History Trivia / Gremlins1984

* 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.

* 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.

** 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.

** Attempted, but ultimately failed. The executives ''hated'' Kate's "why I hate Christmas" story, demanding it be taken out of the film. Dante refused, saying he felt it encapsulated the emotions of the whole film, it's kind of ridiculous on the face, but if someone had actually experienced that you'd have try and empathize, and then it becomes horrifying. Finally, the executives threatened to have Speilberg cut it from the film, since Dante and Speilberg shared final cut. Speilberg himself wasn't a fan of the scene, but considered ''Gremlins'' Joe Dante's film, and if Dante insisted it stay, Speilberg would back him.

* 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.

** 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.

** 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).

** 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.

** 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.

* 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.

** In the original script, Billy's mother was decapitated by the gremlins, with her head rolling down the stairs. Since the scene never made it to principal photography, she remains alive and well onscreen beyond her original planned death.

** 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.

* 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.

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

** 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 "cool loser" 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.

** 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 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.

* 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.

** In the original script, Billy's mother was decapitated by the gremlins, with her head rolling down the stairs. Since the scene never made it to principal photography, she remains alive and well onscreen beyond her orignal planned death.

** In the original script, Billy's mother was decapitated by the gremlins, with her head rolling down the stairs.

* 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.