Willy Wonka Trivia
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This Willy Wonka trivia quiz has 100 free questions with answers and covers the whole chocolate factory: Roald Dahl's 1964 novel and its sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the 1971 Gene Wilder musical, Tim Burton's 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the 2023 prequel Wonka, and the Wonka candy brand that outlived the film that spawned it. Expect questions on the five Golden Ticket children and how each is eliminated, the songs and who really sang them, casting near-misses (Michael Jackson recorded a whole soundtrack; Peter Sellers begged for the part), production oddities like a chocolate river that was really cold dirty water, and the strange lost chapters Dahl cut from the book. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and primary sources before publishing, so you can settle arguments with confidence. Questions run from easy to expert, so it works for a family movie night as well as a serious pub quiz round.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01For his 1971 Wonka entrance, Gene Wilder insisted on limping with a cane and then doing what?
A forward somersault
A forward somersault. Wilder made the stunt a condition of taking the part, so that from then on nobody would know whether Wonka was lying or telling the truth.
Q 02After playing Charlie Bucket in 1971's Willy Wonka, Peter Ostrum never made another film; what did he become instead?
A veterinarian
A veterinarian. Ostrum turned down a three-film deal, and back home the vet who treated his family's horse made such a huge impression that he took up the job himself, working mostly with cows and horses.
Q 03Britain's Roald Dahl first published Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in which country?
United States
United States. It came out there in 1964, but Dahl struggled to find a British publisher, and readers in his own country had to wait until 1967 for an edition.
Q 04What happens to Violet Beauregarde after she tries Wonka's experimental three-course-dinner gum?
She swells into a giant blueberry
She swells into a giant blueberry when the gum reaches its dessert course, blueberry pie, so Oompa-Loompas roll her off to the Juicing Room to be squeezed.
Q 05In Dahl's novel, squirrels throw Veruca Salt down the rubbish chute; which birds replaced them in the 1971 Wonka film?
Geese
Geese. The 1971 film gave Wonka geese that lay golden eggs, while the 2005 remake went back to the book and taught 40 real squirrels to crack walnuts on cue.
Q 06Who directed the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp?
Tim Burton
Tim Burton. Dahl's widow held approval over the film's key talent and blocked an earlier studio pick, Bruce Almighty director Tom Shadyac, before the estate gave Burton its enthusiastic backing.
Q 07Who plays the young Willy Wonka in the 2023 prequel Wonka?
Timothée Chalamet
Timothée Chalamet. Director Paul King called him the only choice after watching YouTube clips of a 16-year-old Chalamet performing in his school's talent shows.
Q 08Which actor plays Lofty the Oompa-Loompa in Wonka (2023) via motion capture?
Hugh Grant
Hugh Grant. The two earlier films cast actors with dwarfism as Oompa-Loompas, so actor George Coppen told the BBC that Grant's part should have gone to someone like him.
Q 09In the 1971 Wonka film, the sinister man who approaches each Golden Ticket winner claims to be which rival chocolatier?
Arthur Slugworth
Arthur Slugworth. Dahl's book only mentions him as a rival, but the film's rewrite made him a tempter and then unmasked him as Wonka's own employee, sent to test the children.
Q 10Which Wonka product do Charlie and Grandpa Joe secretly sample in the 1971 film, nearly costing Charlie his prize?
Fizzy Lifting Drinks
Fizzy Lifting Drinks. The film's rewrite added the scene, which is not in Dahl's book: the pair float up toward a ceiling fan, burp their way down, and Wonka later uses the theft to void the contract.
Q 11How did Roald Dahl react to the 1971 Willy Wonka film made from his book?
He disowned it
He disowned it. Dahl was infuriated by the plot changes and felt the film was too much about Wonka and too little about Charlie, so he refused to let anyone film the story again in his lifetime.
Q 12What does the 1971 film call the glass elevator that flies Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe?
The Wonkavator
The Wonkavator. Wonka's elevator can travel in any direction, so when Charlie presses its red button it smashes up through the factory's glass roof and sails over the town.
Q 13Which 1971 film song was skipped by the 2005 remake but revived in Wonka (2023)?
Pure Imagination
Q 21In Wonka (2023), what is the name of the young orphan who teaches Willy to read?
Noodle
Noodle. She turns out to be the niece of the chocolate cartel's leader, who handed her over as a newborn and told her mother that the baby had died.
