WHAT WENT WRONG - Gremlins

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

More Gremlins, more problems! But that didn’t stop Joe Dante and Steven Spielberg from adding an endless stream of critters to the deranged 1984 Christmas classic. Busted puppets caused massive delays and pushed creature master Chris Walas to his limits, but it could’ve been worse - they could’ve used… live monkeys?! Find out why parents were furious about the film, how it helped change the MPAA rating system forever, and why Tom Hanks isn’t in it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dear listeners, welcome back to another episode of What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast, Full Stop, that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone one as fun as this one. We hope you're cozy and tucked up tight and away from all electric devices. As always, I'm Chris Winterbauer, joined by people's host, Lizzie Bassett.

Brought it back. Lizzie, how you doing tonight? Yum, yum, Chris. Sacking, yum. I'm very, very excited. We are obviously talking about the 1984 classic Gremlins. Germlins. Germans, yes.

Because it's the holidays. And what more holiday movie could we talk about than one where a mother puts a gremlin in a blender? And a father snaps his neck in the chimney. Yes. Yes. This movie is something else. It's great.

And I absolutely love it. And thank you to everyone for voting in our Patreon poll who did vote. Yes. Obviously, gremlins took second place. We're thrilled to be able to talk about it, and we'll follow it up with Die Hard shortly. But tonight, the gremlin's rule. That's right. Had you seen gremlins before?

Yes. But not for almost 20 years. Oh, wow. And so I've remembered it fondly. I remember thinking, what a fun, silly, outlandish riff on American consumerism and left it at that. And Lizzie, upon rewatching, I am convinced. that this is an exceptionally smart movie that is actually a scathing critique

of neoliberalism, globalism, free market economics. I think you might be giving it way more credit. I have a whole theory about it. We can walk through it when we get to the various points. Point being, I actually think this is a very smart movie masquerading as a very fun and silly movie. And it smartly does what I think a lot of movies fail to do, which is it says, the title's gremlins,

the people want gremlins, give them gremlins. That's actually going to come up in our episode today. Give them gremlins. Yeah, it's the opposite of Jaws where, you know, hide the shark. No, they're like, more gremlins. Phoebe Cates, we'll see you in Act 3. Yeah. So I really, really enjoyed it.

I'm excited to talk about. It seems like maybe a lot did go wrong, just based on some editorial things, and I'm excited to figure out what those are because it's still wildly entertaining, despite moments where you think, huh, was a scene missing or something like that? Well, I think it's less like a scene was missing

or things went wrong in post-production and more just, as we'll learn today, more gremlins, more problems. That's it. That's really the moral of the story today for this episode, much like Rand Peltzer's inventions, to your point, yes, many, many things did go wrong during the making of this,

but I think everybody who worked on it had a really good time, which is nice. That's kind of nice to be able to have one where it's like, Yeah, it was a shit show, but a very fun one. So I would say Gremlins has stood the test of time, Chris, thanks to its innovative creature design and Mad Men director Joe Dante, who's no bad ideas style of directing led to classics like my personal favorite, a Gremlin flashing its puppet bits at Phoebe Cates. I love that Gremlin so much. All right, let's get through the basic info, and then let's dive in.

Directed by Joe Dante, written by Chris Columbus. who you all may have heard that name before. He's not only a huge screenwriter, but also a massive director. Harry Potter? Yes, Harry Potter, among many others. Creature Design by Chris Whaless, produced by Amblin Entertainment, starring Zach Gallaghan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Corey Feldman, who is so cute in this.

He's very good. Francis Lee McCain, and of course, Howie Mandel, as the voice of Gizmo. Who could forget? All right, so Chris, do you know the origin of the action? term, gremlins. Outside of this movie, do you know where this came from? Well, I know the World War II connection. I don't know. That's right. Okay, yeah. So, so fighter crews, et cetera, during World War II, gremlins were mythical creatures who would come in and misplaced tools. They were very mischievous, sabotaged their planes, et cetera. All to do with technology. All to do with technology, like the bomber

crews, you know, the flying fortress, et cetera. And I don't know where I learned that, but I did know that little bit of lore behind Gremlins. That's correct. It started with the British Royal Air Force pilots. Actually, I think around World War I, although it's not until World War II that it really takes off. And they grow in prominence to the point where they actually even become a marketing tool for British war propaganda like Rosie the Riveter with some fun poster campaigns that say things like, Gremlin's love to pitch things at your eyes. We're safety goggles back up our battle skies. I've seen that's, I've seen those somewhere. They're like that 1950s or 40s art style. Like, where they, yeah, they're very funny. Yeah, there's a lot of them. But one RIF

Lieutenant brought Gremlins into mainstream culture by writing a popular book called The Gremlins, a Royal Air Force story in 1943. This book was co-published by Random House and Disney, and its author was, any guesses? Roll Dahl? Yes. Yes. Wow. Good job, Chris. I've never read it, but he's the only writer that I know had a, I thought he was a spy. Maybe I got that wrong. No, no, you're not wrong. I believe he did do some spying as well, but I think publicly he was part of the Royal Air Force. Got it. And then, of course, they come back into popularity in the famous 1963 Twilight Zone episode,

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, starring pre-Captain Kirk William Shatner. I didn't realize the character in that, the little creature, not little, the full-sized man in a furry suit. The full-size man, yeah. On the wing of the plane is actually credited as Gremlin. Oh, I didn't either. So they're frequently associated with technology, particularly planes, early on. And the concept of Gremlin's was well known by the time an NYU grad in his early 20s decided to write a whole movie about them. So let's talk about screenwriter Chris Columbus.

Now, he had heard mention of the Gremlin's folklore from his dad, particularly when his dad would be fixing the family car on the weekend. So he's very familiar with the connection of Gremlins and technology, which I think we see throughout this movie in some, to your point, very smart ways that they do connect it back to the Royal Air Force beginnings. But he also found inspiration for his new horror screenplay through an unlikely source. And that was The Mice in his shitty New York apartment, which would brush against his hand when he was sleeping. Usually monsters and horror films are large and imposing, but he thought creepy little creatures would be even more insidious. I agree.

I find little creatures very disgusting. And this is, I mean, I don't know if technically Gremlins kicked it off, but an incredible run of what I would call little shit anarchist movie. like gremlins, goolies, critters, chud. I mean, even Joe Dante would do another one with toy soldiers, you know, 15 years later or whoever long. So just once they hit on that little idea, they really milk it for all its worth in Hollywood. Well, it is horrifying. So Chris Columbus already had one screenplay under his belt at this point for a film called Reckless.

It was a semi-autobiographical story based on his experience of wanting to break out of his sort of working class kind of Midwest town. but he was very pissed and kind of disillusioned at the end product because the director took it and turned it into like kind of a soapy teen drama. So he decided to write something completely bonkers that couldn't possibly be turned into a mushy teen film. And that was Gremlins. True. It was an explicitly R-rated horror film with tiny murderous monsters wreaking havoc on a quiet American town at Christmas. So from the beginning, I think pretty much the same.

I don't know that it was quite as funny as the end product. that we wind up with. Right. It was way more violent, which we will get into. So many of the shots in this movie feel like Joe Dante saying, what props can we have them fuck with now? That's literally correct. We will get there.

So here's the thing. Chris had no expectation that this would ever be made. He wrote it as a spec script to be sent around for writing jobs. Now, I don't know how common that is still for people to write spec scripts. I think it's not as common. Is that right? Oh, no. still very, for young writers breaking end, very common.

Oh, okay. And, I mean, arguably the blacklist exists, not so the films get made. Some of them obviously do. But really, I had a friend, he wrote a spec script called Barron that was about Donald Trump's son, Barron. Right. It's very outlandish, very funny. No one was ever going to make it. But that got him his manager and many meetings at production companies, and eventually he was hired for other jobs as a result.

Well, be careful with that because maybe they will make it, which is what happened here. Got it. So his agent sent it out to something like 50 producers. Doesn't really get any traction on it, you know, but it's fine. Again, he's not expecting much. But then one day in late 1981, he gets a call at his apartment. And his roommate answers and tells him, hey, it's Steven Spielberg. And Columbus is like, fuck off.

Like, no, no, it's not. And his roommate is like, no, no, you really should take this. Yeah. And he's like, no, it's 42 mice in a trench coat calling you right now. And Columbus doesn't believe him, but he takes the phone and is like, Yeah, okay, who is this? And it was unmistakably, Steven Spielberg. Wow.

