History Trivia / Gremlins

* TheWikiRule: The [[https://gremlins.fandom.com Gremlins Wiki ]]

----

* {{Blooper}}: In the credits, voice actor Creator/BobBergen is credited as [[WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers Bob Berger]].
* BreakthroughHit: For Creator/ChrisColumbus as a writer.
* CameoProp:
** The time machine prop from ''Film/TheTimeMachine1960'' can be seen behind Randall Peltzer when he's on the phone with his wife, while attending the convention. A moment later, the machine has disappeared (into the future or the past), to the astonishment of several on-lookers.
** In the same scenes, there's also Robby the Robot from ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'' in one of its numerous appearances.

* TheDanza:
** Mr. Jones is played by Creator/ChuckJones.
* DeletedScene: The following scenes were cut from the film:
** Mr. Peltzer is looking in a store in Chinatown, with a shopkeeper who doesn't know a word of English, when he is greeted by the Chinese boy, who leads Mr. Peltzer to the boy's grandfather's shop.
** Billy is lectured by his boss, Mr. Corben, for being 17 minutes late.
** Billy looks at his drawings, for a comic strip, in his room.
** Billy sees the reverend on the street. The reverend tries to give Billy his Christmas card, but he can't find it in his pile, so he just tells Billy he will mail it to him.
** Kate shows Billy Mrs. Deagle's plans to sell their houses and build a Nuclear plant. They are then discovered by Gerald, who says he will let them out easy if Kate will go out with him. Kate refuses, and Gerald notes she is tough, just like him.
** Stripe listens to a bunch of carolers, while hidden in the snow (actually, according to the commentary, he is singing along and making the carolers wonder who's off key, but there is no audio for Stripe).
** Mr. Futterman tells his wife that Mrs. Deagle has closed down the noodle factory where he worked for good. His wife then reassures him that there is more to life than macaroni.
** Billy and Kate find Mr. Corben with a clock smashed on his head. They then find Gerald in the vault. Billy tries to free Gerald, however Gerald thinks that Billy wants to free him just so Billy and Kate would get promotions (Gerald presumably would now have Mr. Corben's job). Billy then closes the vault and tells Kate that Gerald will be better off in there and they will come and get him later.
*** This scene has been shown in at least a few television edits of the film.
* DuelingDubs:
** There's three Japanese dubs: one for home video, one for Fuji TV and another one for TV Asahi. Curiously enough, the TV dubs shares most of the same cast, with some exceptions. As an additional note, there's three voice actors that voice their characters in all the three dubs: Creator/ToshihikoSeki as Billy, Kousei Tomita as Billy's father Rand and Kumiko Takizawa as Gizmo.
** There's also two Latin American Spanish dubs, each one with their own casts; just like the Japanese one, Billy's voice actor, Creator/RicardoTejedo, voice him in both of them.
* EnforcedMethodActing: At least one of Phoebe Cates' screams in the scene at Dorry's Tavern is genuine. An enormous cockroach crawled out in front of her during one take.
* ExecutiveMeddling: Beautifully dealt with by Mr Spielberg. Studio execs sent notes complaining that the movie showed the Gremlins "too much". Spielberg shot back with "Well why don't we cut them all out and call it 'Humans?" The execs wisely backed off after that.

