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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 2: that brings you the secret histories and little known, fascinating

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Speaker 2: facts and figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows

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Speaker 2: and more. We are your two Maguis of Minutia. I'm

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Speaker 2: Alex Hagel, I'm Jordan run Talk, and I'm looking forward

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Speaker 2: to you explain to me what that means, well, Jordan.

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Speaker 2: Today we're talking about one of my favorite Christmas movies,

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Speaker 2: a delightfully nasty little creature feature that came out of

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Speaker 2: some of the greatest movie making minds of our time.

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Speaker 2: That's right, we're talking about nineteen eighty four's Gremlins. I

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Speaker 2: love both of these films. The first one is a tight,

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Speaker 2: pretty me little action adventure and the second one is

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Speaker 2: one of the best, like meta commentaries on Hollywood and

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Speaker 2: just a hilarious example of what I call later blank

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Speaker 2: check movie making. And they've got some of the best

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Speaker 2: weird little guys of all time, like You're not you

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Speaker 2: don't look at Gizmo and not fall in love with him,

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Speaker 2: and then the Gremlins are equally cool. I have one

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Speaker 2: sitting at my desk. I have the brain grind, and

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Speaker 2: not a full size one like a little six inch guy.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, I just the creature design is amazing. You

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Speaker 2: know how much I love movie magic. So we're gonna

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Speaker 2: talk a lot about Chris Waylis's work and Phoebe Kates. Dude,

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Speaker 2: this is true, perfect, perfect, Phoebe Kates delivering one of

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Speaker 2: the greatest monologues in movie history. I'm guessing this is

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Speaker 2: not on your radar.

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Speaker 1: No, you know, I know next to nothing about this,

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Speaker 1: but every time it's come up over the course of

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Speaker 1: this series, I think when we talked about the movies

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Speaker 1: of Chris Columbus, The Goonies and Home Alone, you just

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Speaker 1: got so excited and it was so heartwarming to me

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Speaker 1: that I'm just so thrilled to dive into this. But

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Speaker 1: You're right, I'm not a creature's guy. I'm not really

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Speaker 1: a fantasy guy. Even stuff like et and Labyrinth kind

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Speaker 1: of push it for me. But I am just so

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Speaker 1: excited for you to do what you do best, which

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Speaker 1: is to teach me and by our dear listeners, all

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Speaker 1: about the making of this movie that he loves so well,

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Speaker 1: and tell me what it is about it that touches

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Speaker 1: you said deeply.

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Speaker 2: I love Joe Dante. Like Tim Burton, he's one of

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Speaker 2: those guys that just has this like endless love for

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Speaker 2: a certain mid century era and esthetic, but his is

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Speaker 2: so much more goofy and widescreen. Like he's taken influence

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Speaker 2: from Looney Tunes all the way through to the William

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Speaker 2: Castle stuff in the fifties because he was a Roger

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Speaker 2: Corman guy, so he was really directly connected to that

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Speaker 2: entire era of filmmaking. But he also brings all this

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Speaker 2: other stuff into it, Like he loved comic books and

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Speaker 2: Looney tunes, what.

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Speaker 1: Else did he do?

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Speaker 2: The Howling is what got him this picture that was

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Speaker 2: part of the Great Werewolf trifecta of nineteen eighty four,

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Speaker 2: along with American Werewolf in London. And I think either

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Speaker 2: I forget if it's called wolfin or just Wolf, but

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Speaker 2: there's a third one that also came out in not

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, I'm sorry, eighty two. I don't know.

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Speaker 2: There were three werewolf movies that came out in that year.

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Speaker 2: One was American Werewolf London, one was The Howling, and

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Speaker 2: then the third one which is either called Wolf or Wolfin'.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, uh, he also did a movie called Matinee,

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Speaker 2: which is like a little known John Goodman starring film

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Speaker 2: that is like Dante's tribute to like the William Castle,

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Speaker 2: like fifties gimmick stuff and a little bit of like

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Speaker 2: Roger Corman as well. And that movie someone mistakenly took

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Speaker 2: me and like like a lady friend when we were five,

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Speaker 2: to like go see this movie, and it terrified me.

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Speaker 2: Not the tongue in cheek satire parts, but it's based

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Speaker 2: off of a movie called mant which is about a

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Speaker 2: man aunt much like The Fly, but that's the movie.

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Speaker 2: It's like Mape, Yes, that is a movie within a movie,

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Speaker 2: so the whole thing is like this meta commentary, but

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Speaker 2: the actual ant man makeup and like footage of ants

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Speaker 2: that they put in this thing scared the shit out

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Speaker 2: of me, and for a long time I had blocked

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Speaker 2: it out of my memory. I didn't remember the title

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Speaker 2: of the film, so I was like googling, like fifties

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Speaker 2: giant ant man movie and like fifties ant movie, and

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Speaker 2: I eventually found out that it was this movie Mattine anyway,

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Speaker 2: that Gremlins and Gremlins too are just like I don't know, man,

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Speaker 2: I love Joe Dante. I love what he does with

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Speaker 2: his resources and money when he was afforded them before

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Speaker 2: Gremlins two put him in director jail. And you know,

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Speaker 2: in a way, this movie is basically us as a partnership.

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Speaker 2: Oh explain, well, it's a very sweet as we get

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Speaker 2: into it, Dante was took much from It's a Wonderful Life.

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Speaker 2: He's a big Frank capera fan. And so you you're

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Speaker 2: the like small town Christmasy sweetness at the heart of it.

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Speaker 2: And I'm the awful monster goblin that that mutates from

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Speaker 2: that and Rereek's havoc upon it.

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Speaker 1: I just want to observe that that you were born

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Speaker 1: shortly after Halloween, and I was born shortly before Christmas.

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Speaker 2: Yes, okay, I make you and and I mean to

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Speaker 2: you all the time like the Gremlins are to Gizmo.

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Speaker 2: So from the brand of beer the creatures may have

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Speaker 2: gotten their name from, to the beloved children's authors near

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Speaker 2: death experience that contributed to their legend, to the endless

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Speaker 2: trials of the film's SFX wizard, and the absolutely batched

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Speaker 2: blank Check sequel that came out sixty years after the fact.

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Speaker 2: Here's everything you didn't know about gremlin's let's start from

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Speaker 2: the top. Although there isn't one exact consensus, most folklorous

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Speaker 2: theorize that gremlin as a specific word came into popular

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Speaker 2: usage in the era between WWI and WWII The Big One.

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Speaker 1: I just want to explicitly state, because we referenced this

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Speaker 1: gag many times over the last few episodes, this isn't

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Speaker 1: all the family reference, because Archie Bunker would always state

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Speaker 1: that he fought in say it with me now, WW

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Speaker 1: two The Big One, which I just always thought was

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Speaker 1: so funny because it inherently discounts all their vets of

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Speaker 1: all other wars, which I think is really fun and

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Speaker 1: very Archiepunker. I'm really glad by the way that you

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Speaker 1: put the section in here about the etymology of the

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Speaker 1: word gremlins.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for that. Oh it's so fascinating. Yeah. So

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Speaker 2: the word itself is, and this is the stuff that

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Speaker 2: I'm triangulating from a few different online dictionaries and etymology sites.

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Speaker 2: Some people have tied it to an Old English word gremion,

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Speaker 2: which means to vex. There's an Irish Gaelic word which

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Speaker 2: I'm probably certainly pronouncing wrong, called graymin for bad tempered

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Speaker 2: little fellow, and then the a writer named Carol Rose

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Speaker 2: in a book called Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns and Goblins and Encyclopedia,

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Speaker 2: she attributes the name to a portmanteau of Grimm's Fairy

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Speaker 2: Tales and Fremlin beer. Follow me here. Fremlin was the

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Speaker 2: most commonly available brand of beer in the British Royal

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Speaker 2: Air Force mess halls of India and the Middle East

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen twenties. We're gonna get into the Air

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Speaker 2: Force thing in a minute, but I don't agree with

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Speaker 2: the Grim's fairy tale part because it seems like an

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Speaker 2: easier portmanteau to imagine Goblin and Fremlin becoming Gremlin. But

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Speaker 2: you know, she wrote a book and I didn't. The

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Speaker 2: term actually didn't specifically even mean horrible little mischief monster

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Speaker 2: at first. From what I've been able to trace. It

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Speaker 2: was actually started as a semi pejorative term for younger,

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Speaker 2: more inexperienced technicians and Air Force men, like basically junior

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Speaker 2: Air Force employees. The oed Oxford English Dictionary puts the

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Speaker 2: first usage of the word recorded in nineteen twenty nine.

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Speaker 2: And You'll Love This in a poem published in the magazine.

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Speaker 2: Aeroplane that goes thusly, there is a class aboard, loathed

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Speaker 2: by all the high and mighty, slaves who work and

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Speaker 2: get but little little thanks for all their labor. Yet

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Speaker 2: they are both skilled and many, many men with many talents.

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Speaker 2: They are but a herd of gremlins. Gremlins who do

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Speaker 2: all the flying, Gremlins who do much instruction, shunned by

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Speaker 2: the wing commanders.

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Speaker 1: Terrible poem doesn't even I'm gonna snap for I wish

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Speaker 1: I had bongos right now.

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Speaker 2: They like you to energy crevs thin. It's it's like

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Speaker 2: the Yeah, it's like the the so I married an

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Speaker 2: ax Ax murderer. Woman? Whoa man?

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is really interesting to me, and I

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Speaker 1: think you're gonna touch on this more later. But I

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Speaker 1: always associate the term gremlin one of two things, either

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Speaker 1: little monsters or a problem in aircraft, some kind of

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Speaker 1: technological thing, usually aircraft.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you're gonna read that in a few seconds. So

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Speaker 2: what I find most funny is that there's like proto

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Speaker 2: surfer and skateboarding slang that also records this. Gremlin or

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Speaker 2: gremy has been variously described as like surf culture slang

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Speaker 2: for either like under talented younger newbie surfers or unwelcome

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Speaker 2: beachgoers hangers on to the surfing community. And then Oed

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Speaker 2: has another reference to being used in skateboarding, which isn't

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Speaker 2: a surprise because skateboarding came from surfing culture. But like,

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Speaker 2: it's so bizarre to me to think that, like the

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Speaker 2: two roots of this word linguistically are from the Air

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Speaker 2: Force and maybe surfing. I'm sure they got it from

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Speaker 2: the Air Force. But anyway, Jordan tell us about the

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Speaker 2: the the Air forceical origins of the word, I'm.

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Speaker 1: Still stuck on all the surf stuff because all my

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Speaker 1: beach boys knowledge, I've never really heard that word come up.

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Speaker 2: Gremy, Yeah, neither had I. It just it just popped

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Speaker 2: up in like, well, the Oxford English Dictionary for starters.

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Speaker 2: So who am I to quibbled?

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Speaker 1: Well, The term gremlins spread wider during WW two, the

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Speaker 1: Big One. In nineteen forty one, news Day mentioned them

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Speaker 1: gremlins as exasperating pixies, which just like a great Pixies

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Speaker 1: cover pan name. Yeah, and at least one person suggested

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Speaker 1: that the British tradition of blaming malfunctions on gremlins may

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Speaker 1: have helped the RIF get through the German offensive against Britain.

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Speaker 1: Author in historian Marlon Brest quoted as saying morale among

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Speaker 1: the RAF pilots would have suffered if they pointed the

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Speaker 1: finger of blame at each other. It was far better

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Speaker 1: to make the scapegoat a fantastic and comical creature than

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Speaker 1: another member of your own squadron.

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Speaker 2: That's very British, right.

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Speaker 1: There was even a series of posters urging common sense

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Speaker 1: caution for troops and RIF starring goblins.

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Speaker 2: I want to google that. Oh, it's in the Wikipedia page.

