The human characters appearing in Gremlins, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, and Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai.
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Kingston Falls Citizens
Billy Peltzer
William C. "Billy" Peltzer
Played by: Zach Galligan
Appears in: Gremlins | Gremlins 2: The New Batch
The Hero of the films, Billy is an aspiring cartoonist who works in Kingston Falls' bank. Receiving Gizmo as a pet from his dad, he quickly learns to appreciate the Schmuck Bait for caring for him. Things quickly go topsy turvy as the gremlins rampage through the town with Billy being the only person dealing with the chaos. In the sequel, he works at Daniel Clamp's business tower in New York as a concept artist.
- Batter Up!: To engage Stripe Billy grabs a wooden bat.
- The Hero: More explicit in the original script that Billy transforms from a nerd into a battered and bleeding but unbroken sword-wielding action hero, but elements remain in the finished film. Notably, he comes up with the plan to kill the Gremlin horde and engages Stripe for most of the climax, though Gizmo actually finishes him off (and even that was a clever edit, the film originally had Gizmo and Billy both opening shades to shine sunlight on Stripe).
- Billy is also the one to come up with the plan to defeat the Gremlin horde in the second film. Basically, he's responsible for wiping out the vast majority of the Gremlins in both films.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: He uses one briefly to fight the Gremlins that have invaded his home. He loses it after Stripe attacks him in the YMCA, and choose to book it from the horde of Gremlins multiplying in the pool rather than retrieve it.
- My Car Hates Me: His starter has a tendency to fail on him, and naturally it picks the worst possible time to do it when he arrives to rescue Kate.
- Nice Guy: Billy is a sweet-natured, idealistic and likable young man.
- Off with His Head!: Billy saves his mother from a gremlin by lopping its head off with an ornamental sword.
- Oh, Crap!: When Stripe leaps into a swimming pool and the giant gremlin army is created.
- Only Sane Man: Particularly in the second film.
- Notable in the first film as well, as he takes the three rules incredibly seriously without question and does his abject best to follow them as best he can.
- Schmuck Bait: Billy is told the three rules for taking care of a mogwai, and to be fair does his best to follow them. They are all still broken sooner or later, although arguably the worst ones (getting Gizmo wet and feeding Stripe and his gang after midnight) weren't really Billy's fault. In fact, the one time he consciously breaks any of the rules, he's careful to only allow one drop of water to fall onto Gizmo as he demonstrates the result of a wet mogwai to his science teacher, Mr. Hanson, so that Mr. Hanson would not be overwhelmed in his zeal to study the mogwai species in his spare time.
- Starving Artist: An aspiring cartoonist, nobody seems interested in his work and he is forced to work a demeaning job as a bank teller. In the sequel, he has managed to land a job as an architectural engineer for the Clamp Center in New York, but he's a cubicle drone and still tends to have his ideas trod on. Until the end, when Mr. Clamp reveals he likes his idea for a suburban neighborhood based on Kingston Falls.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: In a parody of Marathon Man.
- Took a Level in Badass: Through the course of the first film, he goes from a normal, mild-mannered American teenager to a gremlin-killing one-man army.
- You Are Not Ready: Averted in Billy's case. Mr. Wing proclaims Billy may one day be ready to handle a Mogwai, as he did do his best to follow the rules for Mogwai care, with both infractions being due to Pete's clumsiness in getting Gizmo wet, and the other Mogwai tricking him into feeding them after midnight, and even in the one case where he deliberately broke any of the rules he exercised great caution in doing so (or it was in pursuit of cleaning up the mess).
Kate Beringer
Kate Peltzer, née Beringer
Played by: Phoebe Cates
Appears in: Gremlins | Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Billy's love interest. She works at the bank with Billy, but also part-time at a bar which is invaded by the gremlins for a wild night out. In the sequel, she is living with Billy and works as a tour guide in Daniel Clamp's business tower.
- All Webbed Up: She and Marla briefly end up trapped by Spider!Mohawk's web in the sequel until Gizmo finishes him up and Billy is able to free the two women.
- Bad Job, Worse Uniform: Has to wear a hat with a long model of the building coming out of it as a tour guide.
- Broken Bird: Downplayed. Kate's got some baggage, but doesn't let it interfere with her life (usually). Nor does it prevent her from standing up to the gremlins numerous times in both films.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Hates Christmas, due to her father's death during an attempt to come down a chimney dressed as Santa. She also mentions an incident in the second film where she was flashed by a man resembling Abraham Lincoln.
- Disappeared Dad: He died one Christmas in Kate’s childhood when he, having dressed as Santa, got stuck in a chimney and broke his neck. As a result, his widow and daughter stopped celebrating Christmas, with the latter hating Christmas as a result of the tragedy.
- Girl Next Door: Not literally next door, but she and Billy very much have this dynamic. Joe Dante and Steven Speilberg were even specifically looking for a "wholesome, girl-next-door-type" for Kate.
- Groin Attack: She attacks a flashing gremlin in the second film, perhaps as a Take That! to a similar incident in the first film and to her past.
- The Load: With minor heroic moments, she pretty much plays the screaming damsel in distress for Billy to rescue and look badass doing it.
- Leg Focus: When she's trapped in a malfunctioning elevator, multiple gremlins begin to eagerly grab her legs and comment on them.
- Love Interest: To Billy.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: First movie has her being a bank tender and pro bono bartender in Kingston Falls. Second movie has her being a tour guide at the Clamp building.
