Too Dark for even Tim Burton?

Tuesday July 19, 2005

I am a big Tim Burton fan and an even bigger Danny Elfman fan. Elfman is known for his dark scores, but this writer has posted the difference in one of the Oompah Loompahs songs from the original version. Evidently too dark for even those two.

In Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, [The Oompah Loompahs] sing their stern judgments with extensive and gleeful details about the fates of the bad children.

For example, Augustus Gloop.

A hundred knives go slice, slice, slice;
We add some sugar, cream, and spice;
We boil him for a minute more,
Until we’re absolutely sure….

For Tim Burton’s movie, Danny Elfman changed that lyric to “We boil it for a minute more…”

Elfman sang, produced, and wrote music for all the songs. But Dahl’s lyrics were apparently so vicious, that Elfman had to trim out most of them.

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