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Mike Teavee is the fourth child to find a golden ticket and the fourth to meet a strange fate. His obsession with television leads to him meddling with Wonka’s experimental chocolate television technology and shrinking down to the size of a TV. From the moment he’s introduced, the book emphasizes that Mike Teavee’s TV watching is a problem by having him want to watch television instead of speaking to reporters. Worse still, when he does talk, he emphasizes that his favorite shows are full of guns and violence. However, the worst consequence of Mike’s TV watching is his stunted imagination. Throughout the trip through the chocolate factory, Mike often responds to Wonka’s proclamations in disbelief. For example, he’s quick to emphasize that snozzberries aren’t real. He also refuses to see the wonder in things around him. When Wonka shows the children the experimental gum, he exclaims, “That’s all?” When Wonka explains the glass elevator is made of glass so they can look out, he complains that there’s nothing to see. When given the freedom to see any floor in the entire factory, he only wants to see the TV Room. As the Oompa-Loompas explain of a child who watches too much television, “HE CANNOT THINK ¾ HE ONLY SEES!” In other words, Mike cannot appreciate the magic of the factory because he can only understand what a screen shows him.