Rand Peltzer
Randall "Rand" Peltzer
Played by: Hoyt Axton
Appears in: Gremlins
Billy's father. An intelligent, yet Bungling Inventor. He makes good gadgets but they usually break down a week or two after he finishes them. He buys Gizmo as a pet for Billy.
- Bungling Inventor: His inventions break down a lot.
- The Cavalry Arrives Late: He is on his way back home the night that the Gremlins rampage through the town, implying that he will play some role in the climax. Unfortunately, he arrives too late to help Billy in any meaningful way, just barely witnessing Stripe's gruesome death.
- Good Parents: He's a good father. The reason why this whole mess starts is because he was in the city looking for a perfect gift for Billy.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Downplayed. He doesn't discover what happened as a result of his actions until he witnesses Stripe's death. He remains fairly composed, but is apologetic to Mr. Wing when he comes to retrieve Gizmo and offers him one of his smokeless ashtrays.
- Out of Focus: Introduced as a major character but then takes a backseat as he heads out of town to attend an inventor's fair, but returns at the end of the film to see Stripe's death.
- Schmuck Bait: He does do his best to pass on the rules and their importance, but isn't quite as conscientious about them as Billy. Also, every single one of his inventions are this, since they never work right and usually result in the operator or someone else being Covered in Gunge.
- The Smart Guy: He hand-makes all of his inventions. Unfortunately they are all an Epic Fail.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His determination to buy Gizmo unfortunately results in all the carnage that the Gremlins caused in Kingston Falls. He misses most of the action because he's out of town on business, but he is quite apologetic to Mr. Wing when he chastises Rand for not heeding his warnings.
- You Are Not Ready: Unlike Billy, he is a perfect representation of how not to handle a Mogwai.
Lynn Peltzer
Lynn Peltzer
Played by: Frances Lee McCain
Appears in: Gremlins
Billy's mother and Randall's wife. While usually a kind housewife, Lynn goes unexpectedly and brilliantly badass when she realises the Gremlins are loose in her house and manages to kill three of them when they invade her kitchen.
- Action Mom: She manages to kill three gremlins by herself.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Don't mess with her kitchen. Three gremlins learn this the hard way as they each experience violent deaths — one is chopped up in the blender, the second is stabbed to death, and the third is blown up in the microwave!
- Combat Pragmatism: She utilizes this to deadly effect, killing one gremlin with a blender while it's head was in it, stabbing another to death, and throwing the last one in a microwave. She then grabs two knives to deal with the other ones.
- Improvised Weapon: Blender, kitchen knife paired with TV tray shield, flea-and-tick killing spray comboed with microwave.
Mr. Futterman
Murray Futterman
Played by: Dick Miller
Appears in: Gremlins | Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Billy's neighbor, Murray Futterman often is seen Griping About Gremlins and is very proud of his snowplough. He and his wife are attacked by Gremlins when they steal his snowplough. They reappear in Gremlins 2 as New York tourists.
- Ascended Extra: From guy who appears in three scenes in the first film to one of the heroes of the second.
- Badass Normal: In the second film, he doesn't even have the benefit of experience in how to deal with Gremlins that Billy does.
- Berserk Button: By the second movie, he's all out of patience with the Gremlins' shenanigans and quickly disposes of any that he runs into.
- Cassandra Truth: He often griped about gremlins and no one believed him seeing him as some drunken loon, but he was totally right.
- Cranky Neighbor: His Establishing Character Moment (and second scene) have him complaining about how foreign, allegedly unreliable products have apparently taken over.
- Retired Badass: He's old enough to have fought in World War II and the second film has him kicking Gremlin ass after being one more victim in the first.
- Took a Level in Badass: He was just another victim of the gremlins' Comedic Sociopathy in the first film. In the second he is pivotal in stopping the invasion and even takes out a few of them singlehandedly.
- The Unreveal: How he and his wife survived the gremlins attacking them with his snowplough isn't explained, though a sharp-eared listener during the aftermath of the gremlins' rampage will learn that he was alive yet hospitalized.
Mrs. Deagle
Ruby Deagle
Played by: Polly Holliday
Appears in: Gremlins
Before the gremlins rip apart Kingston Falls, Mrs. Deagle ruled the roost. A wicked old devil woman, Mrs. Deagle is a Rich Bitch willing to bring misery to everyone in town as long as she gets her money. She has a particular grudge against the Peltzers.
- Asshole Victim: To the point she even thinks that the gremlins are demons finally come to take her away.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: She establishes herself as totally irredeemable (if the callous way she treats the widow and her children wasn't enough) by threatening to kill Billy's dog by tossing him in her dryer in retribution for Barney breaking her porcelain snowman (Billy offers to pay her back, but Deagle insists she will not accept anything less than the dog's life and even savors delivering the threat she will take him "whenever Billy least expects it").
- Big Bad Wannabe: She's designated as the initial threat towards Kingston Falls, but she is later usurped by the gremlins.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Deagle is technically a businesswoman due to her immense wealth and being an abhorrent Rich Bitch.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Mrs. Deagle's cats are named after different kinds of currency.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: A deleted scene shows her still pining for her deceased husband Donald. The scene was excised because it made her too sympathetic.
- Evil Is Petty: When Billy's dog breaks her snowman, she doesn't want the money to pay for it, she explicitly wants to kill the dog and refuses to settle for anything less.
- Expy: Is essentially the movie's answer to Miss Gulch from The Wizard of Oz.
- The Grinch: In spite of her concern for her snowman decoration, she has little in the way of holiday spirit. She'll gladly throw water on carolers, and sees no reason why she should cut any of her mortgage borrowers any slack for the holidays.
