One Sweet Guy

Mel and Dave did.

Mel and Dave were a movie director and a producer who were close friends. One day Mel’s 10 year old daughter had a sweet idea …maybe her dad and Uncle Dave could make a movie out of her favourite book. Now at the time the movie industry was in a real mess and it was really hard to finance movies … so producers were seeking out all types of non-industry folks to fund them … Well Mel mentioned his daughter’s idea to producer Dave who just happened to be in discussions with the Quaker Oats company … Quaker Oats was exploring the idea of creating content to promote some new food products they were looking to introduce. And it turned out the book Mel’s daughter loved would be perfect. So, Quakers Oats which had never been in the film business before .. bought the rights to the book and financed the entire movie production in Germany.

Well, upon release, the movie did just ok while Quaker Oats had major productions problems so never ended up selling enough of the food products they were hoping too… however

Today, almost 50 years later, the movie that Mel and Dave made is considered by many a timeless classic … and it was wholly financed by Quaker Oats in order to try to sell candy bars worldwide … Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a great idea because sweet ideas can come from anywhere .. and if you act on them and you might even find your own golden ticket!