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Speaker 2: They're amazing. They're like those beautiful, old illustrated like propaganda posters,

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Speaker 2: but it's all stuff for like remember to wipe up

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Speaker 2: your grease or the gremlins will come for you. Like

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Speaker 2: just like, well, do they have pictures of creatures? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and they I'm picturing like the absent Fairy. Do they

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Speaker 2: look like gazoo basically? Yeah? If you if you look

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Speaker 2: up the h the actual disambiguation page on Wikipedia page, yeah,

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Speaker 2: they look like they're like sort of depicted as little

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Speaker 2: like clown men. But it's like gremlins think it's fun

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Speaker 2: to hurt you. Use k always back up our battle skies.

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Speaker 2: These like beautiful old four color poster illustrations. Oh my god,

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Speaker 2: you're right, yeah, Gremlins our floor greasers, watch your step.

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Speaker 2: Gremlins love to pitch things at your eyes were safety goggles.

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Speaker 2: Gremlins will push you around. Look where you're going.

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Speaker 1: It looks like a not very like an overtly unintelligent

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Speaker 1: humpty dumpity On a zempic.

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Speaker 2: There's also a really funny picture of a like a

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Speaker 2: bomber with the nose art of a gremlin, and he

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Speaker 2: looks just like the noid who ruins pizza famously. Oh

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Speaker 2: my god, he does, right, So yeah, I mean it's

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Speaker 2: amazing that in popular consciousness they've become these scaly, horrifying

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Speaker 2: little scamps that like when they were just pictured as

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Speaker 2: like sort of dumb, malicious elves.

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Speaker 1: You're right, yeah, it looks like like somebody who got

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Speaker 1: fired from the Keebler factory.

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Speaker 2: I should just keep reaching, man.

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Speaker 1: This is a sequel Gremlins three. There are also folklorists

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Speaker 1: and historians who posit that the invention of gremlins was

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Speaker 1: a manifestation of anxiety around the new modern age of

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Speaker 1: warfare rapidly encroaching. So this was like a manifestation of

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Speaker 1: fear of the atomic bomb that's heavy.

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Speaker 2: Or like the automization of war basically, which people really

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Speaker 2: talk about, Like, you know, World War One was like

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Speaker 2: I don't know, doing some rough math, like let's just

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Speaker 2: say a couple of decades after the Civil War, right,

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and so the Civil War like fifty Yeah,

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Speaker 2: this is when they were still lining up to take

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Speaker 2: pot shots at each other. So all the different stuff

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Speaker 2: coming out of World War One, like tanks, you know,

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Speaker 2: rapid fire, machine guns, mustard gas. This was all just

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Speaker 2: like like horrifying new death technology that people were just

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Speaker 2: like unequipped to even comprehend, much less forced to witness it.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not even trying to be funny right now,

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Speaker 1: although this is I think this is literally an onion

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Speaker 1: ar dumb censury headline. It's like not very sportsmanlike. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there were certain like codes of battle. I mean, as

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Speaker 1: you mentioned, it was hilarious how you would like the

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Speaker 1: two sides would line up like it was like a

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Speaker 1: red road, announce.

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Speaker 2: To each other that they were there, just like start shooting. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: so gremlins are possibly a psychic manifestation of that, you know, in.

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Speaker 1: A way, aren't we all a psychic manifestation of anxiety,

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Speaker 1: the real psychic manifestation of anxiety with the friends we

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Speaker 1: met along the way. Emily Zarka, the host of Monstrom

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Speaker 1: on the PBS Stories Channel, told Atlas Obscura the first

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Speaker 1: military airplane was invented in nineteen oh nine, which was

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Speaker 1: like six years after the Wright brothers took flight. Wow,

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Speaker 1: we got on that quick, Oh, we sure did. We

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Speaker 1: can kill people with it. If we can find out

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Speaker 1: a way to kill people with some new technology, we

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Speaker 1: will find it.

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Speaker 2: If we couldn't have sex with it, we'd make it

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Speaker 2: into a weapon of war.

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Speaker 1: Human nature, flying is a really complex process, she continued,

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Speaker 1: let alone under the stress of war. I think that

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Speaker 1: in a lot of ways might have been easier, not

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Speaker 1: even just to explain away the mechanics, but to explain

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Speaker 1: away human error. Gremlins, it would be hard to take

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Speaker 1: responsibility for the death of another pilot in your group.

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Speaker 1: So Gremlin is the blank in the in the gun

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Speaker 1: of executioners.

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Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. I mean, henceforth, I'm blaming everything that goes

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Speaker 2: wrong with this show on Gremlins.

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Speaker 1: So I mean the British do exactly except Prince Andrew

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Speaker 1: I don't think gremlins did that.

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Speaker 2: What if they hold up in court?

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Speaker 1: Beloved Children's offor Raal Doll is credited with bringing gremlins

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Speaker 1: outside of the Royal Air Force.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know this.

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Speaker 1: He was a member of the eightieth Squadron of the

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Speaker 1: IRAF and in September of nineteen forty he was ordered

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Speaker 1: to fly his biplane in stages to the squadrons forward

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Speaker 1: airstrip south of MRSA Model in Egypt. I don't know

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Speaker 1: what half of those words mean byplane in stages. Oh wait,

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Speaker 1: like he had the fly piece of his plane like, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: he had to fly in stage Okay. On the final

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Speaker 1: leg of this trip, Rawal Dahal couldn't find an air

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Speaker 1: strip and running low on fuel, he attempted a crash

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Speaker 1: landing in the desert, and the ensuing crash dull skull

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Speaker 1: was fractured, his nose smashed, and he was temporarily blinded.

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Speaker 1: He managed to get safely away from the wreckage, but

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Speaker 1: passed out. Although he was eventually rescued, he didn't recover

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Speaker 1: a site for another six weeks, and then, to add

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Speaker 1: insult to injury and RIF inquiry into the crash revealed

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Speaker 1: that the location he'd been sent to was completely incorrect,

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Speaker 1: and he actually crashed in a no man's land between

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Speaker 1: the Allied and Italian forces.

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Speaker 2: So in a way, that could have got a lot worse,

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Speaker 2: I guess, I mean, yeah, it's just imagine that, like you,

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Speaker 2: I don't know what the timing of this was, but

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Speaker 2: imagine the accident that cost you your site for six

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Speaker 2: weeks and fractured your skull was like a complete cup

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Speaker 2: by someone of your commanding officers who were like, we

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Speaker 2: basically flew you into nowhere.

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Speaker 1: Sorry, right, But also imagine being blind and crippled in

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Speaker 1: no man's lands, like the odds of wandering into the

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Speaker 1: opposing camp is. I also see this is the good gremlin,

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Speaker 1: bad gremlin.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In January nineteen forty two, Dall was transferred to Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C as Assistant Air Attache at the British Embassy.

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Speaker 2: I would assume a cush.

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Speaker 1: Job to apologize for the screw up that nearly killed him.

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Speaker 1: And it was well in DC that he proceeded to

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Speaker 1: write his first children's novel, The Gremlins, which I'm not

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Speaker 1: familiar with, and I had no idea that he had

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Speaker 1: this bigger role in popularizing this term. He showed his

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Speaker 1: finish manuscript to Sidney Bernstein, head of the British Information Service,

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Speaker 1: who came up with the idea to send it to

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Speaker 1: Walt Disney, which they did in July nineteen forty two.

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Speaker 1: Disney eventually purchased the rights from Dahl for an animated feature,

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Speaker 1: and the story was published variously in Cosmopolitan in between

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Speaker 1: text tip was is guins.

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Speaker 2: I don't think they were. They were more of a

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Speaker 2: lit mag at that point.

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Speaker 1: And also as a picture book by Random House in

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Speaker 1: late nineteen forty two and early nineteen forty three. Eleanor

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt read The Gremlins were Grandkids, and the book sold

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Speaker 1: thirty thousand copies.

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Speaker 2: Well, they printed like five thousand as an initial run,

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Speaker 2: and Dold like bought fifty copies for himself and passed

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Speaker 2: it out almost anywhere he could. But what an insane

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Speaker 2: twentieth century confluence of things, Disney, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gremlins, Willy Wonka,

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Speaker 2: and the Chaco Factory.

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Speaker 1: By extension, Yeah yeah, the exis powers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that is that is wild.

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately, its reach was hindered by wartime paper shortages.

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Speaker 2: But still roll Dahl.

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Speaker 1: The book and the film project became known quantities in Hollywood,

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Speaker 1: even earning a mention in famed industry columnist had A

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Speaker 1: Hopper's work. My favorite thing about roll Doll was that

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Speaker 1: he wrote the script to my favorite James Bond movie.

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Speaker 1: He only lived twice, Sean Connery movie, which is funny

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Speaker 1: because then Ian Fleming, who wrote the James Bond novels,

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Speaker 1: wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which reads.

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Speaker 2: Like a rolled all book. I always thought it was.

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Speaker 2: Is that weird? It's almost like they lost the bet

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Speaker 2: and we're like, all right, I'll try to write like

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Speaker 2: that's an amazing positive. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Sadly, the Gremlin film project was whittled down to an

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Speaker 1: animated short as opposed to a full feature, and then

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Speaker 1: canceled by Disney entirely in August nineteen forty three, when

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Speaker 1: copyright issues between the RIF and Disney proved insurmountable. I

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Speaker 1: would assume the RAF had copyrighted the figure for the

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Speaker 1: propaganda posters.

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Speaker 2: No, I don't, actually you know this. One of the

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Speaker 2: sources that I read made reference to Statute twelve, and

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Speaker 2: I tried to look that up, and the closest I

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Speaker 2: can find is something having to do with the RAF

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Speaker 2: not holding pilots liable for damaged aircrafts. But I assume

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Speaker 2: it has to do with just details of the planes

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Speaker 2: and stuff that they were not able to square with,

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Speaker 2: you know, the British Armed Forces. What an unstoppable force,

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Speaker 2: immovable object situation, Walt Disney versus the R A F.

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Speaker 2: I mean, my money's on Disney. I mean no offense John, But.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, But the Gremlins eventually moved to another medium, where

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Speaker 1: Walt Disney's Comics and Stories Outlet published the original story

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Speaker 1: and then another nine episode series starring its chief gremlin

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Speaker 1: Gus mm hmm, with the bulk of the latter drawn

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Speaker 1: by comics legend Walt Kelly is well.

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Speaker 2: Kelly uh he was a was a Disney guy, and

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Speaker 2: then he left them and started this comic called Pogo,

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Speaker 2: which was like actually an enormously successful and influential comic

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Speaker 2: kind of like the era of like Fritz the Cat

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Speaker 2: and stuff, but Pogo it was wild for its sprawl,

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Speaker 2: like there would be all these themes of philosophy and

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Speaker 2: you know, social com political commentary and Alan Moore, you

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Speaker 2: know who wrote you know, Viva Vendetta and Watchman was

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Speaker 2: a huge, uge fan of Pogo. So if that gives

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Speaker 2: you any idea of the kind of guy who liked it,

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Speaker 2: imagine how bad it was at the time. It's fair.

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Speaker 1: It looks like it's a cross between Calvin and Hobbs

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Speaker 1: and like R.

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Speaker 2: Crumb, Yeah, it probably sums it up pretty well, But

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Speaker 2: Gremlin's proved durable for a while.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen forty three, Bugs Bunny battled the Gremlin in

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Speaker 1: the Murray Melody's short Falling Hair, and again in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty four is Russian Rhapsody, which this time depicted Russian

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Speaker 1: Kremlin's Sabotageian aircraft piloted by Adolph Hitler.

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Speaker 2: Incredible.

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Speaker 1: And then, of course there's the famous Twilight Zone episode

380
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Speaker 1: Night Near at twenty thousand Feet, which pitted a young

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Speaker 1: Bill Shatner against the Gremlin that only he can see.

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Speaker 2: Have you ever seen that original one?

