‘The Simpsons’ seems to have predicted the ‘Willy Wonka Experience’ fiasco

29 February, 2024

The Simpsons

The Simpsons has once again appeared to have predicted a current-day event – this time in the recent ‘Willy Wonka Experience’ fiasco in Glasgow.

The Wonka-themed chocolate “experience” in Glasgow had been branded “awful” by furious parents and forced to shut just hours after opening.

Dubbed as ‘Willy’s Chocolate Experience’, the event advertised “a celebration of sweetness and imagination”, inspired by the hit movie Wonka and the Roald Dahl book that inspired it.

Tickets cost £35 and promised audio and visual effects, dancing Oompa-Loompas and chocolate fountains, but delivered little more than a barely-decorated warehouse with a smattering of plastic candy canes and a small bouncy castle.

Now, fans of The Simpsons have noticed the similarity between the ill-fated event and an episode from season five, ‘Bart’s Inner Child’ when Homer explains to Marge that he plans to open a play park for children in the family’s back garden.

Homer dreams of charging $50 to enter ‘Homerland’ which features ‘Trampoline World’ (one trampoline per hour children), ‘Mudville USA’ which is just a large puddle and ‘Fort Adventure’ – which turns out to be a pile of dirty mattresses.

Check out the eerie similarities here:

Fans have also noted how in a 2002 episode, a depressed, cigarette-smoking Oompa Loompa makes an appearance after Homer attempts to smuggle sugar into Springfield before being stopped by police. Fans have noticed the similarities between this and the sad Oompa Loompa on show at the event in Glasgow.

Outraged parents began demanding a refund for their families shortly after the event opened in Glasgow, describing it as a “farce” run by “cowboys”. The event’s organisers, House of Illuminati, decided to pull the plug just hours into its opening day.

Police Scotland also sent officers to the scene after receiving a number of official complaints.

House of Illuminati issued an apology and guaranteed to refund all customers within 10 days. They described its opening as a “very stressful and frustrating day”, adding: “Unfortunately, last minute we were let down in many areas of our event and tried our best to continue on and push through and now realise we probably should have cancelled first thing this morning instead.”

Since then, a stand-up comedian hired to play Willy Wonka at a widely criticised chocolate factory experience has spoken out about the nightmare acting gig.

It came after Oompa-Loompa actress Kirsty Paterson previously spoke out about the disastrous experience, revealing she had not yet been paid the £500 she’d been offered for the gig.

“The whole thing’s just been a complete and utter shambles. It was shocking honestly,” she told the MailOnline.

Wonka is based on the universe created in Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Timothée Chalamet plays the lead role of Willy Wonka, in what’s billed as a prequel to the 1971 film adaptation.

The film recently crossed the $600million (£475m) threshold at the worldwide box office, placing it comfortably inside the top ten cinema hits of 2023, and surpassing both of director Paul King’s previous two films, Paddington and Paddington 2.

In a four-star review, NME wrote: “A scene-stealing Grant provides the comic highlights as Lofty, a supercilious Oompa Loompa with a grudge against Chalamet’s title character, while the film’s emotional beats come from Willy’s flowering friendship with book-loving orphan Noodle (Calah Lane). Wonka isn’t quite an immaculate confection, but it’s moreish enough to become a future festive favourite. You’ll want to tuck right in.”

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