* HarpoDoesSomethingFunny: Though he followed the basic outline of the script, Hoyt Axton is said to have improvised nearly all of his lines.
* InspirationForTheWork: Creator/ChrisColumbus' inspiration came from his loft, when at night "what sounded like a platoon of mice would come out and to hear them skittering around in the blackness was really creepy".
* NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals: In the commentary, Creator/JoeDante calls Mushroom (the dog playing Barney) "the all-purpose cutaway," because if Barney is in the scene and Joe doesn't know what to cut to, Mushroom has a priceless facial expression that'll sell it. Highlights include: Looking worried and offended when Mrs. Deagle is threatening to kill him, looking curious when Gizmo first appears, looking frightened when Gizmo first multiplies. He even moves in synch with the Gizmo puppet in several shots.
* OutOfHolidayEpisode: ''Gremlins'' features a Mogwai Christmas present as the IncitingIncident, the titular monsters wrecking havoc over a snowy town filled with Christmas iconography, opens with "[[Music/PhilSpector Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)]]"... and was released in June. Critics at the time thought this was odd.
* ReferencedBy:
** In ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOBatmanMovie'', Gremlins are among the inmates of the Phantom Zone.
** The gremlins are a recurring monster in the video game, ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterPC'', resembling more like the creatures from this movie instead of the classical depiction of gremlins. They even share the same weakness of [[ImMelting melting after being exposed to light]].
** ''WebVideo/GloveAndBoots'' has a blog about the movie, in which Fafa gives Mario a Mogwai as a Christmas present to Mario's annoyance and Mario breaks all the rules of caring for it thinking they're dumb.
** ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd'': In his "My NES Collection" video, the Nerd reads the warning on the back of an unlicensed Camerica game cartridge that says "Do not drop. Do not get wet. Do not leave in direct sunlight." He then says, "Interesting. Can you feed it after midnight?"
** In ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "The Deal", Gumball, Darwin, and Anais, all turn into gremlins after being left alone for too long. Their "gremlin" forms resemble the gremlins from the film very closely.
* SparedByTheCut:
** In the original script, Billy's mother was decapitated by the gremlins, with her head rolling down the stairs.
** Mr. and Mrs. Futterman were killed in the original script following their encounter with the gremlins. The filmmakers thought that their deaths were too cruel and removed any references to it, and they even returned for the sequel.
** Gizmo was originally going to die and turn into a butterfly.
* StarMakingRole: For Creator/CoreyFeldman.
* ReleaseDateChange: Originally planned and scheduled for a Christmas release, the movie was rushed into production shortly after Creator/WarnerBrothers found out that it had no major competition against Creator/ParamountPictures' ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom'' or Creator/ColumbiaPictures' ''Film/Ghostbusters1984'' for the summer movie season.
* ThoseTwoActors: The Futtermans are played by Creator/DickMiller and Creator/JackieJoseph, cast as a married couple specifically because of their frequent acting collaborations in Creator/RogerCorman movies.
** Creator/JudgeReinhold and Creator/PhoebeCates previously worked on ''Film/FastTimesAtRidgemontHigh''.
* ThrowItIn:
** Gerrold orders "vodka martini, shake don't stir," from Kate at Dorry's in an attempted ShoutOut to Film/JamesBond. However, Creator/JudgeReinhold kept fumbling the line, seemingly unable to get out the correct "shaken, not stirred." Eventually they decided to just let the line stand, since it made Gerrold seem even more pretentious and clueless.
** In the stop-motion sequence of the Gremlin horde, one of the lights burned out in the middle of the shot. The effects company called to say they'd have to re-do the whole (very expensive) scene, and rather than have that, Joe Dante inserted a sound effect of glass breaking, implying one of the Gremlins smashed a streetlight to account for the sudden change in illumination.
** The Gremlins in the bar scene took two and a half months to shoot because Dante set up a list of gags that anyone could add to.
* TieInCereal: During the theatrical run of the movie, a ''Gremlins'' cereal was released. The cereal pieces were shaped like Gizmo and had a taste and texture similar to Cap'n Crunch. Along with stickers in the boxes, consumers could obtain a Gizmo toy with two proofs-of-purchase and a $10 fee.
* TroubledProduction: Post-production of the first movie was a nightmare due to the gremlin and Mogwai animatronics never working properly. On the DVD commentary, Chris Walas (the creator of the animatronics) calls working on Gremlins the closest thing he's had to a complete mental breakdown.
