Perhaps you, too, have devolved into tears of laughter over the massive failure that was “Willy’s Chocolate Experience,” a supposed Willy Wonka-themed event for children in Glasgow, Scotland that was so bad it has parents in an outrage and the whole internet mocking the fiasco. Everything from the decor to the costumes to the treats to the scripts the actors were supposed to read were veritable disasters. Even the promotional website was seemingly drafted by drunk AI. It all looked so bad that it’s tempting to call it performance art. It’s just impossible to describe how dismal the execution of this event for children was. Take a look:

i cannot put in words how enchanted I am by the willy wonka fiasco in Glasgow. cops called, kids crying in terror, all in an abandoned warehouse. this is the organic esoteric horror we’ve been missing for ages. a pure lust for chaos no multimillion dollar business could recreate pic.twitter.com/HOHAcB7V4l

— jen (@f0X_j3n) February 28, 2024

But let us not forget that this is not the first time there has been a Willy Wonka-themed fiasco. Let us journey back to 2009, when a little episode of The L Word called “Lactose Intolerant” debuted on Showtime. In it, Jenny Schecter plans what looks like the worst baby shower ever for Max. Its theme? Inexplicably: Willy Wonka. This was during a particularly dark and transphobic time for the television series. And I count the Willy Wonka-themed baby shower among the many, MANY transgressions of season six.

But for the purposes of this very important piece of journalism, I did rewatch the Willy Wonka baby shower scenes from the episode, and boy were they worse than I remembered!!!!!! Here are some haunting screenshots:

I think the real lesson is that like many things in life, lesbians did it first. Another lesson: Willy Wonka is inherently terrifying? Let’s all remember the fate of the children from the original tale. This is a terrible theme for a baby shower. Furthermore, perhaps the Glasgow event planners were just trying to stay true to the source material by creating a nightmarish experience for the children and their parents. Again: performance art!

Jenny Schecter was many things…including the original planner of ill-conceived Willy Wonka-themed events. Pour out half a cup of lemonade for her today.

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