Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And this
Speaker 1: week on Weird House Cinema, we're we're obviously tackling G two.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be looking at nine nineties Grimlins to the
Speaker 1: New Batch. This is Joe Dante. Is colossal sequel to
Speaker 1: four film Gremlins, which I had assumed when we picked
Speaker 1: it was a Christmas movie, but it's not. The original
Speaker 1: Gremlins is a Christmas movie. G two might well be
Speaker 1: in June for all I know. Yeah, I was released
Speaker 1: in June. Um. But yeah, I had this false memory
Speaker 1: in my head that this too was a Christmas movie.
Speaker 1: And evidently I'm not alone. I think you sounds like
Speaker 1: you had the same thing in your brain. And I
Speaker 1: rented the Blu ray from Video Drome here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: the video store here in Atlanta, and they had it
Speaker 1: categorize with Christmas movies as well for the Holidays. So
Speaker 1: I guess this is like a collective misremembering that we're
Speaker 1: engaging in here. So it doesn't take place at Christmas,
Speaker 1: but it is a Christmas Tree of a movie, and
Speaker 1: it overfloweth with lights and uh and and shiny objects
Speaker 1: and and present spilling forth from beneath the bows. Absolutely now,
Speaker 1: I strongly remember the build up to this film's release.
Speaker 1: I would have been eleven at the time. It was
Speaker 1: said to come out in June. Gremlins to merchandise was everywhere.
Speaker 1: The film seemed just destined to satisfy everyone. The trailers
Speaker 1: just looked fun, even though I don't think i'd actually
Speaker 1: seen Grimlins one at that point, or maybe I've seen
Speaker 1: parts of it on TV or something, but I was
Speaker 1: convinced Grimlins Too was going to change the world. Of course,
Speaker 1: it didn't really change the world. The box office numbers
Speaker 1: ended up being I think disappointing. The critical reception was
Speaker 1: kind of mixed. At the time, Um, I was not
Speaker 1: aware of any of this, so I stayed strong with
Speaker 1: my desire to see Gruman's two, and when it finally
Speaker 1: became available on home video, I got to rent it,
Speaker 1: I got to watch it, and even then, at age eleven,
Speaker 1: I realized this film was a lot. Uh. Did the
Speaker 1: presence of the Hulkster have any sway with you at
Speaker 1: this time? No? No, not not at all. Oh okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: was it only later you would you would come to
Speaker 1: appreciate pro wrestling? Yeah, that would that would come later
Speaker 1: for me at the time. You know, you knew who
Speaker 1: Hulk Cogan was because a superstar um and yeah spoiler,
Speaker 1: but but Hul Coogan is in the movie. He's one
Speaker 1: of many Cano's many appearances in this film. You know,
Speaker 1: I think Gremlins Too is kind of ahead of its time.
Speaker 1: I do see that critical reception at the time was mixed.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people didn't know what to
Speaker 1: make of this movie. But I think if something like
Speaker 1: this updated a bit for more modern sensibilities came out now,
Speaker 1: I think the the reaction might be more resounding appreciation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, I don't know if if someone could
Speaker 1: pull it off as well as as Joe Dante and
Speaker 1: his his his team here did though, because this is
Speaker 1: one of those rare films that is very self aware
Speaker 1: and yet delivers like it's it knows it's goofy, it's
Speaker 1: going for goofy, it's breaking the fourth wall, it's making
Speaker 1: fun of the previous Gremlins movie. It's it's totally wild
Speaker 1: in this regard, and this is the same kind of
Speaker 1: self awareness that will that has driven many other films
Speaker 1: just straight into the ditch. As far as watchability and
Speaker 1: enjoyability goes, Yeah, I would say it's kind of the
Speaker 1: The Evil Dead two to Grimlin's Evil Dead one, except
Speaker 1: whereas the Evil Dead movies are, they're they're kind of
Speaker 1: a parlor drama that you know, they take place in
Speaker 1: a single location. They're very focused. This is a voluminous, crazy,
Speaker 1: overflowing extravaganza. Yeah. Yeah, And I think over time people
Speaker 1: have come to realize that Growin's two is something special. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely grown a cult following over time. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was that wonderful key and Peel sketch about the
Speaker 1: Hollywood sequel Doctor, which is correct and yet doesn't even
Speaker 1: doesn't even like tease half of the weirdness. And then
Speaker 1: the the oddities that pop up in this film, Like
Speaker 1: it's just the things in that sketch were in the film,
Speaker 1: it would already be insane. But that's just half the story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think I have to realize, especially after rewatching it,
Speaker 1: I have to admit that eleven year old me was
Speaker 1: absolutely right to be excited about G two and it was,
Speaker 1: and is, in fact, the greatest Grimlin movie we could
Speaker 1: possibly hope for. Well A d percent agree. I did
Speaker 1: not see Gremlins Too when I was a kid, but
Speaker 1: I did see Gremlins one. My dad and I rented it,
Speaker 1: probably from Turtles Video when I was in elementary school,
Speaker 1: and I remember it being a real mood rattler because
Speaker 1: it has that mix of cute, cut league kids stuff
Speaker 1: like Gizmo is so adorable, and then mixing that with
Speaker 1: bizarrely depressing themes and gruesome violence. But despite this mix,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I loved it at the time, and
Speaker 1: I was trying to remember the things that stuck out
Speaker 1: to me about the film, the things that really lodged
Speaker 1: in my memory. I remember, of course, Gizmo being very cute.
Speaker 1: I remember the rules, right. There's an important part early
Speaker 1: on when when a when the father character buys Gizmo
Speaker 1: from the antique shop and he has told the three
Speaker 1: rules you cannot violate. You cannot shine sunlight bright light,
Speaker 1: especially sunlight on the magua, because that will kill it.
Speaker 1: Number two is you can never get it wet, and
Speaker 1: number three is you can never feed it after midnight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these these rules are great they're real head scratcher to
Speaker 1: try and analyze the green ones to itself pokes a
Speaker 1: little fun at this and uh and many years ago
Speaker 1: I had great fun when I was writing for How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works, doing a How Stuff Works article about Gremlin's
Speaker 1: and Magua where I made a go at describing the
Speaker 1: science behind all these weird things that they do. But
Speaker 1: it it really you really have to twist yourself into
Speaker 1: a not to do that kind of thing. The other
Speaker 1: things I remember, though, Gremlins being killed by Billy's mom
Speaker 1: with kitchen appliances. I think that one gets in the blender,
Speaker 1: she turns it on. Another one gets into microwaves, she
Speaker 1: turns it on, so appliances to the rescue. I also
Speaker 1: remember the Gremlins at one point watching snow White in
Speaker 1: the movie theater, and I think Zach Gallaghan playing the
Speaker 1: main human character Billy, He's like, they're watching snow White
Speaker 1: and they love it. Uh. And I also remember a
Speaker 1: scene of Gremlin's raucously partying at a bar, and there's
Speaker 1: one shot where a Gremlin is smoking three cigarettes at
Speaker 1: the same time, which was hilarious to my little brain. Um.
Speaker 1: But then the big thing that's stuck in my head
Speaker 1: maybe more than anything else involves no Gremlins at all,
Speaker 1: not a gremlin to be seen. It was a a
Speaker 1: part of the movie where Phoebe Kates is delivering a
Speaker 1: monologue about how her father died while trying to crawl
Speaker 1: down the family's chimney dressed in a Santa Claus suit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just a real bummer of a scene, which is
Speaker 1: I think one of the big reasons that the film
Speaker 1: was so jarring and so totally inconsistent, uh is I
Speaker 1: think I grew to realize this as a kid because
Speaker 1: when you ultimately, when you're a kid, you kind of
Speaker 1: treat movies like you treat people. You take them too
Speaker 1: face value. You you don't pick and say, well, I
Speaker 1: wish this was different, I wish that was different, Like, well,
Speaker 1: this is the film. So it's a little jarring when
Speaker 1: you encounter a film like Gremlins that that is, you know,
Speaker 1: it seems to be divided about whether it's a cute
Speaker 1: film or a horror film, etcetera. And this seems just horrific.
Speaker 1: And I don't recall it really accomplishing much for the
Speaker 1: picture either. I mean, it's hard to I think it
Speaker 1: was maybe supposed to be darkly comedic, but it's hard
Speaker 1: to tell anyway that this infamous soliloquy is parodied in
Speaker 1: G two. So you've got to appreciate a sequel that
Speaker 1: directly makes fun of the original film. Like there's a
Speaker 1: part where Phoebe Kate's starts to launch into a monologue
Speaker 1: about how she has horrible associations with President's Day because
Speaker 1: there was a man dressed in an able Lincoln suit,
Speaker 1: and before she can finish it, they kind of just
Speaker 1: usher her off screen. Yeah, They're like, we don't have
Speaker 1: time for this. We've got to go to feed the Gremlins.
Speaker 1: So I wasn't really aware of Gremlins too until probably college,
Speaker 1: when a friend of mine told me we were talking
Speaker 1: about Gremlins. He was like, you ever see the second one?
Speaker 1: And I said no, and he was like, you've got
Speaker 1: to watch it because there's a scene where Hulk Hogan
Speaker 1: appears as himself talking directly into the camera, which confused
Speaker 1: me because you know, I've seen the original and that
Speaker 1: did not seem in keeping with the level of reality
Speaker 1: in which the the original movie is set. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course it's got fantasy elements, but it's a it's
Speaker 1: a film that maintains its own realism. Yeah, that I
Speaker 1: will say, and we'll get to the hull Cogan scene.
Speaker 1: The hull Cogan scene is earned. It does not feel
Speaker 1: jarring when it happens in the film. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: I can understand where just knowing this about the film
Speaker 1: could could set weird expectations for what it is. But
Speaker 1: but I'm also glad that you you again mentioned the
Speaker 1: grim Ones watching snow White in the first one, the
Speaker 1: grim One smoking and all, because I think one would
Speaker 1: be making an error in hating on G two by
Speaker 1: holding G one to some unrealistic, like serious standard that
Speaker 1: it wasn't going for either. No. Gremlins one is also
Speaker 1: supposed to be funny, but G two goes to heights
Speaker 1: unimagined by the first film. So the original Gremlins is
Speaker 1: very weird. It's kind of hard to say who it's for, Like,
Speaker 1: is this an R rated horror movie or a cute
Speaker 1: Christmas movie for kids? It's kind of both. But I
Speaker 1: think it's great. Uh And though a bit of that
Speaker 1: DNA gets passed onto the sequel, Ultimately I think G
Speaker 1: two is something different and it is the purest essence
Speaker 1: of Grimlins, because what are gremlins with a lowercase G.