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Speaker 1: You know what, I don't know if I've ever seen

384
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Speaker 1: it start to finish. I've seen the clip of him,

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Speaker 1: you know, yeah, looking out the window.

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Speaker 2: But and then it was the Simpsons, I thought first

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Speaker 2: in the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode where they parody it,

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Speaker 2: but it's the design they went with It is bizarre.

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Speaker 2: It's like an ape like creature with like a sort

390
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Speaker 2: of pig dog face. It just looks weird.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've only seen it like at an angle.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty creepy looking. Written by fame horror author Richard Matheson,

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Speaker 1: who also wrote I Am Legend. The episode was later

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Speaker 1: remade for the Twilight Zone movie with Shatner's part played

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Speaker 1: by John Lithgow, which came out just a year.

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Speaker 2: Before the subject of this episode.

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Speaker 1: Do we give our obligatory reference to the Twilight's On

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Speaker 1: movie tragedy?

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00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:31,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Twilight's On the movie pops up a lot

400
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Speaker 2: in this because Joe Dante worked on a segment of it.

401
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:36,840
Speaker 2: You know. It was John Landis was involved and he

402
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Speaker 2: killed some kids, just like the way I off handedly

403
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Speaker 2: threw that off. No, it is. It is famous, even

404
00:21:42,920 --> 00:21:45,159
Speaker 2: though it was really a star studded production. It was

405
00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:48,639
Speaker 2: all of these like young, youngish Hollywood brats taking a

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Speaker 2: stab at the stuff that they were influenced by. But

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Speaker 2: it is most famous for John land the segment John

408
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:58,520
Speaker 2: Landis was responsible for where yeah, two kids in a

409
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Speaker 2: stunt guy died in a helllicopter crash based on like

410
00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:09,000
Speaker 2: lax safety regulations or lax filmmaking that he was should

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Speaker 2: have been put in director jail for and was not.

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Speaker 2: And I think, like when pressed, was remarkably cavalier, bordering

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Speaker 2: on callous about the entire thing. But his kid sucks too,

414
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Speaker 2: So not really a surprise. Where did they film it?

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Speaker 1: Like somewhere because it was it was like done location

416
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:26,520
Speaker 1: and they like didn't they just get the kids by

417
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Speaker 1: like going out in the street and being like, hey,

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Speaker 1: what are you want a movie?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Me?

421
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 2: It was bad. It was real bad. Oh. Yes, so

422
00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 2: Vic Morrow, who was an Emmy winning actor was killed

423
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Speaker 2: in a helicopter crash with two illegally hired child actors.

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Speaker 2: That was it. Yeah, where did they film it? And

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00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:49,000
Speaker 2: this led to a bunch of new safety procedures and

426
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,879
Speaker 2: stuff implemented in the filmmaking industry. Basically, the guy was

427
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:56,080
Speaker 2: shooting it was it was like a war sequence, and

428
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Speaker 2: the guy piloting the helicopter was like having troubled navig

429
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Speaker 2: the detonations that they were shooting into the air from

430
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Speaker 2: the ground by the pyrotechnic guy, and that caused this

431
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:14,880
Speaker 2: helicopter crash. Damn he never oh, he was aquitted, but yeah.

432
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 2: Why do I think he was like sort of cavalier

433
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 2: about it? Anyway? I don't know. We talked about this enough,

434
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:23,119
Speaker 2: it'll come back. Despite being a film that features one

435
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:25,600
Speaker 2: of its main characters reciting the details of her father's

436
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:28,720
Speaker 2: horrifying death and the murder of a senior citizen, Gremlins

437
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:30,800
Speaker 2: has its origins with one of the most family friendly

438
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 2: writers of the past fifty years, Christopher Columbus. Columbus basically

439
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:38,200
Speaker 2: wrote the original script for this as a writing exercise.

440
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:40,280
Speaker 2: He never intended it for it to actually get made,

441
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 2: he told cut Print Film in twenty sixteen. I got

442
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 2: the idea from an apartment I used to live in

443
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 2: what sounded like a platoon of mice would come out,

444
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:50,439
Speaker 2: and to hear them skittering around in the blackness was

445
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:54,679
Speaker 2: really creepy. And his script was legendarily far darker than

446
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:59,400
Speaker 2: the finished film. Gizmo actually transforms into the main Gremlin

447
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 2: stripe rather than birthing him. I hate using that verb.

448
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,000
Speaker 2: And it also features a scene in which the character

449
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:08,359
Speaker 2: Billy comes down the stairs and his mother's decapitated head

450
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 2: is bounced at him. Columbus had come to Stephen Spielberg's

451
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:14,639
Speaker 2: eye with a short film that he made at NYU

452
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 2: called I Think I'm Gonna Like It here, And this

453
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 2: was like I think he was like twenty two or

454
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 2: twenty three, Like he just sent this script out via

455
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 2: his agent and it went out to like forty people,

456
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 2: and Spielberg grabbed it from like the submissions pile in

457
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 2: his office and liked it. He didn't like it enough

458
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,159
Speaker 2: to direct it because he had just wrapped the puppet

459
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 2: heavy et and was now working on Indiana Jones and

460
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:41,440
Speaker 2: The Temple of Doom, which featured a lot of heavy

461
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:44,399
Speaker 2: special effects, but he offered Chris Columbus a chance to

462
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 2: come out to la and develop the script with him

463
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 2: at Ambulin. They toned it down and Spielberg actually came

464
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 2: up with the idea of making Gizmo a separate creature

465
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 2: from the Gremlins. He birthed them instead of becoming one

466
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:01,919
Speaker 2: of them. Gotta stop saying that. And this was partially

467
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,639
Speaker 2: done at the script stage, but also they like tweaked

468
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff right before production, both the design

469
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:10,679
Speaker 2: of Gizmo and Spielberg was like, yeah, he should do

470
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:12,919
Speaker 2: all the heroic stuff at the end, and they actually

471
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 2: took it away from Zach Gallaghan, who was like, I

472
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,439
Speaker 2: got to be the hero in this, like my first,

473
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:20,919
Speaker 2: my first film, and Spielberg gave it like I don't know,

474
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 2: weeks before they were supposed to start shooting and was like, uh,

475
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 2: Puppet's gonna do it instantly. Maguai means devil or demon

476
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 2: in Cantonese and Mandarin. It's pronounced mogui. I don't know

477
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:36,880
Speaker 2: why I gave that a French accent. I'm not good

478
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 2: with languages. You cribn languages we're talking about, Joe Dante

479
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:43,440
Speaker 2: told Empire in twenty twenty two. Originally, Gizmo was meant

480
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:44,879
Speaker 2: to be in the movie for the first couple of

481
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:47,920
Speaker 2: reels before turning into Stripe the Bad Gremlin, and about

482
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 2: six weeks away from the shoot, Steven Spielberg had this

483
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:52,919
Speaker 2: brilliant idea, and it was a brilliant idea to make

484
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 2: him the sidekick. We built a giant Gizmo head and

485
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 2: got lots of close ups, and he became the de

486
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 2: facto star of the movie. We even reshot the ending,

487
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:05,880
Speaker 2: much to Zach Gallaghan's chagrin. Dante had met Spielberg under

488
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 2: much less auspicious circumstances than NYU. It was when Universal

489
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 2: filed suit against Roger Corman, who, as I mentioned earlier,

490
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 2: Joe Dante came up under. This was over the Corman

491
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 2: produced Dante directed film Piranha. Universal sued him based on

492
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 2: its similarities to Jaws, but in an immense display of chillness,

493
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 2: Stephen Spielberg basically was like, you know what, We're gonna

494
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:34,919
Speaker 2: get ripped off a lot, and this is the best

495
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:38,920
Speaker 2: made ripoff I've seen. So he convinced Universal back down,

496
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 2: and he was impressed enough by Dante's direction on Piranha

497
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 2: that he gave him a slot in the Twilight Zone movie,

498
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:48,640
Speaker 2: and based on the howling in the aforementioned Werewolf Year,

499
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:52,679
Speaker 2: he offered Dante Gremlins. And the timing of this was

500
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 2: incredible because Dante supposedly was down to his last one

501
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 2: hundred dollars and like so depressed about his prospects in

502
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 2: Hollywood that when Spielberg's offer for it arrived in the mail,

503
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 2: he assumed it had been sent to the wrong address.

504
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 2: I'm funny this this is equally amazing and puts a

505
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 2: totally different film into an alternate timeline. Spielberg actually wanted

506
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 2: Tim Burton to direct this because Tim Burton had been

507
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:20,400
Speaker 2: coming out of col Arts and like, had been actually

508
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:23,959
Speaker 2: working for Disney, and he'd produced franken Weeny, which is

509
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 2: his like black and white thing about the kid who

510
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:29,680
Speaker 2: Frankenstein's dog. But he just didn't think that Tim Burton

511
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 2: ultimately had enough experience to helm a feature film. And

512
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:36,360
Speaker 2: then Tim Burton promptly proved him incorrect when Pee Wee's

513
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 2: Big Adventure came out not a long time later. But man,

514
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 2: imagine that Tim Burton directed Gremlins. Everyone just do that

515
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 2: Dutch angles German expressionism, a fucking Danny Elfman soundtrack. But

516
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 2: did Jerry Goldsmith's song was like, actually, yeah, that Jerry

517
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 2: Goldsmith theme from this movie, one of the two famous ones,

518
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 2: aside from Gizmo's Lullaby, sounds remarkably like some of Danny

519
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 2: Elfman's bullsh Maybe that was a dig.

520
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: Maybe that was like when Tim Burton first started working

521
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: with Danny Elfman, it was like, all right, we gotta you.

522
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 2: Want me to make the rest of my career sound

523
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 2: like the Kremlins theme the movie you took from me.

524
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: I will say these two Spielberg stories with Dante and

525
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:23,640
Speaker 1: Chris Columbus are very cool. Like he's showing that he's

526
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,400
Speaker 1: cool in a way that I did not readily expect.

527
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, this gave me a whole new level of respect

528
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:30,679
Speaker 2: for him, just the degree to which he was like

529
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 2: he like recognized a little bit of himself, like the

530
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:35,959
Speaker 2: same kind of gee whiz nineteen forties and fifties. Yea,

531
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 2: loves movies, loved Paul culture stuff, and just like went

532
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 2: to bat with him throughout this entire shoot, which you

533
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 2: will now read.

534
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 1: I'm sure I've told you this, but I had a

535
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: family member who semi casually knew Steven Spielberg and was

536
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: in his office a bunch on the Universal lot, and

537
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 1: apparently he had like a table with like all of

538
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: his special things on it and his awards, and he

539
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: would have his oscar next to like his like boy

540
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: Scott Pine with Derby trophy and stuff like that. Just

541
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: like it all was like equal in like these are

542
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: my special things.

543
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 2: I know I can adorable. I really like that.

544
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 1: Gremlins would be the first original picture from Spielberg's new

545
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 1: Ambulance Imprint, and Joe Dante told cut Print Film that

546
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: the studio was unconvinced that this was a great idea

547
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: for a movie. They did it to make Steven Spielberg

548
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: happy mainly, but the arrangement actually worked out fine. Since

549
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: Spielberg was busy shooting Indiana Jones at the Temple of Doom,

550
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 1: he wasn't available to be as hands on or as

551
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: you put in parentheses, interfering as he was with Toby

552
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 1: Hooper on the set of Poltergeist, which was a movie

553
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: that he basically shadow directed, ghost directed.

554
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this has been like an ongoing controversy

555
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 2: for decades. Mick Garris, who is like a horror guy

556
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 2: from the industry, he directed a film called Sleepwalkers, and

557
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 2: he's just been I think he has other stuff that

558
00:29:57,480 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 2: doesn't come to mind, but he has like a very

559
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 2: famous horror podcast that he runs, and he conclusively was

560
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 2: like Toby Hooper directed Poultergeist. But it was such a

561
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 2: controversy at the time where everyone was like accusing Spielberg

562
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 2: of basically leaning over Toby Hooper's shoulder the entire time

563
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 2: and telling him how to move the camera and telling

564
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 2: him how to do stuff that Spielberg was moved to

565
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 2: take like a full page ad out number of the

566
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 2: trades that was like Toby Hooper directed this movie, not me.

