Oompa Loompa Imposters

image For years Ezzy Dame has been living a lie. Thirty four years ago he padded his resume with the claim that he had played an Oompa Loompa in the 1971 version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. With the release of the recent version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, reporters sought him out for his opinion, as an ex-Oompa Loompa, about the film. This caught the attention of a real ex-Oompa Looma, Rusty Goff, who outed him. Goff claims that he's aware of other "Oomposters."

There are other Oomposters, Goff said. One little entertainer in New York tried to pass himself off this year as an Oompa Loompa, evading reporters from The Times in London when they compiled a story on the original stars.

I'm tempted to add a line to my resume claiming that I was an Oompa Loompa.

Identity/Imposters

Posted on Sat Aug 20, 2005



Comments

i wonder if midgets from wizard of oz do the same thing?
Posted by RAMONESxMANIA  on  Sat Aug 20, 2005  at  08:56 PM
Would any of them still be alive ?
Posted by not a midget  on  Sun Aug 21, 2005  at  02:44 AM
I think most of us chicks here could pose as oompa loompa's (with most of us being midgets and all). Maybe we could organise a Miss MOH's Oompa Loompa Parade?
Posted by Nettie  on  Sun Aug 21, 2005  at  03:56 AM
>>>>
Would any of them still be alive ?
<<<<

Well, I know a couple of people who were around in 1971. It's a long time ago, admittedly, and I don't generally associate with people who are old enough to remember Gerald Ford, but they...

Oh, hang on, you're talking about the little people from the Wizard of Oz, ah, I get you. There was a book about them in 1989:
http://www.chiprowe.com/bookrev/oz.html

At least 28 of the 122 people hired to play munchkins in 1938 were still alive in 1989; that's how many the author could track down. Assuming they were in their twenties or early thirties at the time it's a fair bet that a couple are still around, albeit that I don't know what long-term health problems little people suffer from, if any.
Posted by Ashley Pomeroy  on  Sun Aug 21, 2005  at  09:44 AM
Hey, I once played an Oompa-Loompa...oh, wait...that was an Ocarina...my bad
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Sun Aug 21, 2005  at  09:46 AM
And reading that article more thoroughly, it appears that Karl Slover, one of the little people, was still alive in 2001, at which point in time he was 82 years old:
http://www.sptimes.com/News/070201/Floridian/After_the_rainbow.shtml

"In the movie, Slover played a trumpeter, a soldier, one of the babies who popped out of the eggs -- even a female Munchkin because of a shortage of midget women.

Slover is what's known as a pituitary dwarf, and he still doesn't understand why he is one. His father stood 6-foot-6 and was vice mayor of a small town in what is now the Czech Republic. His mother was just a few inches shorter, and his four sisters were all normal height.

But by the time Slover was 8, he was still barely 2 feet tall. (He is 4-foot-4 now.) His father sent him to work in a traveling midget show; after coming to the United States, Slover worked in Hollywood and with a family-owned carnival. He changed his last name from Kosiczky to Slover, the name of the family that owned the carnival, when he became an American citizen in 1943. He moved to Hyde Park in 1962, and has lived there ever since."
Posted by Ashley Pomeroy  on  Sun Aug 21, 2005  at  09:46 AM
Hippo Eats Pituitary Dwarf...just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? Btw, I hated the original Willy Wonka flick with no small measure... I still have Toot Sweet nightmares, with Willy chasing me, his big eyelashes fluttering at me, trying to give me candy for GodKnows what diabolical pedophiliac reasons. Bastard...
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Sun Aug 21, 2005  at  09:53 AM
Ezzy's been holding a grudge ever since he showed up missing, and the milk company refused to feature him on a carton- he had to settle for being featured on a carton of half and half. Fidgets....
Posted by booch  on  Sun Aug 21, 2005  at  11:27 AM
this has nothing to do with ooma loompas, but i just noticed that the black spider club website (dabizkit.com) now it's a picture of the molecules that make up LSD, and the link points to a directory named "exchange" ... black spider club = drug club? maybe that's why they're so secretive? whether or not they decided to keep that other website or not.
speculate speculate.
Posted by chloe  on  Sun Aug 21, 2005  at  10:40 PM
Toot Sweets were from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Hairy. I'm surprised at you for forgetting that.