And he wanted to buy Gremlins. He had just started Amblin, his production company, and he'd been looking for a low-budget horror movie to produce. He loved Columbus's screenplay right from the beginning. It was fun, original, completely nuts. And Spielberg did immediately note that it would need to be toned down to PG that the violence specifically would have to be dialed back. Otherwise, though, loved it.

So Columbus obviously sells the script to Spielberg. and made the move out to L.A. to begin developing it with Amblin. He also actually included early sketches of the Gremlins themselves, which were scaly green monsters with big ears and sharp teeth. So pretty close to what we end up with actually came from Chris Columbus. Now, right away, Spielberg had a couple of directors in mind, and one was a young Tim Burton. Oh, that would be fun.

It would be interesting. He was very impressed by an early cut of Frankenweeney that he saw, which if you want to hear more about that and about Burton's origins, listen to our episode on Beetlejuice. But as impressive as Frank Nweeney was, he was concerned that Burton had never directed a feature film before, which I think with something like this would be a pretty big concern. Yeah, 300 puppets in the movie theater.

So he went with his other main contender, Joe Dante. Joe Dante was an out-of-work director with only a couple features under his belt. So when he received a super top secret script from Spielberg stamped with a special code to prevent Xeroxing, he thought it had been sent to him by mistake as well. No one believes that Stephen Spielberg is calling them about this movie. He also thought that the script was completely insane, as everyone else has. It was still pretty violent and required a hefty amount of special effects, which were very limited or completely unavailable at the time. I mean, you'll hear us across this episode as we have in many other episodes, talk about practical effects versus CGI. This is essentially entirely practical. It's not to say that CGI didn't exist. I think it existed

in some very, very small instances by this point, but not in the way that it does now. However, Joe Dante loves a challenge. He was born in 1946 and he grew up on B horror films from the 1950s. His father was a professional golfer and wanted Dante to follow in his footsteps, but he was terrible at it. Oh, no. So I bet his dad was thrilled when he turned to art instead. What an unusual trajectory. Son, you'll never make it in sports. What about the arts?

He would draw his own cartoons, and when he was 12, he began writing reviews of horror films, and he would send them into a magazine called Famous Monsters of Film Land. Very cool. He actually wanted to be a cartoonist initially, but he was told by the art school he attended for college that cartoons weren't a real art form, so he decided to major in film instead. That's rude. Now, he didn't exactly fit in at this program either.

His classmates were all super into Jean-Luc Goddard. And meanwhile, he is a diehard fan of B-movie horror legend. And what went wrong, many-time-mentioned alum, Roger Corman. Hell yeah. Roger Corman is one of, if not the most prolific B-movie producers of his time. We've talked about him. A bunch. He gave so many filmmakers their start, including Joe Dante.

So he began his career cutting, trailers for Roger Corman, and it was under Corman that he learned how to make a movie with almost no resources and even less time, which I think will come in handy for Gremlins. This is also where he met his future producing partner, Mike Finnell. His first directorial feature was Hollywood Boulevard. It was produced by Corman's company, New World Pictures, and the idea actually stemmed from a bet that Corman made, that he could produce a film for only $54,000. So he makes his bet with somebody else, and then he was like, Dante, you're in.

Get in here. And Dante's like, we all lose. Yeah. Now, his next directorial feature, which I guarantee you've heard of, also produced by Corman, was the 1978 B horror film Piranha. Oh, yeah. I have seen most, if not all, of the Piranha films. Oh, great.

Across both iterations. Excellent. Well, he's the OG. It was, of course, essentially a spoof of Jaws. Universal, the studio behind Jaws saw it as a threat to Jaws 2's box office, potential. And they actually tried to prevent its release with an injunction. Which says so much about Jaws 2. Yes. Yeah, a lot more than it does about Piranha. Yeah. This Piranha movie's nipping at our heels. It's really not. But the injunction was never

filed because an unlikely hero saved Piranha from being shelved. And that was Steven Spielberg himself. He's back. Wow. He convinced Universal that the film was very clearly a spoof and that they did not need to be worried about it. And it was its own film. So it came out, kind of mixed reviews, but modest box office success, especially since it only cost about half a million dollars to make. Wow. Okay. So Dante already has that connection with Spielberg, but it was his horror comedy to Howling that really, I think, caught his attention and made him perfect for Gremlins. What do you remember about the Howling, Chris? I honestly mostly remember the effects and the transformations, and obviously the howling was very much overshadowed, I think, at the box office and otherwise by an American Warwolf in London.

Yeah. But, you know, Rob Boutin, who did the effects, obviously on The Thing, which we talked about, did the howling and they're incredible. And, funnily enough, his mentor or original mentor, Rick Baker did the effects on American Warwolf at London. So I think that's that little friendly competition is probably why you got such great effects on both films. Also, really small budget, about $1.5 million. And it was... So I got to imagine much smaller than American War. Yeah, I think so.

And it was a critical and box office success earning just under 18 million domestically. Wow. So that's pretty great. Of his work as a horror director, Dante has said, I love horror comedy because I embrace the absurdity. Horror movies are basically absurd. And you can treat it very seriously. And there's been some great films that are very serious horror films without any laughs.

But I find that my approach is similar to how I approach life. So naturally, that's why Dante reads Gremlins and goes, Sure. Let's rock and roll. Yeah. Let's throw this fucker in a microwave. Yeah, absolutely. He shows the draft of gremlins to his producing partner Mike Finnell.

They both want to make it, but given the high number of very active gremlins in it, and again, the lack of the kind of CGI that we have now, they had no clue how to do it. So they call up Steven Spielberg for a meeting. Now, the meeting sounds pretty weird. It took place in the Warner Brothers parking lot. standing around their cars because he was, Spielberg was in the middle of post-production for both E.T. and Poltergeist, and they were super-duper top secret.

So he couldn't let them in to the buildings or anywhere he was working. I don't know why he couldn't just bring them into a building, but he did not. He was like, meet me outside for 20 minutes. Great. Not creepy at all. No, so that was it. That was the conversation. And apparently 20 minutes in a parking lot with Steven Spielberg was enough to convince them that they could do this and they were on board. And I mean, to be fair, Spilberg was coming off of E.T. He'd just done an entire movie with a puppet. And there's a fun E.T. nod in Gremlins, of course.

Yes, there is an E.T. Easter egg. Yeah. No, but you know what I'm saying. He's, he's done it. And then obviously, Poltergeist had an incredible array of moving skeletons and the clown doll, et cetera. So Spilberg tells him to meet with Lucy Fisher, who's an executive at Warner Brothers to be their point person. She's the one who really gets the studio on board and becomes a champion for the film. And she was also maybe the only person. at Warner Brothers who understood like what they were trying to do. Aside from her, everyone else had no idea what this was. And they actually would go around the lot referring to it as Spielberg's folly. This is one of those things where it's you'd like to say that you would be prescient enough. No. We all would have said it and said, what the hell is this? A Christmas movie with, I mean, just just the idea of making this is like you have to be crazy to say yes to this to a certain degree. And I'm so glad all these people were. Yeah.

But even with Spielberg as the EP, they did not have the full green light yet, so keep that in mind. So Chris Columbus begins working on the script revisions to tone down the violence, amp up the comedy, rein in some of the special effects sequences. Here's few fun things that changed from the original draft. Originally, the Gremlin's ate Billy's dog. Poor Barney. You kind of expect it because the pet does just disappear at a certain point. Yeah.

He goes off with our favorite Deadbeat Dad character for the best. the back half of the film and then shows up again to no real effect. So you kind of feel like they didn't really know what to do with him when they didn't kill him. Because what a great classic horror trope. The disappearance of the family pet, right? That's always such a fun moment, I feel like, in these types of movies. I know, but you can't hurt Barney. It's a very cute dog. We'll come back to him in a little bit. I mean, Spielberg had a shark eat a dog, right? And no, the dog lives. The shark eats the kid. That's right. And that's how you get PG. You eat a nine-year-old. You leave the dog alone.

Yes. Right. But it wasn't just the dog that died. The gremlin also killed the mom during the big fight scene in the house and threw her decapitated head down the stairs. There was also a scene at a McDonald's where the gremlins ate all of the customers inside but didn't touch the food. Okay. I love that. And that also further cements my theories that I will explain at the end about how intelligent this movie is.

