Almighty Janitor: Despite being Vice President, former nanny Elvira Tibbs is universally regarded as the real power in the White House. Secondary Character Title: Although Charlie remains an Audience Surrogate, he's about as much of a pinball as he was in the first book. Mr. Wonka is the lead. Actionized Sequel: The first half is an outer space adventure, and even the second half, while more in line with the first book's events, has an Orphean Rescue. In Which a Trope Is Described: As with its predecessor, many chapter titles spoil the events of said chapters, especially in the second half ("Good-bye Grandma Georgina", "Rescue in Minusland", etc.). Scare 'Em Straight: While this isn't the morality play the first book was, the "don't fool around with medicine" Aesop presented in the second half definitely has this vibe, particularly in the Goldie Pinklesweet Show Within a Show, which details how she had to be taken to the hospital and get her stomach pumped among other things.

Chest of Medals: "The Chief of the Army was wearing so many medal-ribbons they covered the entire front of his tunic on both sides and spread down on to his trousers as well." Instructional Title: The final chapter is called "How To Get a Person Out Of Bed". For those wondering how, it's...give them an invitation to the White House. Phlebotinum Overdose: Happens twice: First when the three grandparents take the Wonka-Vite, and second when Wonka uses the Vita-Wonk to re-age Grandma Georgina. In the latter case, he doesn't have any choice, owing to an exact dose being tough to administer to what's essentially a ghost, but Charlie argues that he didn't have to spray her three times... Creator's Culture Carryover: The President of the United States says "Courteney one yet?" to a chief of police, which is meant to sound like "caught anyone yet". Being from England, Roald Dahl would have pronounced "Courteney" and "caught any" the same way, but in most American accents they sound very different so the President would likely not be able to make the pun.Extremely Short Timespan: The action takes place over several hours at most; note that Grandpa Joe tells Charlie at the end that — between the tour of the factory in the first book and the events of this one — they've had quite a day. Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The US president still keeps his childhood nanny around, and even calls her 'Nanny', as well as a cat with a very frou-frou name. Informed Ability: A humorous example: The three American astronauts transporting the staff to the Space Hotel are introduced as being "handsome, clever and brave", and proceed to do absolutely nothing, much less anything clever or brave, for the rest of the book. It's still possible they are handsome. Plot Parallel: The Morality Ballad following on from the grandparents de-aging themselves is also about someone who helped themselves to too much medicine with disastrous results. Bigger on the Inside: Basically applies to the factory, although justified as Wonka had already told the children in the first book that he built a lot of the factory underground to give himself more space to work with than would be possible if he confined himself to the main building. At one point he tells Charlie that a full tour of the entire factory, as opposed to the glimpse Charlie had with the other children in the first book, would take up to three weeks.

Show Within a Show: The sad story of Goldie Pinklesweet, recounted as part of the Oompa-Loompa's Morality Ballad, is a Type 4 Plot Parallel example similar to the Miss Bigelow story in the first book. Eureka!" Moment: Grandma Josephine wailing "Why can't we all go home?" triggers this for Willy Wonka when he can't figure out how to escape the chain of Vermicious Knids.Rescued from the Underworld: Willy Wonka and Charlie go deep down to rescue Grandma Georgina from Minus Land, where she went after having reduced her age to below zero. Frictionless Reentry: While the book is full of Artistic License in regards to physics, this Trope is nearly inverted completely, because reentry does cause friction here. The mistake made, however, is that Mr. Wonka claims it is the reason that the Knids cannot invade Earth (saying they would burn up in the atmosphere if they tried) but they were able to invade Mars and Venus without this problem. If anything, Venus would be an even bigger problem for this reason, and they wouldn't be able to invade Mars either. Hotline: This novel was written as the Cold War was going on, and the first thing the President does when he and his underlings suspect the Elevator's occupants are spies is to call up the Russian premier on a hot line. He also has a hot line to the Chinese premier, which uses a special porcelain phone. Virus and Cure Names: The Fountain of Youth pill Wonka-Vite isn't a virus, of course, but the Rapid Aging counterpart developed specifically to re-age those who are rendered too young is known as Vita-Wonk.

The Gnoolies, the only native occupants of Minusland. Invisible negative-space bugs, you might wonder why they'd be considered either Eldritch OR Abomination. Wonka explains: They bite, and once bitten, their venom will repeatedly divide your age by random numbers until you dissolve into a swarm of more Gnoolies. Fortunately, Wonka is prepared and uses a repellent to keep them (temporarily) at bay until he can rescue Grandma Georgina. Insubstantial Ingredients: Certain ingredients in Wonka-Vite are these — "the hip (and the po and the pot) of a hippopotamus", for instance.Ascended Extra: Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina have much larger roles here than in the first book, especially Grandma Georgina who becomes a Foil to Willy Wonka and takes on a The Complainer Is Always Wrong role. Cultural Translation: The previous novel used the term lift in the U.K. edition. Like its predecessor, the U.S. edition of this book came out before the U.K. one, hence the title; the first chapter of the U.K. version includes additional dialogue to justify the use of the term elevator throughout (specifically, Wonka regards the lift as an elevator now that it's acting as an air/spacecraft and is thus extremely elevated).