Formula 86 is a pivotal object in Roald Dahl's book The Witches. It is a magical potion created by the Grand High Witch that once consumed it can its consumer into a mouse.
Background[]
The Grand High Witch invents the Formula to turn all children into mice, but thankfully it is reversed and the Witches themselves ends up being turned to mice then chopped up by the cooks. The Grand High Witch hoped the teachers would do the same to the children and chop them up, explained more in her villain song "Down With Children".
Recipe[]
The potion consists of these ingredients:
- A roasted alarm clock
- Forty-five (45) brown mice
- Their tails
- Frog juice
- The wrong end of a telescope
- A bird egg (called a "gruntle's" egg in the book)
- The snout of a "grobblesquirt" (obviously an elephant's snout)
- The claw of a "crabcruncher" (obviously a seagull)
- The beak of a "blabbersnitch" (obviously a parrot)
- The tongue of a catspringer (possibly a rabbit or hare, they have burrows)
Appearances[]
The Witches[]
The Witches (1990)[]
The Witches (2020)[]
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In both adaptations, the potion takes the form of a purple liquid.
- In the 1990 film, when someone drinks the potion, their mouse transformation is surrounded by green smoke while in the 2020 film, the transformation is surrounded by purple smoke.