- Hate Sink: Basically you want to cheer when she flies out of her second story window thanks to the gremlins.
- Hidden Depths: Her terrified reaction when she sees the gremlins, immediately assuming they're demons there to take her to hell and her desperate pleas of "I'm not ready!", indicate that she's at least partially aware of what a horrid person she is.
- Kick the Dog: She loves tormenting the townsfolk. The first thing we see her doing in the movie is smugly denying an extension to a poor mother, and the second thing is threatening to take Billy's dog and throw him into her clothes dryer for breaking her snowman decoration. Deleted scenes showed that she was planning to tear down people's home to put up a strip mall, and the novelization said that she was going to sell the town's land to a company called "HiTox", which implied she was gonna turn the whole place into a toxic waste dump.
- Jerkass: She's greedy, wants to kill Billy's dog, and refuses to give money to the homeless.
- Lack of Empathy: In her entry scene, she has such little remorse for a struggling woman and her children that she openly mocks the prospect of evicting them on Christmas to their faces.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Deagle finally gets her comeuppance for being a Jerkass Rich Bitch when the Gremlins mess with her chair which results in her flying out of her house and landing outside.
- Manipulative Bitch: Plays Wounded Gazelle Gambit on Billy's boss after Barney pounces onto her, making him look even more like a menace.
- Obviously Evil: Even she seems to know how rotten she is if her reaction to seeing what she thinks are demons here to carry her off to Hell is, not to say she doesn't deserve it, but that she’s not ready to go yet.
- Pet the Dog: Compared to her obsessive contempt for Barney, she dotes over her numerous cats and lets them run wild in her home.
- Plot-Irrelevant Villain: She's introduced as an antagonistic figure early on, but is killed by the gremlins before she ever has a chance to do anything remotely villainous to the protagonists.
- Rich Bitch: One of the most wealthy and powerful civilians in Kingston Falls, to almost everyone's ire.
- Super Window Jump: Mrs. Deagle meets her well-deserved end when a gremlin breaks her stair lift, causing it to rocket up the stairs and send Mrs. Deagle flying out of a window to her death.
- Tyrannical Town Tycoon: Effectively rules the town by owning the banks, and thus being the richest person around.
- Unholy Matrimony: In addition to how unpleasant she is, as this entry makes clear, a sharp-eared listener who pays attention to the reporter at the end of the first movie will discover her husband Donald was infamous for committing financial fraud, to the point he is described as a "famous stocks swindler" by the reporter.
- Villainous Breakdown: She loses it after the gremlins attack her home, convinced they're there to drag her to Hell.Deagle: I'm not ready!!!
Other Kingston Falls Citizens
Kingston Falls Citizens
Played By: Corey Feldman (Pete Fountaine), Glynn Turman (Mr. Hanson), Edward Andrews (Roland Corben), Judge Reinhold (Gerald), Scott Brady (Sheriff Frank Kelly), Jonathan Banks (Deputy Brent Frye)
Dubbed by: Greg Germain (Roy Hanson, French)
Appear in: Gremlins
Other people from Kingston Falls who get less focus.
- Black Dude Dies First: Mr. Hanson is the first casualty to the Gremlins.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Pete disappears after Billy discovers what happens when you allow the Gremlins to get wet only to appear during the montage of the Gremlins' rampage taking out one of them by cutting the light cord that it's dangling from.
- Cool Teacher: Mr. Hanson, Billy's science teacher who is given the Gremlin named Earl to study.
- Karmic Death: Mr. Hanson dies when his pet Gremlin stabs him in the butt with a syringe ( presumably the same one he used to perform blood tests on it when it was in its mogwai form.)
- Police Are Useless: They just gawk at seeing all of the chaos going on (including seeing Mrs. Deagle flying out of the second story of her house) and then they find out the hard way that the Gremlins tampered with their patrol car's breaks when they stopped (to see the aforementioned absurd death) and are out for the rest of the film after they crashed (seriously, it's never said whether they're still alive or not).
- With Friends Like These...: Billy's co-worker at the bank, Gerald, half-jokingly tells him after the Barney incident that if he were in his boss's shoes, he'd have had no qualms whatever about firing him over the incident.
Clamp Enterprises
Daniel Clamp
Daniel Clamp
Played by: John Glover
Dubbed by: Michel Papineschi (European French)
Appears in: Gremlins 2: The New Batch
An eccentric corporate tycoon who works in New York. He runs a completely automatically-powered skyscraper, hates black and white films, and wants to make the world a better place through good-intentioned projects.
- Benevolent Boss: A rare mix of this and Pointy-Haired Boss. He's a likeable, well meaning guy that's affable to his employees, but somewhat clueless and entrusts the less scrupulous Forster to run most of the company. Once the Gremlins invade, he quickly trusts Billy to help stop them, and when the chips are down, he even leads the charge to storm his own building!
- Big Good: Of the second film.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He is an eccentric idiot, but he knows when he sees a good idea.
- Cloudcuckoolander: His wide eyed ideals and very whimsical demeanor lean him as such.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Subverted. Early on, Clamp is portrayed as being this from the views of other characters but when he shows up he turns out to be a nice, easygoing guy who is easily inspired and quickly befriends most of the people he meets.
- Crazy-Prepared: Clamp has a video ready to play on his cable network in case the end of the world comes, inspired by a video Joe Dante found whilst visiting CNN. He also built a secret exit in case the entire building was taken over by intruders.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Ask the gremlin he shoves down his office shredder. Later, when SWAT storms the building in a desperate attempt to kill the gremlins before they can go outside into the rain, he's the first to charge in with an assault rifle.