567
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 2: I am sorry, and then like, yeah, it was crazy.

568
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 2: You know, people had less to do back then.

569
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: But because Spielberg was so hands off for Poultergeist, Dante

570
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: would basically use Steven Spielberg as a shield, asking him

571
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 1: to tell the studio to back off whenever they had

572
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: notes that he didn't agree with, which was nice. They

573
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 1: won't mess with you, and you won't mess with me.

574
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 1: This works out great.

575
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it was really an ideal suggest

576
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 2: Joe Dante's incredibly lucky director actually, given the success of this,

577
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 2: which could have been a huge disaster, and what he

578
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 2: got to do with Gremlins two, as we'll cover later.

579
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned this earlier, the whole like nineteen forties

580
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: fifties gollage whiz Americana stuff. Jodah Day stuffed Gremlins with

581
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: nods to American pop culture. He studied Frank Capra and

582
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart's iconic It's a Wonderful Life for the wintry

583
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: small town vibe of the film, and there's more than

584
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: one nod to him in this movie. The nineteen fifty

585
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: seven educational short shown in science class Hemo of The

586
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 1: Magnificent was written and directed by Capra.

587
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 2: That's nuts. What an insane deep cut dude to find

588
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 2: a Capra directed educational short and sneak it into your

589
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 2: movie as a nod to him.

590
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 1: That's pretty gone and it's a wonderful life. The movie

591
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: appears literally depicted on TV, as does Invasion of the

592
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: Body Snatchers. Plus Gremlins has packed with tributes to everything

593
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: from Flashdance to Looney Tunes and even Spielberg himself. The

594
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 1: titles on the movie theater Marquis are a Boy's Life

595
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 1: and Watch the Skies the respective shooting titles for ET

596
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And Spielberg also

597
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 1: had a tiny cameo in Gremlins.

598
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 2: What was he? He's in a wheelchair when Billy's dad

599
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 2: calls him from the expo that he's presenting at.

600
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: If we have more time, I would do a quick

601
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: sidebar on hitchcocky and directed cameos.

602
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we don't, we don't. Sorry.

603
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: James Cameron is the third class paster boarding The Titanic

604
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the movie.

605
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 2: In Titanic there, sorry, I had to.

606
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 1: It's like cartman. He can't start singing has to finish it.

607
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, damn it.

608
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: The Gremlin jokes inserted in the movie Gremlin weren't even

609
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 1: limited to pop culture. They snuck an AMC Gremlin car

610
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 1: into the Chinatown scene, depicted with its hood up and

611
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: smoke pouring out of its engine because I think it

612
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: was kind of a piece of garbage if I re.

613
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 2: Call yeah right, that was the bit about that car.

614
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 2: A bit.

615
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: Funnily enough, one of the most repeated trivia bits about

616
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: Gremlins is that the set used for the film's Kingston Falls,

617
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: which is Universal's town Square set on Universal's backlot, was

618
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 1: reused just a year later for Back to the Future's

619
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: Mill Valley, a place that I used to wander around

620
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: quite a bit as a kid when I used to

621
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: roam the back lots as a little boy, and Back

622
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 1: to the Future was my favorite movie. So I used

623
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: to go to the clock Tower Square and it was

624
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: pretendo was Marty McFly was great. I also went to

625
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: the Bates Motel too, which is weird because you would

626
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: go inside and one of the rooms actually had a

627
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: shower with like dried fake blood in it, And I

628
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 1: don't know if I just kept it that way for

629
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: like people who would visit.

630
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 2: But I didn't know that, and.

631
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: I got really creeped out, really creepy.

632
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think it was. Wasn't it Chocolate

633
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 2: syrup famously?

634
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, it was right after Gus Van

635
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 1: Sant did the Shop for Shot remake, which they also

636
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 1: shot on that so part of me was.

637
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 2: Like, wait, is this from this?

638
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: But I think it was just for people who were

639
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: visiting to to get a kick out of it. Anyway,

640
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 1: Gremlins had originally intended to film elsewhere to cut costs.

641
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: They wanted to use the so called Dukes of Hazzard

642
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 1: Street on the Warner Brothers lot, but scheduling delays forced

643
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: them to move to the more expensive Universal Towns where

644
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: these sequences of the film. But even shooting on a

645
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: back lot didn't guarantee peace of mind. About a week

646
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 1: before shooting started, another production company began setting up in

647
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 1: the area immediately behind the Universal town Square a lot.

648
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 1: Cinematographer John Horra told the American Society of Cinematographers magazine,

649
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 1: Suddenly they began erecting all these giant poles and tarps

650
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 1: and other paraphernalia right behind our buildings, and you pause it.

651
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 2: This may have.

652
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 1: Actually been the production of Back to the Future, because

653
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: the timeline works out release wise.

654
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 2: I don't know the shooting schedule back to the Future.

655
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,879
Speaker 2: I could have easily looked that up and I didn't. Yeh,

656
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 2: Nion regrets the area.

657
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:41,279
Speaker 1: You also pause it that if it wasn't Back to

658
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:43,799
Speaker 1: the Future, it might have been Walter Hill's Streets of Fire.

659
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:46,360
Speaker 2: Which is in the Blu Ray commentary. They said that

660
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 2: was shooting at the same time. So those are the two.

661
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:51,280
Speaker 2: Those are the two culprits that up the Gremlin shoot.

662
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 1: We got to do Back to the Future one of

663
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: these days. Our buddies Jay and Alley really want us

664
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:56,920
Speaker 1: to do that.

665
00:34:57,000 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 2: I'll just let you do that as a broken monologue.

666
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,879
Speaker 2: Oh come on, like the Iceman Cometh or something. We'll

667
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:04,719
Speaker 2: like rent out a theater and you can just read

668
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 2: the entire forty five pages. I'm sure you'll write alone,

669
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:11,320
Speaker 2: and I'll complaud you at the end like horse and

670
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 2: well as a citizen painning.

671
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I had seventy pages on Titanic, so I

672
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 1: think that uh.

673
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jesus fifty. Just pitch the fucking book, dude.

674
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: Cinematographer John Horra said that these sets were so high

675
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 1: up that they couldn't shoot the tops of buildings for gremlins.

676
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 1: In one of the film's matte paintings, even had to

677
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: incorporate the other sets cables into the illustration. It was

678
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: a nightmare, he concluded. Not only did we have to

679
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 1: be careful where we shot, but while we were setting

680
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:41,760
Speaker 1: up there was continuous construction, noise, pile drivers, hammers shouting.

681
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: The only quiet moments we had were when we were shooting.

682
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: The majority of interiris were shot on Warner Brothers sound

683
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: stages at the Burbank Studios. The non specific Chinatown where

684
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 1: refers to meet Gizmo, was shot on the Burbank Studios.

685
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: Tenement Street, which you pause, it is possibly racist. I'm

686
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: gonna say, yes.

687
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 2: Against the Chinese or the Irish. You literally call something

688
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 2: Tenement Street like a shorthand reference to like the most

689
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 2: dehumanizing housing situation of all time.

690
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 1: Or anti Semitic. I mean, it's anyone who's not or

691
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:16,280
Speaker 1: anti Italian. There's really like lots of people.

692
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 2: Make you pick those are just anti poor.

693
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, it's more classes than racist.

694
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: I guess. Originally this was supposed to have taken place

695
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong until someone points it out it might

696
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 1: be hard to get Gizmo through customs, and.

697
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 2: That's the one thing they decided to make realistic about it.

698
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: It's gonna say, I love the logic rears its head

699
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 1: very selectively in these things.

700
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 4: As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with

701
00:36:43,320 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 4: more too much information after these messages. Woo, and now

702
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 4: we were onto the true stars of this movie, and

703
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 4: it's MVP, the puppets and the man who made them possible.

704
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 4: SFX legend Chris Wayless. I believe it is pronounced he

705
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,400
Speaker 4: would go on to win an Oscar for still some

706
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:18,120
Speaker 4: of the most horrific imager I've ever seen in my life.

707
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 4: The Jeff Goldbloom falls apart or turns into a fly

708
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 4: cancer monster in David Cronenberg's The Fly Wayless. You might remember,

709
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 4: for those of you with an encyclopedic memory and a

710
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,319
Speaker 4: love of this show. He previously appeared in TMI when

711
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 4: we did Raid the Lost Arc because he was the

712
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 4: guy who designed the melting Nazis at the end.

713
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and he initially came on to Gremlins because

714
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 2: he'd been working with Joe Dante and Dante's producer Michael Finnel,

715
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 2: who is also a Roger Corman alum on I think

716
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:55,800
Speaker 2: a three D version of Creature from the Black Lagoon,

717
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 2: and this is hilarious. That project was shelved in favor

718
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 2: of John three D, one of the most famous cinematic

719
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 2: nightmares of all time. But you know, Wayless still wanted

720
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:11,239
Speaker 2: to hang around with Finela and Dante narrator voice, and

721
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 2: he would regret that choice. He told an Empire. I

722
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:16,839
Speaker 2: pulled the first draft of the Gremlin script the other

723
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 2: day and read it, and I have no idea how

724
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 2: I could be so stupid as to commit to that project.

725
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 2: I'd written one word on the front cover.

726
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 3: Ha.

727
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:27,800
Speaker 2: I didn't think it could be done. The technology didn't exist.

728
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 2: I didn't have a shop or crew, but I was

729
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 2: desperate for money. Columbus's script had included initial descriptions of

730
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 2: both the Magua and the Gremlins. Wayliss recalled them as

731
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 2: like armored things with big, white, spiked horns, but he

732
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 2: wanted them to have a specific esthetic callback to the Magua.

733
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 2: He wanted them to be on a continuum of quote

734
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 2: unquote evolution, so he gave them their you know, the

735
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:54,800
Speaker 2: big bat Ears, just a great weird little guy design

736
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 2: really all up there in the pantheon. Well we'll get

737
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 2: to that, but I mean the Gremlins as well, because

738
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 2: Spielberg endlessly meddled with the design of the Magua. As

739
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 2: we'll book talk. Wales told Cutprint Films that his initial

740
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 2: inspiration for Gizmo was more simion shall we say apes

741
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:16,240
Speaker 2: after ape like after reading the script, my first idea

742
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,839
Speaker 2: was to take the tarsier a little primate and give

743
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 2: it to cartoony proportions. I wanted the big eyes to

744
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 2: make it cute. I showed it to Mike Finel and

745
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:26,560
Speaker 2: Joe Dante and they asked for some tweaks, So I

746
00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:28,880
Speaker 2: made the next one. This was more like a puppy.

747
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:31,440
Speaker 2: Fortunately they didn't go with it. Those are the only

748
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 2: two magua I sculpted before the final one. And I

749
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 2: mentioned that Stephen would just like randomly call in from

750
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 2: wherever he was shooting Temple of Doom and be like, uh,

751
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 2: make it have translucent like bat ears or like fox ears.

752
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 2: And then later he was like in the grand tradition

753
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:50,480
Speaker 2: of George Lucas, basing Chewbacca on his own dog Spielberg

754
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 2: would call and say, yeah, can you make gizmo match

755
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 2: the color of my dog Chauncey, which I believe it

756
00:39:56,920 --> 00:40:02,800
Speaker 2: is a beach Chauncey. And then once they had the designs,

757
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 2: then they had to figure out how to animate these

758
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 2: little bastards, Wales told Fangoria. Initially, Joe Dante wanted the

759
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 2: magwa to look very real. At one point we even

760
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 2: brought in a monkey to see if we might be

761
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:15,880
Speaker 2: able to put a monkey in a suit. Then we

762
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 2: thought of getting little squirrels or some kind of rodent

763
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,320
Speaker 2: from some remote part of the world that wouldn't be

764
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,120
Speaker 2: immediately identifiable, and do a little coloring on them.

