Roald Dahl is a beloved children's book author who scares the hell out of me. I don't want to know where he lived, who raised him, or why he decided to address kids as an occupation, because the man is so, so disturbing. His Matilda is grim, his James and the Giant Peach is twisted, and his most beloved novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a frightening, cruel morality tale set in a candy-colored dystopia. I'm happy to report that Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the 1971 film adaptation of Dahl's sugary absinthe dream starring Gene Wilder, Oscar winner Jack Albertson, and a crew of unknowns, is just as frightening and cruel as the source material. And it has a secret gay relevance that I figured out only last night! Hooray! Now it's the Best Movie Ever.

I'm sure you know the story, but I'll dutifully recount it: Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), a poor kid whose drab mother tends to all four of his grandparents in the same double bed, loves the mysterious chocolatier Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) and saves up to buy Wonka candy bars with spare change and his Grandpa Joe's secret allowances. The whole town loves Willy Wonka, in fact. A lot. Candy shop owners sing Sammy Davis Jr.'s "Candy Man" at customers. And it's no big deal. I wish McDonald's cashiers would sing "Milkshake" at me as I dry-humped the fry cook. Glum face.

When the hermit Wonka announces that he's relinquishing control of his chocolate factory to one of five lucky customers who finds a Golden Ticket in a Wonka chocolate bar, Charlie is ecstatic. He will surely pick up a Golden Ticket, randomly, in one chocolate bar out of millions! Yes! Sigh. He's right for some reason. After he picks up the ticket, he woos his bed-ridden Grandpa Joe into accompanying him to the factory, where they enjoy a bizarre, morally questionable trek with four other ticketholders through Willy Wonka's fantastical chocolate river, contraption rooms, and creepy office. Before we get to the main reason I've chosen to revisit this movie (aside from the leftover Easter candy I'm chewing as I write this), let's re-familiarize ourselves with the film's other fabulous perks -- specifically, the underrated ones.

Charlie's teacher is a droll, bad-ass kook.

Before Charlie escapes his dreary, preteen life of goofy-toothed normalcy, he attends school under the tutelage of Mr. Turkentine. How shall I put this? Before I was old enough to comprehend Monty Python's Flying Circus or Airplane!, I understood Mr. Turkentine, the cheeky, misinformed teacher who goes beyond "silly" and achieves a heretofore unprecedented nuttiness with straightforward comic delivery. How do you describe a man who unleashes the following "lesson plan" to his students? "I've just decided to switch our Friday schedule to Monday, which means that the test we take each Friday on what we learned during the week will now take place on Monday before we learned it. But since today's Tuesday, it doesn't matter in the slightest. Pencils ready." Is he the jabberwock?

Competing candy warlord Arthur Slugworth is a flawless queen and fuhrer.

Who did producers immediately think of when casting Arthur Slugworth, Willy Wonka's dastardly rival who tempts children with bribes in order to gain Wonka's secrets? Why, German character actor Gunter Meisner, of course, a man so terrifying he'd go on to play Adolf Hitler twice in the '80s. Note that bone structure and robotic stare. Cloris Leachman basically played him in High Anxiety (which should've starred Gene Wilder!).

"Candy Man" is as superfly as "Shaft," guys.

Just watch this. Happy 1971 to you and yours.

Willy Wonka is the performance of Gene Wilder's career.

It's a commanding, often alarmingly funny performance. But you already knew that. Let's list eight other amazing things about Gene Wilder off the top of our heads.

1. Gives the definitive delivery of "Wrong!" when rebuffing Violet Beauregarde

2. Married Gilda Radner

3. Didn't marry Victoria Jackson

4. The blue blanket monologue from The Producers

5. His nerdy hysteria in Bonnie and Clyde

6. His A&E movie Murder in a Small Town was super cute! He played a widowed theater director who solved murders sometimes.

7. Graduated from the University of Iowa (like your happenin' Hawkeye author!)

8. Basically was and is the male Madeline Kahn, so eff off, mortals.

I can't think of any other kids' movies that sprinkle Oscar Wilde quotes in its dialogue.