- Eccentric Millionaire: He's got all of the eccentricities of Donald Trump and Ted Turner (more on the latter than the former) Played for Laughs.
- Foil: To Mrs. Ruby Deagle from the first film, both of them are wealthy businesspeople; however, while Mrs. Deagle is a Rich Bitch Jerkass and a Big Bad Wannabe, Clamp is a Nice Guy and the sequel's Big Good.
- Frontline General: He coordinates the authorities' efforts to contain the gremlin threat, and is the first to run in armed when they decide to storm the building.
- Lonely at the Top: Due to the automation of his building and letting others run his company on a day to day basis, Clamp really has nothing to do. He also doesn't appear to have any close friends, and isn't in a relationship with anyone. It's to the point where he gets thrilled about writing a memo, since it breaks up his boredom. He gets better by the end, though...
- Nice Guy: A rich nutcase, yes; but a rich nutcase who wants to make the world a kinder and gentler place.
- Nice to the Waiter: He's polite and respectful to everyone he meets.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A mixture of Donald Trump and Ted Turner.
- Pair the Spares: Implied with Marla.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Being a Bunny-Ears Lawyer and his desire to create innovations for his company makes him stand in for Billy's Bungling Inventor father Randall "Rand" Peltzer from the first film.
- Trumplica: The entire set-up is there (eccentric and apparently corrupt millionaire with a "me, me, me" attitude, and even the name sounds similar), but in reality he's more whimsically dopey than actually evil and the most corrupt things that his company does on-screen are done by his assistant Forster (we can see some foreshadowing right when we first meet him: he wants to buy the building Mr. Wing's store is at and is willing to pay top dollar for it, while Forster is the only who says "that old man's gonna die soon, let's just wait"), while he tries to do right once he has a view of everything and decides to make a nice little town (a replica of Kingston Falls) once he decides a tower is too impersonal. If anything, he's more a parody of Ted Turner. As a note, the original concept was for Clamp to be this through and through, but John Glover (a veteran at this kind of roles — see Lionel Luthor) decided to play something different for a change.
Frank Forster
Frank Forster
Played by: Robert Picardo
Appears in: Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Daniel Clamp's assistant and chief of security.
- All There in the Manual: His first name is given in the novelization by David Bischoff.
- Asshole Victim: He's an Orwellian petty tyrant who, at the end of the film, is coerced into a marriage with a female Gremlin.
- Bad Boss: Fires and publicly humiliates an elderly employee for taking an unauthorized smoke break. He even Kicks the Dog, too, by revoking the poor guy's medical benefits.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He's more of this trope than Clamp. He's the one who proposes waiting for Mr. Wing to drop dead from his disease to get the building, and it's pretty clear that he doesn't gives Mr. Clamp all of the information until it's absolutely necessary — which in his case means just enough so he can do whatever the heck he wants for the sake of following Clamp's orders.
- Dull Surprise / The Stoic: Mohawk's attack on the control room doesn't get much reaction out of him. Neither does witnessing the carnage in the Splice O' Life lab - he merely complains that Catheter has failed to keep proper order. Greta on the other hand...
- Jerkass: Even when it turns out Billy is right about the gremlins, he won't stop being a complete cad. He likely holds Billy responsible for the gremlin takeover because he knows all about them (which admittedly verges into Jerkass Has a Point).
- Obsessively Organized: Implied by some of his behavior, such as his obsessive desire for orderliness and strict adherence to rules and schedules. At the end of the film, he reluctantly complies to Clamps' suggestion to take a vacation, after which Forster hangs up the phone in annoyance. And in one deleted scene, he's seen meticulously arranging every single little thing on his desk to the centimeter.
- Satellite Character: He has a few button-pushers and one guy always follows him around with amounts to a primitive 90s laptop and is credited simply as "Forster's Assistant."
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For being Billy's co-worker who bosses him around and belittles him, while trying to brownnose his boss, he is this of Gerald. He can be also of Mrs. Deagle for being a Corrupt Corporate Executive.
Marla Bloodstone
Marla Bloodstone
Played by: Haviland Morris
Appears in: Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Billy's office supervisor at the Clamp Center.
- '80s Hair: Sports an impressive pile of curls.
- The Load: When Billy is assigning tasks for his companions to take out the Gremlins, he simply tells Marla to smoke.
- Mean Boss: Billy's immediate superior, and a ruthlessly ambitious yuppie Jerkass.
- Pair the Spares: Very heavily suggested with Clamp at the end.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Shamelessly sucks up to Clamp, and her attitude towards Billy turns on a dime once she thinks she can use him to get an in with Clamp.
Grandpa Fred
Grandpa Fred
Played by: Robert Prosky
Appears in: Gremlins 2: The New Batch
The host of a horror movie show that's filmed in the Clamp Center's studio.
- Cool Old Guy: He's elderly (or at least middle-aged) and takes it upon himself to report on the gremlin attack from inside the building, and even lands an interview with the Brain Gremlin.
- Everyone Has Standards: He doesn't seem terribly concerned about the Gremlins beyond mild annoyance — until the Brain Gremlin shoots another gremlin for fun, at which point Fred gets up and walks out of the interview, visibly disgusted (and at least a little scared).
- Horror Host: Plays as one for in-universe TV show.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Obviously inspired by Al Lewis of The Munsters fame (who even hosted a horror movie show for Ted Turner's Superstation TBS around the time the film was made), and was likely named after Al Lewis's Munsters costar, Fred Gwynne.
