"Secrets" is a 1973 BBC Television play by Michael Palin and Terry Jones of one-hour duration, starring Warren Mitchell as the owner of a chocolate factory. The play was part of a series called Black and Blue , which featured black and blue (saucy) comedy.
A man working high-up on a very tall chocolate mixing vat tries to lean over the vat but overbalances and without being noticed falls in. This now-contaminated chocolate is processed and packed ready for distribution along with the normal production. It is only much later that quality control finds a chocolate containing a thumb to confirm the missing man's gruesome fate.
The chocolate company is suffering poor sales and intends to send out chocolates with market research questionnaires to different parts of the country to get customer feedback. Before anyone had missed the worker and shut down the production line to investigate matters, the contaminated chocolates were boxed and sent out with normal production to Worthing. Despite attempts to recover the suspect chocolates, they had all been sold and eaten.
The returned questionnaires were examined carefully to find unsurprising confirmation that people did not like the factory's chocolates, except for a group of customers who had been pleasantly surprised by the taste of the new chocolate. Comments like "Wonderful Meaty Flavour" were common and customers were keen to purchase more of the same.
Faced with this dilemma, the factory tried to respond to the apparent demand for meat in its chocolates by blending beef with its chocolate recipe, leading to scenes with loud "mooing and bangs" as workers attempted to process an unfortunate cow. Further market research results were disastrous. There was only one possible conclusion, that the public liked the taste of human flesh. But this solution was not socially acceptable, so they could not "just" include people in their chocolates.
Faced with ever-increasing financial disaster, the factory decided to start a campaign designed to try to alter attitudes to what was effectively cannibalism. They admitted what the source of the new flavour was and attempted to persuade people to donate their bodies for inclusion in the new flavour chocolate, so there would be a fresh supply of "recycling" corpses to flavour the new chocolates.
This eventually proved a great success and the factory flourished to the extent that the chocolates had major advertising slots on TV, culminating in an advert which featured a "Game Show Prize" style of conveyor belt, where instead of prizes, the conveyor passed across the TV screen loaded with a selection of deceased bishops and judges and other notable persons, while viewers were reminded by voice and logo that "Only the Best People Go into Our Chocolates".
Soylent Green , which took an altogether more serious view of a similar subject, was released in the same year. A feature film remake of Secrets, Consuming Passions , was released in 1988.
The original videotape of the play was wiped by the BBC following a large number of complaints after the first broadcast. The only known surviving version is a VHS copy of a half-inch reel-to-reel domestic videotape recording made by producer Mark Shivas from the master tape at the BBC and transferred onto VHS in the 1980s. In 2004 this version was included as an extra on the Region 2 DVD of Palin and Jones's series Ripping Yarns . The recording is fuzzy and grainy, and frequently flickers and rolls.
Marmite ( MAR-myte) is a British savoury food spread based on yeast extract, invented by the German scientist Justus von Liebig. It is made from by-products of beer brewing (lees) and is produced by the British company Unilever. Marmite is a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B12. A traditional method of use is to spread it very thinly on buttered toast.
The Hershey Company, often called just Hershey or Hershey's, is an American multinational confectionery company headquartered in Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States, which is also home to Hersheypark and Hershey's Chocolate World. The Hershey Company is one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world; it also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milkshakes, as well as other products. The Hershey Company was founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1894 as the Hershey Chocolate Company, originally established as a subsidiary of his Lancaster Caramel Company. The Hershey Trust Company owns a minority stake but retains a majority of the voting power within the company.
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette recorders (VCRs) and camcorders. Videotapes have also been used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram.
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a 1971 American musical fantasy film directed by Mel Stuart from a screenplay by Roald Dahl, based on his 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It stars Gene Wilder as candymaker Willy Wonka. The film tells the story of a poor child named Charlie Bucket who, upon finding a Golden Ticket in a chocolate bar, wins the chance to visit Willy Wonka's chocolate factory along with four other children from around the world.
Caramilk is a brand name used for two distinct chocolate bar products made by Cadbury. Both were introduced in 1968. The Canadian version of Caramilk is a milk chocolate bar filled with caramel. In Australia the Caramilk brand is used for a caramel-flavoured white chocolate bar.
Kit Kat is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree's of York, United Kingdom. It is produced globally by Nestlé, except in the United States, where it is made under licence by the H. B. Reese Candy Company, a division of the Hershey Company.