Speaker 1: They are not just any movie monster. Most movie monsters
Speaker 1: are more than anything, a threat. They're scary because they
Speaker 1: endanger the lives of the characters. They're scary because they
Speaker 1: will kill. The Gremlins in these movies do participate in violence,
Speaker 1: but the violence seems kind of secondary. It's just sort
Speaker 1: of one of their tricks. The violence is one of
Speaker 1: the outcome paths of their overall mission, which I think
Speaker 1: would be better uh designated as just chaos. The Gremlins
Speaker 1: represent anarchy, disorder, the dangerous and destructive side of fun,
Speaker 1: and in both movies, but especially the second, you see
Speaker 1: the Gremlins playing mean pranks and partying and breaking things
Speaker 1: and making a mess. Yeah, that the classic Dungeons and
Speaker 1: Dragons alignment system just breaks down in the face of
Speaker 1: gremlins because they would have to be they couldn't be
Speaker 1: chaotic evil, they couldn't be like chaotic neutral. They'd have
Speaker 1: to be chaotic chaotic, which just breaks the system. But fortunately,
Speaker 1: gremlins love to break things, so I guess it works out. Yes,
Speaker 1: when it's time to party, they will party hard. They
Speaker 1: will party so hard that there's just broken glass flying
Speaker 1: all over the place. Uh. There's you know, like the
Speaker 1: rooms that they inhabit are quickly quickly come to be
Speaker 1: filled with smoke and fumes for various reasons. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this actually, in a thematically wise decision, connects to the
Speaker 1: origin of the gremlin as a broader creature. Gremlin's, unlike
Speaker 1: most mythical monsters, do not originate in the myths and
Speaker 1: folk beliefs of pre modern times. Gremlins are a twentieth
Speaker 1: century creation. They're part of the culture of aeronautics and
Speaker 1: and piloting, I believe particularly the British r A F
Speaker 1: who made reference to gremlins as these devilish little saboteurs
Speaker 1: and mischief makers who would walk around inside the engine
Speaker 1: with a big pair of scissors and cut the wires
Speaker 1: while you were in midflight for a deadly prank. Gremlins
Speaker 1: play horrible jokes, Gremlins break things, Gremlins break the rules,
Speaker 1: Gremlins make a mess, and these antics end up with
Speaker 1: people maimed or dead. In fact, Robbi attached a couple
Speaker 1: of things for you to look at here. These are, uh,
Speaker 1: these are posters from the World War Two era saying
Speaker 1: you know basically watch out for Gremlins as a metaphor
Speaker 1: for saying be careful in the workplace, because the Gremlins
Speaker 1: could push you into the saw If you're not careful,
Speaker 1: the gremlins could fling things in your eyes. If you're
Speaker 1: not careful, you got to wear the safety goggles. You
Speaker 1: gotta keep a distance from the saw blade. Don't let
Speaker 1: the grimsters get you. So seeing as they're not your
Speaker 1: average movie monster, but rather avatars of chaos that you know,
Speaker 1: just mischief and entropy, I think Gremlins deserves something different
Speaker 1: from your average monster movie, and in G two, that
Speaker 1: is exactly what they got. This movie is absolute chaos.
Speaker 1: It does not tell a conventional story with a conventional plot.
Speaker 1: It does not attempt to maintain the suspension of disbelief,
Speaker 1: like there's not um integrity of its setting as a
Speaker 1: real world within the film. Instead, G two just wants
Speaker 1: to show you things. It's a lot of hey look
Speaker 1: at this, and some of those things will be weird
Speaker 1: images like hey, here's a gremlin made out of vegetables.
Speaker 1: It's got tomatoes for cheeks, or here's a gremlin with
Speaker 1: spider legs. Sometimes those things will be bizarre scenes like
Speaker 1: the the talk show interview where the brainy gremlin explains
Speaker 1: what the Gremlins want and it turns out what they
Speaker 1: want is civilization, or the part where there's like a
Speaker 1: chorus of gremlin singing New York, New York. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: gonna be visual gags, like where the gremlin with bat
Speaker 1: wings flies through a wall and leaves a hole that
Speaker 1: is the Tim Burton Batman symbol, or just sometimes it's
Speaker 1: gonna be out of nowhere fourth wall breaking gags like
Speaker 1: when Hulk Hogan yells at us, or when we see
Speaker 1: the film critic Leonard Malton show up to give a
Speaker 1: one star review of Gremlins one only to then be
Speaker 1: murdered by Gremlins. Oh it's such a great scene. I mean,
Speaker 1: both of these scenes are great. Like the whole Cogan
Speaker 1: scene of course, is that the Gremlins have disrupted the
Speaker 1: film projector in the in the theater in which we
Speaker 1: are ideally watching the film, and then then we're sort
Speaker 1: of transported. Oh it's there are many layers to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're no, we should actually try to describe what
Speaker 1: happens there, just to give you a flavor of the
Speaker 1: Like how many walls are being broken. They break up
Speaker 1: to like the eighth wall. So you're watching the movie
Speaker 1: and then suddenly it looks as if the film you
Speaker 1: are watching that's been projected in the theater has been destroyed,
Speaker 1: like it kind of burns through, and then the screen
Speaker 1: turns white, and then you see gremlins making shadow puppets
Speaker 1: in front of the projector, and then we zoom out
Speaker 1: to see inside a theater. So I guess presumably at
Speaker 1: first you were tricked into thinking something has happened on
Speaker 1: the screen and you're in the theater, but now you're
Speaker 1: looking at a theater on the screen, and in the
Speaker 1: theater there's Hulk Coogan. Oh, there's a lady who walks
Speaker 1: out of the theater and complains to theater manager played
Speaker 1: by Paul bartell Uh saying like this movie is trash,
Speaker 1: and he's like, we don't make the movies, man, we
Speaker 1: just show them. The mom, by the way, is Belinda Blaski,
Speaker 1: who appears in a number of Joe Dante's films like
Speaker 1: The Howling Original, Gremlins and Kirana. Yeah, and then the
Speaker 1: Hulkster shows up and the Hulkster threatens the Gremlins. I
Speaker 1: think He's like, I'm gonna come up there and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna show you who's boss. And they listened, They listen,
Speaker 1: they back down. Yeah. So G two is not just
Speaker 1: a movie about gremlins. It was made by gremlins. Gremlins
Speaker 1: have taken over the script, the camera, the editing, and
Speaker 1: in that sense, I think it's almost sort of an
Speaker 1: an art film. G two is genius. It is. There's
Speaker 1: as much as I love the Kempel sketch, I've watched
Speaker 1: it so many times, and it is at one level
Speaker 1: it is correct about the vibe of the film. And
Speaker 1: I think Joe Dante and um and folks have kind
Speaker 1: of also said that they enjoy it and and and
Speaker 1: think some of it matches up with the experience. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, yes, this is not a slap
Speaker 1: dash film. This is a film that knows exactly what
Speaker 1: it is going for and it succeeds at creating that experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think the result is a very enjoyable film.
Speaker 1: It's a great film. I'll say it. G two is
Speaker 1: a great film. I think it's better than Dances with Wolves,
Speaker 1: which one the Oscar that year for Best Picture. G
Speaker 1: two should have taken best picture. Well maybe, Uh, what's
Speaker 1: the elevator pitch? On G two. The first one that
Speaker 1: came to my mind is Grimlin's Take Manhattan, and that's
Speaker 1: I think that's it. Oh if only it had an
Speaker 1: opening theme song like in Jason Takes Manhattan. What what
Speaker 1: is that monologue? The City that Never sleeps? You gotta
Speaker 1: get the fear pumping good people? All right? Well, well,
Speaker 1: in a way we'll get the fear pumping a little
Speaker 1: bit because we're about to play for you. The audio
Speaker 1: of the trailer this is like, I think, an early
Speaker 1: trailer for it, but but it's a really good one.
Speaker 1: It reminds us of the rules, and if I'm not mistaking,
Speaker 1: it has a voice over by Don Lafontaine, the voice
Speaker 1: of God. So it's a good Remember the last time
Speaker 1: we told you not to feed them after midnight, We
Speaker 1: told you to keep them away from the like and
Speaker 1: the most important warning of all, we told you to
Speaker 1: never ever get them wet. You didn't listen. You didn't listen.
Speaker 1: Here we are the new change. Where is the building on? Fine?
Speaker 1: Oh no, that's a false alarms? Are you trying to
Speaker 1: panic to York City? Absolutely so, the monsters are real.
Speaker 1: I didn't think that Gremlins too the new batch now
Speaker 1: was that civilized? No, clearly not fun, but the no
Speaker 1: sense civilized now real quick, if you've not seen Grimmins too,
Speaker 1: or you want to see it again at this point,
Speaker 1: if you need a break and go watch it, We're
Speaker 1: lucky for you. This is a major release you can
Speaker 1: you can get a copy of this and pretty much
Speaker 1: any format you desire. It's a very widely available I
Speaker 1: ended up renning it on Blu Ray from Video Drone
Speaker 1: because I forgot that it was streaming on HBO Max.
Speaker 1: So if you're an HBO Max subscriber has of this recording,
Speaker 1: you can go watch it there. That's how I saw it, though,
Speaker 1: I guess ideally you need to watch it in a
Speaker 1: theater that is about to be overtaken by Gremlin's and
Speaker 1: you need to have Hulk Cogan in the audience with you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did Hulk Cogan attend the premiere? I don't know. This
Speaker 1: was this was a film that there there was a
Speaker 1: lot to wrangle with this film. I didn't get a
Speaker 1: chance to look at the premiere photos um and I
Speaker 1: guess it's a good point to mention this as we
Speaker 1: go into some of the connections the people of note
Speaker 1: involved here. This cast is immense if you count not
Speaker 1: only the main cast, but all the cameos and the
Speaker 1: bit parts played by up and coming actors whould lay
Speaker 1: later go on to to be bigger names. There's so
Speaker 1: many people that we're gonna not have time to mention
Speaker 1: or I'm just gonna have to mention briefly. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: cast is enormous, especially including all the cameos. And even
Speaker 1: there are people who I think we're not cameos at
Speaker 1: the time, they're just who were minor actors at the
Speaker 1: time who later went on to have recognizable careers. Like
Speaker 1: when we were watching the cast scroll down the screen,
Speaker 1: I was just saying, like, what, oh, minor part played
Speaker 1: by Isaiah Whitlock who played a character on the Wire,
Speaker 1: Or like, wait, is that Dean Norris? Yeah, Dean Norris
Speaker 1: is like a SWAT team member and I didn't even
Speaker 1: recognize I didn't notice him at all. Isaiah Jr. Is
Speaker 1: a fireman and I didn't notice him at all. So yeah,
Speaker 1: their names like that just sprinkled in there. But okay,
Speaker 1: first we got to do the director. So G two
Speaker 1: and G one both Joe Dante. That's right. And I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I always had a hard
Speaker 1: time classifying Joe Dante. You could say hard lead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's not incorrect. But he's also gotten more
Speaker 1: than a dash of that Spielbergian energy as well. Um,
Speaker 1: he's also a man after my own heart. He has
Speaker 1: a great love for film trailers see his long running
Speaker 1: Trailers from Hell series. As a horror director, we can
Speaker 1: instantly look to such films as The Howling from one,
Speaker 1: which is, as I recall, a pretty stellar werewolf film.