765
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,320
Speaker 1: Front of the pod monkeys in suits.

766
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 2: But the dog in the film was I think enough

767
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 2: working with animals for Joe and anyway, we decided to

768
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 2: go with a full effects creature, Dante told Cutprint Films.

769
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 2: We actually did get a monkey and put a head

770
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:39,919
Speaker 2: on him and watched him koreene around the editing room,

771
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:42,959
Speaker 2: pooping on everything in tear. We decided it really wasn't

772
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 2: going to work out. There were so many hilarious images

773
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 2: of when people try to make animals as like a

774
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 2: cost cutting measure. There's one from Alien three where the

775
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 2: alien hatches out of a dog. So they were going

776
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:58,839
Speaker 2: to try and make a whippet with like an exoskeleton

777
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:01,280
Speaker 2: and props around it, and they are like set photos

778
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:03,080
Speaker 2: of this thing, and it is first of all, so

779
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 2: cute with his little like aliens like armor and tail,

780
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 2: and second of all is just like, why, why, guys,

781
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:15,279
Speaker 2: why are you making me do this? Anyway, Whales has

782
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 2: said that Gremlins is his favorite thing that he's worked

783
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 2: on repeatedly, but he has also steal said it was

784
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 2: an enormous pain in the ass that nearly killed him,

785
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:25,440
Speaker 2: and most of that was Gizmo, he told star wars

786
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 2: dot Com. The small size of the Magua made it

787
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 2: difficult to come up with mechanical puppets that would have

788
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 2: enough features to keep the puppet alive on film. We

789
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 2: just couldn't get away with the most standard puppet techniques

790
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 2: at that small size, so most of the Magua were

791
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 2: largely animatronic, as opposed to the Gremlins. The Gremlins were

792
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 2: specifically designed to be hand puppets, and the majority of

793
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 2: them were relatively simple puppets that were enjoyable to operate.

794
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:51,920
Speaker 2: There were lots of specialized puppets that only did one thing. Crawl, skateboard,

795
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:54,880
Speaker 2: hang from lights, etc. We made a lot of puppets

796
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 2: on that film, so many that an accurate guess at

797
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 2: a number is not really feasible, especially since we canized

798
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:02,399
Speaker 2: a lot of them to create new ones along the way.

799
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 2: They made around twenty different gizmos for the film. Sometimes

800
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:08,760
Speaker 2: several were used in the same shot. This is insane

801
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:10,719
Speaker 2: to me. So he would he would be he was

802
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:14,879
Speaker 2: carried by Billy, and that would be I think they said,

803
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 2: an RC controlled like a radio frequency controlled puppet, and

804
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,440
Speaker 2: then Billy would set hit the character would set him down,

805
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 2: and in the intervening time, when the camera was panning

806
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 2: downwards Wayless would have to yank the other one, the

807
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:31,800
Speaker 2: one he was holding out of frame. In the intervening

808
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 2: time before the camera reached the floor, where a different

809
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 2: model piloted a different way, had already been placed in

810
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 2: the shot. Zach Allagan, who plays Billy, told Empire, if

811
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 2: you look at the film, the camera almost never pans

812
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 2: below my waist. That's because there were twelve people down there,

813
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 2: duck walking around with joysticks while cables ran up my

814
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 2: body I'd have to be smiling and having a fabulous

815
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,280
Speaker 2: time with this little furry thing while this contraption pinched

816
00:42:56,320 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 2: my flesh. That's my favorite Zappa album. Contraption pinched my flesh.

817
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:07,400
Speaker 2: Deep cut reference there not even one of the most

818
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:11,280
Speaker 2: popular Zappa albums. Weasels ripped my flash. It is oh okay,

819
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:14,439
Speaker 2: I stand corrected, not a deep cut. By the time

820
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 2: gizmo started moving, it was incredible. He'd be so cute,

821
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 2: I'd get the inclination to touch him, and the puppeteers

822
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 2: were so good that he'd instantly react. That must have

823
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:25,879
Speaker 2: been a little insane making imagine showing up to work

824
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:29,319
Speaker 2: like a little altered and like you're like.

825
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 1: The puppet is real.

826
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 2: It's reacting to me. This is nuts to me. Like

827
00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 2: they designed because they couldn't fit all the mechanisms in

828
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:43,240
Speaker 2: a smaller sized puppet. They designed just what they called superfaces,

829
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,759
Speaker 2: which were like foot wide three feet with the ears

830
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 2: oh intensely packed and intricately designed gizmo heads that had

831
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,799
Speaker 2: all of the motors and hydraulics necessary that you see

832
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 2: in the intense close ups. That's how they got his

833
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 2: like you know, his eyebrows and cheek and all of

834
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:05,919
Speaker 2: his lips and the eartips to move. Is that that's

835
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 2: a much larger puppet than the actual things were, just

836
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:12,720
Speaker 2: an extreme close up way. Let's told Death by Films.

837
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:15,800
Speaker 2: We used all sorts of methids to operate the Magua

838
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 2: and Gremlins, radio signals, rods, handwork, marionetting cables, and what

839
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 2: I call throw them across the room puppetry, which could

840
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,400
Speaker 2: probably be best seen in the tavern scene where they are

841
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 2: literally just rubber puppets being cast across the room. Speedwork's

842
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 2: relatively last minute decision to make Gizmo more heroic and

843
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 2: central to the film's action necessitated his place in Billy's

844
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 2: backpack for most of the second half of the film

845
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 2: because all the junk that they had to animate him

846
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:49,320
Speaker 2: with could be more easily hidden. And the crew hated

847
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 2: Gizmo so much that they assembled a list titled Horrible

848
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:57,399
Speaker 2: Things to Do to Gizmo, and the shot of him

849
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:00,400
Speaker 2: being strung up on a dartboard by the graund Lands

850
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:04,759
Speaker 2: was pulled from that list. Dante did tell Empire though

851
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 2: the dog in the movie Mushroom thought Gizmo was real.

852
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:10,360
Speaker 2: We got reactions out of him that were just incredible.

853
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:13,520
Speaker 2: They actually started calling him like the cutaway dog, because

854
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:16,360
Speaker 2: whenever they were stuck for like a reaction shot, they

855
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 2: were like Mushroom would always have the most incredible face reactions.

856
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 2: They would just fill frames by cutting away to the dog.

857
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:27,480
Speaker 2: Cigar chopping executive, Shoot the dog, more dog in the picture.

858
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 1: That's not what I mean, is okay?

859
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:36,359
Speaker 2: Gizmo cast quite a long shadow. Joe Dante recalled an

860
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:39,360
Speaker 2: ama on Reddit that when Ferbie Fever was sweeping the

861
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:42,360
Speaker 2: nation in nineteen ninety eight, producer Mike Fanell and I

862
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 2: noticed a certain similarity between Ferbie and the Magua and

863
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 2: pointed it out to Warner Brothers. Soon there was a

864
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 2: gizmo Ferby for sale, and no doubt some settlement money

865
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 2: changed hands. He has also recently charged Disney with wholesale

866
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 2: ripping off the gizmo for the baby Yo.

867
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: Oh wow, oh my god. Yeah, oh, I didn't even

868
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 1: think about that. Despite the fact that there were a

869
00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 1: ton of gremlins and some were literally just built to be,

870
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:14,799
Speaker 1: as you said, thrown across a room. Billy actor Zach

871
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: Gallaghan recalled that security was extra tight around these puppets

872
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 1: because they were such a substantial part of the budget.

873
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,360
Speaker 1: This look gonna sell these puppets on the black market.

874
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 2: I don't know.

875
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:26,879
Speaker 1: Maybe they maybe they would sell them to Disney, who knows.

876
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 2: Supposedly these things were in the neighborhood of like thirty

877
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, would go up to costing like thirty thousand

878
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 2: dollars each between man hours and parts and everything. But

879
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 2: who would you sell them to?

880
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 1: And it's not like whoever you sold them to, who

881
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:41,360
Speaker 1: could use them because they'd be so identifiable in the

882
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: movie as like, oh that's the thing I built like.

883
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:49,800
Speaker 2: A thriving a thriving La skid Row marketplace, black market,

884
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 2: place of screen used gremlins. Hey, may I want to

885
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:59,080
Speaker 2: buy a puppet? Opens a strench code? Actually those things

886
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:02,279
Speaker 2: are all over the community online. There's because they made

887
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 2: so many, they're still being sold.

888
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: Cast and crew were asked by security to pop their

889
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: trunks to make sure no puppets were being smuggled out.

890
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite factoids we've ever read.

891
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 2: On this show. Wow, is that a maguaie in your pants?

892
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 2: Or you just happy to see me? Better?

893
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:23,920
Speaker 1: Said in the scar chomping executive voice. Creepier but much

894
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:27,319
Speaker 1: more effective. Compounding any scene with a puppet was the

895
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:30,240
Speaker 1: fact that production didn't have the budget to build raised

896
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:32,720
Speaker 1: sets like they did for Muppets films.

897
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 2: Or who framed Roger Rabbit.

898
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: In other words, you could have the puppeteers beneath the

899
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: floor where the human actors were to kind of, you know,

900
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: do the puppeteering. You know how puppets were and if

901
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:47,239
Speaker 1: you don't pause this show right now and google it,

902
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,440
Speaker 1: Jim Spencer, the production designer, came up with the affordable

903
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 1: answer Waylis told Dailydaed dot com. He chose one of

904
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 1: the Warner Brothers stages that had a pool in it

905
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:57,839
Speaker 1: and built the sets over the existing flooring there.

906
00:47:57,920 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 2: I'm smart.

907
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 1: So the puppeteers had to go down into the cement

908
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:02,839
Speaker 1: flooring of the pool and work their way through the

909
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: maze of floor supports. It wasn't the ideal situation, but

910
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 1: it worked. Cement Pond.

911
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:11,279
Speaker 2: She's Hillbillies too, Yeah, right.

912
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:14,439
Speaker 1: The most complicated scenes in the film were the scene

913
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:17,880
Speaker 1: in which Phoebe Kate's character is being menaced, as you say,

914
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 1: by gremlins in Dori's tavern, along with the scene where

915
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 1: the gremlins are in the theater watching Snow White, which,

916
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:28,200
Speaker 1: as you mentioned and I can only imagine, necessitated some

917
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 1: intense negotiation with Disney. Maybe that was why they felt

918
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 1: entitled to snatch it for Baby Yoda.

919
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure, we earn this.

920
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:40,080
Speaker 1: Waloes explained to Daily Dead that the bar scene was

921
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 1: made even more complicated by the fact that director Joe

922
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: Dante encouraged the crew to help brainstorm the action by

923
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 1: way of a blank list he posted on set. There

924
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: are big on lists on the set. We had to

925
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:54,919
Speaker 1: build a law of special rigs, and there was even

926
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:57,800
Speaker 1: a rig built for three gremlins dancing against the wall

927
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 1: that ended up not being used like full Monty style.

928
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: There are all kinds of gags we did in the

929
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:05,759
Speaker 1: bar that were cut from the film. I think the

930
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:08,839
Speaker 1: original bar scene ran twenty minutes long and Joe cut

931
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:10,959
Speaker 1: it down to ten, so there's a lot of missing

932
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:13,800
Speaker 1: gremlins in there. I don't remember many specifics, as I

933
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 1: was burt to a cinder by that time in the production,

934
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:18,240
Speaker 1: but it was a week in the bar just shooting

935
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: gremlin gags over and over again. In the bar scene,

936
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:24,799
Speaker 1: the lighted cores sign on the wall was apparently a

937
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:27,920
Speaker 1: huge headache for camera and lighting crew, presumably because they

938
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 1: didn't want to have free advertising in there, so.