My idolization of you has been shattered.

And if you think Gene Wilder was pedophilic, you really don't want to watch the new one.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Mon Aug 22, 2005  at  08:03 AM
you're right about the Toot/Chitty thing, Charbs... I do recall the female Chitty lead being Truly Scrumptious, though...or did I get that from Mary Poppins...I used to confuse Mary Tyler Moore with Julie Andrews, too...I think I had too much candy as a child, and it all just blurs together now, but I still feel supercalifragilisticexpialidocious anyway...thanks for the correction...I don't them as often as I used to either
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Mon Aug 22, 2005  at  12:01 PM
sorry for the typos...I'm having vision challenges these days (see "too much candy")
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Mon Aug 22, 2005  at  12:04 PM
didnt jonny depp (plays willy wonka) base his acting on micheal jackson?
Posted by thunder  on  Mon Aug 22, 2005  at  01:20 PM
No, thunderstruck, you just think that because Michael Jackson actually based his life on Gene Wilder playing Wille Wonka. 😛
Posted by Big Gary in Dallas  on  Mon Aug 22, 2005  at  04:45 PM
If you've only seen the movie, you should really read the original novel by Roald Dahl. It's very wicked and very funny, and like all such classics, many of the funniest parts are things that children would never get.
In the book, the Oompa Loompas were tree-dwelling African pygmies. Willie imported them to work in his factory as scabs, because they were from so far back in the boondocks they didn't know what money was, so it never occurred to them to ask for wages. Thus he avoided labor troubles.
Capitalism never changes, does it?
When the 1971 movie was made, the producers changed the O.L.s to munchkin-like orange people with blue hair because they were afraid civil rights groups would protest the movie (really!) if they showed the little chocolatiers as black people, as they were in the book. Rumor has it that's also why the first movie was titled "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" instead of the book's title, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (as in Mister Charlie).
Posted by Big Gary in Dallas  on  Mon Aug 22, 2005  at  04:56 PM
geez, Big Gary...you're a Womka Wonk...sorry
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Tue Aug 23, 2005  at  12:45 PM
damn typos... I need some chocolate
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Tue Aug 23, 2005  at  12:47 PM
Still, even working as slave labour in a safe environment is better than being hunted by Verminicous Knids.

At least, that's what my management tells me when I complain about a 40 hour wage for a 60 hour week.
Posted by DFStuckey  on  Wed Aug 24, 2005  at  10:44 PM
Yeah, that's what my management tells me, too, but I ain't buying it.
Posted by Big Gary in a coal mine  on  Thu Aug 25, 2005  at  06:48 PM
Actually, Thunderstruck, I heard that Depp modeled his Wonka on Marylin Manson - which is no less scary than being modeled on Michael Jackson. However, when I saw the movie, I thought he was not so much pedophilc as just plain weird.

If you have read the original book and other books by the same author, he does have this fantastically wierd and sometimes sick sense of humor. I think the movie did a really good job portraying the original story.
Posted by chyca  on  Sat Aug 27, 2005  at  10:50 AM
ive read the book but havent watched the new film yet... sob.
Posted by thunder  on  Sun Aug 28, 2005  at  07:22 AM
When I was the kid, that was the only Roald Dahl book I never read (well, that and its glass elevator sequel). I was deathly afraid of the movie (oompa loompa's scared me!) and was too afraid to read the book. Yah, i was a wimpy little kid.
Posted by Razela  on  Tue Aug 30, 2005  at  10:39 PM
yeah, some of them r still alive
go the ozfest in central new york to meet them
Posted by Dana  on  Sat Oct 27, 2007  at  10:28 AM
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