Okay. That scene is also the original placement of Phoebe Kates' I hate Christmas monologue. But when that scene went left, Dante liked it so much that he found another place for it. It does feel a tiny bit shoehorned in, but it's great. And I'm glad that it's there. Phoebe Kate's feels shoehorned in when she, like, she's literally. She's a bartender to a million gremlins. She has a job to do.

But she's basically in four scenes in the whole movie, and they're either in the first 25 minutes or the last 25 minutes. You definitely feel her absence. And I think Phoebe Cates is great. She's really good. I wish she was in more of this, to be honest. I agree. Oh, also, Billy's science teacher, Mr. Hansen, whose death you don't really see, it's sort of implied. Yeah.

He's actually killed by Gremlin sticking a bunch of hypodermic needles in his face in this version. There's only one in his butt. Yeah, exactly. And I wondered if they just couldn't get the puppetry right, so they just cut away and then they return. No, no. They definitely could have gotten the puppetry, right? They had to pull this back. Got it.

Got it, got it. Also, Billy was originally 12 years old, but Warner Brothers asked them to age him up to be in his teens so that it would be more appealing to teenagers, which makes sense. Yeah, and then they added the Feldman character to fill that kind of gap. Right, they added his tiny friend. So, with rewrites underway, the key thing that Dante needed for the green light was the gremlins themselves. And obviously for that, he needed to find himself a creature master. Let's meet creature designer Chris Wayless. Dante and Weillis had worked together before on Piranha, and their next project, a remake of the creature from the Black Lagoon,

had just been canceled by Universal so the studio could make. make, Jaws 3. Keep them coming. Nice. But not as good as Jaws 4. Oh, God. Now, Wailess is one of the best effects guys in Hollywood in the early 1980s. You have definitely seen his work before. The Melting Nazi in Indiana Jones and Raiders the Lost Ark. That is him. And also, background creatures in Star Wars Return of the Jedi. Callback to our last episode, yeah. Very cool. So after working for George Lucas's industrial light and magic, Wailas had started his own effects company. Dante sends Wayliss the script for Gremlins, and Waylis gives it a read and writes notes in the script that say, no, no, and impossible. I'm pretty sure that one is regarding the action line that says hordes of thousands of gremlins run through the town.

Yeah. But despite this note, he agrees to come on board because these gremlins are irresistible, Chris, and also, I think maybe he needed the money. Yeah, and his new company was about to bounce their checks. No, this guy's amazing. But throughout the course of this episode, this is, I think, to me, the funniest part of this whole story is this man's, like, very practical dynamic opposite Joe Dante just being like, we'll do anything. Yeah. He knew that this would be one of the most challenging projects of his career just due to the scope, because even after the rewrites are happening, there's still a lot of gremlins on this thing. Yeah. At first you think, oh, great, there will be six, and then it jumps in a pool. So his thought from the very beginning was to do puppets. It would be the most efficient way to make the creatures look believable on camera.

But Joe Dante wanted to do stop animation, which is incredibly time-consuming. And for this many would be crazy. In the final film, it looks like there are a number of scenes that use... There are a few. There are not that many. No, but I mean, a couple wide shots with a lot of gremlins, stuff like that, yeah. Specifically the one where the gremlins are walking through the town. You can see the streetlights.

That is stop animation. I love that scene when Stripes running through the town, and then they all come behind him, and they're all just like, woo-hoo! It's like, I feel like someone at Illumination saw that and was like, yes, but yellow, and they are like Twinkies, and that's what minions are. Yeah, but obviously to do that for the whole movie

and for all of the Gremlins would be extremely time-consuming. So, wayless push back on that. But they quickly changed course when Dante had another idea. And Chris, you're going to love this one. Live Monkeys. Oh. I'm thinking of nope, the beginning scene. Look, as much fun as it would have been to do Remlins meets Roar, I think they made the right decision. Well, they did try it. You'll be glad to know. So, wow. Wayless was like, that's also a terrible idea. And Joe Dante was like, you don't know that. Here's a racist monkey. Let's put a gremlin mask on it. And so they did. And they let the monkey just kind of run wild in the editing room. And apparently it just. just like pooped all over everything and went crazy.

And Wayliss was like, okay, we tried it, Joe. Now let's go ahead and go with puppets. So they did land on puppets. But of course, that's not an easy route either. There had never been a project with puppets at this scale before. Not even something like Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal came close to either the number of puppets that would be required or more specifically the amount of things they would need to do and like the emotional articulation that's required.

But what made the task particularly challenging was that they're really small compared to the level of specific actions that they would be required to do, including the facial articulation and emotions. The technology really didn't exist for how to do this, and so Wayless was basically making this up as they went along. So before rewrites or casting were completed,

he began working on the puppet molds. He likes to take inspiration for the creatures he crafts directly from nature. And he based Gizmo off of a Tarsir. Have you ever seen one of these? I don't think so. I'll Google it. Go ahead and do a Google image.

It's T-A-R-S-I-E-R. They're so cute. Yeah, they're super cute. They're both cute and disgusting at the same time. It looks like a lemur. Yeah, it's like a lemur with like gigantic eyes and a very smushed face. Yeah, these are very cute. They're extremely cute, but that's not the only reason that he chose it.

He chose it because its head is so big. and the proportions of the head being big in relation to the body would make the puppet easier to operate. Now, because of the small size of the mogwai, they couldn't really be operable by hand, meaning you couldn't animate it by sticking your hand through the bottom of the puppet. So they had to be primarily animatronic to really articulate all the movements. So he made two prototypes of Gizmo before landing on his final design, but at that final design, Spielberg wasn't totally satisfied with it and called up Joe Dante to pass along one final note. Give Gizmo the same coloring as his dogs, which were

Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. And he does. He has the exact same coloring. It's a good coloring. So he goes ahead and does that and then they get the go ahead from Spielberg for the design. Now for the inspiration of the lizard-like gremlins, much of their design and movement came from just kind of playing around. He did use Chris Columbus's sketches that we mentioned at the top as a jumping off point, especially in terms of the lizard skin and the big ears. the big ears end up really being the defining feature that connects the mogwai and gremlin puppets to make them look like related species. But as always, he had practicality in mind with the ears too,

because he could use those as ways to indicate mood without having to change a bunch more on those puppets. When describing an early meeting between Waylis Dante and Spielberg for the ringer's special effects oral history of gremlins, Waylis said this. And it was in Stephen's office. And were there talking about the nature of the gremlin's, And it was really funny because Stephen's just kind of like, you know, they should be really nasty and hugged over.

And I'm like, yeah, that's what I'm thinking for the pose. And I get off and I'm like standing like this, going like this. And they walk around and more like hopping and stuff. And Joe's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's three of us, like jumping and hopping around the coffee table like lunatics. I want a video of just Spielberg doing Gremlins in his office. Absolutely. Also, that Ringer oral history video, really good.

I hope you make more of those. Now, that sense of play that he's describing in pitching all of this really continues during early test shots in the creature shop. They would play with the gremlins to figure out their movement, throwing stuff around the room, hitting each other. It really helped them develop specific physical actions and characters for all of them. But the studio was still not convinced that the creatures would work. So once Swaylis had the final molds of the gremlins completed, the studio execs wanted to come see what they were making and they order another test with less than three days notice. Now, mind you, the molds were finished, the mechanics were not. So Wayless works 40 hours straight with no sleep to finish an animatronic puppet to use for the test.

They film it. Dante cobbles it all together. They show the executives. And then after the test is shown, they get a call from Lucy Fisher. And she asks Dante and Finnell to come to her office. They start getting worried. But when they arrive, she's there with a cardboard box. She opens it.

And inside is a green light bulb because they finally got that. the green light. Wow. Fun, terrifying, took years off their lives. Also, just the number of times in these podcast episodes where we have discussed the poor special effects. There's going to be so much more. Artists. Oh my God. Like I'm thinking of the design of slimer, you know, on Ghostbusters. And it's just months and months and months of cocaine trying to get it right. You know, it's just just the pain or Rob Boatine getting high off of melting plastics trying to make the thing work. You know, it's just incredible what these people go through. Not necessarily in a great way.

