Forget the Everlasting Gobstopper. The failed Willy Wonka Experience is about to become the Everlasting Showstopper. As you may remember, in late February, Willy’s Chocolate Experience, which was marketed as an “immersive experience” into Willy Wonka’s world of pure imagination, ended up being a complete nightmare. Ads were AI images and families were charged more than $40 per ticket to enter a warehouse with low-budget decorations, sad-looking performers, a Chat GPT script, and no chocolate! Attendees were so upset that they ended up calling the police.
Well, the Internet has once again done what it does best, and that’s create a parody musical based on the whole debacle. TikToker Daniel Mertzlufft, who created 2021’s “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical” found himself inspired to write “Willy’s Candy Spectacular” and it very randomly stars John Stamos! So far, four demo songs have been released, with new songs forthcoming every Sunday until its debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Fest from August 9-26.
Willy’s Candy Spectacular is sharing the next taste of the highly anticipated spoof musical!
The parody production, based around the events of the infamous Glasgow Wonka experience, revealed a fourth demo track from the musical, called “The Unknown.” The song was penned by Daniel Mertzlufft, the creative mind behind the viral sensation Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, which became a hit on TikTok in 2021.
“As an avid TikTok addict, the Glasgow fiasco was my entire FYP for a solid week, and nothing was more intriguing than The Unknown! Who is he? Where did he come from?” said Daniel in a statement.
“I never thought my obsession over these questions would lead to writing a horror song for puppets about The Unknown starting the apocalypse, but that’s the fun of Willy’s Candy Spectacular! When else do you have the ability to truly just explore the unknown!?”
Additional demo songs will arrive every Sunday, leading to the debut of a staged reading of the musical at the Pleasance King Dome from August 9 to 26 during Edinburgh Fringe Fest 2024. For all the latest details, head to willyscandyspectacular.com.
I watched the teaser trailer plus all four of the videos that have been released to date via their YouTube channel and OMFG. There are not enough LMFAO emojis. There are so many words I could use to describe it that I’m having trouble picking just one. Amazing. Ridiculous. Brilliant. Stupid. Utterly wild. Candy-licious. That song that Stamos does to set it all up, described as a ”’a post-apocalyptic’ opening number that traces the downfall of civilization back to the disastrous event in Glasgow” is stubbornly stuck in my head now. The song by the evil chocolate maker character The Unknown, which is supposed to be ”Sweeny Todd meets [the] Muppets” is chaotic camp. “Where Dreams Go To Fly,” co-written by Emmy winners Doug Rockwell and Tova Litvin, is a banger, not gonna lie. Oh, and in a wonderfully meta twist, Sad Oompa Loompa Kirsty Paterson herself even plays herself.
This looks so funny. I wonder how on earth they got John Stamos, though. Like, was he a big fan of “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical” or did he just tell his agent to book him something that will make people forget his memoir? What other events from that day should they parody and in what manner? Will it end as a tragedy when it all falls apart or will Mertzlufft take it further with some sort of epilogue? I have no idea if it will actually be any good when all is said and done, but I’m really looking forward to the finished product. I think at the very least, it will be good for a lot of laughs.