Willy Wonka

Oompa, Loompa, doompa-dee-doI’ve got a perfect puzzle for youRemember the disastrous “Willy Wonka Experience” in Glasgow a few weeks ago? Parents paid £35 per ticket, lured in by AI-generated ads depicting a lush candy paradise only to be greeted by a near-empty warehouse with a couple dinky decorations. Now nobody trusts Willy Wonka. Perhaps we never should have. After all, this is the man who invited five children to his factory and set them up to meet grisly fates. Let’s Eat a Chocolate Xbox ControllerThis week Wonka…

Donald Trump during a Super Tuesday election night watch party at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, US, on March 5, 2024.Photo: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg (Getty Images)Truth Social, the social media platform launched by Donald Trump in 2022, suffered a widespread outage on Thursday. And it’s unfortunate timing for the former president. He was right in the middle of furiously tweeting (or Truth-ing, to use the site’s tortured parlance) about President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech. - Matt Novak Read…

The ‘Meth Lab Oompa Loompa Lady,’ whose real name is Kirsty Paterson, has been through a lot over the past week, but even she wasn’t ready for the latest twist in her story. After being forced to learn an AI-generated script for a disastrous Willy Wonka-themed event in Scotland and facing hordes of hate on X/Twitter, Paterson got a message from someone she never expected: Chrissy Teigen.Let’s Eat a Chocolate Xbox Controller“Somebody get the Wonka meth lab girl on Cameo immediately—while it’s still hot,” Teigen said in a…

Photo: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto (Getty Images)Putting your phone in airplane mode when boarding a flight feels like common sense. You wouldn’t be crazy for thinking your phone signal could interfere with an airplane’s navigation systems, potentially causing a disaster. However, the necessity of airplane mode is largely a myth, and there’s another reason airlines are asking you to turn your phone off. - Maxwell Zeff Read More Photo: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto (Getty Images)Putting your phone in airplane mode when boarding a…

Billy Coull, organizer of the now virally infamous knockoff Willy Wonka-themed family event in Glasgow last weekend, on Friday sought to calm furious parents demanding refunds for the pricey but decidedly lackluster “immersive” exhibit. In a statement shared on Facebook, he issued apologies to customers and reiterated a promise to refund everyone. “Willy’s Chocolate Experience,” the trademark-skirting name given to Coull’s botched venture, was supposed to offer young fans of Roald Dahl’s novel Charlie and the…

This week, the world had a collective freakout over “Willy’s Chocolate Experience,” an event in Glasgow, Scotland that ended in tears. Organizers used AI-generated ads that promised $45 Wonka wonderland, but when parents and children arrived, they found a barren, filthy warehouse. Several actors involved with the production came forward to share horror stories, including one woman who said she played a sinister character called “The Unknown.” But now, internet sleuths uncovered a darker truth: this would-be Unknown was a…

It’s the story that has captured the internet’s attention, giving birth to millions of memes: the disastrous “Willy Wonka experience” that took place in Glasgow, Scotland, last month and left children in tears.The exhibit went viral after photos and testimony emerged suggesting a huge gulf between how the experience was marketed (with glitzy, larger-than-life imagery) and the reality (an empty warehouse, offering as snacks just a handful of jelly beans and a half-cup of lemonade).But as much as the Willy Wonka experience…

An event based on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory made international news over the weekend after a promised world of imagination turned into a full on disaster. “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” in Glasgow, Scotland was promoted with elaborate AI-generated images of lollipop forests and jellybean waterfalls. But when families arrived, they were greeted by a filthy, barely decorated warehouse, prompting parents to call the police (see the photos here). Now, Gizmodo has a copy of the event’s unhinged AI-generated…

It’s just a fact that, for all their wonder and whimsy, Roald Dahl‘s children’s books can be terrifying. The heroine of Matilda, abandoned to a strict school by uncaring parents, must survive the cruelties of the headmistress, Miss Trunchbull. Unlike the friendly giant of the title, the other giants in The BFG snatch humans to eat from their beds every night. The Witches concerns a conspiracy of demonic crones bent on eradicating kids altogether. In other words, Dahl’s often macabre fantasies are not safe spaces…

One of the actors hired to play Willy Wonka at an “immersive experience” fan event that became a viral sensation for all the wrong reasons is speaking out about what actually went down behind the scenes. The U.K. fan attraction Willy’s Chocolate Experience — which was inspired by Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but not officially tied to the book or movies — promised to transport ticket buyers into a fantastical world. The organized used spectacular artificial intelligence-generated…