Speaker 1: There's Piranha from eight, and then I guess you could
Speaker 1: qualify Gremlins as a horror movie again, kind of all
Speaker 1: over the place with that one. Yeah, Piranha and seventy.
Speaker 1: That makes me wonder if Joe Dante had early association
Speaker 1: with the Corman camp. They're a number of Corman connections
Speaker 1: to be made just in this film alone. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: then I can't confirm that, but I suspect it now.
Speaker 1: He also directed the segment It's a Good Life in
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone, the movie from three. Uh and yeah, on
Speaker 1: the other side of things, he did The Explorers seven's
Speaker 1: Inner Space, which I as a kid, I just haven't
Speaker 1: seen it and forever, but oh I would, I would
Speaker 1: build those little micro subs or my versions of the
Speaker 1: metal legos. Wait, is that the one where they shrink
Speaker 1: down and go inside a human body? Not just any
Speaker 1: human body. It's Martin Short, right the way with Martin
Speaker 1: Short is the human which was there was one? I
Speaker 1: think there were two different movies like that, weren't there
Speaker 1: like and one of them was the also the premise
Speaker 1: of a ride at Epcot Center? Am I wrong about
Speaker 1: the um? I'm not sure about that, okay, But yeah,
Speaker 1: Inner Space is the one where I think you had
Speaker 1: Dennis Quaid as the guy inside a little submarine and
Speaker 1: he goes into Martin Short's body and at times controls
Speaker 1: Martin Short's body and then uh yeah, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of antics ensued, but there's a lot of cool,
Speaker 1: fantastic voyage type stuff happening inside the body there. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I just looked it up. Interspace has a lot of
Speaker 1: cast overlap with G two, got Dick Miller, got Piccardo,
Speaker 1: got Henry Gibson. They're all showing up Picardo and that
Speaker 1: one plays the the like the enemy agent who gets
Speaker 1: in his own tiny submarine and Dennis Quaid and him
Speaker 1: have this battle inside of like Martin shorts stomach or something,
Speaker 1: and so Martin Shorts like, you know, physically ill while
Speaker 1: these two were bagging to the death inside of his stomach.
Speaker 1: Assid It's wonderful, nice Okay, wait, but back to Dante.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. So on top of that, there's The Burbs,
Speaker 1: Matinee all fun films, but but outside of the horror
Speaker 1: box by and large, I guess The Birds has horror elements.
Speaker 1: Though on top of that, he also did some TV work,
Speaker 1: including directing episodes of Police Squad with Leslie Nielsen. So
Speaker 1: I think if you take all of that in Green
Speaker 1: Ones Who is kind of an interesting amalgam of these
Speaker 1: apparent interests in cinematic values because, while while less totally
Speaker 1: inconsistent it, it does still manage to deliver some scares,
Speaker 1: some some goofy stuff, some creepy stuff. It definitely wears
Speaker 1: its love for genre cinema on its eve, with numerous
Speaker 1: references to various films. Uh. It tries it's its hand
Speaker 1: at some very broad parody, and above all, it's just
Speaker 1: it's fun. It focuses on the fun. Now, on the
Speaker 1: writing side of things, the original Green Ones was written
Speaker 1: by Christopher Columbus, of all people, though I believe he
Speaker 1: was like maybe the fourth person to write that script
Speaker 1: and was just the only name that retained credit Christopher Columbus,
Speaker 1: like the Home Alone guy. Yeah, okay, Yeah. This one, however,
Speaker 1: is the work of Charles S. Hass Born two, who
Speaker 1: wrote the nineteen nineteen rebel movie Over the Edge did
Speaker 1: uncredited work on the Tron screenplay, as well as nine
Speaker 1: nine Martians Go Home and Dante's Matinee. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of this movie, though, I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: because I'm not looking at the script right now, but
Speaker 1: I imagine a lot of stuff in it is just
Speaker 1: concept work more than like writing out a scene with dialogue,
Speaker 1: like oh what, we showed this here and then we
Speaker 1: transition to that, and then we had somebody just improv
Speaker 1: and and so forth. Though it would be an interesting
Speaker 1: experiment to see someone write the script for Gremlins too,
Speaker 1: as if everything in the movie is on the page. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good it's a good one for like really
Speaker 1: mean spirited screenplay writing. Uh, teachers, that would be great. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: normally we don't talk about special effects until later, but
Speaker 1: we have to mention that the special effects supervisor and
Speaker 1: co producer or credit on this is uh the legendary
Speaker 1: Rick Baker. Special effects are front and center in Gremlins Too,
Speaker 1: and they are phenomenal. Yeah. When you when you think
Speaker 1: about Rick Baker, uh, and and I recommend you do
Speaker 1: he He has a great instagram by the way, definitely
Speaker 1: worth following. Um. You know, he's directed so many monster
Speaker 1: movies and also a lot of non monster movies, and
Speaker 1: it's easy to focus on things like an American werewolf
Speaker 1: in London or video Drome, or to go in a
Speaker 1: different direction, guerrillas in the midst. But I have to
Speaker 1: say Baker and his team just absolutely knock it out
Speaker 1: of the park with Grimlins Too. You go back and
Speaker 1: you look at the original Gremlins and the creatures have character,
Speaker 1: but they're very rough around the edges. There's a very
Speaker 1: much there. There's still kind of a feeling of throw
Speaker 1: a puppet across the room kind of a thing. You know.
Speaker 1: Gremlins Too is a hugely forward in puppetry and special effects,
Speaker 1: giving us just the whole mob of convincing grimlins, each
Speaker 1: with their own character and Gizmo Gizmo himself in this
Speaker 1: is just a living creature. I mean, Gizmo alone is
Speaker 1: a master stroke in this film. He's as real as
Speaker 1: he is adorable, and he is so adorable. Every moment
Speaker 1: he's on screen, the cute could not be cranked up
Speaker 1: any higher. It's just like supernatural. I mean not it's
Speaker 1: it's like supernatural, but also super normal stimuli. The close ups,
Speaker 1: especially like anytime Gizmos on the screen, you just can't
Speaker 1: help but squirm at just how adorable he is. I
Speaker 1: had the exact same reaction. The pets in this movie
Speaker 1: are alive. You could not tell me those are not
Speaker 1: real living gremlins. Yeah, they're just they're just so good.
Speaker 1: And of course with the gremlins proper, they're so gross.
Speaker 1: There's so many gross scenes with the there's some real slime,
Speaker 1: but then also there are lots of fun, very cartooning
Speaker 1: effects and on the and on the subject of cartoons,
Speaker 1: Worth pointing out that animation legend Chuck Jones the opening
Speaker 1: and closing animation sequences for this that feature. Although the
Speaker 1: opening has bugs, Bunny and Daffy Duck in it, and
Speaker 1: at the end we have Porky Pig as well, and
Speaker 1: no gremlins the opening animation is just an unrelated bugs
Speaker 1: Bunny cartoon. Yeah, but I think that sets the tone
Speaker 1: appropriately because it's just chaos absolutely, And yeah, if if
Speaker 1: you're your intro, it's it's like they're saying, this is
Speaker 1: going to be a cartoon. Just bear that in mind
Speaker 1: as we continue. All Right, So you want to try
Speaker 1: to do some of the cast, Yeah, I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get into the very small parts. If they
Speaker 1: come up later in discussion, we'll reference them. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people I'm not going to reference.
Speaker 1: Let's just start with our main human cast, human characters
Speaker 1: who have some degree of you know, of of of
Speaker 1: of of character, and I don't know an arc if
Speaker 1: you will, but at the top we have we have
Speaker 1: billion Kate. Billy is played by Zach Gallaghan sixty four.
Speaker 1: This is our small town kid from the first movie,
Speaker 1: now living and working in the Big Apple. He's probably
Speaker 1: best known for his role in the Gremlins movies, but
Speaker 1: he was also in wax Work, It's sequel. He's in
Speaker 1: Hell Razor three Hell on Earth, which in a weird
Speaker 1: way is almost the Grimlins too of the Hell Raiser movies,
Speaker 1: but fall short of actually like pulling that off. So
Speaker 1: you can imagine the keym peel sketch style script meeting
Speaker 1: for Hell Raiser three. It's like, what about c D
Speaker 1: C D cinebyte. Um, it's in the movie. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: he's also He's also in The Warlock, the Armageddon. He's
Speaker 1: in the Strung Along episode of Tales from the Cript.
Speaker 1: This is one of at least a couple of twisted
Speaker 1: Puppeteer episodes. This is the one that starred Donald O'Connor
Speaker 1: but not. Okay, so that's Billy. But then Kate is
Speaker 1: played by Phoebe Kates born nineteen sixty three. This is
Speaker 1: Billy's girlfriend from the first movie they've She's moved to
Speaker 1: New York City with him and she also works at
Speaker 1: the same high rise building. Other films of note include
Speaker 1: N two's Fast Times at Ridgemont High eight three private School.
Speaker 1: Oh and also Drop Dead Fred, in which Rick may
Speaker 1: All plays her imaginary friend in a movie directed by
Speaker 1: Atte DeJong, who also did Highway to Hell, which week
Speaker 1: show previously. I don't think she's active as a as
Speaker 1: an actor anymore. It could be mistaken on thatible. I
Speaker 1: think she like runs a New York City boutique, and
Speaker 1: she's been married to the actor Kevin Klein since. Very
Speaker 1: very charming lead couple in both of these movies. It
Speaker 1: is hard not to like Zach and Phoebe in these roles. Absolutely. Now,
Speaker 1: we also have a character in this film by the
Speaker 1: name of Daniel Clamp played by John Glover. So first
Speaker 1: of all, let's just focus on the fact that this
Speaker 1: is the actor John Glover. Um. John Glover is an
Speaker 1: incredible character actor. He's got this this kind of this
Speaker 1: like handsome, charming, impish uh um um vibe to him. Uh.