* UnderageCasting: Keye Luke had remarkably young-looking skin, and had to be made up to look older than his real age. At the time of filming, he was in his late seventies.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Creator/KevinBacon, Creator/JuddNelson and Creator/EmilioEstevez were considered for the part of Billy Peltzer before the casting of [[Film/Gremlins2TheNewBatch Zach Galligan]].
** Creator/{{Mako}} and Creator/JonPertwee were considered for the role of Mister Wing before [[Film/CharlieChan Keye Luke]] was cast.
** Creator/PatHingle tested for the role of Randall Peltzer. Creator/JoeDante felt that he gave the best audition, but was worried that he might steal the movie.
** Creator/TimBurton was considered to direct the movie before Dante was hired, but was turned down as he didn't direct a full-length film at the time.
** The first movie was going to be DarkerAndEdgier. Gizmo was going to become a gremlin (specifically, the Gremlin leader Stripe), in the second act, but this was deemed too confusing to audiences. Billy's mother was also going to be decapitated by the gremlins, with her head rolling down the stairs. Additionally, Billy would have been your typical 80's CoolLoser and not only traveled around the town with two companions during the madness (a love interest and a bully-turned-emergency-ally), but wielded a sword. He still wields a sword in the final film but it's limited to only one scene. As to his companions, presumably they morphed into Kate and Gerald. Also, Billy's dog would have been eaten.
** In the same vein, Mr. Hanson's death was originally nastier and involved lots of needles, until it was changed to just the one syringe in his butt.
** A scene would've occurred where the heroes found the aftermath of a Gremlin attack on a UsefulNotes/McDonalds - all of the patrons have been devoured, including a baby, and the [=McDonald's=] food would've been untouched. It was cut for being too dark and sad.
** During production of the sequel, there were plans for an animated series. There was even a blurb for it in the ''He's 50, Folks'' magazine celebrating WesternAnimation/BugsBunny's 50th anniversary. Unfortunately, the poor box-office performance of the sequel resulted in the television series getting canceled. However, 30 years after the project was scrapped, [[NetworkToTheRescue HBO Max decided to rescue this series for their platfom]], with the show being renamed from ''Gizmo and the Gremlins'' to ''Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai''.
** The entire concept of these movies was brought about from Spielberg's unproduced script loosely based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly-Hopkinsville_encounter the Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter]]. The idea was eventually separated into three movies: this one, ''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'', and ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind''.
** Speaking of which, during the scene near the beginning where Billy walks past the movie theater, you see the titles ''A Boy’s Life'' and ''Watch The Skies'' on the marquee. These were the [[WorkingTitle Working Titles]] for ''E.T.'' and ''Close Encounters'' respectively.
** In the original cut, after Gizmo pulled up the greenhouse blinds, Billy made a dive to pull up the remaining blinds in order to expose Stripe to sunlight. However, test audiences preferred the idea that Gizmo be the one to finish off Stripe, and so the scene was edited accordingly.
** One draft ended with [[https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/28225/script-to-scream-gerald-dies-and-gizmo-becomes-a-butterfly-in-gremlins/ Gizmo dying, only to come back to life as a sparkling fairy-like winged creature and fly away]].
* WordOfGod: According to Creator/JoeDante, the mogwai/gremlin (Earl) that Billy left with Mr. Hanson, later met up with Stripe's gang and joined in terrorizing the town before being blown up with the rest.
* This movie and ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom'' are the reasons for the existence of the PG-13 rating.

* ThoseTwoActors: The Futtermans are played by Dick Miller and Jackie Joseph, cast as a married couple specifically because of their frequent acting collaborations in Creator/RogerCorman movies.

** Creator/KevinBacon, Creator/JuddNelson, and Creator/EmilioEstevez were considered for the part of Billy Peltzer before the casting of [[Film/Gremlins2TheNewBatch Zach Galligan]].

* ThrowItIn: Gerrold orders "vodka martini, shake don't stir," from Kate at Dorry's in an attempted ShoutOut to Film/JamesBond. However, Creator/JudgeReinhold kept fumbling the line, seemingly unable to get out the correct "shaken, not stirred." Eventually they decided to just let the line stand, since it made Gerrold seem even more pretentious and clueless.

* PlayingGertrude: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Billy was voiced by Creator/RicardoTejedo, who was just 12 years old at the time, compared with Zach Galligan, the original actor, who was a bit older than him at the time.

** Creator/JudgeReinhold and Creator/PhoebeCates perviously worked on ''Film/FastTimesAtRidgemontHigh''.

* PlayingGertrude: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Billy was voiced by Creator/RicardoTejedo, who was just 12 years old at the time, compared with Zach Galligan, the original actor, who was a bit older thna him at the time.