Dr. Catheter
Dr. Cushing Catheter
Played by: Christopher Lee
Appears in: Gremlins 2: The New Batch
A scientist in the employ of Clamp, he runs the Splice O' Life genetics laboratory where he performs a wide variety of very strange experiments. And when his assistants capture Gizmo, he is of course very interested in knowing what makes the little mogwai tick.
- All There in the Manual: His first name is given in the novelization by David Bischoff. That said, his name tag in the film reads "K. Catheter."
- Collector of the Strange: He receives vials of rabies in the mail, has malaria on back order, and at one point returns from an errand carrying one of the alien pods from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
- Crazy-Prepared: How else to explain why he keeps "small assault weapons" (specifically a MAC-10 which Mohawk gets ahold of) in a locked cupboard in his lab? Gotta be prepared for those mutant test subject uprisings!
- Dies Wide Open: After getting electrocuted by the Lightning Gargoyle.
- For Science!: With a few exceptions, almost all of he stuff done at Splice O' Life seems to be weird experiments for the sake of weird experiments.
- Mad Scientist: Catheter has some traits of one, although he's very darkly subdued and laid back example.
- Nightmare Fetishist: He seems a little too eager for that vial of malaria he's been expecting in the mail. "All a man wants is some fresh germs!"
- Redemption Equals Death: Right after he realizes animal experimentation is unethical (because he believes the gremlins are some sort of retribution for what he's done), he dies attempting to assist Billy.
- Shout-Out: His first name is definitely Bischoff's shout out to Christopher Lee's old acting buddy and fellow Hammer Horror legend Peter Cushing.
Shanghai
Mr. Wing
Sam Wing
Played by: Keye Luke (old, films), Izaac Wang (age 10, Secrets of the Mogwai)
Appears in: Gremlins | Gremlins 2: The New Batch | Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
A mysterious Asian store owner who is the owner of Gizmo. Likely from experience, he believes Mogwai must be carefully looked after and that the western world is not ready for such a responsibility. With such wisdom, he is the only man during his lifetime known in North America who can be trusted to properly contain the Mogwai and, as good-natured as Gizmo is, keep them from causing trouble.
- Adaptational Protagonist: Becomes the main character of the prequel, Secrets of the Mogwai.
- Asian Store-Owner: Looks like your stereotypical "mystical store owner" from many an Urban Fantasy show and text. Deconstructed to an extent, because his grandson complains that Mr. Wing's stubborn, pernickety attitude has turned the store into a money pit (which is why he sells Gizmo to Randall behind Mr. Wing's back).
- Big Good: Of the films. He's the one who knows about the Mogwai and the danger of it if one does not follow the rules.
- Grumpy Old Man: He is furious when he confronts Rand at the end of the first film, but makes peace with him upon leaving and accepts a unique ashtray from Rand as a parting gift.
- Incurable Cough of Death: He has one of these in the sequel. Explicitly lampshaded by Forster when Wing refuses to sell out his store for Clamp's latest project: "Hear that cough? He's an antique. We can wait."
- New Media Are Evil: In the sequel, he chides Gizmo for watching television, dismissing it as "an invention for fools".
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: He dies early on in the sequel, which allows Clamp to construct a mall over his store.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers a withering one to the Peltzer family, condemning them for the chaos they unwittingly unleashed and not respecting the rules set down.
- You Are Not Ready: Says this to the Peltzer family about the responsibility of handling a Mogwai, but states that Billy may one day be.
- You No Take Candle: His English inexplicably improves by the end of the film.
Elle
Elle
Played by: Gabrielle Nevaeh Green
Appears in: Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
A thief formerly employed by Riley who joins Sam in helping Gizmo get back to his home.
- Abusive Parents: Her parents were known to fight in front of her and forced her to pickpocket. When she got caught by Riley Greene, they abandonded her (although her mother did try to help before her father held him back).
- Affectionate Pickpocket: She can be friendly and cheerful but is a highly skilled thief at the same time.
- Anti-Hero: Compared to the wide-eyed Sam that wants to help Gizmo, she is mainly motivated by treasure to have enough money to always stay ahead of her now very angry Bad Boss.
- The Artful Dodger: She is very good at being a Street Urchin, basically running an entire network of them.
- Bludgeoned to Death: She basically beats Yao to near death before throwing him off a train after Sam screws up the original plan to take down the shapeshifter.
- Broken Bird: Being abandoned by her parents and working under Mr. Greene for many years left her quite cynical.
- Combat Pragmatist: She is ready to fight dirty when needed, going from beating people with her umbrella to stabbing the undead Jiangxi with a knife or an axe.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Being abandoned by her parents.
- Genre Savvy: Played with. She does realize that Mr. Greene is completely untrustworthy and is also quick to realize other villains they meet on their way, like Yao or Meng Po, are up to no good. But she struggles to find the right thing to do when non-violent solutions are needed and starts to view Sam as a liability in episode 3.
- Guile Hero: Elle is very able to play up herself as an innocent helpless girl.
- Half-Hearted Henchman: Her main motivation to work for Mr. Greene is fear but beyond that she doesn't go out of her way to be mean to others.
- Happily Adopted: By the end of season one, she is basically taken in by the Wings and helps run their business.
- Heel–Face Turn: Elle starts out as an employee of Greene’s but switches sides in episode 2 after witnessing the extent of his powers and cruelty.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: Does this to Yao, eventually pushing the immobile shapeshifter off the train.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Has no trouble being violent with people and mystical beings who deserve it.