Speaker 1: He plays the Mental Institution front desk guy and John
Speaker 1: Carpenter's in the mouth of madness. I was going to
Speaker 1: say he's kind of evil Hugh Grant, but actually I
Speaker 1: think Hugh Grant is evil John Glover. Yeah, Like, there's
Speaker 1: even as he plays. He plays a lot of villains,
Speaker 1: but he brings a certain charm to them. Um. He
Speaker 1: will not only sinister villains, but also he he especially
Speaker 1: earlier in his career, he was able to play sort
Speaker 1: of p P villains as well. I don't remember this
Speaker 1: character entirely, but he played Bruce Cummings and Scrooged. I've
Speaker 1: seen Scrooge, but I don't remember who that is. I
Speaker 1: think this is just like the foil to Bill Murray,
Speaker 1: Like this is some guy Bill Murray's character doesn't like. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I guess is kind of a that's kind of
Speaker 1: a trope character in and of itself. I think. He
Speaker 1: also played the sinister bombmaker in Revenge Filtering Payback, and
Speaker 1: he's had a lot of voice work as well. He
Speaker 1: voiced the Riddler on Batman the animated series. Oh I
Speaker 1: love Batman the MD series. We got a lot of
Speaker 1: great voice work on that. Indeed, his his TV credits
Speaker 1: are just all over the place. He's been in everything
Speaker 1: from Tales from the Crypt to Murder. She wrote, Uh,
Speaker 1: he also has Uh. He's had some interesting bit parts
Speaker 1: over the years. He plays an ex boyfriend in Annie
Speaker 1: Hall and has a weird scene in that, and he's
Speaker 1: the Magnavolt salesman and RoboCop two. RoboCop two is another
Speaker 1: movie that, in less child friendly way, has some Grimlin's
Speaker 1: to type energy. I think, so, yeah, that's another one
Speaker 1: I enjoy. Okay, but wait a minute, We've got some
Speaker 1: some stuff going on with this character because he so
Speaker 1: this is a kind of I don't know. You might
Speaker 1: say he's sort of set up as a villain of
Speaker 1: the movie but then doesn't really become one. His name
Speaker 1: is Daniel Clamp and he plays a a sort of
Speaker 1: fame hungry real estate developer in New York who owns
Speaker 1: a famous tower. Yeah. Yeah, so there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of Ted Turner to the character, and that he also
Speaker 1: runs like a cable channel network or something. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the Donald Trump parody vibes are extremely overt with this.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to ignore. However, this isn't nearly as distracting
Speaker 1: as you might think if you haven't seen this movie before,
Speaker 1: or you perhaps haven't seen it since you were a kid. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not like Donald Trump actually showing up in Home
Speaker 1: alone too. And I think part of this is that
Speaker 1: John Glover, of course, is just so good and has
Speaker 1: sort of a natural charm to him, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: do a straightforward impersonation. He's not doing an impersonation. Um,
Speaker 1: all of this real life individual. The character of Daniel
Speaker 1: Clamp goes off and kind of has its own dimensions. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's greedy, he's obsessed with his own image, but
Speaker 1: he's not the outright villain of the picture, and based
Speaker 1: on a couple of different interviews I read one from
Speaker 1: from Oh and there was also a Fresh Air with
Speaker 1: Terry Gross interview with Glover where he talks about green
Speaker 1: ones too. Based on all of this, it seems like
Speaker 1: maybe he was going to be more of a villain
Speaker 1: at some point in the development of the script, but
Speaker 1: they pulled back on it for a few different reasons,
Speaker 1: and so the final product feels distinct and a little
Speaker 1: like it's definitely a parody of Trump, but it's not Trump,
Speaker 1: and therefore I didn't find it nearly as distracting as
Speaker 1: I kind of expected it to, you know, like it
Speaker 1: doesn't force me to think about politics all that much
Speaker 1: whilst watching a Gremlins movie. Yeah, it's also so it's
Speaker 1: clearly the character is based on Donald Trump in terms
Speaker 1: of situation, like he is a fame hungry uh Manhattan
Speaker 1: real estate developer who owns the the high rise tower
Speaker 1: where the movie is set, and yet it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be strongly based on Trump's real personality, and the
Speaker 1: way Glover plays it is an interesting choice. You can
Speaker 1: almost feel the actor's role in diverting the character from
Speaker 1: its original trajectory because of how much fun he's obviously
Speaker 1: having with it. I think like elements of that raw,
Speaker 1: ravenous greed and the you know, the narcissistic nastiness still
Speaker 1: peek through, but Glover has transformed the character into something
Speaker 1: very different, like more of an exuberant, oblivious man child
Speaker 1: who is just so excited about being a billionaire and
Speaker 1: he's thrilled at all the fun stuff that he gets
Speaker 1: to do because he's a billionaire. I think the original,
Speaker 1: more strictly trump like, more overtly villainous version of this
Speaker 1: character would have worked, but it also would have been
Speaker 1: more familiar, more like the like, you know, like the
Speaker 1: villains we see in RoboCop and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: movies from the period, which are great, by the way.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love Dick Jones, I love all the
Speaker 1: o CP suits in RoboCop. But Glover's Daniel Clamp becomes
Speaker 1: something different, kind of fresher and weirder. He plays this
Speaker 1: character like a simple minded man who is surprised to
Speaker 1: find himself so rich and powerful and famous and just
Speaker 1: jazzed about it every day. Yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: that sums it up. So it's a fun performance. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of screen time. Uh and uh and and
Speaker 1: and and hangs around longer than you'd think, Like in
Speaker 1: another version of grim Win's Too, he would have been
Speaker 1: eaten by Grimwin about halfway through or something, or you know,
Speaker 1: launched out of a cannon or something. But that that
Speaker 1: that's not how it goes down. All right, Let's see
Speaker 1: other who other other actors of note here are? These
Speaker 1: are kind of supporting characters. I'll try and move more
Speaker 1: quickly through these. Uh. We have a character and Grandpa
Speaker 1: Fred who pops up and honestly, up until this week,
Speaker 1: I thought this was actually Grandpa Monster a k or
Speaker 1: real name al Lewis, because that's essentially what the character is.
Speaker 1: It's Grandpa Monster. He's a late night horror TV host.
Speaker 1: But it's not al Lewis. It's Robert Prosky, who lived
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, known for such films as Michael
Speaker 1: Mann's Thief as well as Michael Man's To Keep eighty seven.
Speaker 1: Broadcast News missed out Mrs Doubt Fire and Dead Man Walking.
Speaker 1: It took me a minute to uh figure out where
Speaker 1: I recognized him most from, and I realized it was
Speaker 1: from the the fantasy action film The Last Action Hero,
Speaker 1: where Robert Prosky plays the film projectionist who gives the
Speaker 1: kid in the movie the magic movie ticket that allows
Speaker 1: him to enter the world of films. Okay, alright, let's
Speaker 1: see another character. Okay, this This character is basically clamps
Speaker 1: right hand man. He's kind of like fixer and facilities manager.
Speaker 1: It's the character Forster, played by Robert Picardo born nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three, a frequent Dante cast casting choice. UM. A
Speaker 1: lot of TV viewers are probably familiar with him from
Speaker 1: such shows as or at least older TV viewers from
Speaker 1: The Wonder Years, China Beach Star, Trek Voyager, and UH
Speaker 1: and also Stargate. But he was also in the films
Speaker 1: The Howling Uh. He was in the Seven Gromlins movie,
Speaker 1: Munchie's eighty Seven's Inner Space. Oh, he's Johnny cab in
Speaker 1: total recall. I didn't realize that was him. I didn't either,
Speaker 1: but he's credited as being the voice and the inspiration
Speaker 1: for the likeness. Now I can hear it. As soon
Speaker 1: as you said that the door opened, you got in.
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize this either, But in Ridley Scott's
Speaker 1: five film Legend, UH, he plays Meg muckle Bones. Huh. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have recognized him there either. No, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't recognize anybody under it. You could put anybody
Speaker 1: in the nickmuchle Bones makeup and they would be unrecognizable.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he's been in a ton of stuff. He
Speaker 1: was also in the sixteens Hail Caesar from the Cohen Brothers. Okay,
Speaker 1: in terms of villainous actors, though, we of course have
Speaker 1: to point out that Christopher Lee is in this. Oh,
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee is great in this. He plays a character
Speaker 1: named doctor Cushing Catheter. Yeah, Dr Catheter? Uh? And I
Speaker 1: think also obviously the first name is a is a
Speaker 1: Peter Cushing reference? Oh oh, of course it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that one flew right past me. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: he plays the head of the uh, the genetic manipulation
Speaker 1: lab that is renting office space in the clamp Tower
Speaker 1: or whatever it's called here. And yeah, he seems like
Speaker 1: he's having a really good time hamming it up. Is
Speaker 1: this um? This essentially a mad scientist? And it was
Speaker 1: it was fun watching with my I watched the this
Speaker 1: with my son, and when Christopher Lee showed up, he
Speaker 1: was like Hey, it's Duku, and indeed it is Duku.
Speaker 1: I love how when we very first meet him, he's
Speaker 1: going through packages he received in the mail, hoping their
Speaker 1: various kinds of disease samples. He's like, I want anthrax
Speaker 1: and they give me the flu all right? Another bit
Speaker 1: bit roll. This is a character that shows up seeming
Speaker 1: more like an extra but has like a slightly bigger role.
Speaker 1: Is that progresses? We have a Getty Watton Abby playing
Speaker 1: um a character that I believe is credited as Mr Katsuji.
Speaker 1: But essentially what we have here is is he plays
Speaker 1: a stereotype of an Asian tourist, a man that we
Speaker 1: see going around with a whole bunch of cameras, just
Speaker 1: taking photographs NonStop and eventually gets roped into filming for
Speaker 1: the Grandpa character or our horror host character. And I
Speaker 1: guess there is a fun scene there where he says
Speaker 1: he says, hey, do you know how to work a camera?
Speaker 1: And he says, I am a camera and uh, and
Speaker 1: then they go off. I don't know why people thought
Speaker 1: this was so funny. There are so many movies from
Speaker 1: the eighties that have the stereotype of the Japanese tourist
Speaker 1: who won't stop taking pictures of everything. Uh It's it's
Speaker 1: really annoying cliche. But at the same Getty watching Abbe
Speaker 1: is an immensely likable guy, despite the fact that he's
Speaker 1: unfortunately cast in these stereotypical roles throughout the eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he he's still acting today in his roles
Speaker 1: have certainly matured a whole lot, But um, yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: This particular role is reminiscent of some of the offensively
Speaker 1: stereotypical roles that that he played during the nineties, most
Speaker 1: notably his role in Sixteen Candles. But he also he
Speaker 1: pops up in other films, like he's in the otherwise
Speaker 1: stylish but also problematic in otherwise Grace Jones film vamp Um.
