“ All you had to do was track the manufacturing dates, offset by weather and the derivative of the Nikkei Index. A retard could figure it out! ”

Mike Teavee Gender Male Age 12 Born Denver, Colorado (2005 film) Marble Falls, Arizona (1971 film) Nationality American Occupation Television Fanatic Screen Addict

Mike Teavee is a main character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He is the fourth Golden Ticket winner and the fourth and final child to be eliminated from the factory tour. He is played by Paris Themmen in the 1971 film adaptation and Jordan Fry in the 2005 remake. Mike Teavee is very obsessed with television (violent first-person video games in the 2005 film), and also dislikes chocolate.

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Background

Mike is a young boy who is obsessed with watching television. Like Violet Beauregarde, he is shown to be American in most adaptations, but his nationality is never revealed in the book. His parents do not show very much control over their son, seeing as how they let him watch whatever he wants and serve all his meals beside the TV.

He is the fourth child to find a Golden Ticket. Unlike the other finders, the original novel gives no explanation as to how Mike finds his Golden Ticket because he talks only about his television obsession in his newspaper interview, especially his preference for violent movies featuring gangsters. He is described as wearing "no less than eighteen toy pistols of various sizes hanging from belts around his body" and likes to act out shootings. It is also implied that he is a fan of cowboys, as he is said to have a picture of the Lone Ranger stenciled on his windbreaker when he arrives at the factory.

Movie adaptations

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.

Musical Adaptations

West End

In the 2013 stage adaptation of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", performed at the Theatre Royal in London, Mike was portrayed by child actor Jay Heyman. His character here bears a resemblance to that of his 2005 incarnation, in that he wears dark, modern clothing and is completely fixated on his video games. During his interview ("It's Teavee Time!"), Mrs. Teavee is forced to rip his game controller away from him to get him to even acknowledge Cherry Sundae (the reporter), which prompts him to burst out shouting into song. During these moments, the music turns rapid and electronic and the lighting dims to exclusively be on Mike, the solos ending in him pointing a finger gun at either the audience or Cherry with a gleeful cry of "Die!" It is through these that he explains that he won the golden ticket by hacking into Wonka's computer and finding his password, "goldenstar", never even having to buy a bar to win the competition.

Mrs. Teavee explains that, due to Mike's obscene behavior (stealing a German tank, chloroforming a nurse, etc.), the authorities have asked the Teavee family to keep him inside at all times, hence why they stick him in front of the television to get him to behave. It's also described that they use medication to keep him calmed down, specifically Ritalin.

Broadway

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" opened in 2017 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, with the role of Mike instead being played by an adult: Michael Wartella (this was done for all of the golden ticket winners besides Charlie in order to really emphasize the Bucket child's innocence). His appearance is still very modernized, yet even more so: he wears both dark and very bright colors, with the typical skull t-shirt, orange jacket, and camouflage pants, with his hair sticking straight up under a black-and-white baseball cap. He wears white headphones and has two lanyards on- one that holds his golden ticket and one that holds his iPad. It's not explained exactly what he has done, but Mrs. Teavee makes a side remark in his interview about the mayor letting him take his ankle monitor off for the afternoon. Though his rotten behavior is not elaborated on in this version, it shows very clearly that he's blatantly rude and nasty for the love of it- he's constantly shoving off his mother's affections, shouting over her in the interview ("What Could Possibly Go Wrong?"), and is immediately hateful to Wonka when they step into the factory, stating that the chocolatier "knows where he can stick it". He also doesn't seem to have much sympathy for the other golden ticket winners, exclaiming "That was so cool!" after Veruca's dismemberment.

In this version, it is again explained that Mike hacked into Wonka's mainframe in order to get his golden ticket. He also seems much more enthusiastic about his success in the competition, despite claiming that he isn't a Wonka fan- throughout his solo in "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?", he brags about how "Mike Teavee is changing up the USA". When he's introduced, he's also surrounded by an entourage, who clings onto his every word as he brags about his success in winning the golden ticket, all the while insulting Wonka for being such an easy victim. As his mother sings the introductory song, he eventually begins playing on his phone, uninterested now that the attention is no longer on him.

Fate

Much like in the books and movies, Mike meets his doom in the TV room, shrinking himself down to go inside the television and hopping from channel to channel until they are able to retrieve him ("Vidiots"). However, he is not stretched back out in the end- Mrs. Teavee expresses her relief that he is unable to cause his usual trouble, anymore, and brings him home as is. This makes him the only of the four other golden ticket winners to survive their tour through the factory in the musical adaptations.

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.