Oompa-Loompa

Oompa-Loompas are dwarves in Roald Dahl's fictional books Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. They come from Loompaland and are the only people Willy Wonka will allow to work in his factory due to the risk of industrial espionage. They are only knee-high with astonishing haircuts, and are paid in their favorite food, cacao beans.

History

The Oompa-Loompas were first featured in Roald Dahl's 1964 children's book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The original book first portrayed Oompa-Loompas as black pygmies from "the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had been before". After the book's U.S. release, complaints of racism caused Dahl to rewrite the characters as dwarves with "golden-brown hair" and "rosy-white" skin. In the 1971 musical film adaptation, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the characters were again reinterpreted as orange-skinned and green-haired - very similar to the Munchkins of 1939's The Wizard of Oz. In the 2005 adaptation, restored to its original title of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Oompa-Loompas are small, with short dark hair and bronzed skin, and are all played by the dwarf actor Deep Roy. Roy's stature was diminished on screen to an apparent height of 30 inches, using digital compositing and forced perspective. They communicate only through mimic and gestures (and singing, of course) and they also have a singular gesture of accord, in which they cross their arms and closed hands up to their chest, in a way that very much resembles the greeting gesture of the aliens in Plan 9 from Outer Space, from which Tim Burton may have taken direct inspiration.

Loompaland

Oompa-Loompas lived in Loompaland, an uncharted place full of Snozzwangers, Hornswogglers, wicked Whangdoodles, and Vermicious knids, four classes of extremely dangerous creatures who preyed on Oompa-Loompas. In the film Wonka says that he met the Oompa-Loompas in his travels, and brought them from Loompaland to his factory for their own safety.

Songs

In the book, Oompa-Loompas perform impromptu witty, moralising songs about the mischievous children who have been invited to tour the factory. Four songs are presented in the form of a simple puzzle which are intended to make adolescents think about the consequences of their behaviour: the Augustus Gloop Song, about a gluttonous boy who tried to drink up the chocolate river only to fall in and get sucked up into a pipe headed for the fudge room; the Violet Beauregarde Song, about a chronic gum-chewing girl who eats an experimental gum, causing her to turn blue, expand into a human-like blueberry, and be taken to the juicing room to return to normal; the Veruca Salt Song, about a spoiled brat who winds up going down into a garbage chute for her wanton greed; and the Mike Teevee Song, a song about a boy who watches too much television, only to get shrunken down to size by a matter condenser, and sent to the taffy room to be stretched back to normal.

In the film adaptations, they also dance to their own music.

The songs written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Johnson for the 1971 film are radically different from the songs in the book (each beginning and ending with the now-iconic Oompa-Loompa-Doompa-Dee-Do), while the 2005 adaptation uses the book's lyrics to the point where Roald Dahl is listed in the 2005 movie credits as having written the lyrics for the songs.

In the 2005 version of the movie, it is pointed out by Mike Teevee as being highly suspicious that the children's names were already in the songs, suggesting that they already knew that the incidents (Augustus Gloop getting sucked up the pipe, for example) were going to happen. However, as Wonka explains in the book, the Oompa-Loompas love to sing, and thus the songs are impromptu.

In the book's sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the Oompa-Loompas sing two other songs: Wonkavite, and Goldie Pinklesweet.

Casting

Adel Farhat (The Prisoner), George Claydon, Hussein Farhat, Rudi Borgstaller, Ismed Hassan, Pepe Poupee, Marcus Powell (credited in the Time Bandits as Horseflesh but did not appear!), Malcolm Dixon(Time Bandits), Albert Wilkinson and Norman McGlen played the role of the Oompa-Loompas in the 1971 film. Deep Roy plays all the Oompa-Loompas in the 2005 film.

Parodies

Oompa-Loompas were once parodied on Family Guy. In the episode "Wasted Talent", which features a subplot based on the 1971 film in which Peter Griffin wins admission to a tour of the Pawtucket Patriot Brewery, the "Chumba Wumba" sing a song to Joe Swanson in which they make fun of his need for a wheelchair. Shortly afterwards, they start singing to Peter Griffin when he and Brian are forced to leave for tasting beer they weren't supposed to taste. During this song, one of them kicks Peter in his knee, making him drop down and clutch it in pain.

Also, in Fry and the Slurm Factory, an episode of Matt Groening's Futurama cartoon series, the "Grunka Lunkas" sing a song (tune same as 1971 version) while the crew were touring the Slurm soft drink factory. The crew were warned not to inquire about the secret ingredient of Slurm. The Grunka Lunkas subsequently lose their bathroom breaks for singing. It is later revealed that the Grunka Lunkas are essentially slaves, working at less than half the cost of humans/lobsters/robots/mutants. They were treated incredibly badly in the show, mostly for the degrading humorous effect.

Farnsworth: "Who are those horrible orange creatures over there?"

Glurmo: "Why, those are the Grunka-Lunkas. They work here in the Slurm factory."

Farnsworth: "Tell them I hate them!"

In The Simpsons episode Sweets and Sour Marge a single Oompa Loompa can be seen smoking causing Homer to give an aside to Bart "Those guys are freaky." In the same episode, when Marge comes back from the sweets factory, Homer says "Where there Oompa Loompas?". Marge replies, "There was one, but he wasn't moving".

In The Simpsons Magazine, in the comic The Beer Boy's, once Barney Gumbol, Carl Carlson and Lenny Leonard have left him he fantasied an Willy Wonka parody.

In the Drawn Together episode "Freaks & Greeks", Captain Hero swallows water and a piece of candy made by Willy Wonka (mistaking it for a roofie) and bloats up into a giant blueberry. After this, Xandir plays the flute to summon Oompa-Loompas to roll him away to get the juice squeezed out of him.

The 1999 film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me features a character named Mini-Me (Verne Troyer), the diminutive clone of the film's villain Doctor Evil (Mike Myers). In one scene, Evil suggests the feelings of animosity his son Scott Evil (Seth Green) has for Mini-Me are from the latter's "creepy Oompa-Loompa vibe."

The Irate Cinema Underground made a satirical film called "Oompa Loompa Liberation" in which they protest the film release of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" due to Wonka's out-sourcing of American jobs to Oompa-Loompa slaves.

Although there are more than a few satirical webpages devoted to the freeing of Oompa Loompas, perhaps the most relevant, is PETOL (People for the Ethical Treatment of Oompa Loompas). This organization has been around since approximately 2000, and continues to be a leader in the fight for fair treatment.

An episode of Mind of Mencia attacked Tim Burton for only using one Oompa Loompa in the entire film, then several Oompa Loompas came out and start sining about how they lost their jobs, and have been forced to turn to prostitution.

A Johnny Bravo episode shows a beef jerky factory where diminutive elderly men work in, another parody of the Oompa-Loompa.

Finally, in an episode of MTV's stuntshow Jackass, Jason Acuña, also known as Wee Man, does various stunts on his skateboard in an urban area, dressed up as an Oompa-Loompa. He is musically guided by a remix from the Oompa-Loompa "theme song" from the 1971 film.

In an episode of Arthur, Buster Baxter reads a book about going to a sandwich factory with small, elf-like creatures resembling Oompa-Loompas who say "When you break off all your teeth it becomes so hard to eat."

External links

• PETOL - People for the Ethical Treatment of Oompa Loompas
• Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Movie Song Lyrics - Roalddahlfans.com
• Official Oompa–Loompa Songbook - Roalddahlfans.com

• Politically Correct Oompa–Loompa Evolution - Roalddahlfans.com
• Liverpool(UK) Oompa Loompa Society
• Economics of Oompa Loompas
• Oompa Loompa Liberation Front