Speaker 1: He has this this very stereotypical and offensive character in
Speaker 1: that as well. He was also in the weird al
Speaker 1: movie u U HF. But I yeah, don't really remember
Speaker 1: who he played in that. I do not remember either,
Speaker 1: but uh F also a very chaotic fun movie. Now,
Speaker 1: another character that returns from the previous Green Ones film,
Speaker 1: at least in a very small role at the beginning,
Speaker 1: is the character of Mr Wing, played by Key Luke
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen o four through. Oh he's come up
Speaker 1: on the show before. Yeah, yeah, he uh. He was
Speaker 1: a Chinese American actor who was in a ton of
Speaker 1: films from the classic era, including Mad Love in Nive.
Speaker 1: So if you go back to our Mad Love episode,
Speaker 1: uh we we referenced him on that because he plays
Speaker 1: this kind of a background character. But he plays this
Speaker 1: character doctor Wong. Now. Naturally, given the time during which
Speaker 1: he was active, many of his roles also um uh
Speaker 1: conformed to Chinese stereotypes and stereotypes of Chinese Americans at
Speaker 1: the time, but you know, still a rather groundbreaking figure
Speaker 1: and a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. I
Speaker 1: think I read something about how in the Gremlins movies,
Speaker 1: so he's supposed to play an old man who runs
Speaker 1: this curiosity shop that sells the maguay to um to
Speaker 1: howit Axton or howit Acton or Ashton are whatever, the
Speaker 1: father figure in the first movie, and uh, I think
Speaker 1: what I read was that he uh is supposed to
Speaker 1: be an old man and despite actually being quite old
Speaker 1: when they filmed the movie, they had to put him
Speaker 1: in makeup to make him look older because he just
Speaker 1: looked too youthful when he got old. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: howit Axton was no spring chicken, a key Luke really
Speaker 1: took care of himself and he's eating right. He's he's
Speaker 1: living with a Maguay. I mean, that's the character that
Speaker 1: Maguay I would imagine, as long as it doesn't get
Speaker 1: wet and make the transition. Magua really adds earest to
Speaker 1: your life. If you you gotta have a good good well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well that's this is a big question
Speaker 1: regarding Gizmo, because Gizmo is good. Gizmo is a little
Speaker 1: too curious for his own good. Give this whole. Everything
Speaker 1: that happens in G two could have been avoided. Gizmo
Speaker 1: could have just remained in a drawer for two hours.
Speaker 1: But but still, he's very likable. He has a great demeanor,
Speaker 1: but the instant he reproduces via water splash, all of
Speaker 1: his offspring are chaotic and or nasty. So one wonders
Speaker 1: is like, is this like the sign of a of
Speaker 1: a mature magua that has been able to devote his
Speaker 1: life or its life to um. You know that the
Speaker 1: pursuit of um, of of of order and calmness and
Speaker 1: quiet life of recollection and reflection or uh, is this
Speaker 1: just an anomaly? Now, why is Gizmo unlike the others?
Speaker 1: That's a great question. Yeah, film will not answer that question. No,
Speaker 1: maybe we should talk about how exactly it works in
Speaker 1: case you've never seen either of these movies. So the
Speaker 1: gremlin progression is, giz Mo is the original gremlin. Gizmo is.
Speaker 1: He's a creature called a magua. He's a fuzzy, cute, adorable,
Speaker 1: good natured little critter. He's got, you know, just the
Speaker 1: adorable eyes and and he's great. But if you get
Speaker 1: him wet, things pop off of his back and they
Speaker 1: shoot all over the place, and they turn into also
Speaker 1: still fuzzy, but mean spirited little creatures. And then if
Speaker 1: the fuzzy but mean spirited little creatures eat after midnight,
Speaker 1: then they turn into green, scaly, slimy, murderous creatures. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a question that might arise as well? What if?
Speaker 1: What what would happen if Gizmo were to eat after midnight?
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. Gizmo would never eat after midnight.
Speaker 1: Gizmo is a good boy. He would never do that.
Speaker 1: And I don't know that we would want to explore
Speaker 1: what would happen if in a film. If he did.
Speaker 1: But if he did, would he be a good gremlin?
Speaker 1: It seems like maybe he would. Maybe it would turn
Speaker 1: him into like a beefed up good gremlin, so he
Speaker 1: could be like the scaly, big, brawny gremlin who can
Speaker 1: fight the other scaly gremlins because he's on the side
Speaker 1: of good. I would allow it in a picture, so
Speaker 1: long as he got to change back into cute mahuai
Speaker 1: gizmo at the end. You can't have Gizmo permanently changing
Speaker 1: into a scaly kremlin. That's just not good for business. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're barely into the cast because we've got to pick
Speaker 1: up the pace somehow. Okay, all right. We have a
Speaker 1: character named Marla Bloodstone played by Havilyn Morris Bore nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, an ambitious, chain smoking, scarlet haired workplace vixen
Speaker 1: um a really fun, over the top character. Uh. This
Speaker 1: actor played Caroline in Sixteen Candles. She was also in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eight seven Madonna vehicle Who's that girl? Who
Speaker 1: was that girl? Well? It was Madonna? Uh. And then
Speaker 1: a whole lot of TV work over the years, including
Speaker 1: one episode of Tales from the Dark side. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: an extremely over the top performance, but in Grimlin's who
Speaker 1: it works perfectly. She plays uh, she plays Zach Galigan's
Speaker 1: boss who is sexually harass him, and she's great in
Speaker 1: in this role, and she Uh. There's one really great
Speaker 1: moment at the end where uh, they're all like putting
Speaker 1: it together a plan to defeat the Gremlins, and they're
Speaker 1: giving tasks to different people and I think they say
Speaker 1: to uh, to Hevilyn Morris, they're just like, you smoke cigarettes,
Speaker 1: and she goes, okay, got it. Now. This already sounds
Speaker 1: like enough human characters for a movie that's mostly about Gremlins.
Speaker 1: But no, the Futterman's are coming to town as well.
Speaker 1: They're from the first movie. I don't remember them at all.
Speaker 1: I had to um, I had to be reminded. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Dick Miller plays Murray Futterman and Jackie Joseph plays Sheilia Futterman,
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, they're here to visit our main characters.
Speaker 1: They just kind of seem to show up unannounced, right
Speaker 1: in the midst of all this Grimlin mischief. How many
Speaker 1: movies have we talked about that had Dick Miller in them?
Speaker 1: I can definitely think of two both Korman associated. He
Speaker 1: was in Chopping Mall as the janitor, and he was
Speaker 1: the vacuum salesman in Not of This Earth. He was
Speaker 1: in the Tales from the Crypto movie as well. Um
Speaker 1: uh the Good One, um uh. Demon Night. He was
Speaker 1: in Demon Night. Oh that's right. Yeah. Dick Miller one
Speaker 1: of our favorite character actors. He he livens up everything
Speaker 1: he appears, and even he's one of those actors I
Speaker 1: think you give him a bit part where all he's
Speaker 1: supposed to do is, you know, be a janitor and say, like,
Speaker 1: I gotta clean these floors. I hate my job, and
Speaker 1: he just he breathes life into that grumpy role. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's pretty much what he did in Shopping Mall. Right,
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but um yeah, in in this he's fun.
Speaker 1: He gets to beat up on some gremlin's. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's Dick Miller is always always great on the screen.
Speaker 1: Oh but Jackie Joseph, who plays his wife in this
Speaker 1: born three. She was a regular on The Doors Today
Speaker 1: Show in the early seventies, and she was in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties The Little Shop of Horrors. All Right, just a
Speaker 1: couple more before we we move out of the humans here.
Speaker 1: But we also have a pair of identical twins, Don
Speaker 1: and Dan and Stanton playing Martin and Lewis. Uh. They
Speaker 1: were both born in nineteen fifty two. Obviously identical twin
Speaker 1: actors who play these It's like a Tweedledumb and Tweedled
Speaker 1: sort of thing, except they're scientists working for Dr Catheter. Uh.
Speaker 1: These guys were never in a ton of stuff, but
Speaker 1: they have a memorable scene in Terminator two. Oh. They
Speaker 1: played the cop who gets I spiked by the T
Speaker 1: one thousand and the mental institution. Remember that he one thousand.
Speaker 1: I guess he morphs up out of the floor and
Speaker 1: becomes one of them and then spikes the other one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a scene where I never looked into it. Always
Speaker 1: thought it was just special effects magic. Turns out it
Speaker 1: was twin magic. Hiring twins probably cheaper than than doing
Speaker 1: special effects. Yeah. Oh, now this one's borderline cameo or
Speaker 1: small part. But Julius Sweeney plays Peggy, the receptionists for
Speaker 1: Dr Catheter. Born nineteen fifty nine, American actoring comedian, probably
Speaker 1: best known for her stint on Saturday Night Live. From
Speaker 1: the joke being that Dr catheter's receiving all these diseases
Speaker 1: in the male and she's sitting there at the reception
Speaker 1: desk like constantly sneezing and coughing, and at one point
Speaker 1: he's like, may I have the tissue? Yes? All right?
Speaker 1: So there are more humans. We may reference more humans,
Speaker 1: but those are some of the main ones. Real quick
Speaker 1: voice acting for for Gremlins and Maguai. Gizmo is voiced
Speaker 1: by Howie Mandel. Okay, Howie Mandel born. This may be
Speaker 1: Howie Mandel's finest work. And it's it's it's perfect, Like
Speaker 1: the voice is just perfect. There's you know, Gizmo doesn't
Speaker 1: say much, but what he does say totally resonates and
Speaker 1: feels cute. Um Mandel, of course, the Kadian Canadian American
Speaker 1: actor and comedian. He played a sea monkey Dad on
Speaker 1: The Amazing Life Live Sea Monkeys from and with the creator,
Speaker 1: producer and lead voice actor on the cartoon Bobby's World
Speaker 1: from Now. One thing this movie has that the previous
Speaker 1: movie does not have. There are a lot of things
Speaker 1: like that, but one really notable one is a talking
Speaker 1: full grim lefied emlin. Yeah, a gremlin that injects itself
Speaker 1: with brain serum, like super smart serum that's you know,
Speaker 1: very clearly labeled from the the the genetic splicing lab
Speaker 1: that dr catheter handles. And yeah, once he once this,
Speaker 1: this serum takes effect. Well, now he can talk. He's
Speaker 1: very intellectual. And of course he wears like a tweet jacket,
Speaker 1: puts some some spectacles and smokes a pipe. And his voice,
Speaker 1: as far as I could tell, is supposed to be
Speaker 1: a posh Australian accent. I was a little confused there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of hard to nail down, but it is.