Well, you mentioned the much maligned, tired creature effects artist Chris Whaless. He was, in fact, very surprised to learn that they didn't already have the greenlight. He didn't know. Oh, no. He thought that it was greenlit. Yes, literally. So Mike. Good you invited him just being like, so Joe, just to confirm, we're greenlit.

And he's like, yeah, yeah. We're good. This is just like a final thing. Don't worry about it. No. So Mike Fennell calls him to give him the good news and Chris Weillis goes, what? We didn't have it already. Wow. So the studio sets the budget at $11 million, which is really pretty low considering the amount of creatures and special effects that are needed. And they go ahead and begin the casting process. Now based on Spielberg's suggestion, they don't really want any name actors in this, which I think makes sense. Oh, interesting. It's such a unique kind of absurd. idea that he really felt that having a big star would distract from the story. So Hoyt Axton was always Dante's first choice to play Randall Peltzer, Billy's inventor father. He was actually a folk singer and had done a handful of other films in the 70s and early 80s. It was his performance in the Black Stallion that made Dante think that he would be perfect. I really love him in this.

Yeah, I mean, terrible father, but very fun performance. Very funny. Never telegraphs the joke. No. The humor around his inventions, he always plays it straight, and it's really fun. I also love the sort of like fear and trepidation that everyone looks at the inventions with when they have to try and operate them. Oh, yeah. Like they just like pausing, looking at them.

We won't get into those a ton, but by the way, all of the inventions were created by the production designer for the movie, which is really amazing. Now, there was one big name who was their top choice for Kate always. And that was Phoebe Kates. She was really always number one. Wow. You would think that she'd be a shoe in, but Warner Brothers had one. major concern with her, which is that they didn't think she was wholesome enough, thanks to her topless scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Which is what, within the last two or three years

of this film? At most. Yeah. She was, I mean, she was huge at this point. But Dante didn't seriously consider anyone else for the role. And luckily, the studio came around. Now, the lead role of Billy goes to basically a complete unknown, Zach Galligan, who beat out the likes of some very well-known 1980s cuties. It's time to play. Which Brat Pack actors didn't get this part. Oh. You got any guesses? Can I throw in a Rob Lowe? Yes. Great. Give me another one. A sheen? Is there a sheen? Well, not a sheen. An Estevez. There you go. Bingo. Ding, ding, ding. I'll take that. God, who else do we have? There's another breakfast club. Judd. Yes. Judd Nelson. Yes. Judd Nelson. Correct. Also Kevin Bacon and Future Academy Award winner,

Tom Hanks. Wow. Yeah. Zach Galligan has a Hanksian quality, I would argue. It's funny. You should mention that. That's actually why Tom Hanks didn't get the part of Billy's dushy manager, Gerald, which he also read for her.

Oh. Because after they cast Gallaghan as Billy, they thought that Hanks looked too similar, since they both have that curly hair. They're both very cute. I would agree. Yeah, I think so too. So that's the part. And Judge Reinhold's so good and that snide sort of role.

He's great. I love him. Yes, it does end up going to Judge Reinhold. he really made me laugh watching this time. I'm going to be a millionaire by the time of 25. He's such a dick. I can't believe we don't get to watch him die. That is one of the only.

I was like, wait, no, he must die. I must be remembering it wrong. And then we never see him die. No, he's fine. He is a millionaire by 25. So Gallagher got the part because of something he did between takes, actually, during his chemistry test with Phoebe Kates. He put his head on her shoulder.

And as soon as they were watching the tape, Spielberg said, stop the tape. We have to cast him. He's in love with her already. very cute. He's very sweet. He's a, again, in a way, it's perfect because he totally cedes the screen to the gremlins, if that makes sense.

Yes. Like, all the humans are kind of secondary in this movie. Horrible pet owner. Truly the worst pet owner ever to walk the face of the earth. Again, my theories on this film, we will get to them. But yes, when he takes poor Gizmo and he's like, hey, I have a starfish, let's chop its legs off so we can asexually propagate it in your lab. It's terrible. It's like, you're awful. What are you doing?

Gismo's just screaming in pain. He's like, check this out. I know. He's like, oh, I'm having a baby. What are you doing? It's terribly sad. Spielberg also had a hand in casting Corey Feldman before he became a teen idol. Interestingly, Feldman had auditioned for ET, and Spielberg wanted him to be one of the stars because it was originally supposed to be about two little boys who discover an alien. But after some script changes, obviously it only becomes one. that's where we get Elliot.

So Spielberg at that point called Feldman to tell him that his role was no longer a lead would basically be like a day player. So he didn't think it was worth it to do such a small part. And he promised him that he would cast him in his next film that needed a young boy actor. And around a year later, he got the call for Gremlins. And I think he's wonderful in this. He's very funny. The way he's so dismissive of the Monquotian bedroom is very funny.

It's very much, I feel like, what Stranger Things later will riff on, with Steve and Dustin in that relationship. The one thing I'll say, too, is if you guys have never seen Henry Thomas's audition for E.T. Oh, it's so good. It is maybe the greatest child actor audition of all time. And so if Corey Feldman was going to get beat by anybody, this was the audition to get beat by. Yes, definitely. He rounds out the supporting cast with Francis Lee McCain, who you might recognize as the mom in Footloose and Back to the Future.

Glenn Terman as Mr. Hansen and in typical Dante fashion actors from classic Beattie. horror films such as Harry Carey Jr., Bill Shalert, Scott Brady, and some of his repeat regulars, Kenneth Toby, and Dick Miller, who plays Mr. Futterman, the War Vet, who actually does introduce the Gremlin's origin in the movie. Right. Also, Chris, did you catch the Breaking Bad cameo in this? Oh, you mean Jonathan Banks, deputy? Yes, drunk sheriff's deputy.

Mike Urban Trout from Breaking Bad. Yeah. He's very funny. I love him in this. So, meanwhile, Wayless has been toiling away. the creature shop with two months to go before the shoot when Spielberg has another idea for Gizmo. Let's make him Billy's co-star. In the original script, that was not the case. Gizmo's character was supposed to be a good mugwife for about the first act before he turns into the film's

antagonist, Stripe. In fact, the character didn't even have a name in the original script. They got it because someone in the creature shop kept saying things like, hand me that gizmo over there. But once Spielberg saw the puppet in action, he was basically like, He's adorable. He should be the sidekick to the hero for the film. But there is a major problem with this. The designs that Wayless had been working on were not meant for close-ups or designed to be very emotive due to their small size. And now he's going to be a main character. So with two months to go, he has to completely rethink the mechanics in the midst of all of his prep for the rest of the shoot. Now, one of the solutions he came up with for the close-up shots was to design a huge version. of the Gizmo Puppet. That's what I was going to ask, because all the super close-ups where they fill the frame, I was wondering if that was a larger model. It's a much bigger model, and they made props behind it, you know, to scale so that it would look right.

And that's literally just so they can shove enough wires and mechanics into the head to be able to operate that stuff. And those shots look great. They look amazing. The super close-ups, when they're eating all the chicken and stuff, it's so gross. It looks awesome. Yeah, I think it's just the main game. that had the big... Oh, really?

I think so. Whatever they did on those are awesome, too. But yeah, and the main gizmo, he looks so adorable in all of his close sides. And something else that they did with the... We'll get more into the main gizmo puppet in just a little bit. But one thing that they did with his face was they actually... You could rip its face off. Yeah.

And you could just spirit gum on a different, like, expression mold, basically. Oh. That would operate differently with the animatronics. So if you needed him to be scared, they had a scared mold. If you needed him to be happy, they had that. And you can see some of them, and they're really creepy. It's just faces, like gizmo faces ripped off. So seven months into Wayless's pre-production process, the puppets are finally ready to make their debut.

Production begins on April 27, 1983, with the majority of Kingston Falls exteriors, taking place on the universal lot and the interiors on soundstages at Warner Brothers. Apparently somebody initially wanted to film on location, but Dante was very opposed to that, making the argument that the gremlins would look more real if they filmed on a studio lot. Well, immediately, everything feels heightened. Exactly. It's very stylized. Fake snow, very stylized lighting. And so as a result, we know we're in an artificial world.

