discuss the idea that Willy Wonka was a pedophile."
 * Memetic Mutation: "Good morning starshine! The Earth says 'Hello!'"
 * Purity Sue: Charlie, who's a saint in comparison to his alternate universe self (who was still a good kid, but flawed like a regular child). He's hardly even given a chance to test his character for the first half of the film, unlike his 1971 self who faces the temptation of both Slugworth's deal and the fizzy lifting drinks.
 * This is actually more in line with how he was written in the book. Whether or not staying faithful to the book was a good thing in this case is a definite YMMV situation.
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Specifically, it would have been great see to Depp recite the full "We have no way of knowing..." poem with all the manic energy his character used in the book.
 * Viewer Gender Confusion: In this film, Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka actually looked like a girl.
 * What an Idiot!: Wonka himself. How could he possibly think it would be a good idea to lick the blood/goo of totally unfamiliar insects and not have anything bad happen.
 * Veruca's father, who can't work out how to climb over a very small gate.
 * Woolseyism: Mike Teevee received an update from a television addict obsessed with Westerns to an videogame-playing technology nerd, an image children of the day can better relate to. His flaw is that too much time "gaining intelligence" from TV and playing violent video games has made him a dickish, violent little know-it-all with no imagination. YMMV if this is Hypocritical Humor or not, as some of Tim Burton's works have actually gotten video game adaptions (See: The Nightmare Before Christmas).
 * Though it does make the Oompa Loompas still insisting that television was responsible pretty nonsensical.