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Looking for the title of a 50's or '60's children's sci-fi story where a greedy child (boy?) of the future eats too many food pills and swells so much he floats up into the sky.

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  • No dice under tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FoodPills – FuzzyBoots Aug 25 '17 at 17:29
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    Seems similar to a couple scenes in one or both of the "Willie Wonka" movies, so likely existed in the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as well. – Zeiss Ikon Aug 25 '17 at 19:09
  • @ZeissIkon - Having read the book, they did. – RDFozz Aug 25 '17 at 19:19
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In Roald Dahl's 1964 classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (and in both version of the movie) there are two scenes you might be conflating in this memory.

First, the (excessively) gum-chewing girl gets a piece of gum that includes a complete seven-course meal - though Wonka warns her (faintly) that it's still in testing. When she reaches the dessert, blueberry pie, she begins to swell, and turn blue (like a berry), eventually having to be rolled off to juicing in an attempt to keep her from exploding.

Later, Charlie (and his grandfather, at least in the first movie) take unauthorized sips of a soda drink that fills them with lighter than air gas and causes them to float in the air, coming dangerously close to a huge exhaust fan before they find they can belch to release the lifting gas and lower themselves.

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In L Frank Baum (of wizard of oz fame)'s novel The Master Key there are the two elements you mention, but they are separate.

a silver box of food tablets, each one of which provides sufficient nourishment for a whole day a "small tube" which can direct "an electric current" at a foe, rendering him unconscious for the period of one hour a wristwatch-sized transportation device, which allows the wearer to fly at any height and travel at high speeds in any direction, when it is working properly. It is, however, somewhat fragile and becomes damaged and unreliable during Rob's adventures, creating predicaments for him.

Wikipedia article here

It is also available in full here

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  • This seems very tenuous – Valorum Aug 26 '17 at 7:34
  • Perhaps - but then so does Charlie and the chocolate factory. – Blair Aug 26 '17 at 11:30
  • I thought they were separate events, happening to separate children however. – Blair Aug 26 '17 at 11:45
  • You're right. My upvote is now a downvote. – Valorum Aug 26 '17 at 11:46
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    TBH I should probably have made mine a comment, but I was using the mobile app and we don't always get along very well – Blair Aug 26 '17 at 11:48

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