Speaker 1: He was voiced by Tony Randall, who lived through two
Speaker 1: thousand and four, legendary American actor, probably best known for
Speaker 1: his role as Felix Younger in the television adaptation of
Speaker 1: the play The Odd Couple by Neil Simon. But this
Speaker 1: is a guy that acted in film on TV on Broadway. Uh,
Speaker 1: and here he is in G two. Now you'd be
Speaker 1: shocked if Frank Welker didn't show up. Yeah, Frank Welker
Speaker 1: of course shows up. He's the voice of Moahawk, Mohawk Grim.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure which Grimlin. This was the grim one
Speaker 1: that kind of looks like the Grim one, the bad,
Speaker 1: super bad grim one from the first movie. But I
Speaker 1: don't remember what happens to this one. If he's the one,
Speaker 1: is this the one that winds up in the paper
Speaker 1: Spider Oh? I was thinking maybe this is the Spider one,
Speaker 1: but maybe he's the shred Er one. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it could be it becomes Yeah, it's easy to lose
Speaker 1: track of the pre mutation gremlins, and not all the
Speaker 1: grim Wins mute. There's one that just starts smoking a
Speaker 1: cigar and that's his thing for the rest of the picture.
Speaker 1: There's another one that gets his face burnt by acid.
Speaker 1: Acid that's clearly labeled do not throw in face. One
Speaker 1: of the other grim ones throws the acid in his face,
Speaker 1: and then he grabs the Phantom of the Art Opera
Speaker 1: mask and starts running around as the Phantom of the Opera.
Speaker 1: He plays the organ. So not an actual um you know,
Speaker 1: genetic mutation. But the grim Ones in this movie are
Speaker 1: quick to latch onto an identity. Alright, So there are
Speaker 1: a lot of cameos. Don't know, do you want to
Speaker 1: mention any of these these cameos that you were particularly
Speaker 1: taken with? Joint us way and see if they come
Speaker 1: up organically. Let's see. Oh well, I did have a
Speaker 1: note on Henry Gibson, which I thought was a funny choice. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Henry Gibson pops up as an employee who's fired for
Speaker 1: smoking via like um security camera. Yeah. I think this
Speaker 1: is to show off the tower where the movie takes place,
Speaker 1: their surveillance and Henry Gibson is taking a smoke break
Speaker 1: and they like zoom in on his face and they're like,
Speaker 1: employee number five seven, five whatever, you are fired for
Speaker 1: taking a break. And this is Henry Gibson, who did
Speaker 1: many things. Most notable to me is that he appears
Speaker 1: in Robert Altman's excellent ambient drama Nashville from playing Haven
Speaker 1: Hamilton's sort of the old guard of the Nashville country
Speaker 1: music machine, wearing a newdy suit. There's a great scene
Speaker 1: where he's recording a patriotic song about America for the
Speaker 1: bi centennial that has the chorus, we must be doing
Speaker 1: something right to last two hundred years. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I've never actually seen Nashville. Um, I'm familiar with it
Speaker 1: for it's you know, it's a legendary picture. For it's
Speaker 1: it's music and it's approached to music and all but
Speaker 1: great cast. I probably knew Henry Gibson best from Joe
Speaker 1: Dante's filmed Bourbs, in which he's one of Tom Hanks's
Speaker 1: many weird neighbors, which also include one of the other
Speaker 1: weird neighbors in that film is Brother Theodore. M What
Speaker 1: was the movie we saw with Brother Theodore? It was
Speaker 1: like Preaching on the Street or something. That was the
Speaker 1: film starring Warhawk Tanzania. Oh yes, the speech about how
Speaker 1: God is dead and the rats are screaming. Yes, yes, uh,
Speaker 1: Devil's Devil's Express. Yeah, yeah, for nineteen seventy six starring
Speaker 1: Warhawk Tanzania. You know, just your average New York martial
Speaker 1: arts picture about a demon from across the ocean that
Speaker 1: takes up in the New York City subway system. Okay,
Speaker 1: do we have to throw in the towel on cameos though,
Speaker 1: because we did mentioning a lot. Yeah, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of great ones. If they come up later in
Speaker 1: the discussion organically, I'll reference them. Otherwise, right in with
Speaker 1: your favorite and maybe we can talk about it on
Speaker 1: listener mail. Okay, So as far as plot breakdown goes,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say Grimlins too, is actually uh somewhat light
Speaker 1: on plot, which is to say, the action of the
Speaker 1: film is not tightly logical. It is more a movie
Speaker 1: about creating situations or premises and then exploiting those for
Speaker 1: just lots of random bits of spectacle and gags. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a variety show. So what are those premises? Well,
Speaker 1: I'd say mainly it is a parody of modern city
Speaker 1: life as seen in nine, especially business culture, technology, media,
Speaker 1: and capitalism. And this is all wrapped up into one
Speaker 1: very convenient setting, the clamp Premier Regency, trade Center and
Speaker 1: retail concourse, a sort of cross between Trump Tower, the
Speaker 1: CNN Center, the Starship Enterprise, and the building from Chopping Mall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is kind of a chopping chopping mall, uh shopping
Speaker 1: mall kind of a vibe to it. So it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be this computerized marvel full of high tech upgrades,
Speaker 1: such as automatic revolving doors, which are a miracle of efficiency,
Speaker 1: as a voiceover informs us while we watch people getting
Speaker 1: stuck in them and not like unable to get out.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's a joke recurring throughout the movie that
Speaker 1: nobody can get through the automatic revolving doors and they
Speaker 1: have to just go around to the other doors. Even
Speaker 1: the SWAT team can't figure it out when they show
Speaker 1: up at the end of the picture. Yeah, and also
Speaker 1: every inch of the building is under surveillance with cameras
Speaker 1: and computers that have sensors on everything. But it's also
Speaker 1: the site of many horrible businesses, including the soulless real
Speaker 1: estate development firm where Billy works. At the beginning of
Speaker 1: the movie, he's I think supposed to be some kind
Speaker 1: of illustrator or designer, and this is Daniel Clamp's personal business.
Speaker 1: It's the business that he's going to use to, you know,
Speaker 1: destroy historic landmarks and replace them with god awful monstrosities.
Speaker 1: But the tower also includes television studios for airing things like,
Speaker 1: of course there's news, but there's like a cooking show
Speaker 1: that primarily uses the microwave, and an Elvira style hosted
Speaker 1: horror rerun program as you mentioned earlier, the one that
Speaker 1: Grandpa Fred is doing dressed as Grandpa Monster. But of
Speaker 1: course Grandpa Fred complains that he can't show the classic
Speaker 1: Monster movies he wants to show because Mr Clamp, who
Speaker 1: owns the network, does not like anything in black and
Speaker 1: white only color films. There's a there's a fun that
Speaker 1: a voice over in the background, like the p A
Speaker 1: system announcing how they're going to be showing Casablanca on
Speaker 1: the network now in full beautiful color. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: of course there is the genetics lab run by Christopher
Speaker 1: Lee as Dr Cushing Catheter. I think it's called Splice
Speaker 1: of Life, and it specializes in unholy, unethical experiment ends
Speaker 1: along with the Stanton Twins. They're uh like when we
Speaker 1: first go in, of course, Christopher Lee is receiving all
Speaker 1: his germs in the mail, and then we just see
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff going on there, like walking a
Speaker 1: cow around the room with that like a mind control
Speaker 1: helmet on and it's saying, I like giving milk yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then there is a frozen yogurt restaurant, which seems
Speaker 1: unremarkable to me, but I think this is supposed to
Speaker 1: be something the filmmakers thought was ridiculous and funny. Okay,
Speaker 1: But anyway, you got that whole situation. The gremlins are
Speaker 1: unleashed upon this situation, and what follows is a lot
Speaker 1: of disconnected, chaotic set pieces. But in the set up
Speaker 1: to that plot, let's see, we got a few things
Speaker 1: that that happened to sort of let us know what's
Speaker 1: going on. For one of the first things is that
Speaker 1: Robert Piccardo, as Daniel Clamp's fix Her, visits the Curiosity Shop,
Speaker 1: the antique store from the first movie, and meets Key
Speaker 1: Luke and he's like, hey, you know I'm here at
Speaker 1: your shop. I'm representing Daniel Clamp. He wants you to
Speaker 1: sell your business so that we can tear it down
Speaker 1: and replace all of the historic, uh you know, businesses
Speaker 1: and everything in Chinatown with this monstrosity, this big, ugly
Speaker 1: building that's going to reach to the clouds. And Key
Speaker 1: Luke is not interested, but he seems to be a
Speaker 1: sick old man, and Robert Picardo's just like, we just
Speaker 1: have to wait him out. He'll die soon. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we see Gizmo watching Rambo on TV. Yeah, because they
Speaker 1: leave the tell the television said that that Clamp uses
Speaker 1: to send his message and make his offer, and then
Speaker 1: they're just like, you can keep the TV. And so
Speaker 1: Gizmo like reaches out of his little cage and he
Speaker 1: gets the remote and it's one of the It's the
Speaker 1: first of many adorable moments of Gizmo. Yeah, he's watching, Uh,
Speaker 1: Sylvester Stallone being like to to win a war, you've
Speaker 1: got to become war, and later Gizmo will become war. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so unfortunately, the the old man eventually dies and
Speaker 1: then we see a very sad, lonely Gizmo and then
Speaker 1: the building is destroyed. There's like a wrecking ball knocking
Speaker 1: it up. So as the antique shop is knocked down,
Speaker 1: Gizmo escapes, only to be captured in the alley by
Speaker 1: one of the Stanton twins, the weird Ginger twins who
Speaker 1: work in the genetics lab. M. Then of course we
Speaker 1: meet Zack Gallaghan and Phoebe Kate's reprising the roles from
Speaker 1: the first film. As we said as Billy and Kate,
Speaker 1: they're living in the city now they're working in the
Speaker 1: Clamp Tower. Uh we get that for I laughed out
Speaker 1: loud of the first time we saw the revolving door
Speaker 1: not working, while the with the voiceover is telling us
Speaker 1: what a miracle of efficiency it is and um. And
Speaker 1: it turns out so that Zach Gallaghan is working for
Speaker 1: this real estate development business owned by Daniel Clamp, the
Speaker 1: one that's demolishing Chinatown. His boss again, his Marla Bloodstone.
Speaker 1: Make of that what you will. By the way, with
Speaker 1: the name, I think with Bloodstone, they're like going for
Speaker 1: can't get blood from a stone with Marla. The the
Speaker 1: film creators claimed that the name is a complete coin.