939
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:33,520
Speaker 2: They playing it threw off the the way they were

940
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:36,720
Speaker 2: lighting the shut. Yeah, in that in that ASC magazine article,

941
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:41,920
Speaker 2: what's his name? Horace? John Horace? Uh, would I think

942
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:45,399
Speaker 2: work on Gremlins two again, he talks about how they

943
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:48,399
Speaker 2: wanted the lighting for this to look like old EC

944
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:52,400
Speaker 2: comics splash pages. So like that scene in the pool

945
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 2: where it's like lit from below by green but also

946
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:59,319
Speaker 2: like four different weird other light sources from the from

947
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 2: the windows and all this stuff in the bar. They

948
00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:03,239
Speaker 2: were trying to make it look like a comic and

949
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 2: a cartoon, and this course sign was just throwing off

950
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 2: all the lighting and always dead center in the shot.

951
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 1: They got around this by asking the guy supervising the

952
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 1: shot when the gremlin flies off a ceiling fan if

953
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: he could aim the prop at the light and he

954
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 1: successfully destroyed it in one shot. What a good problem

955
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:21,400
Speaker 1: solving in this?

956
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 2: Yeah? It just whales will I mean, yeah, we're going

957
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:28,360
Speaker 2: to talk about the personal hell that this was for

958
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 2: Chris Whalis, But like, doesn't sound fun to whip a

959
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 2: puppet off a ceiling fan and smash a bar.

960
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 1: Sign like, come on, that was the problem to solve

961
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:39,399
Speaker 1: that day.

962
00:50:39,640 --> 00:50:41,759
Speaker 2: He was seriously put through the ringer though by this,

963
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:45,760
Speaker 2: because after principal photography wrapped, there were another three months

964
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 2: of puppet filming for shots that didn't require any humans

965
00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 2: to be in the frame. I'd barely survived the main production,

966
00:50:52,200 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 2: he told Empire, And this was literally just one puppet

967
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:58,279
Speaker 2: shot after another. At best, I averaged three hours of

968
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 2: sleep per night. I mean, it's just a very very hectic,

969
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:05,200
Speaker 2: panicked endurance test. He got a kidney stone and literally

970
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 2: fell off a truck at one point during this marathon,

971
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:12,240
Speaker 2: injuring his ankle and forcing him onto crutches. The voices

972
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 2: of Gizmo and the Gremlins were made of a fairly

973
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 2: talented cast of dudes. Howie Mandel gets a lot of

974
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:19,480
Speaker 2: credit for the voice of Gizmo, but he's annoying and

975
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 2: his Gizmo voice is essentially just the one he used

976
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:24,799
Speaker 2: for Bobby's World, so for him. Most of the film

977
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 2: was actually shot with the Gremlins and Gizmo silent. Waless's

978
00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:30,759
Speaker 2: crew would make little noises and voices when they were

979
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:33,880
Speaker 2: working with the puppets, so they actually got to record

980
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:35,840
Speaker 2: a guide track. They brought all the crew into the

981
00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:38,560
Speaker 2: studio and had them record like a guide track for

982
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:42,320
Speaker 2: the actual voice actors, and then Waless was really hurt

983
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:44,680
Speaker 2: when he went to see the movie and discovered that

984
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 2: all of those noises had been replaced with animal sounds.

985
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:50,799
Speaker 2: So they went back and did it again. Other voice

986
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:54,840
Speaker 2: actors included Michael Winslow, forever known as the Police Academy

987
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 2: funny Mouth Sounds guy, and friend of the pod legendary

988
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:04,160
Speaker 2: voiceover artist Frank Welker. Welker actually got Mandel the job,

989
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 2: the suckier of the two men, revealed. Frank set up

990
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 2: this interview for me, and I went in. Mandel, who

991
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 2: sucks told cut print film. It was a building that

992
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:16,360
Speaker 2: also housed a gynecologist's office, So when I approached that

993
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 2: sign and heard noises coming out, I thought, oh my god,

994
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:21,640
Speaker 2: I have no idea what procedure this doctor could possibly

995
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,239
Speaker 2: be doing. It turned out it was just the auditions

996
00:52:24,239 --> 00:52:28,239
Speaker 2: for the Gremlins voices. This may be Mandel telling a

997
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:31,359
Speaker 2: flop sweaty joke because Film School Rejects does this great

998
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 2: feature called commentary commentary where they just like transcribe the

999
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:38,600
Speaker 2: best of audio commentaries for different movies, and for the

1000
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:41,759
Speaker 2: Gremlins one they talk about Howie Mandel like does the

1001
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 2: Gizmo voice of course, and spends like half of they say,

1002
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 2: he spends half of it cracking jokes about half of

1003
00:52:47,680 --> 00:52:51,880
Speaker 2: which land. Oh Howie Mandel, who is a piece of

1004
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 2: losersh doesn't sing Gizmo's iconic song that was a thirteen

1005
00:52:56,080 --> 00:53:02,640
Speaker 2: year old from Jerry Goldsmith's synagogue. Why old do you

1006
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 2: hate Yai Mendel? He sucks? Oh, just okay. He's one

1007
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:08,680
Speaker 2: of those like old comics who's like, you can't make

1008
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 2: these my stuff today because the PC and these America's

1009
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 2: got talent. So like, fuck him, what do you mean?

1010
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:20,360
Speaker 2: Why do I hate Howie Mandel? His face, his meen.

1011
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:23,359
Speaker 1: I knew it was his co creator and co writer

1012
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:27,879
Speaker 1: on Bobby's World. He has a show too, oh how

1013
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:30,920
Speaker 1: A Mandol No, no, no, this other guy. Oh he

1014
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 1: has a show with Jason Alexander called Really No really.

1015
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:38,759
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah yeah. All the voice actors had to

1016
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 2: redub their lines for the foreign releases of the film

1017
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:45,719
Speaker 2: with local phrases and slang because they just really like

1018
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:48,799
Speaker 2: made up the different sounds for them as they went.

1019
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:51,879
Speaker 2: They were like when the when the the Gremlin goes

1020
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 2: like Gizmo coca, that was just like something that they

1021
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 2: just ran with. But then they had to redub it

1022
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 2: in other languages, despite the fact they weren't speak English

1023
00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:02,320
Speaker 2: in the first place. This was a little bit of

1024
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:07,240
Speaker 2: canny marketing on the part of Spielberg and Joe Dante,

1025
00:54:07,640 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 2: because they when they were re recording it, they threw

1026
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:13,360
Speaker 2: in all kinds of little local nods to each locale

1027
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:15,880
Speaker 2: that the film would be marketed in, and different pieces

1028
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 2: of slang in that language to make it land. For example,

1029
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 2: in Dori's tavern, they've replaced all of the music and

1030
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:26,640
Speaker 2: what the Gremlins are singing with German drinking songs. I

1031
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 2: like that. Yeah, it's great, good marketing, guys. Less interestingly,

1032
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:34,400
Speaker 2: we can talk about the cast of Gremlins. I actually

1033
00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:37,759
Speaker 2: really like Zach Alligan. He plays Billy Peltzer. He's a

1034
00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 2: sort of adorable every kid quality to him that's more

1035
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:44,640
Speaker 2: endearing than your average Spielbergian child lead, most of whom

1036
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:48,279
Speaker 2: I hate. And he would reprise the role in Gremlins too.

1037
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 2: He was a child, he was nineteen years old when

1038
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 2: he was cast, but he was originally meant to be thirteen,

1039
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:57,840
Speaker 2: which is why his best friend in the film is

1040
00:54:57,840 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 2: a pre pubescent Corey Feldman. He didn't. He kept acting,

1041
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 2: but like has not done much other than the Gremlins films.

1042
00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:08,920
Speaker 2: Gallagan was actually also almost beat out for the role

1043
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:13,239
Speaker 2: by Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson, who hilariously in the

1044
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:16,640
Speaker 2: Blu Ray commentary they say displayed a bit too much

1045
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:21,480
Speaker 2: anger in his audition. Judd Nelson too angry for Gremlins.

1046
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:28,760
Speaker 2: There were other Judd hersh however. Yeah, the other casting

1047
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 2: calls for this read like the who's who of eighties

1048
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:35,600
Speaker 2: male leads. Kevin Bacon, Rob Lowe just too handsome and

1049
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:39,640
Speaker 2: also busy raping people at the time, right, I didn't

1050
00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:43,439
Speaker 2: know that. Google's Francically Yeah, nineteen eighty eight, his sex

1051
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:45,719
Speaker 2: tape was with a twenty two year old woman and

1052
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 2: a sixteen year old.

1053
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:50,480
Speaker 1: Oh, I knew there was a sex tape. I didn't

1054
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:53,120
Speaker 1: know the sixteen year old part, So my mistake.

1055
00:55:53,280 --> 00:55:55,080
Speaker 2: He was not having sex with an underage woman when

1056
00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:58,600
Speaker 2: he was auditioning for Gremlins. TMI regrets the air.

1057
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:02,239
Speaker 1: The age of Cassette and Georgia that time. I was fourteen, so.

1058
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:08,360
Speaker 2: There so oh my god, the South.

1059
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:12,719
Speaker 1: At the time that he was in Atlanta, Georgia for

1060
00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:15,880
Speaker 1: the Democratic National Convention where he was campaigning for Mike Ducaucus.

1061
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:21,160
Speaker 2: Ralph Macchio also was like castor list, we should see that. Yeah,

1062
00:56:21,360 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 2: he's he's great. He's a little too like maybe I

1063
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 2: just because I only think of him as the karate kid,

1064
00:56:27,120 --> 00:56:29,400
Speaker 2: but he's like I can't really imagine him as like

1065
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:33,200
Speaker 2: Jersey guy. You know, he just is forever in my head,

1066
00:56:33,239 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 2: like biking around to banana rama and has like a

1067
00:56:36,200 --> 00:56:38,719
Speaker 2: doofy Jersey accent. I don't think I could buy him

1068
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:43,240
Speaker 2: in like a wintry upstate setting. Gallaghan auditioned for Gremlins

1069
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:45,759
Speaker 2: without really seeing the script or knowing that Spueberg was

1070
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 2: involved at all, but he got the part in two meetings.

1071
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 2: Our initial reaction was he's another pretty boy, producer Michael

1072
00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 2: Fanelt told The Washington Post. But when he read it

1073
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:57,920
Speaker 2: was very touching. He had exactly the sort of ingenuousness

1074
00:56:57,960 --> 00:57:01,080
Speaker 2: we were looking for on Gallagh. And second day he

1075
00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:03,759
Speaker 2: did a screen test with Phoebe Kates and the next

1076
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:06,879
Speaker 2: day both of them were offered the part. Supposedly, when

1077
00:57:06,920 --> 00:57:09,760
Speaker 2: Spielberg saw this test footage, he said, Oh my god,

1078
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:12,279
Speaker 2: look at that. He's in love with her already. I

1079
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:14,759
Speaker 2: don't need to see anything else. And to add the

1080
00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 2: final insult to injury. Phoebe Kates does not remember testing

1081
00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:23,800
Speaker 2: with Galian Oh ease of auditioning, aside, being a nineteen

1082
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:26,400
Speaker 2: year old in his first starring role meant Gallaghan was

1083
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:30,440
Speaker 2: a little inexperienced. In the Blu Ray commentary, Dante recalled

1084
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:32,720
Speaker 2: having to repeatedly tell him to shut his mouth when

1085
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 2: he wasn't speaking. The editor used to come up to

1086
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:36,760
Speaker 2: me and say, can't you get him to keep his

1087
00:57:36,800 --> 00:57:38,800
Speaker 2: mouth closed? He's always got his mouth open, and I

1088
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:41,760
Speaker 2: got to cut around it. Gallagan blames this on a

1089
00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:44,040
Speaker 2: book about Montgomery Clift.

