Mike Teavee

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Mike Teavee

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“	You don't understand *anything* about science! First off, there's a difference between waves and particles! DUH! Second, the amount of power it would take to convert energy into matter would be like nine atomic bombs! ”

Mike Teavee

Gender

Male

Age

12

Born

Marble Falls Arizona (1971)

Denver Colorado (2005)

Nationality

American

Occupation

Television Fanatic

Mike Teavee is the fourth secondary antagonist of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. He is both the fourth winner of the Golden Ticket, and the fourth and final child to lose the factory during the tour. He is played by Paris Themmen in the 1971 film and Jordan Fry in 2005.

Contents[show]

Background

Early Life

Mike is an obsessed, anger fanatic, who is seldom away from his television set. Like Violet Beauregarde, he is American in the films, but his nationality is not stated in the book. His surname is "Teavee" because it implies to television, more commonly known as "TV." Before the tour with his parents to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, Mike's parents at first didn't like the idea of him doing nothing but watching television. But then they felt that television was a good choice for raising a child, as they believed they could always keep track of him and lay his food right by the TV so he isn't disturbed.

Golden Ticket Winner

He is the fourth of the children to find a Golden Ticket, and is also the fourth to be expelled from the tour (in the final version of the book), leaving Charlie Bucket as the final and only child remaining. Unlike the other finders, the novel gives no explanation as to how Mike found his Golden Ticket because he talks only about his television obsession at his newspaper interview, especially his preference for the violent programs, and expresses annoyance at the press for disrupting his viewing. The news of Mike being awarded the ticket causes anger to Grandma Josephine, who has already heard of the misdeeds of Violet Beauregard, Veruca Salt and Augustus Gloop, and feels Mike, along with those kids, are the worst possible tourists of Willy Wonka's factory. She also remarks that "tomorrow evening, when I am having my usual cabbage soup, I will hear that the fifth Golden Ticket has gone to some nasty little beast who does not deserve it." He also becomes very angry when his parents stop him from watching his shows, as shown at the end of the book when his father declares that the television will be tossed out of the window when they return home, as a direct result of Mike's behavior. His father, out of both of Mike's parents, is thus the most critical of his son; he even screams at his son to shut up in the book, and Mr. Wonka thanks him for it. According to the theatrical shows, Mrs. Teavee's first name is Doris and Mr. Teavee's first name is Norman. Mike is particularly obsessed with violent gangster films. He wore "no less than eighteen toy pistols of various sizes hanging from belts around his body," and he liked to act out gangster shootings wherein the characters were pumping each other full of lead. However, it is also implied that (like in the 1971 film) he is a fan of westerns, as when he is lined up waiting to go inside the Wonka Factory, one child asks "Who is that with The Lone Ranger stenciled on the back of his windbreaker?" to which another child identifies him as Mike Teavee.

Behind the Scenes

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

In the 2005 film, Mike (portrayed by Jordan Fry) is from Denver, Colorado and is depicted as more arrogant, more disrespectful, and has a more contemporary wardrobe in lieu of cowboy attire, now wearing a skull t-shirt and dark jeans with white socks and Converse sneakers. His interests include the Internet and video games (especially first-person shooters) in addition to television viewing. He is confrontational with Wonka, who pretends not to understand what Mike is saying, opining that Mike shouldn't mumble so much, providing a contrast between Wonka's thought process of imagination versus Mike's thought process based solely on logic. He only talks with Charlie one time in the movie, during their ride in the Great Glass Elevator, but seems to understand the latter's family's problems beneath his anger. Mike is more willing to talk about his Golden Ticket than his previous incarnations and provides an explanation as to how he found it, which he never did in the book or the previous film (albeit as he is playing video games). He proves to be both scientifically and economically literate: he finds his Golden Ticket by taking the derivative of the Nikkei Index and analyzing the datecodes of the other ticket finds, offsetting them by the weather that day, and then calculating the location of the next ticket, thus requiring him to purchase only a single Wonka Bar. He also stagates that he doesn't even like chocolate and only wanted the ticket to test himself, which Grandpa George finds particularly insulting. His father (Adam Godley), who later serves as Mike's tour chaperone, laments during the press conference about his inability to understand his son's thought processes, while bemoaning children's obsession with modern technology in general. Mrs. Teavee, however, doesn't seem to mind Mike's obsessions, albeit she has no speaking role, so it's unclear on what she thinks of her son's obsessions. When the five children first enter the facility, Mike is the only one whom Wonka addresses by name, adding, "You're the little devil who cracked the system." (implying he hacked the distribution of the Wonka bars). He gets along well with Charlie (as in the 1971 movie) and jumps in shock at seeing Veruca being chased by furious worker squirrels. For some reason, in spite of his claim that everything in the factory is "completely pointless," he seems impressed by Fudge Mountain.

Video Games

In the 1985 video game based off of the book, Mike's level consists on the player having to avoid various "TV men" to collect the chocolate bars that lie around. In the 2005 film's game, Mike's story is far more explained. During chapter 3, Mike notices that Wonka's robots are not efficient enough and decides to upgrade them himself, which causes a massive short-circuit that makes the robots hostile (and turning them into the game's enemies). His endgame at the Television Room is the same as in the movie, only his shrinking damages the Television Chocolate's circuits, which causes Charlie to go inside the machine to fix the problem.

Endgame

In the novel and both films, Mike is stretched with a taffy puller after he shrinks himself. This insinuates that every basketball team in the world will want him because of his new height.

Differences

In the original book and the 1971 film as noted above, Mike is obsessed with Television; in the book he is also crazy about cowboy and gangster movies; in the 1971 film he acts more like a "Dennis the menace" kid getting himself into trouble {for example chewing exploding candy in the Invention room despite Wonka orders not to touch anything}; in the 2005 film although he has a knowledge of Television, science and mathematics..he has a violent streak in him in which in the Chocolate Falls mixing room causes him to stomp on and destroy the eatable candy.

Trivia

Of Interest is that [with the exception of Veruca and Violet] all the bad kids drop away from the tour in the order of which they got the tickets.

In early drafts of the book, Mike was going to be called Herpes Trout.