Q 22Which American comedian plays the chocoholic chief of police bribed by the Cartel in Wonka (2023)?
Keegan-Michael Key
Keegan-Michael Key. His chief is paid in chocolate by the three rival chocolatiers to hound Willy out of town, and ends the film arrested by one of his own officers.
Q 23Which company bought the Wonka candy brand as part of Nestlé's US confectionery business in 2018?
Ferrero
Ferrero. The deal cost about $2.8 billion, and the new owner brought the dormant Wonka name back on a run of gummies to tie in with the 2023 film.
Pure Imagination. Its co-writer says the song went nowhere in 1971, overshadowed by 'The Candy Man'; it won its audience later, through the film's regular television airings.
Q 14Which food company financed the 1971 Wonka film, despite never having made a movie?
Quaker Oats
Quaker Oats. The film's producer was already talking to the cereal maker about a way to launch a new candy bar, and pitched Dahl's book as the perfect vehicle.
Q 15In which city was the 1971 Wonka film shot, with a gasworks standing in for the factory?
Munich
Munich. The producers wanted storybook European locations for a fantasy, and the city's old gasworks was dressed up as the outside of Wonka's factory.
Q 16'The Candy Man' from 1971's Willy Wonka became whose only Billboard number-one hit?
Sammy Davis Jr.
Sammy Davis Jr. He thought the song was horrible, recorded it in two takes and told his manager it was 'going straight into the toilet' and might drag his career down with it.
Q 17Which chocolate maker used Roald Dahl and his Repton schoolmates as taste testers, planting the seed for Willy Wonka?
Cadbury
Cadbury. It and its rival Rowntree's planted so many spies in each other's factories that the snooping became legendary, which gave Dahl the recipe thieves who force Wonka to shut his gates.
Q 18In the 1971 Wonka film, which sweet does Charlie hand back to Wonka just before he is given the factory?
Everlasting Gobstopper
Everlasting Gobstopper. A man posing as a rival sweet-maker had offered each child a fortune for one, so handing it back is a secret test of honesty, a twist the film added to Dahl's story.
Q 19Who plays Wonka's estranged dentist father, Dr. Wilbur Wonka, in the 2005 film?
Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee. The father is not in Dahl's book: the film's makers invented a dentist who burns his son's Halloween sweets, to show how Willy Wonka came to be who he is.
Q 20Depp suggested Freddie Highmore for Charlie in 2005 after the two had worked together on which film?
Finding Neverland
Finding Neverland. Highmore then put off watching the 1971 Wonka film until his own shoot was over, saying he ought to create his Charlie on his own.
Q 24The chocolate river in the 1971 Wonka film was made mostly of what?
Water
Water. Whatever was stirred in to colour it spoiled under the hot studio lights, and the cast remember the river as dirty and foul-smelling.
Q 25In Dahl's novel, Charlie's father loses his job when a factory making what closes down?
Toothpaste
Toothpaste. The 1971 film cut Mr. Bucket out altogether, while the 2005 version brought him back and put him to work at the toothpaste factory, screwing caps onto tubes.
Q 26Which songwriting team scored the 1971 Wonka film after Richard Rodgers and Henry Mancini declined?
Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley
Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Newley so disliked how the film's candy-shop owner sang 'The Candy Man' that he lobbied to reshoot the scene and play the part himself, and was turned down.
Q 27As of 2026, which filmmaker was set to voice Wonka in Netflix's animated Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory?
Taika Waititi
Taika Waititi. His Wonka has just served a prison sentence for what his factory did to a child, and comes home to find teenagers plotting to break in and steal a priceless Wonka Bar.
Q 28Johnny Depp said his 2005 Wonka came from picturing which politician extremely stoned?
George W. Bush
George W. Bush. In 2005 Depp credited children's TV hosts and game-show hosts; the stoned president only came out seven years later, on Ellen DeGeneres's show.
Q 29In the first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, how were the Oompa-Loompas described?
As African pygmies
As African pygmies. After the NAACP objected when the 1971 film was announced, Dahl revised the book, and the factory workers were redrawn with rosy-white skin and golden-brown hair.
Q 30Jack Albertson, Grandpa Joe in the 1971 Wonka film, won which three major awards?
Tony, Oscar and Emmy
Tony, Oscar and Emmy. He started as a dancer and straight man in vaudeville and burlesque, then won the Tony and the Oscar for playing the same father in The Subject Was Roses, on stage and on screen.