The wry Mr. Wonka loves to speak in cryptograms and puns, but he also enjoys a good literary reference. Sometimes he drops a line from Shakespeare or Arthur O'Shaughnessy. Or, during his best moment in the film, he references of the greatest works in the history of gay innuendos: The Importance of Being Earnest. When captaining the out-of-control chocolate ferry that frightens the passengers, he deadpans, "The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last." Yep, the character Gwendolen recited that in the ole Oscar Wilde favorite. I wish it were Algernon Moncrieff referencing a "cucumber sandwich" rendezvous with John Worthing, but no.

And now, the real reason Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory may be the best movie ever. Come along, you bad eggs.

Join me on this Mr. Toad's Wild Ride of a metaphor: Each of the kids who comes along to the chocolate factory -- Charlie Bucket, Mike Teavee, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, and Augustus Gloop -- is a caricature of a typical gay attribute. Follow me? All five kids represent a different quality, and they're all remarkably characteristic of gay men. At first I thought I related only to one of these kids, maybe two. Then I realized I'm close to an exact hybrid of all five. I've come to accept each of these little brats as gay superheroes and cautionary tales. We can learn from both extremes. Here goes nothing.

1. The super-duper optimist

Charlie Bucket is the everyman of Willy Wonka, but he's also the sunniest, sing-songiest, dreamily optimistic kid in all of Wonkatania (where I've decided this takes place). He could be a Newsie or a Glee regular or Billy Elliott or whatever. He's a regular kid with a touch of razzle-dazzle in his Golden Ticket victory dance, and for that he's Broadway bound. And bubbly, almost to a fault (and into the ceiling blades!). And gay in an honorary way.

2. The self-satisfied weirdo

Is it criminal that I relate to Violet Beauregarde most? I find her the most incisively written of all the kids, actually. She's lost in her own world but damn entitled about it, and that's how all the best brats are. Jane Krakowski from 30 Rock? Alicia Silverstone in Clueless? Violet may top them both by bragging about chewing a piece of gum "for four months solid" and sticking it behind her ear when eating meals. Bragging, I say. As a gay kid who sat around writing short stories and idolizing Alanis Morissette from age 9 to 14,I can tell you I was no shrinking violet -- I was confidently awkward and even a little stank-faced about it. I can't be the only one who finds Violet's tone-deaf self-confidence more than a little endearing. "Hi, Cornelia, how are you, sweetie?"

3. The drama queen

Pretty self-explanatory. Even if you're not a whining Botox addict on The A-List: New York, you have to love Veruca Salt's feral greed. Or at least her delivery of her swan song "I Want It Now"'s signature declaration "I want a BEAN FEAST!"

4. The pop culture obsessive

To be honest, Mike Teavee didn't deserve Willy Wonka's wrath. He was presented with a magical machine that beamed him into a television, and because he's a child obsessed with TV westerns, he tried handling the contraption himself. Anyone could've made that mistake. If I thought I could jump into a game of Wheel of Fortune by flicking my wrist, I'd be wrist-flicking and crying for Papa Sajak immediately. Mike is second to Violet on my list of Wonkan idols because he's pointedly, indefatigably fixated on the world locked inside his TV. It's cooler in there. It's not boring. It's where Bewitched is. And he may make a dandy AfterElton entertainment editor someday.

5. The incorrigible hedonist

Augustus is so the darkest character in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. While the other brats have ups and downs, happinesses and depressions, and human moments, Augustus is just a digestive tour de force, an emotionless vacuum whose eyeline never breaks from the victables he's consuming. I mean, he's the equivalent of a drug addict. Or, on the relatively lighter side, a tweaking nightclub bandit! Perhaps if I were locked in a candy factory I'd resort to unrepentant pleasure-seeking, but Augustus, to me, is the true face of uncontrolled mania in this movie. I'd be lying if I didn't suggest that "the chocolate river" would make an awe-inspiring bathhouse feature too. Our man Augustus would be belly-up in it.

You may now depart this wild, Wildean metaphor. What are your favorite moments in Willy Wonka? Are Violet and Mike your personal heroes? And do you also HATE the Tim Burton version like I do? You have the Golden Ticket. You have the golden chance to make my day.