GREMLINS is a Dark and Wild Movie That Almost Went Super R-Rated

In Episode 35 of Secret Level! In this episode we have a blast talking about Joe Dante’s 1984 holiday horror classic Gremlins! There was a lot to talk about with this movie including details on how the project came together and information on the absolutely bonkers r-rated version of the film that it was originally going to be! This movie was going to but so much more violent than what was delivered, and we share details on the crazy scenes of violence and death that never made it in the movie. We also offer some amusing commentary that we hope you enjoy!

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Transcript

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We are live from New York. It's secret level night. Ooh, nice man. So are you ready for this? You ready for some recording? This is our first podcast of the new year of 2023. It is. It's weird, isn't it? We made it, we made it through 2022. Yeah, I, we, we survived. We survived. Jerry Jeremy Rettner. Barely survived, right? Poor guy. Holy crap. Even though he's like putting out all these positive messages, man, you just look at his face and I was like, crap. That had to hurt, man, dude. Blunt chest trauma. Right? He got plowed over with a snowplow. I what? What madness. I feel so bad for him. Like that sucks. Yeah. And he is out there helping people too when this happens. And it's just, just like, man, what a way to start off the new year. Uhhuh e Exactly. You know, you don't wanna start off getting travelled by a snow plow. Right. But, but he's seems like he's doing okay. He looks so out of it, but he seems like he's doing okay. Yeah. He's in good spirits for what's going on. For sure. Considering, yeah. Crazy. Yeah. I mean, and I mean, we could talk about this all day long. Cause I read a big article about like the, the equipment that he's using shouldn't have done what it did. Yes. By rolling over like that. Yeah. So that's, even the guy doesn't need money, but he definitely should bring something up so they, their safety features are a little bit better. Oh, for sure. You know, so when you, you're plowing in Tahoe? When I'm, yeah. When I'm plowing. with your mile long driveway in Tahoe. Yeah. It doesn't happen to you Exactly. Yeah. So crazy. Yeah. So, uh, but yeah, I mean, you know, my, my year started off rough, but then I see what happened to, uh, Mr. Renner and I, I can't complain. Right. You know? Yeah, absolutely. I had that perspective today at work. I was like, you know, I was all bummed with myself cuz I just found out I have high cholesterol, which is a bummer. So I went through that. I went through the high cholesterol phase. Billy knows this, Billy knows it was a rough, it was a rough patch in my life. It was a surprise because I feel like I'm in shape and like, you know, I exercise and I thought I was eating right. Except for, you know, the hamburgers, the ice cream, the chili dogs, But those are healthy. It's like the, the, the 18 basic food groups. Right, right, right, right. I mean, they taste good, so that means they're healthy. Oh man. But yeah, so that, so that's, that's crazy. Yeah, it was, it was funny cuz the doctor preface it with you. You're, you've got a strong heartbeat, your blood pressure is probably the best blood pressure I've ever seen, but you have high cholesterol. And I was like, what? Was it super high or was it like, was it like, was the doctor, because when I got the news, the doctor was like, I mean the look on his. was pretty awful. Like, it made it seem like, dude, what the hell are you eating, bro? Right. Well, okay. So like, it was like it was bad. Yeah. Like it was bad enough to where they were like, Hey, you need to change your diet, or we need to put you on medication. Yes. And I'm like, and I'm like, yeah, I'll change my diet. And I did, and I'm still alive, so. Right. Well, he called me. I, I'm going into, he's gonna tell me all my numbers when I get in there, but he called me and he's like, oh, let me read your results. And he's talking about my blood pressure and blah, blah, blah. And then he goes, oh. And I was like, what? And he's like, you have very high cholesterol, you need to come see me. I was like, oh, shoot. Come on man. Just tell me over the phone. He's like, no, we have to discuss this in person. So it's like, you can called to the principal's office. I don't really want to go, but I have You don't wanna get called into the doctor's office. Right. You don't want him to be like, oh, like shocked by what? What's happening with you? Yeah, exactly. All right. All right, let's get into this. Let's get into this. Let's do it. Here we go. Here we go, everybody. You ready for this? Yes. I am Joey Parr, editor-in-chief of geek tyrant.com. And joining me today is Billy Bazooka, Joe Fisher. I'm magically delicious, and you are listening to secret level. Yes. In today's episode, we are going to talk about the wonderful, uh, playful, happy, joyous film gremlins, ah, the 1984 classic gremlins. Joe Dante, the director of awesomeness because he listens to this podcast and then like, Critiques us. Critiques us. Yeah. Um, but I did realize doing this one, majority of our podcasts have been about Joe Dante films. I mean, we have a good mix, I think. But yeah, we do a lot of Joe Dante movies. He, he's got a lot and I'm, I'm okay with it because they're always my favorite funny, Joe Dante was my childhood dude. Right. I loved his movies growing up, and there's nothing more to say about that. No, they've, they've all been great. They've all been great. Um, we'll have to do the Howling someday. We'll talk about that a little bit today. Have we Little howling someday. It's crazy though. Gremlins was nuts. Like, it, it's actually, I watched Gremlin's during the holidays pretty much every year. Maybe there's a couple of years where I didn't watch it, but for the most part, I try and watch it during the holidays. Right. And usually I throw it on in the background while I'm doing stuff, you know? Mm-hmm. Before this podcast, I sat down, I'm like, gotta take notes, gotta pay attention to this thing. And just so much stuck out to me of how dark and disturbing and demented this movie is. And, and I love it for that. But like, I love this movie as a kid, but I'm sitting here watching it and I'm like, what the hell? Like there's, it's so, it's so dreadful and sinister and it's not, I mean, it's a kid's movie, but it's not a kids movie. It's not, it's a Christmas movie, but it's not a Christmas movie. This is a straight up horror film with some, absolutely. With some. Elements, things thrown into it. Right? Right. With some charming, cute gremlins and some charming evil gremlins that you, you know, that you just enjoy watching. But then there's the undertones of things and, and this, this darkness of this town. And it's not even like the gremlins are the scariest part of the film. It's No, it's the, it's the backstory of some of the characters, right. That just like mess you up that you don't remember, uh, like learning when you were a kid. I mean, there's talk of suicide in this. And when you're a kid, I mean, and I'm thinking about it, I'm like, man, watching this movie in 1984 in the theater on the big screen with my parents, like, that must have been the first time I ever heard what su the word suicide. Right, right, right. Um, Oh, it just, it's so crazy. And Oh, and the other thing, the other thing, yes. Is the movie reveals that there's no Santa Claus and it Dude bro. My kids have seen this movie like four times and they still haven't picked up on it. See, when I watch it, I didn't pick up on it either when I was a kid. Right. But now I'm watching it. I'm like, holy shit man. They like, they like ruin that for kids. Right. Well, and here's the thing too is like, um, that story hits on a whole different level now. Like they make fun of it in Gremlins two, the new batch. Sure. Of, you know what I mean? Yeah. But I mean, if that really happened to somebody, holy shit, that's disturbing. Right. I would pick Christmas too. screw that. But this is the thing. Well, we'll, we'll get into that. We'll get into that though, for sure. Yeah. We're gonna get into the Santa Claus speech. Um, look. Before I started doing research for this, it hit me while I was watching it. I was like, this is, it's a wonderful life, but scary. Well, wonderful. Life is pretty scary if you think about it. It's pretty scary. It is scary. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a scary story about life, right? And how like life can just continually beat you down and you have to scrap and work your ass off to make it in this world. And that's a scary thought because it is, it's not easy to make it in this world. And what, what got me too is like something that always creeped me out about, it's a wonderful life. And what creeps me about out, about Gremlins is it feels like, like Kingston Falls is claustrophobic. Like it's Yes. Like in a sealed area. Yes. And it's like they have nowhere to go. So it, and it's like a episode of the Twilight Zone too, you know, like Yes. You know those Twilight Zone episodes that are s. Just, uh, take place in these little small town areas, right? Yep. And these crazy things are happening. It's like a nightmare that you just wanna, like, they could have prefaced. This was with, uh, you are now entering the Twilight Zone. Absolutely. Which is funny that you're saying that because, the executive producer, Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante both worked on the Twilight Zone movie. Yes. And we will talk about that movie. Yes. Because that one's crazy too. That is, oh, I can't wait. That hasn't a wild backstory. Holy crap. Yeah, we won't get into that. Now. Let's move on. Let's move on. It's, um, okay, so first things first. What's new with you, buddy? I did the Rose Parade this year. Saw that? Yeah. My, my wife had never gone, I grew up What? Yeah, so I grew what? When I was a kid, I grew up going to this thing. So she was like five minutes away from it and her mom would never let her go. Oh man. Yeah. It's pretty wild. I haven't been since I was a teenager. Right. We used to go all the time. Yeah. But I remember going as, as a, you know, a youth and just getting, it was crazy and fun and I just remember staying up all night and just having a blast with Right. With my buds. So this year we got together with some friends. My wife had never done it before, so we're like, let's do it. We're gonna do