Former Willy Wonka child star makes incognito appearance on Jeopardy!

For those left wondering why the bald chap on American game show Jeopardy! earlier this week seemed oddly familiar, the mystery has been solved.

It was Paris Themmen, the former child star who played Mike Teavee from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Themmen, now 58, turned up on the veteran US quiz show, where he was introduced by host Alex Trebek as an ‘entrepreneur and avid backpacker’.

He discussed how he had visited 61 countries, but failed to mention he starred in one of the best-loved children’s movies of all time.

It was only after that show that fans put the name and the face together and began tweeting feverishly about it.

Themmen did pretty well, mind you. He came second, winning $6,800 towards his next back-packing jaunt.

That his child star past didn’t come up is doubly strange, as he does occasionally get together with old cast-members for anniversaries and the like, and to appear at conventions.

He appeared on morning show Daybreak back in 2011, with fellow Wonka stars Peter Ostrum (now a vet in upstate New York) and Michael Bollner, who is a tax lawyer living in Munich.

Stranger still, Themmen’s wife has also appeared on Jeopardy!, in 2015, returning twice as a champion, before losing out on her third match.

Read more
Why Roald Dahl hated Willy Wonka
Is Willy Wonka a child murderer?
Why Willy Wonka is the creepiest ever kids movie