50 Fun Facts About Gremlins

Who directed the 1984 film Gremlins?

He was hired for his horror-comedy chops after The Howling, and had come up cutting trailers for Roger Corman.

Which future Home Alone director wrote Gremlins as a spec script?

He got the idea from mice skittering around his darkened loft apartment; Spielberg bought the script in late 1981.

Rand Peltzer buys the mogwai as a Christmas present in an antique store located in which neighborhood?

The shop's owner refuses to sell; it is his grandson who secretly hands the creature over along with the three rules.

Which of the three mogwai rules is stressed as the most important, 'above all'?

The other two rules cover sunlight, which kills a mogwai, and water, which makes it multiply.

What is the name of the snowy small town where Billy Peltzer works at the local bank?

The picture-postcard setting deliberately echoes It's a Wonderful Life, a clip of which appears in the film.

Which actor plays Billy Peltzer?

He was a relative unknown whom Spielberg pushed for after watching him screen-test opposite his future co-star.

Which Fast Times at Ridgemont High actress plays Billy's girlfriend Kate Beringer?

Gremlins became the highest-grossing film of her career; she left acting in the mid-1990s and later opened a boutique.

Which country singer-songwriter plays Billy's inventor father, Randall Peltzer?

After an introductory scene was cut, his voice was kept as the film's narrator.

The actor who plays Rand Peltzer wrote which 1971 Three Dog Night song that spent six weeks at No. 1?

He also wrote The Pusher for Steppenwolf, heard on the Easy Rider soundtrack, and Greenback Dollar for the Kingston Trio.

Which comedian, later the host of Deal or No Deal, provided the voice of Gizmo?

He was starring as Dr. Wayne Fiscus on St. Elsewhere at the time and returned for the 1990 sequel.

Which prolific voice actor, famous for Scooby-Doo's Fred, voiced the gremlins' leader?

He came back for the sequel to voice the new leader, Mohawk.

What is the aggressive mogwai leader, named for the white tuft on his head, called?

In the original draft Gizmo himself was to turn into the villain, but Spielberg vetoed it because audiences would want the cute one around.

In which now-defunct department store's fountain does the lead gremlin try to spawn more of his kind?

He had left the movie theater early to grab candy across the street, which is the only reason he survived the gas explosion.

In her monologue about hating Christmas, Kate reveals her father died how?

The director refused to cut the scene, arguing it summed up the whole film's mix of horror and holiday cheer.

Which future Goonies star plays Pete Fountaine, the kid who accidentally spills water on Gizmo?

The spill spawns five new mogwai, and the mischievous ones then sabotage Billy's bedside clock to get fed late.

What distinction does Dick Miller (Murray Futterman) hold regarding the Gremlins director's feature films?

Miller made more than 180 films, starting out as the murderous busboy Walter Paisley in Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood.

How does Steven Spielberg make his cameo in Gremlins?

He is one of several behind-the-scenes cameos; the composer turns up in a telephone booth.

Gremlins opened in North America on June 8, 1984, the same day as which other blockbuster?

Gremlins came second that weekend with $12.5 million and both films ended up in the year's top four.

Roughly what was the production budget of Gremlins?

It went on to gross more than $148 million domestically, making it the fourth-biggest film of 1984.

Approximately how much did Gremlins gross in its North American run?

Add roughly $59.6 million overseas, including $17 million in Japan, and the worldwide take passed $212 million.

Complaints about violence in Gremlins and which other 1984 PG film led to the PG-13 rating?

Spielberg, connected to both films, suggested an intermediate rating and the MPAA introduced it within two months.

Which film was the first released theatrically under the new PG-13 rating in 1984?

The rating was introduced on July 1, 1984, only weeks after Gremlins hit theaters with a plain PG.

Who composed the score for Gremlins, including the mischievous 'Gremlin Rag'?

He won a Saturn Award for the score and, like Chuck Jones and Spielberg, sneaks into the film in a cameo.

The composer of Gremlins won his only Academy Award, from 18 nominations, for which film?

His last completed film score was for Looney Tunes: Back in Action in 2003, also directed by the Gremlins director.

Who actually performed Gizmo's hummed song?

The composer wrote the tune and asked a young acquaintance to hum it rather than Gizmo's regular voice actor.

