Prince Pondicherry is a prince who lives in India.
Biography[]
Prince Pondicherry appears in the third chapter of the novel when Grandpa Joe is telling Charlie a story. In the story, Willy Wonka makes him a chocolate palace in India. He warns Pondicherry it will not last long and he should eat it immediately. Pondicherry ignores the warning and says he is going to live in the chocolate palace. He wakes up to swimming in a pool of chocolate because the palace had melted on an exceptionally hot day. For some reason, Mr. Wonka does not use the same type of chocolate for the palace that he does for his ice cream (according to Grandpa Joe, Mr. Wonka had discovered a way to make chocolate ice cream that would not melt, even in the hottest sun).
Behind the Scenes[]
Pondicherry only appears in the third chapter of the novel.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)[]
He is absent from the 1971 film version, because it would have been too hard to dramatize that flashback convincingly with 1970s technology.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)[]
The Prince makes a brief appearance in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where he is played by Nitin Ganatra. His story matches that in the book, except in depicting his wife (Shelley Conn) and stating that the Prince requested a second palace, but was refused because Wonka was busy dealing with the problem of his rivals stealing his recipes.
Etymology[]
- His name derives from the city of Pondicherry (officially spelled Puducherry since 2006) in southeastern India.