- Pragmatic Hero: She is quick to try easy solutions that sometimes work like with Yao but other times don't like with the Jiangxi.
Grandpa Wing
Grandpa Wing
Played by: James Hong
Appears in: Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
Sam's eccentric grandfather who has many tales about his adventures.- Disney Death: After Greene’s death in the season finale, he and everyone else Greene consumed are released and restored.
- Retired Badass: Sam’s grandfather is a retired adventurer with a long resume of exciting exploits and a box of secret compartments.
- Sacrificial Lion: He was the most prominent character after Sam in the first two episodes but gets eaten by Riley Greene rather quickly to show Riley means business. Thankfully, it doesn’t stick.
Fong Wing
Fong Wing
Played by: Ming-Na Wen
Appears in: Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
Sam's mother who works at a medicine shop and is fiercly protective of her son.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Her search for something magical they can use to fight Mr. Greene with results in them finding the Wand of Sunlight, very effective against Gremlins but utterly useless against Mr. Greene.
- Badass Normal: She manages to kill two Gremlins even before obtaining the Wand of Sunlight.
- Does Not Like Magic: She starts to develop a dislike of magic after everything they have been through.
- Guile Hero: Together with her husband she is able to talk Mr. Greene into letting them help his henchman.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Even with a magical weapon like the Wand of Sunlight, she decides to run for it when faced with a horde of Gremlins.
- Mama Bear: Very Much so. She will do anything to protect her son and even refuses to get off Riley's ship until they have a way of stopping them.
- Missing Steps Plan: While she is good enough at making the best choices with what she has aviable, her husband has to point out that their plan has holes.
Hon Wing
Hon Wing
Played by: B.D. Wong
Appears in: Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
Sam's father who is far more cautious than his wife.
- Boring, but Practical: His plan to go directly for the lifeboats while Mr. Greene and his henchmen are distracted.
- Cowardly Lion: He wants to avoid danger, and cowers before Riley, but when his family is in danger he will put his life on the line such as holding off Greene in the 2nd episode and then beating a Gremlin in a mortar and pestle.
- Covered in Gunge: It becomes a running gag in episode five. Thankfully it was not acid.
- Guile Hero: Together with his wife he is able to talk Mr. Greene into letting them help his henchman.
- Human Shield: He covers his wife when the Gremlin throws acid at them, thankfully the Gremlin misses.
- The Reliable One: He is great at supporting his family even under difficult situations.
Riley Greene
Riley Greene
Played by: Matthew Rhys
Appears in: Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
- Abusive Parents: His parents never showed him any love. According to the Celestial Administrator this is the very reason he has become evil.
- Affably Evil: He can hold back his abusive tendencies when the time calls for it and can be polite and well spoken.
- The Ageless: Eventually he manages to obtain immorality by eating a Mogwai alive.
- An Arm and a Leg: Claw has her Gremlins cut his right hand off to gain the knife of creation and deprive him of his magic hand. When he tries to use his left hand, she uses the knife to reduce it to a useless nub, leaving him powerless. He's able to later use the knife to undo it.
- Bad Boss: Mr. Greene is not treating Elle well. Despite her doing everything he wants her to, he flat out tells her that she will never be able to pay off her debt and will serve him forever as his left hand (useful but not essential). He also abuses his henchmen, refusing to learn their names so he won't humanize them and not caring about their health and safety dealing with the Mogwai. He doesn't even care when they are thrown off the shop by the gremlins. And when the gremlins start to work for him he treats them worse, casually killing one when they fail to open the portal to the spirit world.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: He teams up with the Gremlins to obtain an endless supply of viscious henchmen to get his real goal: Gizmo. This does not work out too great for him.
- Beard of Evil: He has a curly moustache and a long thin beard giing him a devilish look.
- Berserk Button: He can't stand being reminded of the fact he stole everything he has and has very little power that actually belongs to him. The Celestial Administrator doing this and bringing up his Freudian Excuse causes him to fly into a rage. Sam and Elle exploit this by basically tapdancing on this to enrage him enough he'll lose control of the Clay Knife and cause its power to rebound back on him.
- Black Magic: He's gained a great deal of dark magical powers by consuming others for their knowledge of it, allowing him to be just as dangerous as the Gremlins.
- Body Horror:
- Much to Elle's horror Mr. Greene unhinged his own jaw before swallowing the soul of Sam's grandfather, which is currently about the size of a bowling ball.
- When Claw uses the knife of creation to destroy his left hand, his fingers begin to beind in unnatural ways before his begins to grotesquely shrink into nothing.
- Brief Accent Imitation: He mimics "Bright Light! Bright Light!" for a brief moment in episode five just to mess with Sam's parents. Since he is human, he does not share this weakness of Mogwai.
- Cannibalism Superpower: He gains knowledge and magical power by devouring the souls of his victims. It is actually the one magic he has mastered on his own, everything else was stolen from somebody else. Notable victims include: Sam's grandfather and the Goddess Nuwa.
- The Chessmaster: Even under pressure he is quick to come up with solutions for obstacles ranging from his ship being taken over by a horde of Gremlins to facing a powerful Goddess.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: He's a human rather than a Mogwai. Stripe was a vicious feral animal, and Brain Gremlin was Affably Evil and cared for his Gremlin bretheren, Riley is nothing more than a power-hungry sociopath who sees his minions as completely disposable whether they are human or Mogwai.