1090
00:57:43,720 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 5: That he read.

1091
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:45,560
Speaker 1: Ah, I'm not.

1092
00:57:45,520 --> 00:57:47,560
Speaker 2: Familiar enough with Montgomery Cliff other than he got his

1093
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 2: face smashed to know that he was gate mouthed in scenes.

1094
00:57:51,400 --> 00:57:53,640
Speaker 1: Well, Elizabeth Taylor had to like pull his teeth out

1095
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 1: of his throat when I do remember that, So maybe

1096
00:57:56,840 --> 00:57:59,960
Speaker 1: that was I don't know, maybe that was teeth mouth.

1097
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:05,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, face smash, no, no brace story. There's a clash

1098
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:09,000
Speaker 2: song about him, the right profile really, so yeah, I

1099
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:11,600
Speaker 2: think it's on. I think it's on London calling him.

1100
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:16,120
Speaker 2: Gallagan also recalls being blown away hold for applause by

1101
00:58:16,200 --> 00:58:19,400
Speaker 2: his first run in with big screen pyrotechnics.

1102
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:22,080
Speaker 1: Like the theater, hold for applause after because nobody knows

1103
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:23,800
Speaker 1: what Nobody knows the joke until you have the blow

1104
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 1: the pyrotechnics.

1105
00:58:25,760 --> 00:58:29,400
Speaker 2: Don't tell me how to do this. Don't ever do that.

1106
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 2: I'm not in front of the guests. Jordan may ask

1107
00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:37,200
Speaker 2: you in the kitchen any help with the potatoes?

1108
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:37,600
Speaker 1: Now?

1109
00:58:40,480 --> 00:58:42,640
Speaker 2: Uh? For this theater explosion. He has one of the

1110
00:58:42,680 --> 00:58:44,840
Speaker 2: crew how big the explosion would be, and the guy

1111
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:50,800
Speaker 2: cryptically responded, well, we've packed it pretty good. It was deafening,

1112
00:58:51,120 --> 00:58:55,720
Speaker 2: Gallagan told the Garden just the ultimate like grizzled teamster responds,

1113
00:58:55,880 --> 00:58:59,440
Speaker 2: just like, pretty well packed packed it real good. Gallagan's like,

1114
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 2: what is that mean? It was deafening, he told the Guardian.

1115
00:59:04,360 --> 00:59:06,280
Speaker 2: And the heat was so intense I thought it had

1116
00:59:06,320 --> 00:59:08,919
Speaker 2: singed my eyebrows. It blew the doors off the theater,

1117
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:10,920
Speaker 2: as you can see in the film, and it shattered

1118
00:59:10,960 --> 00:59:14,680
Speaker 2: windows on a building at Universal a mile away. Insert

1119
00:59:14,720 --> 00:59:18,040
Speaker 2: Michael Kaine. It was only supposed to blow the bloody

1120
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:22,120
Speaker 2: doors off. That was terrible. That's good insert the actual clip. Okay,

1121
00:59:22,400 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 2: you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. I

1122
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 2: have a hard time with Michael Kaine. I can do

1123
00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:31,440
Speaker 2: the like Master Bruce, you could do the broken the

1124
00:59:31,480 --> 00:59:35,360
Speaker 2: broken vines. It becomes very and as he's gotten older

1125
00:59:36,160 --> 00:59:43,800
Speaker 2: cigars and pulled his voice lower. Gallaghan also shares the

1126
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:46,960
Speaker 2: screen very briefly with the legend of animation that Joe

1127
00:59:47,040 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 2: Dante snuck in as a tribute Chuck Jones. Oh, we're

1128
00:59:50,600 --> 00:59:53,439
Speaker 2: going to the bar. Who's seen teaching Billy how to draw?

1129
00:59:53,840 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 2: That's the guy who created Marvin the Martian, pepy La

1130
00:59:56,960 --> 01:00:00,840
Speaker 2: Pew and Wiley E. Coyote and the road Runner. That's nuts.

1131
01:00:01,360 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 1: Considering how wildly wholesome Phoebe Kds comes off in the film,

1132
01:00:04,880 --> 01:00:07,320
Speaker 1: it's weird to think that the studio initially balked at

1133
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:11,200
Speaker 1: her casting because she was considered risque. After doing her

1134
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:15,320
Speaker 1: iconic pool exit in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, she.

1135
01:00:15,240 --> 01:00:17,720
Speaker 2: Had another film where she was like way too young

1136
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:21,320
Speaker 2: to be nude? Right? Or was this after Ridgemont High?

1137
01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 1: There was something on because we talked about went on

1138
01:00:25,080 --> 01:00:26,680
Speaker 1: with her. I feel like it was like something like

1139
01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:29,200
Speaker 1: her dad signed her up for or something. Then she

1140
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:32,240
Speaker 1: had some kind of like bohemian family that put her

1141
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:34,840
Speaker 1: in like weird situations. I should probably stop before I

1142
01:00:34,880 --> 01:00:35,760
Speaker 1: get into a lawsuit.

1143
01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:36,040
Speaker 4: Oh no.

1144
01:00:36,160 --> 01:00:39,240
Speaker 2: It was her first film, the movie Paradise, in which

1145
01:00:39,400 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 2: she was seventeen, and she performed several full frontal and

1146
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:49,240
Speaker 2: rear frontal keeping that in scenes as a minor, and

1147
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:54,840
Speaker 2: she later regretted it and then went and did Fast Times,

1148
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:58,640
Speaker 2: which Rolling Stone has described as featuring the most memorable

1149
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:00,560
Speaker 2: bikini drop in cinema history.

1150
01:01:00,840 --> 01:01:03,120
Speaker 1: But she wound up with Kevin Klein, so a happy

1151
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:06,080
Speaker 1: ending for Phoebe ks. We love Kevin Kline, don't we?

1152
01:01:06,080 --> 01:01:06,760
Speaker 2: We do? We do?

1153
01:01:06,920 --> 01:01:09,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, we surely do another Fast Times at Ridgemond High.

1154
01:01:09,680 --> 01:01:13,000
Speaker 1: Alum Judge Reinhold originally had a much larger role in

1155
01:01:13,080 --> 01:01:16,640
Speaker 1: Gremlins as Billie's nemesis, but his part was significantly cut

1156
01:01:16,680 --> 01:01:18,800
Speaker 1: down and many of his lines were given the Phoebe Kates,

1157
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 1: which I am fine with because I hate Jed drihnd Hold.

1158
01:01:22,880 --> 01:01:25,880
Speaker 2: Like Cowie Mandel. Okay, we each get one. We each

1159
01:01:25,920 --> 01:01:28,640
Speaker 2: got one. That's my want, Buddy, I don't have just one.

1160
01:01:31,800 --> 01:01:33,919
Speaker 1: Phoebe Kate's reveals in the Blue Bay in the Blu

1161
01:01:34,040 --> 01:01:39,840
Speaker 1: Ray said the Blue Man commentary. Yes, Kate's reveals in

1162
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:42,120
Speaker 1: the Blu Ray Commentary that her parents bought her a

1163
01:01:42,160 --> 01:01:45,080
Speaker 1: scooter to get around the Universal lot, but she crashed

1164
01:01:45,080 --> 01:01:47,200
Speaker 1: it too many times and they took it back from her.

1165
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:50,400
Speaker 1: Was she that young that her parents could buy her

1166
01:01:50,400 --> 01:01:52,480
Speaker 1: a gift and then take it from her?

1167
01:01:53,120 --> 01:01:55,400
Speaker 2: How old? I mean, yeah, she was. If she was

1168
01:01:55,440 --> 01:01:59,919
Speaker 2: seventeen when she did the Gross film, she was like twenty. No,

1169
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:02,320
Speaker 2: she was born in nineteen sixty three. Yeah, I guess

1170
01:02:02,320 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 2: he was shooting in eighty two eighty three. That's weird.

1171
01:02:05,720 --> 01:02:07,800
Speaker 2: I mean maybe they were like, you know, this is

1172
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:11,800
Speaker 2: the money, Phoebe gesturing to face, don't up the money.

1173
01:02:13,560 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 2: I was rewatching. O. J.

1174
01:02:14,920 --> 01:02:17,400
Speaker 1: Simpson made in the America the thirty for thirty documentary,

1175
01:02:17,400 --> 01:02:19,480
Speaker 1: and one of his friends was talking about how like

1176
01:02:19,840 --> 01:02:21,880
Speaker 1: they would go to places and he'd be like, Ohjay,

1177
01:02:21,920 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 1: you don't have a ticket, and he'd be like, this

1178
01:02:23,840 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 1: is my ticket, and he was gestured to.

1179
01:02:25,200 --> 01:02:29,440
Speaker 2: His face, Jesus, it's just just watching that this afternoon.

1180
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:33,400
Speaker 1: Uh, classic murderer. Great, you know he went in the

1181
01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:37,880
Speaker 1: Coles funeral. It's not wild fucking balls on him. Yeah,

1182
01:02:37,960 --> 01:02:40,840
Speaker 1: Phoebe Kate's and Zach Gallaghan got to be good friends,

1183
01:02:40,880 --> 01:02:44,520
Speaker 1: which I'm sure devastated Gallaghan to the point where she

1184
01:02:44,600 --> 01:02:46,720
Speaker 1: said kissing him felt like kissing her brother.

1185
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:50,200
Speaker 2: Oh god, poor gosh, she just keeps murdering a Yeah,

1186
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:52,400
Speaker 2: interview after interview terrible.

1187
01:02:53,400 --> 01:02:56,840
Speaker 1: And this was complicated further by Spielberg's assistance that Gizmo

1188
01:02:57,000 --> 01:02:58,600
Speaker 1: be included in the kissing shots.

1189
01:02:59,080 --> 01:03:01,520
Speaker 2: I love that so much. Spielberg shows up for like

1190
01:03:01,520 --> 01:03:02,680
Speaker 2: one of his two days on.

1191
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:04,720
Speaker 3: Set when it's like cap that has the name of

1192
01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:08,000
Speaker 3: the film on it, Yes, classic Spielberg, and it's like,

1193
01:03:08,240 --> 01:03:12,400
Speaker 3: you know, poor Zach Gallaghan is having his like first

1194
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:15,600
Speaker 3: on screen kiss with like the impossibly beautiful Phoebe kids,

1195
01:03:15,600 --> 01:03:16,760
Speaker 3: and Steven Spielberg is.

1196
01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:20,920
Speaker 2: Just like off camera slowly shoving a Gizmo puppet between them.

1197
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:27,520
Speaker 1: The Spielberg also like one of the scenes that he

1198
01:03:27,560 --> 01:03:33,480
Speaker 1: supposedly ghost directed in Goonies was Sean Aston characters Mikey's

1199
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:37,800
Speaker 1: kiss with Andy like the cheerleader girl or something, and

1200
01:03:37,840 --> 01:03:39,600
Speaker 1: it was all in like in silhouette, and it was

1201
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:43,280
Speaker 1: very cartoonish, like it looked like a Disney thing about

1202
01:03:43,280 --> 01:03:44,000
Speaker 1: the wishing well.

1203
01:03:44,400 --> 01:03:48,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, having a quasi fixation on like teenage first kiss

1204
01:03:48,080 --> 01:03:50,240
Speaker 2: moments is probably very Spielberg.

1205
01:03:50,480 --> 01:03:50,640
Speaker 3: Hmm.

1206
01:03:51,120 --> 01:03:53,520
Speaker 1: You know, I describing that, I thought it was wholesome,

1207
01:03:53,520 --> 01:03:55,919
Speaker 1: and then hearing you describe it like that really took

1208
01:03:55,920 --> 01:03:56,600
Speaker 1: something from me.

1209
01:03:56,880 --> 01:04:00,240
Speaker 2: Oh, you're welcome, he hates.