Gremlins puppet designer Chris Walas later won a makeup Oscar for which film?

That win led to his directing debut on The Fly II in 1989.

Which scene from the much darker original screenplay was cut before filming?

Other dropped material had the gremlins eating Billy's dog and attacking a McDonald's.

Which company produced Gremlins brand breakfast cereal in the mid-1980s?

Ralston was the go-to maker of movie tie-in cereals in the era, cranking out boxes for Batman and Barbie too.

In the 1984 home console game based on the film, Billy catches falling mogwai to stop them eating what?

The second screen switches to a Space Invaders-style shootout with descending gremlins.

A Gremlins game holds the distinction of being the last game ever released for which console?

It was a substantially different game from the better-known cartridge for the company's earlier console.

Which children's author, a former fighter pilot, published a book called The Gremlins in 1943?

Walt Disney optioned it, and the little saboteurs had already been aviator folklore since the 1920s.

The word 'mogwai' comes from Cantonese, where it means what?

The Chinese characters are 魔怪, which is why Mr. Wing lectures the Peltzers about the responsibility that comes with one.

Which small-monster film is cited as an unrelated knock-off inspired by Gremlins' success?

Munchies and Critters followed, part of a whole late-1980s cottage industry of pint-sized creature features.

Spielberg chose the Gremlins director largely because of which 1981 werewolf film he had made?

Rob Bottin's transformation effects on that film made it a horror-comedy calling card.

Gremlins 2 (1990) is set almost entirely inside Clamp Center, a skyscraper in which city?

Screenwriter Charlie Haas came up with moving the gremlins to a big-city tower; earlier pitches had sent them to Las Vegas or even Mars.

Eccentric billionaire Daniel Clamp was modeled on Donald Trump and which cable-TV mogul?

The film also parodies genetics labs and cable television, all under the umbrella of Clamp's empire.

What is the first name of Christopher Lee's Doctor Catheter, a nod to his Hammer co-star and best friend?

In a deleted scene he examines a bat, winking at his own long career as Count Dracula.

The sequel's new mogwai George and Lenny are named after the main characters of which novel?

George is a caricature of Edward G. Robinson, while buck-toothed Lenny is the gentle giant.

Which Odd Couple star voiced the erudite Brain Gremlin?

The character gains his intellect by drinking a serum in the lab, then gives a very civil TV interview.

Robert Prosky's Clamp cable-network horror host, Fred, was based on which classic sitcom character?

He ends the film with a promotion after covering the gremlin outbreak live with a Japanese tourist as his cameraman.

The sole surviving gremlin, a female who corners security chief Forster, is nicknamed what?

She becomes female after drinking one of Dr. Catheter's serums and ends the film pressing Forster to marry her.

After drinking a lab serum, the leader Mohawk mutates into a centaur-like hybrid of what creature?

Another gremlin turns bat-like and is made immune to sunlight with a sunscreen-style formula.

In a Rambo homage, Gizmo kills Mohawk with a makeshift arrow tipped with an ignited bottle of what?

Mohawk had spent the movie abducting and torturing Gizmo, so the payback is well earned.

Which wrestler appears as himself, bullying the gremlins who hijack the projection booth into restarting the film?

The home-video version swaps the gag: the gremlins take over the VCR instead, complete with a John Wayne impersonation.

Which Looney Tunes character interrupts Bugs Bunny in the animated opening of Gremlins 2?

The animated segments were written and directed by the veteran Looney Tunes animator who had cameoed as Billy's drawing mentor in the first film.

Joe Dante agreed to make Gremlins 2 only with full creative control and a budget of what size relative to the original?

He had originally turned the sequel down, feeling the first film had a proper ending and had been exhausting to make.

Which song does the Brain Gremlin lead hundreds of gremlins in singing in the film's big musical number?

The gremlins had already trashed the building's food court, so a Broadway-style finale felt inevitable.

The animated prequel Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai is set in the 1920s in which city?

It tells how 10-year-old Sam Wing, the future Mr. Wing, first met a young Gizmo.

Secrets of the Mogwai debuted on May 23, 2023, on the launch day of which streaming service?

Its first episode had actually premiered nearly a year earlier at the Annecy animation festival.

Gremlins 3, by the original screenwriter, was first dated for November of which year?

Spielberg is back as executive producer, more than four decades after the first film.