The Gremlins Edition

Between Halloween and Christmas lives a special breed of film: festive monster movies. There’s The Nightmare Before Christmas of course, and maybe Batman Returns is in that category, but Gremlins may just be the Christmas monster movie king.

So to get in the mood as we head into festive monsters season, let’s visit The Gremlins Museum, the “largest collection of original Gremlins movie props in the world.” Based in Seattle and curated by Ian Grant, the museum (which you can only visit online) has not only props and screen-used Gremlin puppets, but a treasure trove of art, photos, storyboards, stories, and more.

Ian has done such a great job documenting his collection that I spent over an hour going through it online and I don’t think I’ve even gotten to everything yet. But here are a few of my favorite things I had no idea about before visiting his virtual museum:

The Gremlins Logo Backstory

Buried deep on a page in the virtual museum is a scan of a letter from Bill McCloskey, designer of the Gremlins logo. Bill shares this story:

Steven Spielberg had seen a few of our presentation logo roughs and felt he wanted it to look like Walt Disney's actual signature. This was before there were even fonts that people use now all the time on their Disney-like projects. So I had to design letters that weren't in his signature and make them bolder so it would stand out on the poster.

So the logo is Bill’s imagining of how Walt Disney might have written it, but made bolder. I can totally see that!

But Bill found inspiration in another place, too: Roald Dahl’s first book, coincidentally written for Disney in 1943, with the extra-coincidental title “The Gremlins.”

I also found this great title from the Disney archives that had a nice happy arrangement.

You can see how some of the letterforms might have drawn inspiration from that cover. And then he adds one more little tidbit about the logo:

That Gremlins logo on that book also served me when I designed the Pee-Wee's Big Adventure logo.

I can totally see that, too!

One more cool thing about Bill McCloskey: He posed for the reference photo that his colleague John Alvin used as the basis for the Gremlins poster art.

John Alvin’s movie poster art is a whole other rabbit hole. We won’t be going there in this newsletter.

Polly Holliday and Mrs. Deagle

When Polly Holliday died last month, I was surprised it wasn’t bigger news. Maybe her character in Gremlins was a bit niche for the country to look back on, but she was Flo, the sassy waitress on Alice! She was a huge star! She had her own spin-off!

If you’re one of my younger readers, just believe me when I say that her catchphrase “kiss my grits” was even bigger than “six seven.” And she was also Dustin Hoffman’s mentor for how to play his character in Tootsie! What do you mean, “What’s Tootsie?” Sigh.

But while there was a lack of national mourning for Polly Holliday, Ian posted the most amazing behind-the-scenes remembrance of her work on Gremlins.

It turns out that Polly contributed a lot in shaping her character, writing dialogue and suggesting character attributes. Ian shared some of Polly’s letters to Joe Dante and lovely illustrations that Polly made to go with them. Ian wrote on his site:

The following drawings by Polly Holliday explore two sides of Ruby Deagle’s persona: the polished, high-brow exterior she presented to Kingston Falls, and the hidden reality of a closeted cat hoarder, complete with a stair-climber in her private home.

Polly even went so far as to write out a detailed wardrobe breakdown to accompany her drawings. From the pearls and tailored coats that signaled Deagle’s self-styled grandeur, to the more eccentric, behind-closed-doors touches that hinted at her secret life, Holliday was clearly thinking how her wardrobe choices revealed layers of Deagle’s identity.

There’s much more in Ian’s article. I love this kind of stuff.

Looney Tunes as Inspiration

Gremlins 2 is a zanier movie than Gremlins and takes some obvious inspiration from Looney Tunes, including an opening animated sequence by Chuck Jones featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. But it turns out the influence is present in the original Gremlins movie, too.

One screen-used prop Ian owns is the pink toy Corvette that Gizmo drives in the department store scene. For storytelling purposes, it solved a problem of how to get Gizmo from one place to another in an entertaining manner.

But it also references a 1952 Looney Tunes cartoon called “Feed the Kitty.”