Speaker 1: It ends it was before there was public knowledge of
Speaker 1: of Marla Maples that they say that that's just yeah,
Speaker 1: just just serendipity. Yeah. I didn't know anything about the
Speaker 1: Marlon Maples thing. I still don't actually know what all
Speaker 1: this is about, but but I did see it referenced
Speaker 1: in that. I think that Terry Gross interview with with
Speaker 1: Glover where he was like, oh yeah, yeah, we we
Speaker 1: didn't know about any of that when we made this.
Speaker 1: It's just coincidence. Well anyway, she's like, you know, smoking
Speaker 1: cigarettes in the office. There's there's a great part where,
Speaker 1: uh we see that Billy has been drawing, and I
Speaker 1: think Robert Piccardo comes through to be like offended that
Speaker 1: Billy has been drawing, and he's like, how dare you,
Speaker 1: uh you know, muddy up this office with your with
Speaker 1: your art. We have paid millions of dollars to have
Speaker 1: legitimate art displayed on the walls. And he points to
Speaker 1: some kind of stupid looking abstract painting. Yeah. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: also he's offended that he has a potted plant. Yes, no,
Speaker 1: you can't. This is an infestation, which of course is
Speaker 1: a nice uh, nice allusion to what's coming ahead. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's gonna be a real infestation occurring later in
Speaker 1: the picture. Yeah, So Billy's working up there. Meanwhile, Kate
Speaker 1: is working as a tour guide for the Clamp building,
Speaker 1: which looks like a horrible job. She leads tours around,
Speaker 1: uh and have to go like haulking copies of the
Speaker 1: art of the Clamp and it's, uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: you feel for Kate. It's she has to wear this
Speaker 1: really stupid looking hat. So the setup of the film
Speaker 1: is that the Stanton twins bring Gizmo into the lab
Speaker 1: of Dr. Cushing Catheter and portrayed by Christopher Lee, and
Speaker 1: they're studying the fact that he can dance to rock
Speaker 1: and roll music. Oh, it's such a great secret. I
Speaker 1: watched this scene twice. It was so it's so cute,
Speaker 1: it's adorable. Like there's so much going on here because
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee's character is sort of scowling at the whole affair. Uh,
Speaker 1: Gizmo comes out and begins to dance, and his dance
Speaker 1: is very cute. It's and it's a special effect showcase
Speaker 1: because it looks totally believable. Meanwhile, the Stanton twins they're
Speaker 1: also dancing a little bit in the background, so much fun.
Speaker 1: You know, they're rocking and sync with each other. Uh
Speaker 1: in a in an almost uncanny way, I would say,
Speaker 1: with them, but uh yeah. We also learned about a
Speaker 1: bunch of their other experiments, like the this lab is
Speaker 1: just creating kind of DNA juices of various flavors, like
Speaker 1: here's a DNA juice that will turn a rat into
Speaker 1: a battery, so you can power in a light bulb
Speaker 1: by touching it to the rat. And oh no, will
Speaker 1: I will a gremlin drink that later and become electricity gremlin?
Speaker 1: I wonder electricity gremlin who becomes Who's more of an
Speaker 1: important part of this film than you could possibly imagine? Yes, uh,
Speaker 1: and many other things like that. There's just various animals
Speaker 1: in cages, assuming we're getting juice out of them to
Speaker 1: create DNA juice that would turn whatever drinks it into
Speaker 1: a bat or into vegetables or whatever. Um. So eventually
Speaker 1: Billy becomes aware that Gizmo is in the building because
Speaker 1: he hears a delivery man singing Gizmo's distinctive little song.
Speaker 1: He's like, where did you hear that? And it's you know,
Speaker 1: down in the lab. So Billy sneaks down to rescue Gizmo.
Speaker 1: He takes him, he hides him in his office file cabinet,
Speaker 1: and there's very like comedic high tension scene where Daniel
Speaker 1: clamp comes for an office visit and he's like, what
Speaker 1: does your drawer keep popping open? And babbling in a
Speaker 1: cute little voice. Uh, So Gizmo is almost discovered but not.
Speaker 1: But Billy cannot take Gizmo home because his boss, Marla Bloodstone,
Speaker 1: insists that he go out to dinner with her. To
Speaker 1: one of my favorite set pieces in the whole movie,
Speaker 1: they go to a Canadian Mountie themed restaurant. This was
Speaker 1: I found this especially funny because, um, when my family
Speaker 1: went to Epcot in the last year, so they have
Speaker 1: a Canadian themed restaurant there, like it's Canadian state restaurant
Speaker 1: you can go to and they actually have some some
Speaker 1: some nice vegetarian and vegan options there by the way,
Speaker 1: But but it is totally. It's like Canadian themed. It's
Speaker 1: not like the first thing I would think of, like
Speaker 1: a restaurant experience I want to have. But it was
Speaker 1: really nice. But there were no Mounties. There were no
Speaker 1: like all the the the the decorating elements in this
Speaker 1: scene are just amazing and it pitched perfect, like a
Speaker 1: giant moose head, those big ridiculous mugs they have, and
Speaker 1: no offense to Canada. In fact, I'm a pretty big
Speaker 1: fan of Canada. I don't I don't usually think of
Speaker 1: them being known for their cuisine. Oh you've got the poutine,
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, yeah, and Molson. They're drinking Moulson. That's right,
Speaker 1: you want another Moulson? Yeah? Uh but yeah, So the
Speaker 1: Mountie themed restaurant is great. Billy sends Kate back to
Speaker 1: pick up Gizmo, but oh, before she can get there,
Speaker 1: one of the rules gets broken. You gotta break the
Speaker 1: rules for the movie to get cranking. A maintenance man
Speaker 1: comes along. He tries to repair a water fountain and
Speaker 1: it accidentally square some water on Gizmo, So Gizmos starts
Speaker 1: popping off. Here come the the fuzzy bad guys popping
Speaker 1: out of his back and how were they ever going
Speaker 1: to eat after midnight and turned into green, slimy, spiky boys.
Speaker 1: Well they're in clamp tower. There is plenty of food
Speaker 1: to be found. That's John Aston, by the way, the
Speaker 1: original um Um Gomez from The Adams Family as the
Speaker 1: maintenance guy who messes up the water filone. So Phoebe
Speaker 1: Kate's accidentally brings home one of the wrong Grimlin's, the
Speaker 1: google eyed Grimlin key and Peel sketch fame. Oh, this
Speaker 1: Grandmlin is ridiculous, like the I don't know what you
Speaker 1: call this laugh, It's very similar to the laugh that
Speaker 1: um Christopher Lloyd's character and who framed Roger Rabbit uses this.
Speaker 1: This kind of like just unhinged cartoon cackling. Well also,
Speaker 1: I think one of the weasels in that movie they
Speaker 1: can't stop laughing. Oh yeah, I think you're right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's ridiculous and it's NonStop all this. All
Speaker 1: the gly eyed Grimlin wants to do is eat some food,
Speaker 1: but mostly throw food and make a mess. Make him
Speaker 1: he loves to make a mess. So Billy comes home
Speaker 1: finds the googly eyed Grimlin. He's like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: not gizmo something has gone horribly wrong, and then the
Speaker 1: movie is just off to the races. I don't think
Speaker 1: we can describe scene by scene from here on, but
Speaker 1: maybe we can just focus on some of the subplots, like, okay,
Speaker 1: so what do we have to say about? Of course,
Speaker 1: the gremlins are going to get into Splice of Life,
Speaker 1: the genetics lab. So one of them drinks the electricity
Speaker 1: juice and becomes electricity Grimlin. One drinks something I think
Speaker 1: they were trying to. Oh there's a scene where they're
Speaker 1: trying to create more durable tomatoes and they show them
Speaker 1: like bouncing off a wall and they say they say,
Speaker 1: oh wow, they are durable, but how do they taste?
Speaker 1: And the guy goes, well, great news. Our contract is
Speaker 1: with the airline food provider. So it's a joke. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how they taste. But a Grimlin drinks that
Speaker 1: and uh turns into vegetables like you have his like
Speaker 1: he just kind of has vegetables growing out of him
Speaker 1: and his body is vegetables. We mentioned Brainy Gremlin, Um
Speaker 1: Spider Gremlin comes online as well. Back Back Gremlin leaves
Speaker 1: the batman hole in the wall and then later flies
Speaker 1: out on the street, attacks Dick Miller uh gets thrown
Speaker 1: into wet cement and then flies up on top of
Speaker 1: a church and sits down and becomes a gargoyle. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: like each of these gremlins too, is just amazing. Like
Speaker 1: back Gremlin is an incredible looking creature. He like has
Speaker 1: has uh ultimately ends up being like six six limbed
Speaker 1: gremlin because he has the flight arms and like little
Speaker 1: uh like little dinosaur arms and then his legs as well. Uh.
Speaker 1: Just again, fabulous job on all the effects here. Oh
Speaker 1: there's lady Gremlin. What what are your thoughts on Lady Gremlin?
Speaker 1: Rob Uh, Lady Gremlin is very much in this in
Speaker 1: the tradition of like bugs bunny wearing a dress. Um,
Speaker 1: but is uh potentially problematic? I guess today, I don't
Speaker 1: think you would necessarily do this today. Uh. In in
Speaker 1: your Gremlins movie, Um, she of course she ends up surviving.
Speaker 1: She falls in love with Robert Picardo and they're married.
Speaker 1: At the end, this movie ends in a marriage between
Speaker 1: a human and a gremlin. So um, I think that
Speaker 1: that speaks volumes about the tone of the film. But
Speaker 1: let's see, there have to be some other mutated again.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of gremlins who take on their own identity,
Speaker 1: like their cigar smoking gremlins, then their standing of the
Speaker 1: opera gremlin. There's also like, um, some just take on
Speaker 1: fashion choices, like there's a grimlin that wears a witch hat.
Speaker 1: There's a gremlin that seems to design and produce his
Speaker 1: own uh anti Gizmo T shirt. You see him hanging
Speaker 1: in the background, has a picture of Gizmo on it
Speaker 1: with a circle and a strike through it. I didn't like, Wow,
Speaker 1: they are mean to Gizmo. Yeah. Yeah, they know who
Speaker 1: Gizmo is and they hate him. Yeah. There there are
Speaker 1: a couple of gremlins. One it just has kind of
Speaker 1: like an overbyte, kind of a donkey face. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's kind of um yeah, he's not as googly eyed
Speaker 1: as the googly eyed gremlin, but he's also like a
Speaker 1: little bit goofy and he just kind of helps out.
Speaker 1: He's kind of like a stoogie gremlin. Yes, he the
Speaker 1: cigar smoking gremlin and him are kind of a pair,
Speaker 1: aren't they. Yeah, yeah, they're kind of they are a pair.