the whole thing. I'm like, we're gonna go the night before. We're gonna spend the night on the street. It's gonna be crazy. Right. I'm never gonna do it again. you realize you were 44, right? Exactly. Oh yeah. It was freezing cold. I, I was just like bundled up in my. in my sleeping bag. Hoodie. Yes. I have a sleeping bag hoodie, Billy. Just wait till you see this thing, I'm really jealous about that. I've never heard of it. And now I want it. Yes you do. Uh, give me that. And I didn't sleep at all. I wanted to. It wasn't like I was up all night partying. It was more like I was up all night freezing my ass off, trying to sleep, trying to survive. I couldn't do it. Oh man. Oh geez. I'm just like, please let the hot chocolate guy walk by one more time. And you never walked by Oh no, but it's hit or miss with that. Cause there were some years that we were out there in shorts and a t-shirt waiting for the parade the next day. I know. But, but then there's some years where it's like I've got icicles coming outta my nose. Right. This is, and this was like one of the colder years for sure. Oh my gosh. And right now in California, it's just dumping rain like insanely. And I'm, I'm, I'm loving it. I love the rain course. So I'm outside. I'm splashing around in the puddles. I'm like building little boats out of newspapers and watching'em go down the gutter and then it falls down a gutter. And I'm like, oh no, where did it go? And then I go to like, reach my hand down in there and this guy comes up out of the freaking sewer in a clown suit. I'm like, holy shit, what are you doing down there? And he is like, head out, Joey how are you today? I'm holding back. I couldn't wait. I'm like, fantastic. Jeepers, mister, what are you doing down there? And he is like, oh, I live down here, Joey. it's nice and comfortable down here. It's warm and dry and I'm like, man, it's wet and rainy up here. He is like, come on down, I've got a balloon for ya, And so like, I'm like, sure, let's do it. So, you know, I went down in the sewer, spent some time with this like creepy clown and just had a good time. Play some video games and you have both your arms so I mean, I've got both my arms still. I survived. Sounds good. I love that. Yeah. Good job. Yes. Yeah. At first I was jealous that you were there cuz I remember the good times and then I talked to you the next day and I was like, well that sounds like crap Um, I'm glad I didn't go. Yes. Yep. Oh, yep. So you made it through the holidays, safely, made it through the holidays, was it was fun. It was. It was the holidays. It's crazy. It's just busy. Uh, family is trying to like pull you in all different directions and you're like, man, I sure wish I just would've ditched all this and went to Hawaii. Well, there's always next year there is. And then, and then we could do, uh, podcast of the North Shore. On the North Shore. Oh my gosh. First of all, if you haven't watched North Shore, go watch it now. We're doing an episode on it. Billy Heck. Yes. Billy just brought it into the universe. It's gonna happen. Love that movie. Love that movie. Oh, man. I shouldn't have said now the ultimate It, it is the ultimate eighties film. It is absolutely the ultimate eighties film. From beginning to end. Yeah. It's, yeah. The, it's just nonstop eighties Absolutely. What about you? How, how was the holidays for you guys? You know, it wasn't bad. Like usually we have a lot of people at our house and a lot of people hanging out and stuff, but it, unfortunately, a lot of people were sick, so it just ended up being my family at home. Hmm. Um, I did pull off the ultimate present for my kids. Okay. Okay. For about two weeks before Christmas, uh, Jessica and I went and bought a trampoline for the kids, and we put the box in the middle of our living room wrapped. Yeah. And the kids were like going insane, trying to figure out what this thing was, what is this? And we had just got done watching the Guardians of the Galaxy, Christmas special. So they kept calling it Kevin Bacon. Oh. And checking if he was alive in there. It's a shame that, uh, you didn't really get Kevin Bacon. It is a shame cuz after they said it, I was like, oh, that would've been so much better. They would've loved it. Even just like a life size cardboard cutout of Kevin Bacon would've worked. Yeah. Oh, there's always next year. I've already got it in the, the works. Awesome. Kevin Bacon will show up for Christmas. Yes. But, um, so on Christmas Eve I had to wait till they all went to bed, which was nearly impossible. I got out all the parts of the trampoline, went outside and put it together by. Jessica came out and held some stuff up for me, but I, it took me three hours. You said by yourself and your wife looked at you like, what are you talking about? So you changed your answer, didn't you? I, I felt it She's not in the room with me right now, but I said it and I was like, oh, she's gonna kill me. So yes, Jessica helped. She, she helped. Um, but yeah, it took me three hours. We got it up and so when they tried to open the gift, they opened it up and think it's the trampoline, and they're like, it's empty. And I said, go look in the backyard. And I don't think I've seen them since they've been out there jumping on the trampoline. Oh, crazy. Ever since. Awesome. Yeah. Heck yeah. Yeah. So, you know, act outdoor activities, that's the way to go. Yep. I, I also started Yellowstone. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I'm all caught up through season five. You're in for quite the journey, sir. I think I'm digging it a little bit more than Jessica is, but she's still watching it because she wants to see what happens. There's characters that she hates and wants to see them go down. Well, that's the whole point of the show. Yeah. Uh, there's characters show those characters you're gonna love and there's characters you're gonna hate. Yep. Every, every episode she's wishing the death of Beth, she has claimed that she's the most evil character in all of entertainment history, So, you know, fascinating. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I ca I, you know, I, I, I could never hang out with Beth Right. But as a character, she's so interesting. Right. and I, and I love her character. I do. Right. There's a lot of depth to that. There's a, I've only six episodes in, but Oh yeah. Just wait. Just wait. You're gonna die. Yeah. Well it's hard cuz everybody at my work talks about it. So I'm trying to like plug my ears as I walk by them cuz they're like, did you see this? And I'm like, just shut up. And now I know who the characters are. So when they say something I'm like, well, what happens to them? Yeah. What did Rip do Jimmy? What happened to Jimmy? Where did Jimmy go? So we're, we're gonna figure this out. Okay. But in that time we've watched gremlins. Yes, ENCE and I'm actually watching it now while we are recording. I have it on mute and on behind the camera. So amazing. So before we go on, yes sir. I'm gonna read the synopsis here everybody. I'm gonna read this thing. Are you ready? Yes. A gadget salesman Moon is looking for a special gift for his son and finds one at a store in Chinatown. The shopkeeper is reluctant to sell him the maua, but sells it to him with the warning to never expose him to bright light water or feed him after midnight. All of this happens and the results is a gang of gremlins that decide to tear up the town on Christmas Eve. Now this is the synopsis that I grabbed from Google and I'm like, there's a lot wrong about it because yes. First of all, the shopkeeper never sells him the Maua. No. His grandson does. His grandson does in the alley. Like a drug deal. Yeah. But if he didn't want him to ha to buy the maua or he didn't want anyone to buy it for that matter, why has he got it out for people to see? Yeah. And why we see so eager for, Mr. Pelzer to see that gremlin. Right, right. Maybe it was for that lesson at the end of the movie that he teaches the audience. I don't know. Yeah. We, we, we'll never know. Maybe he wanted this all to happen. It was all part of the master plan. Right. He was like Thanos in that way. Right. Setting things in motion. What a jerk. What a jerk. So, um, for realsies, I guess they're just doing it to throw everybody off. Cuz that was not what that was. you know, what was going on with that situation? Yes, it's true. Yeah. So, um, one of the craziest things that, uh, we found out was it was released on the exact same day as another one of our favorite movies, Ghostbusters. Oh man. And we haven't even talked about that yet. Right, right. Same day. And surprisingly, yeah, same day. And it almost, and it came in a close second to Ghostbusters in earnings, uh, specifically in New York City because everybody was so furious about the traffic that disrupted, New York while Ghostbusters were being filmed. Uhhuh. But they went and saw Gremlins instead. they didn't wanna support that. Heck yeah. Yep. We're gonna go watch this movie cuz we're angry. That's the way to do it. That's how you watch movies out of spite. Yes. They're best, they're best viewed out of spite. Well, in this one, like it definitely feels like it could be in the same world as Ghostbusters. Yes. Like it was a slice of life out of two different parts of the same world. Sure. You know what I mean? I totally, I could see that. Definitely. Yeah. I, that's, that's what I took from it. I was like, crap that, that fits so well that they were released at the same time. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So Gremlin was a word that was made popular by Roll Doll. Um, he wrote a book called Gremlin Lore that we actually almost got, a movie from, um, about little elves that were said to cause unexplained damage to the Royal Air Air Force planes, but it was never made. Those are true stories. By the way. This is something that we'll have to get to in our other podcast that deals with paranormal activities and things of that sort, which we need to start. yes. But one podcast at a time. Gremlins are real though. World War ii, they were all over those airplanes, gremlins foo fighters. Holy cow. So cool. They're all, all right. So cool. Yeah. So, um, originally, the Columbus, uh, script intrigued, Steven Spielberg so much that he wanted to start working on it right away. And the first person he looked at to direct it was Tim Burton. Yeah. That's crazy. Like, right. I could totally see Tim Burton directing this movie. Right. It's, it's not just darken enough. It's not, it's not hard to imagine. But I'm also curious of what things would've looked like, you know, the creature designs that would've come out of his mind in regards to this, how they would've been brought to life. I mean, This was around the time He did. What, what year did he do? Uh, Peewee PeeWee's Big Adventure. Uh, PeeWee's Big Adventure, which is another one we have to do because I still love that movie. Peewee. It was 1985, so it was a year later. Oh, so you did it a year later. So had he done that first and had a feature film under his belt, Spielberg probably would've been like, yeah, he's in. Oh, absolutely. I would've, but the, in the end, I'm happy with, with, Joe Dante. I do wanna say one thing though about what's that? Uh, possible directors. This is kind of like a what if, right. Okay. One of my favorite scenes in this movie, The mom in the kitchen when she's being attacked by the gremlins. Yes. Like this scene is thrilling. It's edge of your seat. It's action packed. It's gross. I mean, she puts one of the gremlins in the microwave and blows it up. Uh, she, I love how she grabs one knife and then goes the grab a second knife, Right. To go, to go fight'em. Like she's ready to throw down with these, these little monsters. Right? Yeah, absolutely. And, and I just love the energy of it. And as I was watching it this time, I was thinking, man, cuz Sam Ramey is so good at directing those kinds of scenes. And I'm like, dude, I would love to see what a Sam Rainey version of this movie would be. that dude, that, that made my heart stop a little bit. That was a, that was crazy. Yeah. He would do an insane job because I'm watching that scene and I'm like, I could see a shot, a Sam Rainey style style shot with this. That he's doing here. Like I, I was just imagining it play out differently in a Sam Ramey, uh, scenario type style. I don't know. Right. Well, the cool thing, like, I love that you mentioned that specific scene because that scene was almost a little bit gorier. Oh, it was, it was almost a little bit more intense. Yeah. So in that scene, she, this was cut from it. It was gonna be just about 30 seconds longer. Uhhuh she stabs that gremlin to death right in the tree. In the Christmas tree? No, the, the one that's in the kitchen. Oh, okay. Okay. She stabs in, uh, gremlin to death in the original cut of it. The gremlin gets up when she turns around and pulls the knife out of himself and goes to attack her again as she's fighting off the other gremlin. Holy crap. Um, there's, yeah, there's still a little evidence of that. If you look at the scene, if you watch the scene, he's still standing behind her, holding the knife. Wow. Like you can see it. So like I said before, man, reading up on this, this, this was gonna be such a bloody movie, but I, I remember hearing somewhere or reading somewhere that it was originally going to be, uh, rated R. Rated R, yeah. It was, uh, that and Temple of Doom were both gonna be rated R and they wanted those both to be family friendly movies. So they cut out certain things and some of the stuff we're gonna talk about, you're gonna be like, yes, this would not be PG 13 Ed. They left that in, and correct me if I'm wrong, Billy, I'm trying to find this and I, I remember reading it somewhere. I don't know if it was in your notes or not, but if it's not, please let me know if it's wrong. Did the gremlins cut the mom's head off? Yes. They, they were originally supposed to kill her. and cut her head off and throw it down the stairs. Throw it down the stairs at Billy. Yeah. Yep. Oh my gosh, dude. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I was like, I know, I saw that somewhere. I didn't know where I saw that from and I couldn't find it in the notes, but, so that was, that was a thing that was going to see guys, see what we're talking about here. Wow. Yeah. she was gonna get her freaking head cut off and thrown down the stairs at her son. Luckily they, they cut that out. Cause I think, yeah, that would've, at the time that I watched it, it would've freaked me out to the point of I'll never watch this again. But yeah. Both her head comes off and the dog dies in the original cut. Oh man. The dog. See, yeah. Audience was, would've been more freaked out about the dog than the mom Right. If, if, if Bernie died, I think there would've been a revolt. I think people would've taken, taken to the streets on this one. But yeah, so, um, God, that's so crazy though. I can't, I can't even imagine the, I mean, I can't imagine this movie being radar. It's already pretty dark as it is, but Right. Taking it to that next level is pretty insane. It, yeah, I mean, they talk about some stuff that Christopher Colum, Christopher Columbus, Christopher Columbus, Chris Columbus and Blue in 1,942 Chris Col. Chris Columbus's original one was way darker. And they apparently, they're like, no, we gotta, we gotta scale this back. Cuz Jo Dante wanted to be a, a family friendly film. So, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. A fam a family friendly film. Let's talk about suicide, shall we? Yeah, exactly. Oh man. But I, and that's the thing is, um, They left in a lot that I was like, that makes me make it like the cringe face. Like, eh, but yeah, still PG 13, man. I'm I mean, crazy. Right? So to today, the three people, the three main conspirators behind this movie, Chris Columbus, Joe Dante, and Steven Spielberg. If you heard that today, a movie's coming out with all three of them involved, you would shit your pants, dude. Oh yeah. It'd be amazing. It'd be amazing, right? It would go viral online, social media. I mean, you didn't have that stuff back then, but Yeah. Yeah. It would. It would've been like, everybody would be like, here it comes. This is, it's like the Avengers only in movie making. Yeah. so when Joe Dante, he was down to his last bucks, his last few dollars from the howling. Okay. And he's running, running low on cash. Just at that time. He gets this script from Steven Spielberg, and originally he thought it was sent to the wrong house. Okay. He was like, there's no way Steven Spielberg wants me to do this. But what he didn't know is that, Steven Spielberg, when he watched the, the Howling, he, you know, Chris Columbus wrote it and he was like, this is the guy. This guy's got the chops to make this not only scary but funny and make you love these characters. Yeah. Dante has that good mix of humor and drama and horror. He can put all, he can throw all that, juggle that stuff really well in his films. Right. Well, unfortunately, this is the only movie that the three of them are working on. But. Mr. Spielberger, Mr. Columbus went on to do many other things together, including the Goonies. The Goon, yeah. Young Sherlock. Yep. Young Sherlock Holmes. Oh, I love young Sherlock Holmes. Yep. It's on the list. it's on the list. But, um, the cool thing about it is, is if you watch, Gremlins in the very first scene where Billy's running across the town square. Yeah. Do you recognize that place? I, you I just saw it as like a snowy town. Like I, I didn't really recognize what it was. I, but I mean, they filmed lots of movies in a lot of different locations and a lot of studio lots have the same thing. Right. But no, I didn't, I didn't notice what it, what it was. If you look closely, this is the movie that was filmed just before Back to the Future, the clock towers there, the library. Oh, really? Everything That's the back to the Future set. I wasn't even paying attention when I watched it. That's awesome. It's crazy, huh? And the reason why he Dante stylized it like that to make it look like the small town is because he wanted it to look like it's a wonderful life. Of course he did. Of course he did. Because it takes you to this safe place and then tears it apart with Grim. Where is it apart? I mean, there's such, I mean there's such great throwbacks to a lot of great movies in this like, cuz you get to see, uh, miss Degal is a lot like the, the Wicked Witch in Wizard of Alls. They even kind of play a distorted version of that music. Yeah. When she's walking around with the snowman head. Yep. And she wants to kill Billy's dog. Yeah. That was the most disturbing part. It's like you haven't got that little dog under there again, have you? It's like, no, you better keep that thing locked away cuz when I see it, I'm going to murder your dog I'm gonna throw it in the dryer and put it on high heat. And the guy next door, Mr. Anderson. Yep. That would do it. Yeah. Evil lady. She gets hers though. Oh. Oh, she gets hers so good. Oh man. So that made me scared of those chairs, man. The chairs that go, the electric chairs that go up and down. Yeah, they go up the stairs. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, Nope, that thing's gonna freak out and spit me out, you know? Thank you. I've never seen one of those in real life. Me either. But I wouldn't, I, I've never seen, uh, one of those chairs that takes old people up and down the stairs. In real life, I've only seen them in movies. Right. But have I ever saw one in real life? I'd be like, we're not doing it. Gremlins. Seriously. And then it's so crazy. I, I liked the really subtle nod of the pods that the gremlins are. The subtle nod. Oh, I was hoping you'd get the sarcasm in there. of the eggs from aliens. Oh yeah. Joey knows this about me. I have this thing where if I see things in other movies, I'm automatically, automatically think everything's connected. Like everything. Well, it's not. You gotta, and I thought about that too, this time around. I'm like, oh man, gremlins are totally from outer space. They're obviously aliens. Totally. There's, there's no ifs, ands, or butts about it. Gremlins are aliens, right. That have come down to this planet and the old man is trying to keep them at bay. Right. He knows the rules. The ridiculous, ridiculous rules that no one can seem to follow. No. Nobody. It's gonna, they're gonna break'em anyway. And he knows that maybe he's trying to bring on the destruction of the world. That's what I'm saying. Dude. He's Thanos. I said it earlier. Yep. He's, he wants to see if the town can survive. If they can, he'll take them back. Yeah. But if you can't. You're toast. Then he gives that, he even back to the Twilight Zone, he gives that little rod Sterling message at the end of the movie. Absolutely. Yep. Man. Now we know what happened to the Lost Town of Roanoke, right? Yeah. Yes, 100%. They just, they couldn't make it through the Gremlin Revolution. Yep. So we know Billy, Billy's the main character, Zach Galligan plays Billy in it. But you know, they originally auditioned to Judd Nelson and Emilio Estevez. Fantastic. Let's do it. Let's cast them in the movie. If we make a new one, they're cast as Billy, like both of them at the same time. they'll just show up in different scenes. Yes. But same character. Same character, and we'll never say why. That's awesome. Yeah. No, that's pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, he beat them out for the role, which they were pretty big stars at the time, so Yeah, they were, they were, they were decent. They were, they're, they're, they're up and coming. Yep. Yeah, they were well known. Zach was kind of, uh, unknown though at the time. Was he, this this was his first film? Yeah. Oh yeah. He first thing he was ever in. Okay. So Spielberg crazy, right? Spielberg has an eye for people. He likes to cast, especially young people. And, I guess Zach just had what Spielberg was looking for that uh, that charm, that, that innocent spark in his eye. Right, right, right. Well, and what it came down to is that, it was the chemistry between him and Phoebe Kates Okay. Is what got him the job. He said they, they just felt comfortable with each other from the, the start. And he said after they did their, uh, their audition, Zach laid his head on Phoebe Kate's shoulder, and he said, oh my God, look at that. They're in love. He's in love with her already. Yeah. I don't even need to see anything else. And hired him right there. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean that's, and it's really cool. But there was some controversy about hiring Phoebe Kates. You know what that controversy was? I don't, what's up? What happened? Hmm. The movie she did before Gremlins was Fast Times at Ridgemont High. So what, so the Warner Brother execs the Warner brother execs didn't think she held, um, she was wholesome enough to play this character well, but she was, she got it. She was great in the role. She was, I love Phoebe Kates. We all love Phoebe. Kates, she was great and her character is interesting too. in a lot of different ways. But one thing I'm just gonna point out before I get into some other things, when she's in the bar, and she's serving the gremlins. Mm-hmm. why is she serving the gremlins? Right? Why is she just like, like rushing around, like she's actually still working and getting paid for this right. And, and making sure like everyone, all of them get their drinks and they're all happy. And I'm like, why didn't she run the hell out of that? Like, why didn't she just get the hell out of there and run? Well, it comes to the, all right. I didn't realize it until I was doing the notes for this. Okay. All right. And I was thinking, I always thought the same thing. It's like a, they're not killing her. No. They're letting her serve them. Yeah. And then I was doing the research on this and one of the, okay, so this is one of the studio notes to director Jo Dante, and Spielberg on seeing the first cut of the film. The, the execs said there's too many gremlins. Okay. Okay. Okay. So the, the guy who, the, the guy who ran the workshop that built all the gremlins, right? Yes. His name was, uh, Chris Wallace. At first he didn't really get this, he was like, he goes, he didn't understand what this was supposed to mean, if it had a deeper meaning or if it was just like a horror fest. And he said he realized when the gremlins did, The caroling out in front. Yes. And once they're all dressed in human clothing and all that, he fi it snapped. He's like, oh, the gremlins are parodies of people. The worst people out there. Like the people that we hate. The people that are constantly obnoxious. Okay. So when I read that, I was like, oh, so they're self-serving, she's helping, she's doing what they want, so they're not gonna hurt her. And somehow she picked up on that and just started doing it so she could walk out of that bar alive. Oh, okay. That makes sense. But I still, I don't know. I'm sure she would've had a back door to go out of anyway when they started go coming in. But you would think so. You would think so. But she's got balls. Okay. I'll take it. I'll take, yeah. She's tough. I'll take that explanation. Yeah. See Deep thoughts by Jack Handy Yeah. So with all that, you know, we'll go back to casting for a second with all of that. Uh, Steven Spielberg like, oh, perfect, perfect. Do you know if Phoebe, Kate doesn't even remember auditioning with Zack Galligan? She doesn't, not even a little bit. Wow. That's gotta hurt Zack. Yeah. It's gotta hurt some feelings, I think. Yeah. And Zack Galligan gets to kiss the most beautiful woman of the time, and Phoebe Kate said it was like kissing her brother. Oh, ouch. Yeah, that hurts. Oh, that hurts so bad. Yeah, that makes me sad for Zach Yeah. Well, of course it couldn't be his fault, so he blames it on. He was nervous cuz Steven Spielberg visited this set that day. Mm-hmm. And he's like, Spielberg's there. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So Poors Zach? Yeah. That's, you know, that's wild. Yeah. Um, have you ever thought about why Billy is best friends with a 13 year old in the movie? Uh, no. Just because it just, maybe he's just like the kid that always came over, you know, the next door kid, no matter what the age would've been. The next door kid just like shows up and, and just hangs out and overstays his welcome all the time. I just, there's kids like that. So it, I just assumed that was the type of kid that was his thing. Yeah. That was his thing. Yeah. But is there another reason? Yeah. Uh, Corey Feldman was the first person cast in this whole movie. Of course he was. Yeah, of course he was. Yeah. And to Spielberg, that's a great idea. Oh yeah. Yeah. But, uh, Francis Lee McCain, the lady who plays Billy's mom Okay. And also plays. the mom and back to the future. Yes. As Lorraine's mom. Yep. So she just basically lived on that lot for a couple years. Sure. Yeah. yeah, she loved doing the film, but she did not enjoy Corey Feldman. She worked with him both in this and Stand By Me. Ege. Oh, she doesn't stand by me. That's right. Yep. Wow. Okay. Apparently he just annoyed the shit out of her. Well, can't be for everybody. Right. You know, Corey Feldman comes off as the type of kid that wouldn't annoy a lot of people, it seems like back in the day. Right. Child actors, you know, let me talk about child actors for a minute. this coming from the guy that was in the Nintendo commercials and some episodes of Felicity. Well, I used to do, uh, before all that, like I used to when I was younger, I used to go to these acting classes and mm-hmm. I hung out with child like, like child actors. Right. and the child actors as a child are kind of what turned me off of acting because mm-hmm. of how freaking crazy they were. Like, I've never seen such spoiled, I mean, and I'm not talking, I'm not saying this is Corey Feldman, I'm not saying this about any particular actor, but in this acting class I was in when I was like 11, 12 years old, these kids were the most spoiled kids that I had ever come across in my life and Right. And I'm just like, this isn't, I'm not, I'm not like this, like this isn't my scene. Right. I went to a few of'em. Things got super weird, like super. when the, like, when they're all of a sudden there's like more adults than kids at these acting classes. Ah, yes. I remember those days. And I was like, I'm over. I'm, I can't, like, this is too crazy for me. I don't know what's happening. I don't know why I'm talking about this. Hmm. Well we got on the child actors. Yeah. Okay. We're getting off of'em now. All right. Let's go back. Go back. All right. Back. Um, so this was actually kind of a, um, like a give me for Corey Feldman from Steven Spielberg cuz he originally had cast him in et to be Elliot's best friend. Okay. But they cut that storyline completely. Yes, they did. So the next time he had an available spot to put Corey Feldman, he put'em in Gremlins, which they're basically, he's basically playing the same role. He's the best friend of the guy who gets an alien type creature and has to help solve all the problems. Yeah. Yeah. Joe Dante at the time was quoted as saying Corey Feldman was at this point, before he was a teenage kid, when he was just a pubescent kid. He was actually one of the best child actors in Hollywood. Sure. So he says that during the, the comments section or like in the, the commentary if you're watching the movie and you're Joe Dante's talking over your movie. Yeah. Immediately after he says that, uh, you hear Corey Feldman go, what happened in the movie? He's asking Billy what happened. So it was kind, I thought that was kind of funny. Yeah, it was like, yeah. But, um, so in the original script, Pete was killed, uh, he would be eaten alive by the gremlin's wild group of terror. And is Corey Feldman's character, correct? Yes. Okay. Yes. Pete is Corey Feldman's character. He gets killed, he gets eaten alive by the gremlins, so the mom dies and then Pete dies. This is great. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. And the dog and the dog dies and, and the dog dies. But I wanna see this alternate version of the movie. I really do. Ah, yeah. I don't know if I can handle it, man. Go ahead. Keep going. Sorry. No, the, the only reason that, that, uh, part of that scene is the characters, uh, that are the carolers drown out his screams. So nobody knows what happens. Dude, I love that. That's such a great little detail. That's fantastic. Yep. Yep. Let's do that. but the eventual fate of Pete, who is Corey Feldman? Is he, it's never revealed in the movie, but in the novelization they put it in there. Cause this was a part of the script is, he was deeply saddened by the death of Mr. Hansen, who's, who was their teacher. Okay. He brought the, brought the gremlin into him. Yeah. So he can investigate it. Yep. He, blamed himself for Mr. Hansen dying. So he runs away and has never heard from again. Whoa. What? Yeah. That's his, that's his fate. That's his fate. Yeah. In the, in the movie. This 13 year old kid Yep. Gets so beaten down, so racked with him by guilt that he runs away and has never heard of again. Yes. Whoa. That's deep and dark. I'm, I'm kind of glad they didn't put that in there because that's, yeah, that's a lot. you know, with what they did put in there, Billy Uhhuh, I, they might as well have put all this other stuff in here. in there. Exactly. Just the Santa Claus story alone. Oh, but real quick, you were talking about, the age difference between Corey Feldman and Zach. Yes. And you said like he was 13, but what was the reason why that, the age difference? Uh, it was because apparently Zach was so good at his audition that they just, they were taking many age rangers and he was so good. They, so Spielberg at first was thinking of Cassie, someone younger. Yeah. Ah, I see. Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Awesome. Cool. But then it, they changed the script and it ends up, he works at the bank and blah, blah, blah. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, he was originally gonna be a, a younger kid who was, had like this cuz he draws in the movie. So it was like a kid with aspirations to be an artist at a cart, uh, comic maker and all that. Sweet. So they just molded that over to an adult. But Pete ran away from home, man, that's crazy. Okay. He ran away from home and, joined a gang of three other kids and they went to go see a dead body. Yeah. Got a time machine. Went back to the fifties, right? Yep. So crazy. Yeah. All right. So, Joe Dante was the one who, Fought for Hoyt Axton, who is, uh, Billy pe Peltzer just dad, for the role because he was so great in, um, the, black stallion that he was like, man, I gotta get him in here. He's just a good dad type. He's a good figure, a good father figure character. Right. And the voice man, he had that deep voice where, right. Yeah. I can't even pretend to do it, but No, no, I, this is my dad voice. Nice. So the, the, the best part about this is that he followed the script, but, uh, almost all of his lines are improvised in that. Oh, crazy. That's awesome. Yeah, he stays on point. But yeah, he, it was pretty much his own stuff. Yeah. You can tell that he kind of goes off script. Just his style is very different than anything else that is happening. He's a very different character in this world than everybody else, and he's so oblivious to anything else that's going on. You know what I mean? I, I was so thankful that he was at that, uh, that expo during this whole, all the hennigans. I mean, he comes home and his wife's been, been decapitated by a gremlin and everything just goes to hell. Like the kid next door was in life. I just like, like he comes home though and he's still like this jolly fatherly guy. But like, if, if Pete would've died, if his wife would've died, I wondering what would've happened when he did come home from the thing like how right. It'd be a very different homecoming for sure. absolutely a very different reaction. Oh man. But yeah, I still, I'm glad he didn't die, but then at the same time, I still can't help but think he'd probably still find some jokes to make about it. or one of his, uh, one of his gadgets would save him from Yeah, exactly. He'd killed, he'd take a time machine back, right. And then say his time machine, he'd take that back and then he'd, he'd prevent it from happening. There's a mo there's a movie right there. There you go. Uh, it's really crazy you say that because in the scene where he's at the expo and he calls home, um, yes. There's the time machine is behind him, the time machine's behind him, and then he. It cuts close to'em, and then when it pulls back, it's gone. I love that so much. It's such a small detail if you're not paying attention. But dude, it's one of my favorite parts of the movie because no one, like, no one notices that crap. Right? Like it's, it's such a small background detail that you don't catch unless you're paying attention. But yeah. I love that. A time machine is there one second and then gone the next, like Right. It works. It works. Exactly. Oh, man. Just imagine if it's like one of the expo goers that is off on the time machine. Freaking out somewhere. Yes. Oh man. So, Joe Dante's favorite actor in the whole movie was Mushroom. Mushroom was the dog that played Barney in the movie. And that's why he decided not to kill him. Right? Because he, he fell in love with the dog. Yep. But like, not only him, but even, Zack Galligan said that, he, it, it was like he was a person on the set. Joe Dante is quoted at saying he was the all-purpose cutaway because if Barney's in the scene and Joe, Joe doesn't know what to do, he cuts to mushroom, and mushroom has a priceless facial expression that'll sell the scene. That's great. Highlights include looking, worried and offended when Mrs. Degal is threatening to kill him. Looking, curious, when Gizmo first appears and looking frightened, he said he even liked when he moves in sync with Gizmo, Gizmo's puppet and in all the shots. Yeah. Like, they came to find out that he thought Gizmo was a real creature and he treated him like he was his friend. So that, I thought that was pretty cool. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Did you know that originally Stripe and Gizmo were the same character? I remember hearing something about that before, but I don't know any details. Steven Spielberg was the one who insisted that, there'd be a good guy and a bad guy in this, and Dante says he, the decision was the reason why the film was like, so fondly remembered. Oh. It makes, I think it makes sense to have a good gremlin and a bad gremlin. I mean, the dynamic there was great. And you don't wanna make gizmo this cute little thing, the bad, the villain of the story. Like absolutely. You want gi, you want to, you need that, that character there to like ground you in cuteness. You know, like right. With all this evil stuff going on, Whenever it cuts to gizmo and his facial expressions, you're just like, you just melts your heart. Right? Even when he is terrified that look on his face when he is terrified is so adorable and melts your heart. Exactly. Yeah. So Gizmo is a maua, which I thought was a made up word, and then I found out that it means devil demonn or gremlin in Cantonese. Yes. Yes. So true. So it's not so true. It's not just a made up word. It's not a made up word. It's not a made up word. Yep. So when they finished the movie, they showed it to the executives and they gave Dante and Spielberg, a note that said there was too many gremlins. Yeah, you were saying that earlier. Yeah. About, well, St. Spielberg suggested that cutting them out of the, cutting them all out of the film and calling it people just get rid of'em all. That's what he told the studio executives. That was his note back to them. Yes. That's amazing. Let's cut'em all out and call it people. You know, it's studios, executives are so weird when it comes to making creative decisions. I don't know how studio executives get their jobs because a lot of the decisions that they make, and you hear about a lot of these even today, where it's like they are living off of brain fart. I wish we could call this episode living off of brain farts, It's the best thing I've heard today. I mean, but seriously though, like, I don't know where executives, like, they're not creative people. They're mm-hmm. they're, they're executive, they're called executives for a reason. I just, I don't understand how they can make some of these awful decisions with, with movies and stuff. Right. And they continue to do it. Right. It's, it's not just back then, it still happens. Studios, for some reason, these executives that are in charge of things think they know things and they know nothings, nothings. I'm gonna use that in my vocabulary now. Like, you know, nothing, these people get paid millions of dollars for to screw things up. Their brain fart ideas. Right? Absolutely. So we should be those people. We should be, yeah. I have so many brain fart ideas. I should be a millionaire too. So right there. I, I agree. Anyway, back to the movie. Back to the movie. So we got these cute little, like you were saying, the gizmo was cute, but their first idea was to use a monkey with a gremlin mask on for the movie to give it a more animalistic kind of feel. Oh yeah. Oh. So Chris Wallace, the, the guy who does all the puppets that made all the puppets, um, I'm glad they put, he wanted to use stop motion. I'm glad they put the guy Bosch on the monkey idea. Oh, just wait. Oh no, this get, this gets good. Okay, go. So go. So Chris Wallace wanted to do stop motion. They wanted, the execs wanted to do monkeys. So the executive, the studios, the executives wanted to do the monkeys. Of course they did. Of course they did. They're so smart. Those executives. So smart. So what they did is they took a spider monkey and in Joe Dante's office, put a mask of a gremlin on the monkey. Uh, the thing panicked, uh, went crazy, started tearing the office apart and defecating everywhere. And then Dante screamed at the trainer to get the animal and asked Wallace. So puppets, So, yeah, they went, they went puppets after that. Yes. It is the smart move to not use monkeys. No, no. That would've been a nightmare. Could you imagine? Oh my goodness. Trying to film like getting I can't even think about that. Just get in at least 10 monkeys in the same room together and trying to shoot something Well, yeah. There's no way they could have done some of those scenes. There's no way. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It, it is. Bonkers executives. Yeah. There you go. Monkeys. Let's have monkeys. Ugh. But yeah, so these people are still working in Hollywood and they are, and they're making millions of dollars. Yes. Okay, go ahead. So at one point, uh, Chris Wallace, the guy who's designing him, uh, was not a big fan of Steven Spielberg because he kept changing the design of gizmo. Throughout the, the making process. Okay. It was over little things like, you know, first they were all full of hair and then he wanted the hair a different color and he wanted no hair on the ears. And all in all, it was, you've gotta go through multiple designs though to figure out what you're gonna really want. Yep. So that's, that. It's understand, I mean, it's understandable from a creative point that it's like, I mean, when you do something, you create these things, you do go through multiple Oh, multiple designs, character designs, until you find the one that you're like, yes. That is the one. So, I'm sorry Chris, but I'm on Spielberg's side on this. Right. One cool little detail about his coloring is that, uh, Spielberg, put that white patch of fur around his right eye. Yeah. And, and that was like a tribute to one of his dogs that Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. So, Poor Chris Wallace had to make these like little, there was no CGI in this movie. Yeah. They're all practical puppets. Yeah. Well, CGI was like Tron back then. So there, right, there was nothing they were gonna be able to do with this No. So, they made all of these animatronics and they each cost between 30 and$40,000 for each gremlin. Each gremlin. Wow. Yeah. That's a lot of money. Yeah. So Zach Galligan said that when everyone left the lot for the day, security would have everyone open the trunks of their cars and their bags to make sure that no gremlin was stolen. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. So, because they're animatronics, you know, you, you've been to Disneyland when one of the animatronics goes crazy. Oh yeah, of course. Um, I was riding a little mermaid ride one time and Ursula's head came off. And just dangled there. It scared the crap outta my kids. Amazing. But it's the one thing they remember and they laugh about it now. Heck yeah, they do. That's that's awesome. So that needs to happen more often on those Disneyland rides. Yeah. Heads just falling, falling off, off. There's a lot of heads falling off in this episode today, You know what I mean? Moms Ursula. Yeah. Monkeys with gizmo heads on. It's crazy. But, so the gizmo, uh, animatronic, they had, it was frustrating because it was smaller and it broke down all the time. Sure, of course it did. Yep. So, it's eighties animatronic technology. Absolutely. So, Joe Dante, to satisfy the crew, there's a scene where Gizmo is hanging on the, the dart board and the gremlins are throwing darts at him. Yeah. That was included on a list that the crew had created, known as the horrible things to do to Gizmo list. So to appease them, he put that in the movie. Awesome. That's cool. Yeah. And at one Pro, one point, the, the animatronics were so busted that a whole night scene was delayed and everybody just slept. They got paid to be on the set and sleep. Nice. Yeah. So, you know, it was, uh, it was really cool. So to go with this, do you know why the rule No Bright Lights was made for the gremlins? Like no bright lights, like on bright light will kill them. Oh, okay. No. Oh, okay. Rule number one. Yeah. Bright light. Don't expose them. It's a bright light. Yeah. Um, it's an old sci-fi. because they're all animatronics. They kept the lights low so that you couldn't see like the servos or the wires that were going into the puppet. Ah, so it was all rule number one was just camouflage. Yes. Yes. Yep. And uh, that makes sense. Yeah. And then rule number two, or sorry, rule number three, rule number twos, don't get'em wet. Yes. But rule number three, don't feed after midnight. Yes. Have you ever, have you ever thought about that? Don't feed'em after midnight. When can you start feeding them then? Oh my gosh. They never say, wow. When can they start eating? Is it daylight? They never say, they never say. because it's midnight. It's after midnight all the time. All over the world. Yeah. Somewhere. It's after midnight. Oh, that's wild. Okay. My mind just kind of melted. I like it. Sorry buddy. I don't even know what to say. Right. But does the chicken scene ever gross you out? Dude, I was just gonna bring up the freaking chicken scene dude, first of all, first of all, when he goes to the fridge to pull out the chicken, when he, when I, that chicken in itself before they even start eating looks so gross. I'm like, right. Oh, that is the worst looking chicken I've ever seen in my life. Uh, that's nasty. It's so nasty. The chicken? Yes, the chicken. So I'm trying to figure out what's going on in there. Is that the saliva that's so stringy and coming off of, or is it snot? It's gotta be, it's gotta be a mixture of everything. Saliva, snot, chicken, goo, I, you name it. That's what it is. It's it's raw chicken. Why did he, why, why is he giving them raw chicken? Wait, is it raw? Yeah. Look at it. It's completely raw. I thought it just looked like terribly cooked fried chicken No, it, well, I mean, I was watching it this time and we had a big discussion about it. It, it, that stuff is raw. I thought it was fried chicken, but just like gross fried chicken. Maybe it just gross me out so much. I think it's raw. Like gross fried chicken. Yeah. Ugh. Why is it white? Why is fried chicken white I don't know. That's that always like turned me off about the chicken. Maybe wasn't fried yet, but chicken, you know what chicken's good though? The chicken from Masters of the Universe. That's some good looking chicken right there. That chicken looks amazing. Oh, when Kor's eating it and Oh, and eating the ribs. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm all about that. And why aren't there any chicken places that also sell ribs? Like, dude, I say that all the time. Why can't we go to like Popeye's or Church's Chicken or Kentucky Fried Chicken and get some ribs with our chicken damnit, you know where we could get it? Where? Dick's last resort. Yeah, but that was like a restaurant I'm talking about like to go fast food stuff. Yeah. I'm just saying. Yeah, they had, they, they ran with the idea, but they, they sucked. It was horrible. It was gross. Gross food. Yeah. Yeah. so we talked about the, uh, talked about the gross chicken. You wanna talk about the other, the grossest chicken ever grossest, like no one would wanna touch that. You wanna talk about the other disturbing part of the movie? Yes. Let's talk about the other disturbing part of the movie. The Santa Speech. So they make fun of it in the second one, but I don't know about you, but when I first heard her tell that story, it freaked me out. You know, it's something that seared into my mind since I first saw the movie as a kid, because she's telling the story of her father and how he disappeared one night. No one knows where he went. And then the smell started coming out of the chimney and they thought it was a dead. And then when they go up to pull the dead animal out, it turns out that it is her father who climbed down the chimney with gifts to surprise him on Christmas. He fell. Broke his neck, he slipped him, broke his neck, and then got stuck in the chimney. And that's why she hates Christmas. And it's totally understandable of why she hates Christmas. But what a terrible nightmarish story that is like that is like dark. That is holy crap. Like, man, like it is the worst possible thing that could happen to a kid on Christmas. It is the absolute worst. One of the worst things that could happen, right? The worst. And then, and it's in the midst of all of this craziness going on. And I'm, and I'm sorry and Uhhuh, but like, you know, no disrespect to people who are crawling down chimney, but who the hell is crawling down? Chimney Right? What makes you think, Hey, I'm small enough to fit in there. That seems like a horrible idea. Horrible, right? The worst idea ever. Like, you don't need to crawl down to chimney. Ugh. Yeah. Ugh. You wanna know something funny? Go for it. Cheer me up. The, those executives that we're talking about Yes. Insisted that, that be removed from the movie. They insisted that be removed. Yeah. Cuz they said it. It was, it was too ambiguous. It wasn't, was it supposed to be funny? Was it supposed to be sad? But Dante was like, no, the scene is staying it. It represented this, the movie as a whole, which is a combination of horrific and comedic elements. No, it adds to the, it fits what the movie is. Right? But it is dark. It's dark and even, uh, you can tell that story, but, you know, you can't kill anybody on screen, I guess. But yeah, that, that, that story though. Yeah, that, that's one of those things that kind of like, really made me think as a kid. Like really like, kind of freaked me out. Like, like, oh my gosh, this girl's dad died on Christmas Eve, trying to go down to Chimney. Like, that stuck with me. Right. It stuck. I, anybody who's seen the movie knows the Santa speech. Everybody knows. Sure. Oh yeah. Because there's no way around it. even Spielberg hated it. He wanted it out of the film, but really, Dante really fought for it that hard, huh? Yep. That even like, even gave Spielberg the finger and was like, nah, I'm keeping it. Well, Spielberg pretty much said, Hey, this is your movie if you want to keep it in there. Because Spielberg had ultimate creative control. He could have canned that in a second, but he sure he didn't wanna pull the rug out from under, um, Joe Dante. So he let him keep it in. Okay. And I think it's necessary. I, I like, I don't wanna be morbid or anything, but that speech, even though all that craziness is going on around him, I like, it could always be worse. Like, it could always be worse. It could be in the midst of craziness, but it could be worse. Yeah. yeah, it's, it's over when you're a kid and you're hearing that, I'm glad my kids haven't really caught on to what she's saying at that point. I don't know how they can't catch on. Man, I caught onto to that. They like when I first saw it and that just like, it kind of never let go. Well, Jesse did say once he was like, well, I'm glad we don't have a chimney. So you don't try that Yeah. So apparently I'm that kind of guy that would try. Doing that trick. Damnit Billy, stop Billy down the chimney. But yeah, so, um, there's a really famous person in this movie that is never seen once. That is, and they're in the movie, they're heard in the movie throughout the whole movie. Okay. It's Howie Mandel. He's the voice of Gizmo Howie Mandel. Yes, I knew that. I didn't know that. Yep. I didn't know if that's who you were talking about. But yes, not only did he do the, the snippets of the sounds and stuff like that, but for the only like two or three lines that Gizmo says he phonetically, dubbed the lines in foreign languages so that the voice never changed. Well, he never, there wasn't a lot of dialogue for him to dub No, he said bye by Wolff Woof. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah. So whatever that's equivalent, Billy. Yep. Yep. So that was it. But yeah, he made all the noises. He was the, he was the voice guy. Okay. Yeah. the budget for gremlins was only 11 million. Not bad. Today, we say only. Back then it was a lot. Not bad. Most of that money went to building gremlins, apparently. Yep. Um, it ended up being the fourth biggest grossing film in 1984. It ended up earning$148 million. Domestically. Not bad. Not bad. Not at all. Not bad. Not bad at all. Yep. So we were talking about Twilight Zone a little bit earlier. Yes. When they go, when you go up into Billy's room, cuz he lives in the attic, you'll see a rolled up poster for the Twilight Zone. Nice. In the corner of the room. Yep. Cool. And, uh, I just like those little nods. There's a lot of little nods to the sci-fi movie world throughout this movie. Oh, definitely. Even the movies that, uh, Billy's watching throughout the, the film and he is in his room and stuff, right? His type. Yep. He's, he has a good taste in movies. He does. Uh, invasion of the Body Snatchers. That was pretty cool. You get, you know, you get a little Star Wars cuz the Gremlins are playing the Star Wars video game. Yep, yep. When they're in the bar. of course you see it's a wonderful life in there and there's a lot of old sci-fi movies that are playing in the background of everything. But I just think it's cool that they're able to do all that to, to put all that imagery in there and it's fun to catch it when you haven't noticed it before. No, it's fun to find those Easter eggs. Definitely. Absolutely. Especially after multiple viewing. And like knowing and knowing what all the creative people have done since then and, and the Easter eggs that are in there, that kind of like inspired what ended up happening in the future. Kind of cool. Right? Yeah, I thought it was really cool. Um, let's see. Did you ever really think of why Judge Reinhold was in the movie? No. I mean, he, he plays a supreme dickhead. Yes. He's really good at it. Yes. But, in the earlier scripts, he, had a whole relationship with the two main characters in the whole thing. Huh. That's kind of crazy. Yeah. Yeah. the original script had Billy as more of like a typical nerd, you know, He goes around the town when everything starts going crazy with Kate, Phoebe Kate's and Judge Reinhold, his, bully turned emergency ally and Judge Reinhold had a sword in it. He was helping Billy and, Phoebe make it through this, this whole thing. Nice. But they wanted to focus more on Gizmo as a hero, so they cut his whole whole scene out. Sure. And in a deleted scene, Billy and Kate find him locked in the banks safe and he's gone crazy He, he drove himself insane. Awesome. Which I've seen. And it's a cool scene, but it wasn't necessary for the movie. Sure. But yeah. So I thought that, I thought that was pretty cool. I was like, why is this, at the time he was a main actor, just only in it for what, five minutes? Yeah. You know, a few little trashy lines and that's it. so one of the other scenes that they had to cut because it was too gory, is that it had the gremlins attack a McDonald's and start eating the people like they were hamburgers. Oh man. We missed out on that too. Yep. We missed out on a lot of stuff, man. They, they were going to town on this. Dang. I love that. Yeah. I mean it's, it's kind of like how the fast food biz is now. You're just gonna, you're eating junk You, we probably are eating people at fast food places now. If you think about it. I don't want to think about it. Food, burgers, probably our people, let's be honest. Oh man. Um, so you and I like to collect things. It's, it's fun to do, right? Yeah, it's, it's fun and it's costly, but it happens. Do you know Joe Dante still owns the Peltzer Peeler Juicer? Yes. Yep. And after a while he, he was like, he listed it for sale to any devout movie prop collector. Okay. That also comes with an N F T proving that you have the actual juicer in your possession signed by Joe Dante. That's, that's awesome. I love it. I like how he describes it. He's like, I've attached an N F T that will function as the juicer certificate of authenticity because blockchain, security, yada yada something, something authenticated forever And that's exactly how he is. That's, I love that guy. That's funny. That's awesome. Yeah. Just a couple other like little fun facts in this, cuz we're, we're coming down to the end. We're almost done with our, gremlins post. Okay. But, So there's a couple of nods to ET and, that's when he's running through town, the very beginning, you see at the theater, they're playing a show called A Boy's Life. Yes. That was, that was, the fake name that ET was filmed under Oh. Oh. And shipped to the theaters as is a Boy's Life. Awesome. Okay. I didn't know that. I like that. Yeah. And then of course, one of the g one of the Gremlin says Phone home, you know? Yeah. and then, so Zack Galligan is kind of bitter because when they've, uh, when they film the scene of, uh, Stripe getting his come up and when they, when Gizmo opens up the shade and all the light comes in Yes. And kills them. Yeah. originally that scene was shot that both of them pulled down the shade to kill Stripe. But Spielberg believed Gizmo was the hero of the movie and just. Cut Billy out of the scene. Oh yeah. And then, uh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, Joe Dante was once asked, would you like to take a guess at, to who's idea that was cutting him out and Uhhuh Joe Dante said, no, because I would like to work for him in the future. You know, that that end scene with Stripe dying is, is, uh, pretty horrific. It's a pretty like gruesome, hardcore, brutal scene. Yeah. And it kind of reminded me of the scene from. Raiders of the Lost Ark at the end. Yes. With the melting faces and stuff. Yes. And so I, I liked it when I kind of noticed that. I'm like, oh man. Yeah, they, they threw in some of those, melting those melt melting, lost arc effects on in there. But yeah, it was, yeah. That was pretty creepy though, that Yeah, that's graphic that, yeah, super graphic for sure. Yeah. It's, so that's actually one of the most dangerous scenes for the puppeteers was that scene because they had to have a fountain full of dry ice above a puppeteer who was functioning stripe while he was in there. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's gotta be, gotta be a little creepy. Seriously. Nobody wants to dry ice burn. Nope. They're the worst. Yeah. Um, I used to play with dry ice a lot. I've been Oh really? Oh yeah. I used, I. You used to blow things up with dry ice. I, I don't, I don't like that dry ice scares me. Yeah. I used to make dry ice bombs. No, they were dry ice fireworks. We don't want to use the word bomb There was no fire involved though, Billy. Oh, oh. They dry, dry ices exploded. It set off car, car alarms. Car car alarms in a man four block radius, man. So with all of the malfunctions of gizmo? Yes. They really only wanted to keep him in the first half of the movie, like his movements and all that. Okay. So that's why we got the gizmo in the car scenes is because it was easier to control him while he was in that car and all you needed to do was see his limbs and his, his arms and his face and he was good. Okay. Makes sense. That was kind of, that was Spielberg's idea cuz he didn't wanna break the. break the animatronic. Uh, yeah. So Marie Federman, who's played by Joe Dante's, lucky Charm, Dick Miller. I love Dick Miller. He was killed during an encounter with a gremlin, but it was changed, because of Filmers Found this a little harsh maybe, but he, he, but he die. He got, he got run over by a snow plow. That's what we think. But in the end, during the news report, at the end of the movie, you can hear Lou Landers, say that he's going to talk to a Mr. Federman at the hospital. Oh, yeah. So he survived. He survived. I, I totally missed that. How did I not, I missed that. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So, Dick Miller's still alive. That's good to hear. That's funny. I'm, I'm happy to hear that. Yeah. So from here on in, there's just a lot of little, little behind the scene Cool. Stuff like when he's running through the, the town in the beginning. Yeah. He says hi to a Dr. Maro Of course he does. Which yeah. Yeah. The island of Dr. Maro. Yep. Where experiments are done to humans and animals. Makes sense? Yep. Yep. So at first, uh, there was, there was parts in the script that it was meant to be a parable warning against importing endangered species, which that's essentially what it is from, from outer space. Yeah. Um, because the studio feared it would alienate movie goers. Yes. Sometimes they think we're we're dumb. Yes. Yeah. I mean, whatever. I get it. and the front door of Mr. Wing's mysterious store, it has four symbols on it. and they roughly translate in English as Gods and monsters. Oh, I love it. I'm gonna get that ta. Yes, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get that tattoo. That's my tattoo. The four emblems on you. Yeah. Four emblems that mean Gods and Monsters. Yes. There's two really cool things about this movie that it really aren't that impressive, but to me, I thought it was cool. It's the first time we see the Amblin Entertainment logo. Okay, cool. In en it in any movie and even et Yeah. Wow. It's the first time we see the logo. Wow. Like, wow. Okay. Okay. Wow. Yeah. Right. Okay. So that's kind of cool. Yeah. Makes it original. I dig it. Yep. And, Dante had to petition the studio to bring back the old classic Warner Brothers Shield. Why is that? He just liked it. He just thought it was, he just liked it. Just like we wanna do that. Okay. He said, I want that at the beginning of this movie, because it's not like the film was set in the seventies. No, no. It didn't have like a seventies type feel to it. You know, I know how movies do that sometimes. Where they go back to Old Lo Right to the old logos because it fits the time period of the film that they're making in this. He just, he just like the aesthetic of it. Just like the aesthetic. Okay. Yeah. All right. Let's, let's, let's do it. Let's do it. Dante. You got it. You got it. You got it, man. this, I put this one, I, I made this note specifically for you. Okay. Uh, the two swords hanging on the peltzer wall. You know the one that keeps falling? Yes. are the same pros props used in the climactic battle between Buffy and Angel in the season two finale of Buffy the Vampire. Sorry. Are you serious? Yep. Is that real? Yeah, that's real. Oh my gosh. I have to, I have to watch this. You have to go watch that. I have to watch it. Okay. I'm gonna start rewatching Buffy now. Yeah. Oh, the musical. Buffy the Mu. Well, you, you get to see that in a couple months, man. I love Buffy the musical. Yes, you do. I'm a huge fan of the Buffy Musical. I'm still trying to get the geek Tyron crewed to go to the Buffy musical panel with me at Comic-Con. Man, they play it so late on Sunday. Man, it's so fun though. Okay, go ahead. You have to make a six hour drive after that But, um, so in the scene where you see Stripe in with all the, the toys Yes. And you get to see Sylvester and Bug Bunny and, Chris Wallace wanted Yeah. And et he wanted Stripe to rip the et. Toy to