Daniel Clamp’s Autobiography

The villain of Gremlins 2, as you’ll recall, is Daniel Clamp, a Manhattan real estate tycoon played by John Glover who was based on Donald Trump with a bit of Ted Turner mixed in.

Most of the movie takes place in a skyscraper called the Clamp Center, and in one scene a tour guide lets her tour group know that they can buy Daniel Clamp’s autobiography in the building.

The book is shown briefly, but Ian has the original dust jacket, provided to him by John Glover himself. Seeing it up close, it’s obvious just how closely they were mocking Donald Trump’s own book.

Take The Tour

Ian has a section on his website where you can commission a custom video tour if there’s something particular you want to see. But for a general overview, watch this 30 minute walkthrough of the collection:

Who would collect all this stuff?

I mentioned that the museum is the collection of a guy named Ian Grant, but I couldn’t help but wonder why someone would collect so much Gremlins stuff. So I reached out to him for an interview. Below is our exchange. [For a couple questions, I pulled answers from his FAQ to avoid making him answer them again. Those are indicated.]

Tell me a little bit about yourself apart from your collection. I know you’re based in Seattle, but what do you do there for your day job?

I was lucky enough to sell a business a few years ago and that let me do what I’ve always known I was going to do in life if a little play money showed up: find and buy a Gremlin puppet.

That first Gremlin more or less lit the fuse and I’ve been finding and buying up significant Gremlin puppets and props from all over the world for the last five or so years now. I wouldn’t say it’s my full time job, but it’s the main thing I think about every day since then, so I’ve done a lot in a short amount of time.

I’ve also worked as a photographer for the last 20+ years, so those skills tend to come in handy pretty frequently with shooting and editing new photos and designing websites.

How did Gremlins become important enough in your life to want to create a museum? [Edited from his FAQ]

One of my first memories as a child involved visiting an old 1985 electronics store, my dad buying a Betamax player (whoops), and I guess the owner of the store felt I should own the Gremlins Rub n' Play transfer set. Maybe I had just come from seeing Gremlins at a drive-in theater and just talked his ear off about Gizmo, but I remember owning that set vividly.

Fast forward a half a decade and Gremlins 2 mania was making the rounds. I was very into the Nintendo game at the time and thought the image of Mohawk being surrounded by red and gray smoke was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I don't know how many times I just stared at that box just mesmerized- there's a surprising amount going on with the Mohawk design, so there's still really no getting bored looking at it.

The last major Gremlin bullet point from my childhood came around this same period and was probably the most defining in terms of where we are now. I was riding my bicycle around my rural town, crossing paths with the local barnyard type animals and I'm sure the latest Nintendo Power with the G2 feature was on my mind. I remember brainstorming "how could I go about getting my own Gremlin puppet". Somehow that memory stuck with me, despite it being a bit of a fleeting moment in time. Fast forward to now and being surrounded by many of these puppets I adored at the time and couldn't be happier.

Do you have a favorite prop? [from the FAQ]

It's a tough call because I tend to gravitate towards actual Gremlins vs Mogwai, but for the last year my favorite prop has been the hero Mohawk mogwai. He's been well taken care of and looks like he jumped right off the movie lot. I also tend to like puppets where it's obvious it had an important job to do on the set, and the giant rig he's situated on really shows how much work went into creating the animatronic. Clearly it took real skill to operate him.

Do you collect anything besides Gremlins memorabilia?

Not really, my brain likes cohesive things, so I find it’s much easier to be really good at one thing rather than dabble in a bunch of different collections. That being said, I still really like cameras and I’m usually trying out whatever new tech is coming out.

The Gremlins stuff has also led me into things like high-res 3d scanning and printing which has become a part of our archival efforts.

Who do you think of as your audience when you write articles for your website?

Honestly, I’m writing for myself and I figure there’s at least a few people out there in the world that would like these deep dives as much as myself. I’ve been lucky enough to have access to images and paperwork that hasn’t made it out into the world much, so I love finding new material and sharing it with other like-minded people.

How often do you update your website?