- Deadpan Snarker: Greene is quick to make fun of his henchmen, to be fair they are really not that smart.
- Determinator: He is not willing to give up on "his" Mogwai or his quest to exploit the immortality of the Mogwai.
- This pays off for him when he does not waste any time once he has taken over the Valley of Jade. He devours one of the Mogwai and obtains immortality for himself.
- Disproportionate Retribution: He swallows Sam's grandfather when he turns out to be an obstacle in his path, basically devouring his soul. He is also quick to hurt or kill Gremlins when they do not follow his orders.
- The Dreaded: It is very telling that Sam's parents would rather run towards the Gremlin horde than to face him directly.
- Establishing Character Moment: His Bad Boss tendencies are obvious within seconds as Elle is clearly scared of him and he talks down to her immediately.
- Evil Counterpart: To Sam's Grandfather as well as the person Sam will eventually grow up to be.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: It is very telling that the only ones who seem to somewhat like him and his dark sense of humor are the Gremlins.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: He allied with the Gremlins keeping them in line with a wand of sunlight. However once he went back on his deal, Claw manages to distract him and cut his hands off, preventing him from using magic.
- Freudian Excuse: According to the Celestial Administrator, the reason he is evil and steals other people's magic is because nobody, not even his mother, hugged him as a child or showed him love.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: The manner in which the Celestial Administrator brings up his Freudian Excuse makes it clear he doesn't feel it justifies a thing Greene does.
- A God Am I: After devouring Nuwa's soul and gaining her knowledge, he declares himself a god multiple times.
- God-Eating: He manages to devour the Goddess Nuwa and learn all of her knowledge. Interestingly enough this does not just lead to the expected A God Am I moments (through there is plenty of that as well) but also makes him Gain A Level In Kindess as he eventually spares the two children and returns Sam's parents to him. He throws her back up after the Clay Knife backfires on him.
- Green and Mean: He wears a green robe and Yunjian and is a very cruel villain. For added bonus his name is "Greene".
- Half the Man He Used to Be: After being turned into a cockroach, he is soon cut in half by the Clay knife.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: At first he seems to "merely" be an abusive and evil person with a lot of money and influence like Mrs. Deagle. Then after Sam's grandfather managed to knock out his henchmen, he turns out to be a powerful and competent Evil Sorcerer.
- Immortality Immorality: He seeks the Mogwai to sell their immortality inducing powers to the rich but he very much wants to become immortal as well.
- Karmic Transformation: How Mr. Greene meets his end. He's always looking down on everyone and calling them cockroaches, so the kids trick him into accidentally turning himself into a cockroach with the Clay Knife. And then it falls on him and slices him in half.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: The Celestial Administrator reveals his core reason for doing anything he does is that no one in his life ever loved him, and it's implied he knows deep down he's nothing but a thief who's stolen everything he has. The fact Sam and Elle's goading so easily gets under his skin implies deep down he knows how pathetic he truly is deep down and resents it.
- Insistent Terminology: Mr. Greene casually corrects Sam that he did not eat his grandfather, he swallowed him.
- Last Chance to Quit: Surprisingly - considering his Bad Boss status - Mr. Greene does offer both Sam's grandfather and later on Sam to leave without further trouble if they just give him what he wants: Gizmo. The offer is strongly implied to be actually geniune since he does NOT care about them, he only wants the Mogwai.
- He later repeats this with Sam and Elle in episode 6, giving them a chance to give up, leave without being harmed as well as to obtain an antidote for the poisoned Nuwa and that is not even the last chance he will offer.
- Laughably Evil: Mr. Greene is a geniunely horrible person but also many of his lines and actions are full of Dark Humor.
- Light Is Not Good: He wields Light Magic against the Gremlins to force them to do his bidding.
- Manipulative Bastard: He manages to run a succesful business, a network of Street Urchins, is a capable and effective Evil Sorcerer and is even able to make a deal with the Gremlins.
- Malicious Misnaming: He calls Sam "other mortal of little importance" in episode six when he very well knows his real name.
- Nominal Importance: He pulls this on most of his henchman except Elle, intentionally refusing to learn their names. Eventually he respects Sam enough to call him by his actual name in episode 8.
- Not So Above It All: He get along surprisingly well with the Gremlins as his abusive and violent behaviour is really not that different from how they act towards each other anyway.
- Not Worth Killing:
- After absorbing the knowledge of a god, eating a Mogwai, and obtaining the knife of creation, Riley decides to not bother killing Elle, Sam and his parents viewing that as beneath a god.
- Eventually he is on the receiving end of this as Claw and the Gremlins take out both of his hands, robbing him of the ability to cast magic but do not bother to kill him. She pays for it, as Riley is the one to kill her.
- Obviously Evil: You would not think that he is a good guy.
- The Paralyzer: He loves to use attacks on Pressure Point to immobilize humans that he needs to take down. Sam's grandfather learned the hard way that he does not stop there.
- Pet the Dog: After finding the Valley of Jade and getting the Knife of Creation, he returns Sam's parents to him and "thanks" him for leading him there.
- He also decides to allow the Gremlins to live in the Valley of Jade instead of unleashing them onto the world or killing them. The Gremlins do not take it very well.
- Power Incontinence: The Clay Knife requires perfect focus on what you want to do in order to work, otherwise it'll backfire. Sam and Elle exploit this by repeatedly screaming at him that he's a powerless cockroach while jumping up and down on his Berserk Button. This drives him into a Villainous Breakdown that causes him to lose control of the Knife, turning himself into a cockroach and making him throw up all the people he's ingested.