Cadbury Dairy Milk is a British brand of milk chocolate manufactured by Cadbury. It was introduced in the United Kingdom in June 1905 and now consists of a number of products. Every product in the Dairy Milk line is made with exclusively milk chocolate. In 1928, Cadbury's introduced the "glass and a half" slogan to accompany the Dairy Milk chocolate bar, to advertise the bar's higher milk content.
Flake is a British brand of chocolate bar currently manufactured by British chocolate company Cadbury, owned by Mondelez International, consisting of thinly folded milk chocolate. The bar has a unique crumbly texture, and softens but does not melt when heated.
Jaffa Cakes are a cake introduced by McVitie and Price in the UK in 1927 and named after Jaffa oranges. The most common form of Jaffa cakes are circular, 2+1⁄8 inches (54 mm) in diameter and have three layers: a Genoise sponge base, a layer of orange flavoured jam and a coating of chocolate. Each cake is 46 calories. Jaffa Cakes are also available as bars or in small packs, and in larger and smaller sizes. The original Jaffa Cakes now come in packs of 10, 20, 30, or 40, having been downsized in 2017 from 12 or 24 per pack.
Aero is an aerated chocolate bar manufactured by the Vevey-based company Nestlé. Originally produced by Rowntree's, Aero bars were introduced in 1935 to the North of England as the "new chocolate". By the end of that year, it had proved sufficiently popular with consumers that sales were extended throughout the United Kingdom.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 2005 musical fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and written by John August, based on the 1964 British novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. The film stars Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket, alongside David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor, Missi Pyle, James Fox, Deep Roy, and Christopher Lee. The storyline follows Charlie as he wins a contest along with four other children and is led by Wonka on a tour of his chocolate factory.
Crusha is a brand of milkshake mix, sold in the United Kingdom. The brand first appeared in 1955, and was bought by British Sugar. In December 2001, it came under the Silver Spoon brand. Crusha is often the milkshake of choice in cafés. However, it is also sold in shops, for home mixing in bottles, of from 250ml to 1l in size.
The Everlasting Gobstopper is a gobstopper candy from Roald Dahl's 1964 children's novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. According to its creator Willy Wonka, it was intended "for children with very little pocket money". It not only changes colours and flavours when sucked on, but also never gets any smaller or disappears. In 1976, the name of the fictional candy was used for a product similar to a normal gobstopper, or jawbreaker.
Consuming Passions is a 1988 black comedy film which stars Vanessa Redgrave, Jonathan Pryce, and Sammi Davis and was directed by Giles Foster. The film is based on Secrets by Michael Palin and Terry Jones, a BBC television play broadcast in 1973.
Swizzels Matlow Limited, branded as Swizzels, is a confectionery manufacturer based in New Mills, Derbyshire, near Stockport in the United Kingdom. The company had revenues of £47 million in 2010/11. It employs around 600 people. Swizzels Matlow exports 20 per cent of its sweets to more than 20 countries, mostly in Europe. Their highest selling brands are Love Hearts, Parma Violets and Drumstick lollies. Its biggest sales period is Halloween.
Felix in the Factory is a platform game written by John Chaytor for the BBC Micro and published by Micro Power in 1982. Versions were released for the Acorn Electron (1983), Commodore 64 (1984), and Memotech MTX (1984). It is the first in a trilogy of Micro Power games featuring the factory worker Felix and was followed by Felix and the Fruit Monsters and another factory-based platformer, Felix meets the Evil Weevils.
A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other AV sources and can play back the recording after rewinding. The use of a VCR to record a television program to play back at a more convenient time is commonly referred to as time shifting. VCRs can also play back prerecorded tapes, which were widely available for purchase and rental starting in the 80s and 90s, most popularly in the VHS videocassette format. Blank tapes were sold to make recordings.
Bacon ice cream is an ice cream generally created by adding bacon to egg custard and freezing the mixture. The concept of bacon ice cream originated in a 1973 sketch on the British comedy series The Two Ronnies as a joke; it was eventually created for April Fools' Day by a New York ice cream parlour in 1982. In the 2000s, the English chef Heston Blumenthal experimented with ice cream, making a custard similar to scrambled eggs and adding bacon to create one of his signature dishes. It now appears on dessert menus in other restaurants.
Vickers Wellington LN514 was a Vickers Wellington bomber built in 1943 in record time, as part of a British propaganda effort during the Second World War.