And so when an artificial creature enters, I think the suspension of disbelief is a little easier. Yeah, that's exactly right? Logistically as well, having the creature shop there, having access to all. of the best tools and people in Hollywood at a moment's notice, should anything go wrong. There are so many reasons not to do this on location. You nailed it. Those are all the reasons. Practically speaking, it's a much more controlled environment. The sets were elevated so the puppet operators could sit and control the puppets from underneath

the floor, wearing headsets and using monitors with reversed images. Also, those poor puppet operators were under there for, like, the full day. And they were released to pee once, and that was it. But even shooting on a studio lot did have its difficulties. They were not the only production working on the lot. Another one had begun erecting a massive structure right behind the town square at Universal Studios with poles and tarps towering over the buildings, which meant that DP John Hora couldn't film the tops of the buildings. And he had to reverse certain angles to keep the construction sites out of the shot. It was also really noisy with jackhammering and people shouting, so they had to work around that.

But the real struggle of this movie is that the pub. Puppeteering of the Gremlins was extraordinarily complex and varied. How many puppeteers do you think a puppet could potentially require? Are you including people that are operating the animatronics? That is most of what the puppeteers are doing. Okay. I would imagine it could be, there's probably wrong, could be upwards of like eight or nine people on a puppet.

That is correct. It was anywhere from one to 12 people to operate a puppet. Wow. Yeah. I was just remembering Howard the Duck, which was like a dozen people, you know. Different puppets serve different functions. Some were operated with wires, such as the most complicated puppet, which was Gizmo. And it wasn't just the Gizmo puppet that had wires running down and through its entire body.

For the puppeteers to operate Gizmo whenever Billy is carrying him around, Zach Gallaghan actually had to have between 10 to 30 wires taped to his body that ran down his arms and legs and came out through holes made in his socks. so that they could operate it. And there's some really fun, like, Texas Switch moments in this. And the Texas Switch is when a stunt performer, like, ducks out of frame and the main actor steps into frame, right, after they've finished a stunt, for example.

But, like, Gizmo falls into the trash can, and you see his legs. So that's obviously one puppet doing the legs. And then the camera hangs above the legs as Zach leans down to pick him up. And obviously, it's a new puppet, right, that he's coming up with and puppeteering himself that's been handed to him. There are, like, a lot of these moments where they're swapsed, puppets between shots, I'm sure, that are really cool to watch. I don't know how much there is of that.

Because we're going to get into this, you would think that they would have built a lot of multiples. I think they didn't have as many as you might think. So Gizmo required many operators at a time, which is why you really only see Billy holding Gizmo in medium shots. They can't do a white shot because there's like literally six people over on a crazy switchboard with joysticks. Like, it is nuts to see. Other movements such as head turns and arm movements were even more involved.

Those had a separate system of controls. Now, I mentioned the close-ups for Gizmo where they used the bigger Gizmo. They had the faces that you could remove. They did not have that function for the other Gremlins. They couldn't emote the same way, which is why they used a Mohawk to distinguish Stripe as the villain. Because if you look at the other ones, their faces kind of don't. They're pretty much all the same. But they do a ton with costume.

ton with costume, ton with ears. So when Gallagin wasn't holding Gizmo, it was still controlled by the wires, and there were other puppeteers that would, like, blow air into the puppet, which is another way that they were moving different parts. Yeah, pneumatic system. Yeah. One thing Gizmo couldn't do was walk. Puppet legs are very difficult to make believable,

which is why they decided that Billy would just carry Gizmo around in his backpack. That also allowed them to put a ton of mechanics inside of the backpack to be able to operate Gizmo. And those shots look great. The interior backpack shots look really good. They're very convincing. Now, the Gremlin puppets, obviously, those can walk, but they kind of hop more than they... And they, like, swing from doors. They really act more like monkeys.

You know what I mean? They're hanging off of things a lot more. Yep. Put them on a ceiling fan, spin them around. Now, Wayliss was like an ultra-technical orchestra conductor for his crew. So Dante would give him a direction, like, can Gizmo look more sad? And this guy was able to translate that to his team by saying, like, pull the ears one inch, drop the head to a 45 degree angle, and like, it's, it is amazing what they

were able to do. If anything, he's acting like an animator, right? Yeah. In the way that he's translating the emotion. That's really true. It's pretty cool. Now, when you're working with that many puppets, things are going to go wrong. And they did, Chris, constantly.

They had to do upwards of 19 takes at times to get the movement synchronized properly. They also had to keep the camera rolling for a particularly long time to be able to synchronize everything. And it was almost as if they had real gremlins of their own on the set. Uh-oh. Because the puppets would break down a lot. Yeah. Especially Gizmo.

And they would always have to pause. They didn't love Gizmo so much by the end of this. Because they would have to pause the shoot until the puppet was fixed. And how long do you think it might take to fix Gizmo? Oh, hours. I would shut it down. Six hours. I don't know.

Five to eight hours. There we go. Anytime. Yep. Which means there would be 50 plus cast and crew members just hanging out, except for obviously Chris Waylis and his creature makers who are sweating bullets. Who are dripping sweat in the corner trying to fix this thing. It broke so frequently that everyone knew the sound that it would make when it broke,

which was sort of like a spring coming loose, like a poing. Oh, no. And they also, all the actors started betting with each other how long each delay would be. And it becomes like Pavlovian, right? You hear the Boeing and everyone just collectively sighs. Yep. Yeah. Dante said later on that one day during one of these delays,

some Warner Brothers executives came to the set to see how they were going. And the entire crew was asleep taking naps because there was like a six hours stop down. So the crew came to hate Gizmo so much that Dante put up a list called horrible things to do to Gizmo to boost morale, where they could air their grievances by writing out their revenge fantasies on the puppet. Gizmo. Remember that? Why he's tied to a dartboard. It is literally why he's tied to a dartboard.

That is it. Yes. Oh, no. Yeah, that was someone's fantasy. It was throw darts at Gizmo. And they did. Poor guy. But despite the technical difficulties, Gizmo's movements were brought to life so well

that one cast member thought he was real. And that is Barney, Billy's dog, played by Mushroom. I love Mushroom. What a name. He gave the best reaction shots of any cast member to the point where he actually gained the nickname, the Cutaway Dog. He did step on Gizmo's ear, which caused a seven-hour delay. And apparently they also had to, when the scenes where he's following Billy, like, through town, they had to attach, like, a translucent leash because this dog was just not.

Yeah. It's not an off-leash dog. I think they learned. If I may, Lizzie, really quickly to, just for reference, a seven-hour delay, that's effectively killing the rest of your day. You're shooting days 12 hours, and so depending on when that happens, you've lost a day. You only have so many days on a film shoot. Like, this may have had 50, you know, for all we know, you used to get more days for your money and they're on a studio lot.

But imagine every time that thing goes down, you lose 2 to 4% of your total shooting time available. And I just want to highlight, too, you mentioned rolling the cameras early to wait for the Gremlins to boot up or be ready, 12 minutes on a reel of film, right, in a canister. So every second that you're pre-rolling, you know, to get those in place is precious if that's a long take before you have to reload the film. Yeah, remember that. So Gizmo wasn't the only puppet that would break. The gremlins were also extremely finicky. And the rubber they were made with was not built to last or undergo tons of use.

Now, Chris, you brought this up earlier. You obviously were thinking they must have some on reserve that they are swapping out. No. The puppets looked identical to each other, but they were all designed to do different things. Throw plates, crawl, skateboard, flash their bits, as we said. And Waylis and his crew had to constantly keep track of all of this and know each individual puppets' like physical function, because that's really all it could do. But because they were a larger size in the mogway puppets, many of these gremlins were just

good old-fashioned hand puppets, also known as butt puppets. And yes, that is a technical term, Chris. Wow. Yeah. And the Muppets, I'm looking at them very differently. That's right. Those are some butt puppets. These were especially useful for the scenes in the bar and the movie theater.

Yeah. Wayliss had what he called a parts library available, so they could kind of like build a new puppet overnight if an idea was sprung on them, which it was a lot. Yeah, I was going to say, Joe's like, I've got a list of 27 new puppet ideas for you. Yep. Okay. So they could basically cobble-ticking. together a new puppet, but I don't think it was as easy for them to repair a puppet with like a spare part.

Got it. But even with this, the puppet capabilities were limited. For Wayliss, one of the most crucial shots early on is the scene in the kitchen with Billy's mom when you first see a gremlin. It has a ton of animatronics going on. They barely had any time to rehearse. But when they saw it and it went well, that was the first time that he was like, okay, we can make this movie.