pieces. Oh, Chris really didn't like Spielberg, huh? No, he just thought it would be funny. Like I'm the No, just remember you were saying it earlier. He didn't like Spielberg cuz he kept make, cuz Spielberg kept redesigning Right. Gizmo. And so this shows that Chris was so mad at Spielberg that he is like, I want, I want the gremlins to take et and just rip'em apart because I can't stand Spielberg anymore. That's what he was really thinking. Yep. Wow. Um, but the studio wouldn't allow it. Of course they wouldn't, they no way. They put the stop to that the way, no way they wouldn't do that. And this gets me, dude, I really wanna see this, but uh, according to the director, Joe Dante, the original rough cut of the movie was two hours and 40 minutes and it has all of those r-rated hardcore scenes in it, like the de decapitated heads and Pete dying. No, I don't think it does, but. No, I don't think I, I don't think it ever, never, those never made it past script phase Um, so you and I love gremlins. But I hate it for one reason and one reason only. You hate gremlins for one reason and one reason only. Okay. Yes. What is that reason Billy Gizmo was the inspiration for the Furby? Yeah. Well, of course now we have that people in our lives. The thing is, it would've happened anyway. It would've happened anyway. You can't blame, you can't blame, uh, gremlins for that. Gremlins came first, and then these toy executives came out and they're like, Hey, we don't really have any original ideas, but we really like this gizmo thing, so let's just. Tweak the design and turn it into this thing called a furby and make it the most annoying toy ever made. And we'll make them each an individual house for a demonn. Yes. the most haunted toys ever. I I, okay, this is just my theory, but I also think Gizmo was the inspiration for Grok. Yeah. I You can, so similar. Yeah. You can see that. Yeah, for sure. Yep. Um, and the very last thing, I wanna say this for last, because this is such a Joe Dante thing to say, but after the film's released, director Joe Dante stated, I still have no idea why this picture was successful. Yeah. He, he prefers, he prefers, gremlins two over Gremlins one, which is crazy cuz Gremlins two was an absolute shit show. It's something It's definitely something. It's so wild and it, the story behind that movie is even crazier than Gremlin, so I can't wait to do that one. We're, we're definitely gonna do that one. We're definitely gonna do that one because that behind the scene story is absolutely bonkers. How, how fast that went into production and, and just how that got started. Absolutely. Makes no sense how that movie got made the way. Oh my gosh. That'll be funny to talk about. I can't wait. Cause I really think Gremlins Two and Evil Dead Two are the same. That's gonna be interesting to talk about. And you'll, you'll see why. I don't know if you'll agree with me, but I always thought of it this way, but, all right, so before we move on, Like we've said in the past, we really, really appreciate you guys. You guys are the reason why we do this. we really enjoy doing this and we love it when guys reach out to us. So I want to give a big shout out, uh, to two of our fans, Alan Phillips and Michael Laure. You guys are awesome. Thanks for commenting. Thanks for sharing. Heck yeah. We really appreciate you guys. We're trying to hit all the ones that you guys suggest, so keep it coming. Yeah, for sure. And just real quick though, real quick, okay. I just wanna add a few things about gremlin's stuff. Um, Ooh, uh, sequels. So there was a point where Chris Columbus was working on Gremlins three. Yes. And that project. Pretty much, I think dead now. I haven't, there hasn't been any updates on it in years. But the last time that Columbus brought it up, he just talked about how excited he was to do it and he loved the story that they came up with and was bummed out that it hasn't seen the light of day yet. Okay. So he was really excited about it. And with talking about the sequel, this third film, he said he thought of it as a direct sequel, mostly to the first film, but not discounting the second one. Uh, he saw it as very much passing the baton story, staying mm-hmm. in the tone of the original. And kind of like touching on the original Grims, we kind of touched on some of this earlier, but it's kind of fun to hear what, the screenwriter of the film said Carl Ellsworth, when talking about the original Gremlin's movie and how it was originally imagined as a straight up horror film with r and with, and I quote R rated insanity, he said, these little creatures, what they're really doing, they're cold-blooded little murderers, you know, they're psycho little creatures that are killing everybody. So that's where it all started. I tried to preserve that humor, but at the same time, I was starting with the foundation of this being a horror movie, which I was really thrilled about. Nice. So it's just kind of fun to hear kind of his thoughts and we're talking about Yeah. Where they're coming from. Yeah, where they're coming from. And we're talking about the script for the third film. Columbus said that it was quote, Twisted and Dark, and it would've seen the return of. Zack Galligan back as Billy, so he would've come back to reprise his role, which would've been cool. Like it would've been awesome to see that. Right. And it would've also brought back Phoebe Kates. Oh really? Yeah. That was the plan. Wow. It's explained that Gizmo was at the core of the story and explored mm-hmm. more of the mythology and the history of the gremlins. Wow. Yeah. That'd be really cool. Cuz she's been in retirement for so long. It'd be cool to see her back. It would've been awesome doing something. Yeah. I don't, I don't think this third film is really ever going to happen. Um Right. They just can't seem to, to get it, to get the studios together on it. Um, and then you've got Warner Brothers now. Mm-hmm. they are currently developing, uh, the TV. Animated series. It's a prequel series, and I'm just going to, that's gonna consist of 10 episodes. It's coming to H B O Max. Dante is a consultant on the project. It's at 1920 Shanghai and the series will tell the story of how 10 year old Sam Wing, the future shop owner, Mr. Wing, in the 1984 movie, met young Maua called Gizmo, along with a street thief named l Sam. And Gizmo take up. A perilous journey through the Chinese countryside, encountering and sometimes battling colorful monsters and spirits from Chinese folklore on their quest to return gizmo to his family and uncover a legendary treasure. They're pursued by a power hungry industrialist and his growing army of evil gremlins crazy. So there's gonna be that whole, we get the whole Mr. Wing meaning gizmo story in this series. So that's gonna be fun. That will be fun. Um, this is just my thought on it. So we had, this is a Spielberg movie, right? He's a producer. Did you ever notice that? Mr. Wing's grandson is wearing a New York Yankees hat? Yeah. Yeah. A lot like the one, yeah. Yeah. Worn by short round, yep. do you think we're. there's a connection there. I don't know. I don't know, Anne. I hope so. I hope that's his son and Short Round is still out doing adventure. We should do a movie about short round as an adult. Yeah, that's, didn't we pitch that on our last podcast? Yes. Well, we, we pitch a lot of things. I know we want a lot of things to happen. I just want that to happen. That's, so, that's what needs to happen. If they with, with their, with Disney doing their, Indiana Jones spinoff series, the only thing that makes sense to me to do is to have it focused on short round and his, his adventures as a archeologist. Cuz he followed in Indy's footsteps. Right. So, yeah. I can't wait. Let's get it. All right, buddy. Do you got any, uh, got any quotes? So there's one quote. Yeah, there's one quote that, uh, kind of made me laugh. Uh, there's this scene where, they're at the school and the teacher, Roy is showing them the cage and the cocoon and stuff that's in the cage, Uhhuh. And he's explaining to Pete and Billy, this is a cocoon. And inside he's going through changes, lots of changes. And then Pete, Corey Feldman's character says, like my mother, oh, like my mother. I thought that was funny. Made me laugh. Yeah, I, I've got two because both of them don't make sense, but they're super hilarious to me every time I hear'em. First one is Kate. Before we know the Santa story, Says, you say you hate Washington's birthday or Thanksgiving and no one cares, but you say you hate Christmas and PE people treat you like you're a leper Who hates Washington's birthday and or Thanksgiving? I know. You get time off from school and work. Absolutely. And now we know the real thing. Yes. Uh, the other one, the one that made me laugh, I didn't, I've never caught it before, but I caught it this time, is when the gremlins are singing outside of Mrs. Dal's house, her response is Christmas carolers. I hate Christmas. Carolers. Screechy. Little screechy voice. Little glue. Sniffers. Why? Who makes that connection? Why? They gotta be glue sniffers. You know, some people have got problems. That sounds like a big one. Well, buddy, we did it. Yeah, we got through it. We got through our episode of Gremlins. It was wonderful. It was fun. This is a fun one to talk about. Yeah, it was fun to watch a couple times before getting to do it too. Yeah. Thank you again everybody for listening to this episode of Secret Level. We really appreciate it. You can follow us on our social media channels, Facebook and Twitter, where our call sign is at GT secret level. I post stuff there sometimes and we, you know, interact with our listeners and stuff. So check that out, sign up, join the party. Also, don't forget to go to geek tyrant.com for all of your entertainment, movie, tv, video game news. We're posting stuff there all day. It's what's keeping me busy all day long. And then I do this podcast with Billy. Yes, and it's great. We love it, so we really appreciate it. It's been fun. thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Leave a repeat. Good work guys. Give us thumbs up. Yep. Uh, give us five stars. Give us hugs. We could always use hugs. We love your suggestions, so keep'em going. Yes. So please. Until next time, everybody have a wonderful morning, afternoon, or evening whenever you're listening to this. And good journey. Good journey. Hey Kate, you haven't seen my new apartment? Kate responds. I haven't seen your old apartment. Yeah, I got cable,