- Power Parasite: He consumes others to gain their abilities and memories. It's revealed this is actually his only power or skill that ever truly belonged to him he didn't steal from someone else.
- Pragmatic Villainy:
- He's originally willing to ignore Sam and Elle and let them escape with Gizmo as he already had the Gremlins which he believed would also grant immortality. He only changes his mind when he discovers that he needs a furry Mogwai specifically.
- His going back on his deal with the Gremlins also has shades of this, as he doesn't want a bunch of destructive little monsters running around "his" world as it's god.
- Psychological Projection: It's implied he acts superior to others and treats them like insects due to projecting his own feelings of inferiority stemming from having never been loved and knowing deep down he has no actual power of his own he didn't steal. This is one reason Sam and Elle's mocking him gets so far under his skin.
- Sickly Green Glow: A lot of his magic like the small ball of fire or his forcefields have that creepy color.
- Soul Eating: He devours the souls of people whose knowledge might be useful to him like Sam's grandfather. He not only gains their knowledge but is even able to perfectly mimic their voices later on. When the Clay Knife backfires on him, Sam and Elle repeatedly called him 'magicless' to get his thoughts to make him puke up all the people he stole magic from.
- Tom the Dark Lord: The name of the evil sorcerer with powerful magic is Riley.
- Troll: He pretends to be hurt by the Wand of Sunlight just to mess with Sam's parents.
- Villainous Breakdown: Sam and Elle repeatedly calling him a 'magicless cockroach' (and thus reminding him of how pathetic he really is deep down) drives him into a meltdown. This causes the Clay Knife to backfire on him, and he spends his last moments screaming in disbelief and fear as he's transformed into a cockroach.
- Visionary Villain: Unlike the other villains he intends not just to obtain immortality for himself by eating a Mogwai but also to use their replication to sell immortality to the rich. After consuming Nuwa's soul, his goals change to becoming God of the world.
- Voice Changeling: Creepily Mr. Greene can perfectly mimic the voice of Sam's grandfather after swallowing his soul.
- Wicked Cultured: He knows about culture and manners, being the head of a trading company but he has no morals.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Despite being a horrible boss towards Elle, he gives the two children multiple chances to surrender and eventually when he has everything he wanted, he just returns Sam's parents and spares both of them, despite the trouble they have caused.
- You Are Number 6: Mr. Greene just numbers his henchmen, actively avoiding to learn their names.
- You Are Who You Eat:
- Once Mr. Greene swallows and injests somebody with dark magic, he is able to learn everything they knew, which is a big problem once he has eaten Sam's grandfather.
- Once he has obtained the knowledge of Nuwa he actually takes a very minor level in kindness and spares Sam and Elle and decides to allow the Gremlins to live in the Valley of Jade instead of destroying them. The last one backfires pretty horribly on him.
Mr. Greene's Henchmen
Greene's Henchman
Played by: Eric Bauza (Henchman #1), Zach Galligan (Henchman #2), Keone Young (Henchman #3 and #4)
Appears in: Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
Riley Greene's goons.
- Butt-Monkey: They get routinely injured by the Gremlins.
- The Ditz: Neither of them are smart and they easily get tricked by Sam's parents into revealing information about the ship.
- Fingore: One of the goons has his middle finger bitten off by the gremlin Claw.
- Punch-Clock Villain: They just work for Mr. Greene becaus he pays them but they do care about each other, even giving themselves a nickname: the Green Team.
- They also do manage to capture all four Gremlins in episode three. Once they multiply and they have to face an entire horde, they are completely overwhelmed.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: They are much less dangerous and evil than their boss.
- Walk the Plank: One of them are forced to do this by the gremlins, and the others are thrown off.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: They are thrown off the Mr. Greene's ship by the Gremlins, making it unclear if they managed to swim to the close coast or drowned. The later is more likely since one of them said that he is not a good swimmer before being thrown in.
- Henchmen #2 is reveled to have made it back to Shanghai… in the middle of the Gremlin attack, after which, he chooses to go back into the river.
- You Are Number 6: Riley only refers them as "Henchman #". When one reveals his name is Sebastian, Riley is angered and tells him his attempt at humanizing himself won't work.
Others
Mr. Katsuji
Mr. Katsuji
Played by: Gedde Watanabe
Appears in: Gremlins 2: The New Batch
A photographer in one of Kate's tour groups. Following the gremlin attack, Grandpa Fred enlists him to be his cameraman.
- Camera Fiend: He's laden with several different types of cameras and constantly taking pictures. When Fred asks him if he knows how to use a camera, Katsuji squees "I am a camera!"
- Japanese Tourist: Pretty much one of the defining examples of this trope.
Meng Po
Meng Po
Played by: Amy Hill
Appears in: Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
An old woman who runs an inn.
- Ambiguously Human: She has an abornally large head and access to memory-erasing herbs but displays no other supernatural qualities.
- Cruel Mercy: Her fate the end. The patrons try to forcefully feed her the tea she used to wipe their memories, but Elle states that having her remember her loss and lonliness is a worse punishment.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: The reason she fed her patrons memory-erasing tea so they would stay with her and never leave is because of her chronic lonliness.
Radish
Radish
Played by: Calvin Shen
Appears in: Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai
An eccentric young boy who was living under a temple hiding from Jiang-Shi
- Companion Cube: He hasa "friend" named Theodore who is a radish with a face drawn on it.
- Perpetual Smiler: He constantly has a grin on his face and a cheery attitude even when facing certain death.