Speaker 1: And yeah, they never get mutated. I don't know what
Speaker 1: they would have mutated into necessarily, Like I remember a
Speaker 1: scene where they attack the film studio while they're shooting
Speaker 1: a live episode of the cooking show Microwaving with Marge
Speaker 1: Uh and they havoc they cause is they throw metal
Speaker 1: utensils into the microwave and then get it going so
Speaker 1: that it explodes and starts a fire. Yes, yeah, they
Speaker 1: do they do that. Yes, I don't know. It's just
Speaker 1: there's just so there's so many questions one could ask
Speaker 1: about this film, like, for instance, when they realized googly
Speaker 1: eyed mo Guay is not Gizmo, they just stick him
Speaker 1: in a bag to bring them back to the office
Speaker 1: with them. What was their plan? It seems like they
Speaker 1: know what gremlins are all about. They know the dangers
Speaker 1: of having too many maguay in in a less family
Speaker 1: friendly film. It seems like they might want to euthanize
Speaker 1: the maguay right there in the apartment. I think this
Speaker 1: is a gremlin problem, gremlin control conundrum. I don't think
Speaker 1: you can. You can, with good conscience kill the fuzzy gremlins,
Speaker 1: even though they're the bad ones. You have to wait
Speaker 1: for them to turn into the scaly uh evil gremlins
Speaker 1: and then you can kill them. Yeah, you gotta give
Speaker 1: them at least a shot at not eating past midnight,
Speaker 1: though clearly this guy's gonna eat past midnight. He's been
Speaker 1: eating and throwing food NonStop. And now there's another subplot
Speaker 1: with with Grandpa Fred the horror host, which is that
Speaker 1: he has always wanted to be a newscaster, which why,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you get to do all you get
Speaker 1: to host a horror show, why would you be like,
Speaker 1: I really wish instead I was doing like the local news.
Speaker 1: That that just seems like a trade down in every
Speaker 1: possible way. Yeah, but he gets to live his dreams.
Speaker 1: He gets to like broadcast live from the depths of
Speaker 1: the Gremlin nightmare and uh and these are fun segments
Speaker 1: as well. This is definitely in the last half of
Speaker 1: the film where everything just gets exceedingly weird and crazy.
Speaker 1: Oh we also we haven't just got the Daniel Clamp subplot.
Speaker 1: So there's a pot where he gets attacked by a
Speaker 1: gremlin in his office, which he manages to throw into
Speaker 1: the paper shredder because oh uh, there's a thing. He
Speaker 1: goes by quick you might miss it where um his
Speaker 1: secretary informs him that his mail has arrived and she's
Speaker 1: shredding it. Now would she like him too, would he
Speaker 1: like her to shred anything else? Yeah? Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: of course leads to the shredding of the gremlins. This
Speaker 1: is kind of our The first film had all the
Speaker 1: the the horrible deaths for gremlins in the kitchen. This
Speaker 1: time he gets take place in a business environment, so
Speaker 1: the shredder absolutely has to eat a grimlin. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then we also find it well. Eventually, Billy and Clamp
Speaker 1: meet up and Billy explains what's going on to him,
Speaker 1: and he's like, they formulate a plan where they're going
Speaker 1: to get all of the gremlins together in the lobby
Speaker 1: and then they are going to open up the shutters
Speaker 1: to shine sunlight in on them and kill them. They're
Speaker 1: gonna fry the gremlins that way. And Daniel Clamp is
Speaker 1: going to execute the outdoor portion of this plan by
Speaker 1: going through his secret escape route, which is like a
Speaker 1: little like tube that comes up under a tree on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk. Yeah. And once he gets out, Dick Miller's
Speaker 1: character is there. He goes into the tube so he
Speaker 1: can go inside to help and of course fight gremlins. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Dick Miller is very excited about fighting gremlins. Um the
Speaker 1: Daniel clamp character also, like, it's interesting that he's he's
Speaker 1: very quick to be like, oh yeah, I see, I
Speaker 1: see that Gremlins are a problem. Let me help. And
Speaker 1: he's actually he's reasonably helpful throughout the picture. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: he he doesn't throw up any roadblocks to fighting the
Speaker 1: grim Ones for that. For that matter, Christopher Lee's character
Speaker 1: as well, once he encounters the Grimlin harror, he's not like,
Speaker 1: oh well, we must Thomas this uh power for our
Speaker 1: genetic experiments. Now he's freaking out two and I think
Speaker 1: even squares off animal testing before being killed by electricity Grimlin.
Speaker 1: We were talking beforehand, this may be the only human
Speaker 1: character that dies in the whole picture. Well, but also
Speaker 1: maybe Leonard Malton. It's unclear whether Leonard Malton survives his
Speaker 1: Grimlin mauling. Yeah, he might have fought him off and
Speaker 1: go on that that. I love that scene too, because
Speaker 1: he's he's really digging into Gremlin's one. He's like, this
Speaker 1: film is just trash, and the grim Ones are creeping
Speaker 1: up behind him, of course, and then they jump him
Speaker 1: and they start trying to strangle him with film footage.
Speaker 1: So eventually we set up for the finale where Dick
Speaker 1: Miller sneaks into the building. He hooks up with Billy,
Speaker 1: Kate and Marla and they end up using a fire
Speaker 1: hose and Electricity Gremlin to melt all the other gremlins.
Speaker 1: Such a classic movie monster ending to set a trap
Speaker 1: and use electricity to kill the monsters. Yeah, because they
Speaker 1: were gonna do the sun, but clouds and so this
Speaker 1: is the backup plan. Electricity Gremlin has been stuck for
Speaker 1: a good portion of the film in call waiting somehow,
Speaker 1: I don't try and think about it, too hard to
Speaker 1: put him on but they did. They put him on hold,
Speaker 1: so he's he's held. His electrical potential is in there,
Speaker 1: and his electrical potential is seemingly almost limitless. I guess
Speaker 1: when they blast Electricity Gremlin into the flooded hall of
Speaker 1: the flooded chamber that's filled with all the other gremlins
Speaker 1: that are transforming and popping off other gremlins, he has
Speaker 1: enough electricity to just melt and goify all of them,
Speaker 1: and I guess in the process he's destroyed as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's the case. It makes me think, well,
Speaker 1: how much electricity would with the rat batter you have
Speaker 1: produced if it had consumed that. I mean, would you
Speaker 1: have made like a rat that would be lethal to
Speaker 1: entire city blocks? Well, I think they were not putting
Speaker 1: too much of the mutagant in the rat, because the
Speaker 1: rat retained its its physical form and just produced electricity. Electricity,
Speaker 1: Gremlin becomes electricity. Yea. But but still to your point,
Speaker 1: like maybe Splice of Life was doing good work, Like
Speaker 1: what if they could have harnessed the power of electricity
Speaker 1: Grimlin to like solve the energy crisis. That would be
Speaker 1: an interesting ending. Yeah, despite all of their unethical research,
Speaker 1: we do eventually find a limitless source of clean energy
Speaker 1: uh in in gremlin form. Uh And of course the
Speaker 1: movie ends with a childlike Daniel clamp uh. He sees
Speaker 1: the drawing that Billy has created of his hometown, which
Speaker 1: Billy was chastised for earlier, I think by Robert Picardo saying, like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is not real art. Clamp sees this
Speaker 1: drawing of his hometown and he decides that he must
Speaker 1: create an artificial, fake small town based on that drawing,
Speaker 1: and he will call it clamp Corners. And everybody just
Speaker 1: seems okay with this. This is after I should also
Speaker 1: mention when the Swat Team comes in at the end
Speaker 1: after the Gremlins have been killed with electricity. Daniel Clamp
Speaker 1: is like leading the charge and they've let him dress
Speaker 1: up in full Swat Team gear and he's armed, which
Speaker 1: was a weird choice. They armed Clamp and unfortunately they
Speaker 1: didn't need it because all the Gremlins were already melted.
Speaker 1: Oh and then Daffy Duck rifts the end credits. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Porky Pig. Well this is this is after the credits roll.
Speaker 1: It's like, this is the stinger Um. Porky Pig chose
Speaker 1: up to say that's all folks, and then Daffy Duck
Speaker 1: shows up and says, no, I'm going to do it,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah that's the film. Oh I should mention too.
Speaker 1: This is after the credits role with some more of
Speaker 1: the score by Jerry Goldsmith. Oh yeah, pretty good score,
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, yeah, it's got that nice dad d
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's catchy. It's g two baby. You
Speaker 1: can't beat this movie. This is so good. It is
Speaker 1: indeed a party, a party to which everyone was invited.
Speaker 1: Like again, there's so many cast members and cameos that
Speaker 1: we could have profiled here that we just didn't have
Speaker 1: time for There's so many just little especially in the
Speaker 1: last half of the film. There's just so many little things,
Speaker 1: so many scenes of Grimlin mischief. Uh. There's the training
Speaker 1: montage where where where Gizmo trains up and then becomes
Speaker 1: war becomes this Rambo type figure and slays the Spider
Speaker 1: Grimlin to save both Bloodstone. Um uh and um what's
Speaker 1: your name? Uh, says Phoebe Kates uh from the Spider Grimlin.
Speaker 1: Like there's just so many moments, like there's no wasted
Speaker 1: energy in this film. Not a Christmas movie but uh,
Speaker 1: but no good any any time of year. Absolutely all right, Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go and close it out there, but we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from everyone out there. Perhaps you have
Speaker 1: opinions and memories and um in theories concerning Gremlins and
Speaker 1: Grimlins too, right in, we'd love to hear from you. Likewise, Yeah,
Speaker 1: any of the various cameos and fun cameos that we
Speaker 1: didn't have time to uh to mention here, bring them
Speaker 1: up in listener mail. We'll talk about them in the future.
Speaker 1: Reminder that we're primarily a science podcast. In the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your mind feed with core episodes on two
Speaker 1: season Thursdays, Uh Listener Mail on Monday's Artifactor, Monster Fact
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays, but on Friday's we set aside most serious
Speaker 1: concerns to just talk about a weird film like this one.
Speaker 1: If you want to see a quick listing of all
Speaker 1: the films that we've covered, you can go over to
Speaker 1: letterbox as L E T T E R B O
Speaker 1: x D. We have a profile there. Our user name
Speaker 1: is weird House, and we have a list there of
Speaker 1: all the films that we've covered, and you can look
Speaker 1: at them in order that we have covered them. I
Speaker 1: think we're up. We're up into the mid nineties. Now
Speaker 1: we're edging closer to a hundred. Oh yeah, we're getting close.
Speaker 1: Now we got to discuss what's gonna be our hundredth film. Anyway,
Speaker 1: huge thanks to our audio producer, Max Williams. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just say hello, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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