It's going to be fine. That puppet looks great. The way it's eating, the batter and whatnot. It's a fun reveal. There is something funny about that, though, if you watch it again. There was a problem with the gremlin crawling into the blender. So the DP said, no matter what the puppeteers tried to do, they couldn't get him to climb up. So the gremlin actually climbs down and we shot it backwards.

Oh. No one seems to notice that, but if you watch the mother's reaction closely during that shot, you have to laugh. Francis looks crazy. Oh, yeah, because you're not even looking at her. She's right. She's foreground right. And then he's in the background left. If you look at her, she does look nuts, though.

It is... I'm going to pull it up after the episode. Yeah, she's going, blah. Yes. And according to Wayliss, they never knew what they would be shooting the next day, because Dante would come up with new ideas. Like, there aren't any gremlins in this scene. Let's add a few.

Or, hey, Chris, let's put a gremlin up in that tree. Honestly, great decisions every time. More gremlins. That's the answer. It was the answer. Wayliss would have to head straight back into his shop to fix up a tree gremlin. At first, they really saw. talk to the script, but once they shot the Christmas Carol Gremlins, Dante. That's really.

The movie just, where did they get these costumes? When they learned, oh, they're just mimicking behavior. Okay, yeah, now we're just going for it. It doesn't matter. When he saw that, he was like, we need more gremlins in costumes, and they really start riffing and having fun by adding new gremlins to the scenes. But I say they're having fun. I don't know that Chris Wayless is having fun, having to work around the clock to make these things. And of course, more puppets mean more delays, but Joe wants more. And he encourages the cast and crew to think big, too, Chris. While filming the department store scene,

Zach Gallaghan saw the chainsaw set up on set and asked Joe Dante, hey, what about a chainsaw versus baseball bat fight? Wouldn't that be cool? And Joe Dante's like, it's in the movie, kid. Yeah. What I love is, have you ever seen the Key and Peel sketch about Gremlins too? No. Oh my God.

Watch it. Chris, watch it. Listeners watch it after this. It is so funny. It's like a Hollywood pitch boardroom meeting where they're trying to pitch the Gremlin's sequel and Jordan Peel comes in as like the studio sequel guy. And the joke is just

the first idea anyone says at the table. He goes, love it. It's in the movie. And that's literally how they made the first one too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that was added at the last minute was Gizmo riding around in the toy car. Someone was like, we can just have Gizmo in a car. And Waylis was like, oh, we can? Can we?

Honestly, amazing moment. Hero shot. It looks great. It's such a fun, because you care more about, sorry, none of the human characters have arcs. No. Let's just be honest. And Gizmo eliminating his offspring is a wild direction when you think about it. And it's so much fun.

Really great moment. Amazing. Now, because of the amount that they went off script and added sequences to your point, Chris, they actually ran out of film for the exterior scenes about two-thirds of the way through shooting. And the poor DP, John Hora, had to search all over the country to find the amount needed for the remaining exterior shots. But there was a nationwide shortage. Eventually, he was able to source what was needed from a place in Hawaii and had it shipped to set.

But yes, they literally burned through. all of their film with a full third of the movie left to go. Joe Dante is shooting his apocalypse now on a backline. Yeah, it's just grinslets. Despite the chaos, the delays and having to do take after take, Joe Dante remained, it sounds like, a very stable, positive, and fun energy on set. He, like, expected things to go wrong, and he was just totally fine with it. John Louis, who played the shopkeeper's grandson, said about Dante,

Joe was definitely infectious. He was always very disciplined in his approach, but childlike in his, his wonder. Now one person whose wonder may have been a little less childlike was poor Chris Wayless. One day he woke up with his first ever kidney stone. Another week he had a cold and took cold medicine to get through the day, but it made him woozy. So as he walked down the steps of his trailer, he missed a step and broke his ankle, but just kept shooting. Oh, no. I love, yes. I love the idea that this man is physically, like, physically. Yes. He's got like chunks falling off. And Dante is like, give me another gremlin, Chris.

The shoot was also physically challenging for a lot of the actors, especially Gallaghan, because they were shooting in Burbank in the summer, where it's like 105 degrees, and he's dressed up in eight layers of winter clothes. Just dump some more asbestos on the set and we'll call it a day, yeah. Gallagin also caused a couple of issues. One issue was that he apparently couldn't keep his mouth closed. And the film's editor, Tina Hirsch, up to Dante and was like, can you please tell him to shut his mouth because I have to cut around

it? Just a mouth breather. Yeah. Also, you may have noticed at the end, he breaks the candy neon sign. He was explicitly told not to do that, but he did it. A couple of fun Easter eggs very quickly. So you mentioned this, but to make Spielberg happy when he watched the dailies, they used working titles for his films on the movie theater marquee. A Boy's Life was the working title for E.T. and do you know what watching the skies was close encounters that's right he also makes a cameo in the scene where rand is in the phone booth spielberg wheels by in a wheelchair and jerry goldsmith is the guy in the phone booth behind him with the like crazy hat with the umbrella stuff dangling off of it yeah at the convention yes wouldn't have known you may also be wondering how they got snow white in the

seven dwarves footage in this movie if you've never seen it listeners, the gremlins go to the movie theater and they go and they watch Snow White and they love it, particularly all of the dwarf content. You can thank mega producer and current president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, for that. She had helped co-found Amblin, along with Spielberg, and she apparently reached out to Disney personally to ask permission to use the footage. So that's how they got it. Now, principal photography wrapped on August 3rd, 1983. They take a three-week break for Wayless to prepare for the real madness to begin, because his team, have to create additional puppets for the Gremlin's only scenes, which is the very Gremlin's

heavy movie theater and Dory's Pub sequences. So they come back at the end of August and they resume filming. Phoebe Cates is, of course, brought back for a Dory's Pub. I don't know if Zach Gallaghan is as well, but she was for sure. The sequence took nearly two weeks to complete, and they had the gremlins throwing around real beer and popcorn, which were not cleaned up after every day. So it started to smell really bad. Oh. Wayliss said we were setting up a shot and I hear Phoebe scream and I'm going, wow, that's really convincing.

And she says, there's a fucking cockroach on the counter. And there was. There were rats. It was a once in a lifetime experience, thankfully. And then Joe says, I need a gremlin that can eat a cockroach. Yeah, basically. Now the reason why it took so long to shoot. and you've been sort of accidentally alluding to this,

was because about halfway through the movie, Joe Dante put up a list called Things for the Gremlins to do and said, anybody who comes up with a great idea, just write down stuff and we'll try and shoot everything. And boy, did they. Also, the only person who didn't get a break since wrapping principal photography said, quote, take me outside and put a bullet in my head.

This is going to kill us. We can have a Gremlin do that. Oh, he's like, can we? They just kept adding puppets. Obviously, a flash of inspiration was, of course, our favorite, the flasher, Gremlin. That bit was actually directed by Wayliss himself. Dante did hand over the reins to Waylis a few times, which is nice, including, I think, also the movie theater sequence.

Now mentioning the movie theater sequence, it has a truly horrific number of puppets in it. It was obviously all hands on deck. Dante did hand over the reins to Wayless to direct certain parts of it, and he actually jumped down and he was operating some of the puppets during that scene so that Wayless could do this. To be able to add the amount of puppets needed, Wayless's crew attached Gremlin puppets to bicycle helmets for many of the operators so that they could have one on their head and one that they're operating, one or two that they're operating as butt puppets. So after two and a half months, the puppets only shooting process finally wraps. With all footage, finally in the can, another casting

process begins because they have to hire voiceover actors, Chris. They have done that yet. Oh. And this is, of course, where comedian and game show host, Howie Mandel, enters the picture. Howie Mandel is best known at this point as a stand-up comic and for his recurring role on the TV show St. Elsewhere. And it was prolific actor Frank Welker, who is the voice of Stripe and I think most of the other Gremlin voices. There are probably a few others in there. But he knew Howie Mandel had a knack for weird voices, even though he hadn't really done a lot of this kind of work before, and he suggested him for the role. Mandel assumed it was a kid's movie and had no idea, like, what it was, even as he was

recording video playback. Well, if you're just doing the gizmo scenes, right, you would think, oh, it's kind of heartwarming. This is such a cute pet. Well, they get horrifying towards the end. Sure. For the first third, maybe. Except for the fur ball's shooting out of his back. That's horrifying.

