Golden Ticket facts

While investigating facts about Golden Ticket, I found out little known, but curios details like:

American Airlines once sold "Golden Tickets" for unlimited first class airline travel. One passenger logged over 10,000 flights and millions of miles, flying to new cities constantly, sometimes just for a sandwich, until AA accused him of fraud and revoked his ticket.

In "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", in newspaper reports about the fraudulent "winner" of the fifth golden ticket in Paraguay, the man pictured is real-life Nazi Martin Bormann; the joke by the director was that he had fled like many other Nazis to South America.

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 16 of the best facts about Golden Ticket I managed to collect.

1. There is a theory that Grandpa Jo in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' is the story's villain. Jo claims to be unable to work, accepts Charlie's money for tobacco, relies on his poor family to feed him. Jo's deception is revealed when Charlie finds a golden ticket, & begins singing and dancing

2. Baseball has a Golden Ticket that gets the holder into any regular season game. Players get one after 8 years, it’s also been given to astronauts and former POWs.

3. Verrückt, a water slide that injured 13 people and was shut down in 2016 because a 10 year old was decapitated while riding it, won the Golden Ticket Award for "best new waterpark ride" when it opened in 2014

4. Crime boss Soapy Smith, who in the 1800's started his empire by running a scam "golden ticket lottery" selling bars of soap.

5. Panamanian golden frog is cultural symbol in Panama. It can be seen on the T-shirts, flags, lottery tickets and posters. Even though this frog is very popular and widely appreciated by the local people, few of them managed to see this frog in the wild.

6. In the original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory film, the scene where a TV reporter holds up a photo of the finder of the last golden ticket is of real-life Nazi war criminal Martin Bormann.

7. After eight years of service, most players, managers and umpires in the MLB receive a lifetime pass, literally a golden ticket, to all regular season games.

8. During the release of their Beg for Mercy album, 50 Cent and G-Unit randomly inserted 4 "golden tickets" within the first one million copies of the album. The "golden ticket" included a golden and diamond chain worth $12,500.

9. A screen used golden ticket from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" was auctioned off by the actress who portrayed Veruca Salt went on to fetch $47,500.

10. In 2017, the Golden Ticket awards voted the roller coaster "The Beast" as the 6th best wooden roller coaster in the world. The total number of votes cast for it was 666.

What is true about golden ticket?

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Disney World had to cancel a program which allowed people with disabilities to skip to the front of the line because too many wealthy people abused it by hiring disabled kids as golden tickets.

In the original Willy Wonka film, the newspaper photo of the golden ticket fraudster was actually that of Hitler's secretary Martin Bormann. - source

A Couple Tried to Sell 'Golden Tickets to Heaven' and was Arrested Because the Tickets Were Not Gold. - source

The fake golden ticket winner from Willy Wonka was Hitlers secretary, Martin Borman