Raeli watched part of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Gene Wilder, not Johnny Depp) courtesy of my Dad the other day, and has managed to get herself well and truly traumatised about the fate of Violet Beauregarde (SPOILER, she turns into a giant blueberry). Nightmares and all. As with the similarly traumatic puppet show incident we now refer to as The Tiddilik Disaster (frog drinks all the water in the world), she has been dealing with her fear by asking me to tell her the story that scared her, over and over again (only leaving out the scary parts).

It’s surprisingly sophisticated, the way she chooses to face her fears like that. I’ve seen her do this with movies, too, being worried or scared by something adult in them, but coming back the next day and asking to see it again. She was terrified by Spirited Away the first time (and I don’ t blame her) but now it’s one of her favourite movies.

So yes, many spare moments & chores over the last several days have been enlivened by me having to recite from memory the plot of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Good thing it wasn’t the Twits or something, at least I remember a lot of this one! At one point I explained to Raeli about how that episode of Futurama she’s seen approximately a gazillion times, when Fry and the others visit the Slurm Factory, is actually a pastiche of the Willy Wonka movie. I pointed out the similarity in the river scene, the Oompa-Loompas, and Wonka’s costume. She nodded in a vaguely patronising “yes I see this is interesting to you, Mummy” way, and I dropped the subject.

But I remember the first time she saw that episode of Futurama, I thought “Oh here we go, seeing the pastiche before the source material…” Because that pretty much sums up my childhood.

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