But yeah, terrible. Yeah. One of the most infectious components of the film, I think, is Jerry Goldsmith's score. It is very, very fun. Everyone had envisioned more of a traditional horror film, but then he played The Gremlin's Rag, which is that really fun, like, stinty, weird kind of polka almost, and they loved it. Joe Dante has said, I've worked with very few geniuses in my time, and Jerry Goldsmith was one of them. He really sets the tone right from the end of the movie, you know, it's going to be a romp, and it's very fun.

Now, in the editing process, there is again one scene that almost didn't make the cut. Do you know what it was? Is it Phoebe Cates' dad? It's Phoebe Cates' dad stuck in the chimney. Yeah, nobody wanted this. No. The studio hated it. They thought it was way too dark.

Even the editor was like, ah, this is not. This does not need to make it in. But Dante fought like hell to keep it in. He said it needed to stay. And he also wanted to do it for Phoebe Cates, who had worked very hard on it. It was her sort of favorite part. Hart, Warner Brothers really fought them on this, and then they end up going up the ladder, going to Spielberg.

And Spielberg basically told Warner Brothers, this is Joe's movie. Like, leave it alone. Good for him. However, he also kept coming up with Gremlin ideas during post-production. Stephen Spielberg did. He loved the Dory's Tavern scene so much that he wanted another insert added of the break dancer, Gremlin. So this meant Chris Whaless had to go back to work.

And he went back with the DP and shot that insert separately at ILM with George Lucas in Marin County. So there's one shot that is not the same as the other ones. I think it's the second time you see it spinning on the floor. Another big suggestions Spielberg made that changed the ending of the movie was that originally it's supposed to be Billy that saves the day and is the one that opens the blinds and kills Stripe. And Zach Gallaghan actually did his own stunt work. And he was like very proud of it. He does like a crazy dive and jump. and does all this stuff.

But then Spielberg's like, no, I think we need Gizmo to be the hero at the end. I mean, he's right. It's Gizmo's movie. It is Gizmo's movie. But they didn't tell Zach Gallaghan until he saw a cut of the film in a private screening room. And he was very disappointed. He was like, I thought I was the hero. And Dante is like, it's called Gremlins, my friend.

Yeah. This is a movie about Gremlins. Kind of technically an antagonist, but yeah. You're horrible to your pets. Yes, yes. Exactly. Now, the studio was really pretty worried about the film. According to Dante, they said they were not taken seriously. When they saw the rough cut, they didn't get it. They thought the gremlins were gross and they kept complaining to Stephen. And they said how much they hated the gremlins. And Stephen said something like, well, we could cut out all the gremlins and call it people, but I don't think anybody's going to go, which I love. He's exactly right. He's exactly right. Well, he had a lot of faith in it. And so he's like, you know what? Let's go do a test screening. So they do a screening in Sacramento, California. They had no idea how anyone would react.

Everyone's going in blind. And the test audience bought into the rules immediately, which had been a big concern. They loved Gizmo, and they went absolutely wild for one moment in particular. What do you think it was? In a good way? They loved it. It's an iconic moment from this movie. It's my favorite.

The microwave? The blender gremlin. It's okay, the blender. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They went nuts. And so after this screening, Warner Brothers finally realizes that Gremlins could be a hit. So they very quickly cobbled together a marketing and merchandising plan, which may come to bite them in the end. Gremlins was released in U.S. theaters on June 8, 1984.

It opened the same day as another comedy horror film. What is it, Chris? You covered it. A comedy horror film that I covered. Somewhat recently. Jesus. Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters. Thank you. We're doing great. Ghostbusters did do better overall, but Gremlins had a stronger opening in New York City. Why, Chris? Because New Yorkers were so pissed after Ghostbusters had filmed on location shutting down streets that they were like, you know what? F you,

we're going to go see Gremlins instead. Listen to our episode on Ghostbusters that Chris doesn't remember but did a very good job on. Clearly, I didn't even host it. On opening weekend, Gremlins made $12 million off their $11 million budget. Their opening weekend gross was only about one million less than Ghostbusters, which costs nearly three times as much to make. Wow. Audiences loved it.

It keeps performing great. Overall domestic box office was around $148 million, making it the fourth highest grossing film of 1984. After the U.S. release, Jerry Goldsmith also added different music for individual international markets to reflect various cultures and Howie Mandel

recorded Gizmo's lines in different languages. is. Wow. Both of these factors made it a pretty big international success because they added like specific jokes. They're like singing German beer songs in the bar in the German version. That's great. International box office is around 60 million. So this made so much money. 20 times its budget. Yeah. But there was one audience demographic that wasn't so happy with this film, Chris. Who was it? Women over 24? Rude, no, parents. Okay, well, that's also half women over 24.

Warner Brothers, again, in their hasty marketing campaign, had designed the posters to look like the marketing for ET. They used the same color tones, and the main image used was Billy holding a box with Gizmo's cute little paws reaching over the edge. Parents assumed, based on that, and the fact that it was a PG rating, that it was a children's movie,

and they were horrified. when they took young kids to see this in theaters. Apparently, Joe Dante was actually standing in the back of the theater watching the film at one point, and he saw a woman dragging her son out of the theater, but the son didn't want to leave and kept wriggling away and running back to be able to keep watching it. And so he just had to stand at the door with the mom and watch the rest of the movie because she couldn't leave without her kid. Many people argued it should have had an R rating due to the violence.

Some people were actually concerned that this might, have kids trying to put their pets in the microwave. I don't really think that's... Yeah, it's like they show you what happens. It's not a mystery. But one thing that seemed to really upset them was, again, the I hate Christmas monologue. Mm-hmm. I mean, it is very disturbing.

It's her dad crawling down a chimney, breaking his neck, and then rotting in there for days. I wondered if it was because she says, and that's how I knew Santa wasn't real, and all the kids went, what? It's actually really funny. You should mention that. They were really pissed. about that. I believe it. Because they were bringing little kids to this. And when she says that, the parents had to do a lot of explaining. Many children probably found out Santa wasn't real because of

Gremlins. Gremlins are real. Santa's not. Another film released that summer caused a similar stir, and that was, of course, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which was also rated PG, definitely not suitable for children. I would argue more so than gremlins. A man rips another. band's heart out of his chest with his bare hand. Mm-hmm. So Spielberg, who obviously also produced this one, could see where parents were coming from, and he was getting a lot of heat for the ratings controversy. So two months after the release of Indiana Jones and Gremlins, he goes to the MPAA ratings board

and makes a suggestion that there needs to be a rating between PG and R. And that is where we get the PG-13 rating. It was the first change to the rating system since it began in 1968. Wow. So a little bit on the legacy here as we wrap up, Warner Brothers wanted to do a sequel, given the success, but Dante was like, please, no more puppets. He needed a break. Chris Whaless needed a break. Poor Chris Whaless. By the end of the shoot, after a kidney stone, a cold, and a broken ankle, he was also anemic.

Oh, God. He and his wife took a trip to Hawaii after he had wrapped and all he could do was sit in the hotel and watch Sesame Street. Hey, do what you got to do? Do you know what? Enjoy that hotel room. Warner Brothers actually tried to find a new director and writer to keep the sequel moving. Dante says with ideas like, Gremlins go to Las Vegas and Gremlins go to Mars,

but none of them move forward. Of course, Gremlins, too, does eventually come out six years later in 1990, but it doesn't really do the same that this one did. I think just like the buzz had died down by the time that that comes out. But again, it has a cult following, a lot of Easter eggs, and a really excellent key and peel sketch about it. And again, tons of spinoffs. I'm like, like critters.

There's goolies, gout, like, there's literally something called ghastlies. There's so many. Spinoffs outside of movies as well. Warner Brothers keeps milking gremlins as much as they can. They do a book series to expand the universe. I believe there's an appearance in the newer Space Jam movie. There's a cartoon series. There's just tons.

I guess I meant knockoff. Yes. Not spinoffs. Yeah, yeah. Excuse me. A lot of people over the years have asked if you could buy a gremlin puppet on eBay. You cannot because the rubber exterior deterioration. curated very quickly over time when exposed to air.

I've seen one, like, in a museum case, and it looks like stripe at the end of the film when he's skeletized. Yeah. And to this day, we do see design homages to Gizmo, which some might call ripoffs, aka the Furby. That's right. Man, those are a straight knockoff. Now I know when my dad was like, that's a gremlin.

