Trivia / Gremlins (1984)

• All There in the Manual: The Mogwai's origin as an alien experiment is mentioned in the prologue to the novelization, and nowhere else.
• Blooper: In the credits, voice actor Bob Bergen is credited as Bob Berger.
• Breakthrough Hit: For Chris Columbus as a writer.
• Cameo Prop:
  • The time machine prop from The Time Machine (1960) 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 Forbidden Planet in one of its numerous appearances.
• The Danza: Mr. Jones is played by Chuck Jones.
• Deleted Scene: 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 goes 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.
• Dueling Dubs:
  • There's three Japanese dubs: one for home video, one for Fuji TV and another one for TV Asahi. Curiously enough, the TV dubs share most of the same cast, with some exceptions. As an additional note, there are three voice actors that voice their characters in all three dubs: Toshihiko Seki as Billy, Kousei Tomita as Billy's father Rand, and Kumiko Takizawa as Gizmo.
  • There are also two Latin American Spanish dubs, each one with its own cast; just like the Japanese one, Billy's voice actor, Ricardo Tejedo, voices him in both of them.
• Enforced Method Acting: At least one of Phoebe Cates's screams in the scene at Dorry's Tavern is genuine. An enormous cockroach crawled out in front of her during one take.
• Executive Meddling:
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Speilberg himself had a couple of moments of this. In one, he was on set when they were filming Billy and Kate's kiss in the department store before the final showdown with Stripe, and Speilberg thought it would be funny for Gizmo (who was between them at the time) to pop up and block the kiss. Joe did one or two takes of that to appease Speilberg, but never had any intention of using them. In another, watch carefully during the climax, as Gizmo pulls the shade to bathe Stripe in sunlight. You can see, after Gizmo pulls the shade, sunlight isn't actually hitting Stripe, and Billy is crouched down, looking around, and beginning to move. Then there's a cut to Stripe with sunlight hitting him, and a cut back to Billy in a different position, the pull cords for the blinds right next to him, smiling triumphantly. As originally filmed, Gizmo pulled one shade that blinded Stripe but didn't hurt him, and Billy did a heroic dive to pull another blind to let direct sunlight hit the Gremlin. Speilberg requested the edit to permit Gizmo to be the sole, final hero of the film.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: Though he followed the basic outline of the script, Hoyt Axton is said to have improvised nearly all of his lines.
• Hostility on the Set: Towards Gizmo. Most of the Gizmo puppets ^note There was a three-foot wide head used for extreme closeups that was much more expressive were very small, and as a result very delicate, and as a result were constantly breaking down. Because Gizmo was in so much of the movie, shooting was constantly delayed because Gizmo (or the Gremlins, but especially Gizmo) would break and need to be repaired. It got so bad that an idea board was put up for suggestions of things they could do to Gizmo to get back at him for being so difficult to work with (it had to be things the existing puppets could actually do). Gizmo on the dartboard after the Gremlins hatched came from this list, and it was apparently dusted off years later for many of the tortures Mohawk puts Gizmo through in The New Batch.
• Inspiration for the Work: Chris Columbus' 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".
• Never Work with Children or Animals: In the commentary, Joe Dante 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, and looking frightened when Gizmo first multiplies. He even moves in synch with the Gizmo puppet in several shots.
• Out of Holiday Episode: Gremlins features a Mogwai Christmas present as the Inciting Incident, the titular monsters wreaking havoc over a snowy town filled with Christmas iconography, opens with "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"... and was released in June. Critics at the time thought this was odd.
• Spared by the Cut:
  • 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.
  • 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 originally planned death.
  • Gizmo was originally going to die and turn into a butterfly.
• Star-Making Role: For Corey Feldman.
• Release Date Change: Originally planned and scheduled for a Christmas release, the movie was rushed into production shortly after Warner Bros. found out that it had no major competition against Paramount Pictures' Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or Columbia Pictures' Ghostbusters for the summer movie season.
• Those Two Actors: The Futtermans are played by Dick Miller and Jackie Joseph, cast as a married couple specifically because of their frequent acting collaborations in Roger Corman movies.
  • Judge Reinhold and Phoebe Cates previously worked on Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
• Throw It In!:
  • Gerald orders "vodka martini, shake don't stir," from Kate at Dorry's in an attempted Shout-Out to James Bond. However, Judge Reinhold 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 Geralld 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.
• Tie-In Cereal: 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.
• Troubled Production: 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.
• Underage Casting:
  • Keye Luke (Sam Wing) 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.
  • Mrs. Deagle is supposed to be an old woman who notably uses an electric stairlift (she also talks about her late husband in a Deleted Scene), but Polly Holliday was only 46 during filming.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Kevin Bacon, Judd Nelson, and Emilio Estevez were considered for the part of Billy Peltzer before the casting of Zach Galligan.
  • Mako and Jon Pertwee were considered for the role of Mister Wing before Keye Luke was cast.
  • Pat Hingle tested for the role of Randall Peltzer. Joe Dante felt that he gave the best audition but was worried that he might steal the movie.
  • Tim Burton 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 Darker and Edgier. 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 80s "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, they presumably 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 McDonald's - 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 the 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 Bugs Bunny'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, 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.
  • 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 Gizmo dying, only to come back to life as a sparkling fairy-like winged creature and fly away.
• Word of God: According to Joe Dante, 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 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom are the reasons for the existence of the PG-13 rating.

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