Sometimes I go through waves of publishing a lot of new articles in a short amount of time, or maybe go a few months without adding much new. It really depends if props are finding their way out of the woodwork or not, and you never know when that’s going to happen.

It’s clear that you’re in touch with director Joe Dante, among others. How well have you gotten to know members of the cast and crew?

I’ve been lucky enough to have Joe and a few other key fx people like Chris Walas, Jim McPherson, Steve Wang and others in that world know who I am. It’s nice to be able to reach out to these guys with nerdy questions about how specific puppets were used or whether in Gremlins 2, a lookalike Barney the dog was intentionally put living on the street outside Billy’s apartment. I’d like to think they see me as a good caretaker of their artwork and helping to preserve their legacies and stories through my site.

Do you have a holy grail prop or memorabilia that you just haven’t been able to get your hands on yet?

I have a list in the back of my head of puppets that are still on my radar to add to the collection. Thankfully I know more or less where they are in the world, it’s just a matter of when the time is right for the sellers. Mohawk is a big one along with Daffy, though the main Daffy Gremlin was basically destroyed in restoration in recent years. I’d really love the main Phantom Gremlin along with pretty much anything from the first Gremlins which is exceedingly rare. Gizmo’s box would be a dream pickup for me.

Why do you suppose the Gremlins movies still resonate for so many people?

I think both films had a little something for everyone when they were kids, so nostalgia is a big factor. Many people saw the first Gremlins way too young due to its PG rating, so it kind of birthed a lot of horror fans whose parents thought they were seeing a cute Christmas movie. Gremlins 2 attracts a very specific type of personality I think too, so I usually get along well with big fans of the sequel.

I see no mention on your website of the Gremlins animated series. Any thoughts or feelings about it?

I haven’t really picked up any major pieces from the animated series. I thought it was a pretty solid couple seasons and hopefully the engine starting up for a new movie.

Is there any major misconception you think people fail to understand about Gremlins?

Despite the plethora of products and t-shirts depicting Stripe wearing 3d glasses, no Gremlin ever wears 3d glasses in the movie except for a scene of Gizmo reading a comic book on Billy’s bed. The idea originated from a guy named Matt Painter who made a very convincing 3d render with Stripe and the glasses in a theater, which somehow became canon and created endless products referencing the image.

You have a section on your website for a project you started with your daughter Lily when she was 10, sending Gremlins trading cards out to cast and crew for autographs. So how old is Lily now, and how old was she when she saw the movies? What does she think of all this? And if it’s not too personal a question, what does Lily’s mom think of all this?

I now have a 13 and 4 year old and they both love the movies and overall “Gremlin aura” that permeates our lives. Despite my wife’s efforts to have a calm and tranquil home, it's everywhere in our house. I think it might take a little while, but later in life they’ll appreciate how ridiculous their childhoods were because of this stuff. My oldest grew up camping out in my little museum as a kid and so I think it’s a bit of a “safe space” for both of them. It look a bit, but my four year old quickly realized I have way better toys than him.

Thank you so much, Ian!

The best way to follow Ian and his growing collection is through the Gremlins Museum website and on his frequently updated Instagram account where he shares a lot of things I haven’t seen on the website.

Gremlins 2 is such a different vibe than the original movie that it’s sometimes hard to imagine how they came up with such a crazy array of new creatures. In fact, here’s a photo of all the Gremlins in Gremlins 2:

Luckily, Key & Peele recreated the brainstorm session where the new monsters were all originally envisioned:

I’m sure that must be exactly how it went.

And that brings another newsletter to a close! If you happen to be a mogwai up late reading this after midnight, stay away from the snacks, okay?

Thanks as always for reading. See you next time!

David

P.S. The day I wrote this, I learned that poster artist Drew Struzan has died at 78. As long as you’re going down the rabbit hole mentioned above for John Alvin’s poster work (Alvin died in 2008 at just 59 years old) do yourself a favor and look at Struzan’s portfolio, too. Incredible work from both of them. For an interesting comparison, find Alvin’s poster for the Blade Runner theatrical release and Struzan’s artwork that was used for the Blade Runner DVD.