Why do you want that thing? Also, throwing a little side eye at Baby Yoda. Gizmo walked so you could run, my friend. That's all I'll say. Oh, you know who else is throwing a side eye at Baby Yoda? Joe Dante is also throwing side eyes at Baby Yoda who thinks... I love Baby Yoda, super adorable. But let's just say we know where his roots are.

That's right. He does think that it was completely stolen from Gizmo. I mean, these things, like, I do think there's a lot of creature designs that are derivative of Gizmo in particular. Of course. So where are they now, Chris? Dante is still making horror comedies, but he does cite Gremlins as the film he will always be best known for, although he's done a lot of other very fun movies. Inner Space.

The Burbs. I love the Burbs. Explorers. Wayless finally got some decent rest and went on to win an Academy Award for the makeup effects in the fly in 1987. Ooh. Yep. Which we'll have to cover at some point. Chris Columbus went on to write and direct some of the most memorable family films, including the Goonies, Home Alone. Well, he didn't write these, but directed Home Alone, Home Alone, too, Mrs. Doubtfire, and of course, the first two Harry Potter films.

Zach Gallagin, you know, he never really matches the height of the success that he had in this, but he does continue to work as an actor and voices a recurring character in Gremlin's Secret of the Mugway. Phoebe Cates, obviously, continues to work in some big films through the 80s and early 90s. But then she does retire about 10 years after Gremlins to stay home with her kids that she shares with her husband, Kevin Klein, very hot couple, I got to say. I honestly did not know they were married. Yeah, married for a very long time. Hoyt Axton sadly died from a heart attack at the age of 61 in 1999. His health had been declining after suffering a stroke for a few years, which had left him in a wheelchair. Of all the actors in Gremlins, his performances ran is the one that his co-stars compliment the most.

He's really so funny and so good. And to your point, he just plays it very natural and very straight. I love him in this. That is what went wrong on Gremlins. Well, thank you, Lizzie. So much went wrong, but the movie went right. And we have to talk about what went right, too. Of course.

Would you like to go first? Because mine's going to be just a scosh long. Okay, right. You have your capitalism diatribe. I will go first. I think this is a pretty obvious one. But Chris Whaless went right. Right.

The fact, Joe Dante's amazing. Like, everybody who is a part of this. I think he does an incredible job. I love the way that he approached this. I think that's the only way that a movie like this happens. but the key to this movie working, the key to it, any of it looking right, is Chris Wayless. And like his willingness to go with the flow on something that was so difficult, physically, mentally, everything had never been done before. I love the fact that his first notes were no and impossible, and he still pulls this off.

So Chris Wayless, this goes to you. Really, this is your movie. It's incredible what he did with this. I loved it more this time than the last time I watched it. All right, Chris. All right. Well, I'm going to give mine to Chris Columbus, screenwriter. We don't often give it to the screenwriter.

And I think there's an edge in this movie that is not really present in a lot of his directorial work or later work that I really appreciate. And it's very funny. But here's why I think this movie is so smart because I think a surface level you could take, oh, it's just a horror comedy. Or, oh, it's just a take down of consumerism, right? and an American obsession with merchandise and whatnot. And I think there's also a way in which you could say,

oh, the beginning of the movie is kind of jingoistic or racist with the way he goes into Chinatown. I did actually cut that out. There is some criticism of that that I don't know if I am completely aligned with. Exactly. So here, I want to make this point. Look, yes, they're stereotyping broadly with associations between Chinatown and mysticism, et cetera.

But I actually think this movie is such a fun standup of American in particular capitalism. Oh, yeah. He explicitly says, like, this is why you people don't understand the worth of things like this. Exactly. So, like, so many fun things. First of all, like, an American man goes to China to try to, like, meet with the culture. But in actuality, he's just trying to sell them something they don't need. And they see right through it immediately, which is, like, the first funny joke right here.

Like, America goes to China to bring them capitalism. But instead, what do we do? we import their cheap goods. So, like, we take the mogulai from the next generation, right? Not Mao, but, you know, the next generation over here. And then we are incapable of appreciating anything. The only thing we can do is make knockoffs that are inferior in quality, right? So, while we do is we put water on it so that it multiplies. Yeah, without thinking of the consequences. Without thinking of the consequences. And we assume we can profit. off of this, right? And then further, Americans are incapable of creating anything themselves.

His father is this failed inventor who is attempting to create inventions for products that don't actually work anymore. And all of the American-made stuff that everybody's, you know, touting at the beginning of the movie ends up killing them. You know what I mean? By the end, like the veteran and his tractor and whatnot. Well, it's also garbage. They show his American-made car and it's like an absolute piece of trash that's rusted through. Well, what's the the kind of show is the only thing that American products can do is kill. She uses all the inventions to kill the Gremlins. It's like, yeah, we made, we made Nepal, the nuclear bomb, et cetera. And I know I'm stretching some of these a little bit, but I just think it's a really fun kind of

critique at everything at this time, kind of 80s, neoliberalism, globalism, et cetera. And it just kind of takes a shotgun approach to all of these. And what I like about that is it doesn't actually feel like it's punching down on any group. The fact is, like, the Americans don't learn any lessons. Like, the creature has to be taken away by the Chinese man because he's like, you don't get it. You're like, you guys are so dumb. And the dad just says, I didn't know.

That's his explanation at the end. They explicitly told you the rules. You did know. And so it reminded me a little of big trouble and little China in that sense where, like, yes, it's playing with these broad stereotypes, but I don't think that it's doing it to make a joke of other cultures. I actually think it's making a joke of American culture, and I really like that. I completely agree. Yeah. I'm on board, Chris, with your read of Gremlins. I do think it's excellent.

I think mostly they're just saying that Americans are terrible pet owners, which maybe in the 80s, they were really bad. All right, Lizzie, thank you so much for guiding us down the Mogwai Rabbit Hole. This was so fun. I really liked rewatching this movie. I hope that you guys did, too. It's streaming on Max, by the way, if you all want to watch for the holidays. Yep. We would not have covered Gremlins had it not been for the support and votes of our patrons via Patreon. So guys, if you want to support this podcast, we've said it a million times, three easy ways to do it. Sing it to somebody like Gizmo, like that little trill. I can't go that high. Or leave us a rating and review on whatever platform you enjoy podcasts. And third, you can go to www.com slash what went wrong podcast. and join our Patreon. You can join for free. You can vote on films that we cover like Gremlins for a dollar, or you can pay $5 for an ad-free RSS feed. And of course, $50 gets you a shout-out at the end of one of these episodes, and we try to spice them up a little bit. And so, Lizzie, do you want me to do, I'll either try Stripe or I will try Gizmo. And I don't know if I can do

either. Yum, yum. Yum. Yum. Maybe try Gizmo. Let's chatter. Close enough, Lizzie? Sure, sure. Nobody's going to want to hear this. Lizzie, do you want to just do stripe and I'll do something for die hard. You got it. And I can even still take die hard, Chris, because I love Ellen Rickman's German accent, or you can do it. We'll see. We'll both try it. All right, Chris. Let me save you from this.

All right. Collin in the artillery here. Dear patrons, here is Stripe, giving you your $50 shout-up. Lance Stader Willa-Dun. Nathan, Adrian, Stacey Dalmeline. Yum, yum. Ramon, Villan Wave. Junior, half-grey out.

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Mm-hmm. Mellins. Joy Shreismand. Sadie. Sadie. Eve Olson, Leah Bowman, Steve, Winnerbaradon, Shibble, George, Rosemary, Southward, Tom, Kristen, Salman, Giannani, Michael. Hold on, hold on. Oh, I thought that was planned.

No, just hurt myself. Got it. Michael. You are frustratingly good at that. I am annoyed at how good you are at that. Thank you guys so much for supporting us on Patreon. Lizzie, we've already mentioned it, but can you remind the good people what we will be covering next week? Yippie Kaya, mother bleepers.

We are very, very excited. Please come back for Chris's What Went Wrong on Die Hard. Happy holidays, everybody. We look forward to seeing you off into the next year with a great slate of films. And we are excited for our 2025 lineup, which is looking spicy. Until then. See you next week. Go to patreon.com slash what went wrong podcast to support.

What Went Wrong and check out our website at what went wrongpod.com. What Went Wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Editing and music by David Bowman. This episode was written by Naomi Lind.