1210
01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:03,560
Speaker 1: His famous monologue about her father's death sounds like an

1211
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:06,760
Speaker 1: urban legend, but the legend itself may have been based

1212
01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:09,240
Speaker 1: on a famous Playboy cartoon, which is screen out at

1213
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:12,080
Speaker 1: Chris Columbus's inspiration when he was writing about this.

1214
01:04:12,200 --> 01:04:14,440
Speaker 2: No, I've no idea what you're talking about. I knew

1215
01:04:14,440 --> 01:04:17,160
Speaker 2: this urban legend that ostensibly takes place, but I had

1216
01:04:17,200 --> 01:04:19,160
Speaker 2: no idea about the origins of it. Well, here you

1217
01:04:19,240 --> 01:04:21,840
Speaker 2: take this. I don't know this at all. Yeah. So

1218
01:04:22,640 --> 01:04:25,800
Speaker 2: this was a nineteen sixty four cartoon by.

1219
01:04:26,480 --> 01:04:28,400
Speaker 1: Well, remind me what her monologue is.

1220
01:04:28,680 --> 01:04:31,720
Speaker 2: She talks about finding her dad dead dressed as Santa

1221
01:04:31,800 --> 01:04:38,200
Speaker 2: in the chimney Ga Gahan Williams. I don't know how

1222
01:04:38,200 --> 01:04:41,880
Speaker 2: to pronounce his name. Uh. So this was a cartoon

1223
01:04:41,920 --> 01:04:44,000
Speaker 2: in Playboy, as I mentioned, and it depicts a chimney

1224
01:04:44,040 --> 01:04:46,520
Speaker 2: worker telling a couple, well, we found out what's been

1225
01:04:46,560 --> 01:04:50,200
Speaker 2: clogging your chimney since last December, and includes an illustration

1226
01:04:50,280 --> 01:04:53,200
Speaker 2: of Santa as a skeleton a red suit. Wilson told

1227
01:04:53,240 --> 01:04:55,920
Speaker 2: The Washington Post he received more angry mail over that

1228
01:04:55,960 --> 01:04:58,520
Speaker 2: than anything I ever did. You can mess around with religion,

1229
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:01,200
Speaker 2: but when you kill off Santa cl there's an uproar.

1230
01:05:01,560 --> 01:05:05,320
Speaker 1: Kates meanwhile, took the speech very seriously despite its kind

1231
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:09,800
Speaker 1: of ridiculous origin. Zach Gallaghan told Yahoo News she would

1232
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:12,120
Speaker 1: rehearse it every day. She'd say, what about this way?

1233
01:05:12,160 --> 01:05:14,479
Speaker 1: What about that way? We probably rehearsed it one hundred,

1234
01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:16,640
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty times, so by the time we

1235
01:05:16,680 --> 01:05:19,040
Speaker 1: got there, she absolutely nailed it and did.

1236
01:05:18,840 --> 01:05:24,240
Speaker 2: A phenomenal job. He still sounds down bad, Yeah, wouldn't

1237
01:05:24,280 --> 01:05:24,520
Speaker 2: you be?

1238
01:05:24,800 --> 01:05:25,000
Speaker 1: Well?

1239
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:26,880
Speaker 2: Sure, come on, dude joke.

1240
01:05:26,960 --> 01:05:29,560
Speaker 1: Dante was also quick to praise Phoebe in the Blu

1241
01:05:29,640 --> 01:05:32,080
Speaker 1: Ray commentary, He said, we worked so hard on this

1242
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:34,560
Speaker 1: scene and tried to make it just the right touch

1243
01:05:34,560 --> 01:05:37,400
Speaker 1: of pathos and goofiness, and I was really happy with

1244
01:05:37,440 --> 01:05:39,840
Speaker 1: it and thought, this really encapsulates the tone of this

1245
01:05:39,960 --> 01:05:42,720
Speaker 1: movie for me. On the way back to the editing room,

1246
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:44,800
Speaker 1: the editor turned to me and said, this will never

1247
01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:47,520
Speaker 1: be in the picture, and it became my quest to

1248
01:05:47,560 --> 01:05:51,200
Speaker 1: make sure it stayed in the picture, but both Spielberg

1249
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:54,680
Speaker 1: and the studio bulked at it. Galagan continued, The studio

1250
01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:57,880
Speaker 1: was like, what is this? Some people were like, is

1251
01:05:57,920 --> 01:05:58,400
Speaker 1: this real?

1252
01:05:58,640 --> 01:05:59,320
Speaker 2: Is this a joke?

1253
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:01,520
Speaker 1: Is this supposed to be funny? So we had to

1254
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:03,200
Speaker 1: go and tell Phoebe that they were going to cut

1255
01:06:03,200 --> 01:06:05,880
Speaker 1: the scene. She was not happy about that, and Joe

1256
01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:09,120
Speaker 1: was not happy about that. And basically we had final cut,

1257
01:06:09,200 --> 01:06:10,800
Speaker 1: and when it came time to leave in or take

1258
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:13,400
Speaker 1: it out, we just decided, you know what, I'm making

1259
01:06:13,440 --> 01:06:17,560
Speaker 1: an executive decision and leaving it in. Spielberg, perhaps still

1260
01:06:17,560 --> 01:06:22,080
Speaker 1: feeling stung by the ghost directing controversy around Poltergeist Bun,

1261
01:06:22,880 --> 01:06:26,480
Speaker 1: ultimately back Joe Dante with the studio against his own desires,

1262
01:06:26,560 --> 01:06:29,040
Speaker 1: and the rest is history, And the scene stayed in

1263
01:06:29,120 --> 01:06:33,880
Speaker 1: the picture. In the scene stayed in the picture. There

1264
01:06:33,920 --> 01:06:38,440
Speaker 1: you go, yeah, yeh. In Roger Ebert's review of the

1265
01:06:38,480 --> 01:06:43,600
Speaker 1: scene Sorry. In Roger Ebert's review of the film, he

1266
01:06:43,680 --> 01:06:46,880
Speaker 1: praised the scene being in the tradition of sick nineteen

1267
01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:48,000
Speaker 1: fifties jokes.

1268
01:06:48,720 --> 01:06:50,000
Speaker 2: That's a very.

1269
01:06:49,600 --> 01:06:53,880
Speaker 1: Interesting, very specific phenomenon iveren that I never really thought

1270
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:55,840
Speaker 1: of as a trope, but I guess it kind of

1271
01:06:55,920 --> 01:07:01,080
Speaker 1: is Ebert barely missed. You can take a quick break,

1272
01:07:01,240 --> 01:07:03,680
Speaker 1: but we'll be right back with more too much information

1273
01:07:03,840 --> 01:07:04,600
Speaker 1: in just a moment.

1274
01:07:15,040 --> 01:07:17,400
Speaker 2: The rest of the cast of Gremlins is filled out,

1275
01:07:17,400 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 2: aside from a pre fame Corey Feldman, who had yet

1276
01:07:19,880 --> 01:07:22,640
Speaker 2: to stir in the Friday, the thirteenth film that semi

1277
01:07:22,760 --> 01:07:27,440
Speaker 2: launched him by veteran character actors. Edward Andrews plays the

1278
01:07:27,520 --> 01:07:30,880
Speaker 2: senior bank nemesis of Billy's. This was actually his last role,

1279
01:07:31,120 --> 01:07:33,919
Speaker 2: but he managed to launch another iconic eighty film into

1280
01:07:33,960 --> 01:07:37,880
Speaker 2: his CV. He played Molly Ringwald's dad in sixteen Candles,

1281
01:07:37,920 --> 01:07:42,160
Speaker 2: which came out the same year as Gremlin's. Imagine yeah,

1282
01:07:42,560 --> 01:07:44,680
Speaker 2: those two films being your last two of the most

1283
01:07:44,800 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 2: iconic films in the eighties. Eventual Emmy winner Glenn Turman

1284
01:07:49,360 --> 01:07:52,600
Speaker 2: plays the ill fated science teacher, initially studying the Malguai

1285
01:07:53,000 --> 01:07:54,760
Speaker 2: and he was famous for his role in the original

1286
01:07:54,800 --> 01:07:57,480
Speaker 2: Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun. As a

1287
01:07:57,560 --> 01:08:00,480
Speaker 2: child actor, he was on the COSMIESH spin off A

1288
01:08:00,520 --> 01:08:03,320
Speaker 2: Different World and I Know in Best as the Mayor

1289
01:08:03,440 --> 01:08:07,320
Speaker 2: in the Wire. He A Luke who played the Magua's

1290
01:08:07,320 --> 01:08:10,800
Speaker 2: original owner apparently had such good skin at the age

1291
01:08:10,800 --> 01:08:13,160
Speaker 2: of eighty that they had to age him up to

1292
01:08:13,200 --> 01:08:17,120
Speaker 2: play his character. Gallaghan recalled he asked him. He was like, man,

1293
01:08:17,160 --> 01:08:20,080
Speaker 2: what is it? And the guy was like, no, fried foods,

1294
01:08:20,479 --> 01:08:23,760
Speaker 2: So we'll tip for you there. But Luke had an

1295
01:08:23,760 --> 01:08:27,200
Speaker 2: incredibly long history in Hollywood. He was known for playing

1296
01:08:27,560 --> 01:08:31,360
Speaker 2: Lee Chan, the number one son in the outrageously racist

1297
01:08:31,520 --> 01:08:35,960
Speaker 2: Charlie Chan films. He was the original Cato in nineteen

1298
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:39,320
Speaker 2: thirty nine to nineteen forty one Green Hornet Cereals. He

1299
01:08:39,360 --> 01:08:43,800
Speaker 2: played Master Poe in Kung Fu, and most incredibly, he

1300
01:08:43,840 --> 01:08:48,160
Speaker 2: played Friggin' Brack in the original Space Ghost cartoons. No

1301
01:08:48,400 --> 01:08:54,360
Speaker 2: Way Ugh Polly Dean Holliday played the Venomous Missus Degle.

1302
01:08:54,520 --> 01:08:55,920
Speaker 2: The venomous Missus.

1303
01:08:55,600 --> 01:08:58,439
Speaker 1: Degle, that's a great collection of word. It's like the

1304
01:08:58,479 --> 01:08:59,799
Speaker 1: fantastic Missus Masel.

1305
01:09:00,080 --> 01:09:02,599
Speaker 2: But she's more likely remembered as Flow from the nineteen

1306
01:09:02,600 --> 01:09:06,680
Speaker 2: seventies sitcoms Alice and her own sitcom Flow. She was

1307
01:09:06,720 --> 01:09:09,840
Speaker 2: the kiss my Grits lady. Oh yeah, And it is

1308
01:09:09,880 --> 01:09:13,960
Speaker 2: a clever bit of screenwriting that her cats in the film,

1309
01:09:14,280 --> 01:09:16,880
Speaker 2: and she's the Missus Diego is the richest woman in film.

1310
01:09:16,960 --> 01:09:22,480
Speaker 2: All her cats are named after different kinds of currency Kopeck, rubele, Peso, Drachma,

1311
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:26,040
Speaker 2: and dollar bill. That's a good bit. I like that

1312
01:09:26,160 --> 01:09:29,200
Speaker 2: a lot. That's good, dude, when you like actually, when

1313
01:09:29,439 --> 01:09:31,759
Speaker 2: seeing all the details from this film stacked up against

1314
01:09:31,800 --> 01:09:33,759
Speaker 2: each other, it is honestly insane.

1315
01:09:34,200 --> 01:09:38,520
Speaker 1: And Chris Columbus's first script or well, okay first.

1316
01:09:38,320 --> 01:09:41,599
Speaker 2: Like between him, Spielberg and Joe Dante, just like this

1317
01:09:41,640 --> 01:09:46,200
Speaker 2: thing is like a walking encyclopedia of like mid century

1318
01:09:46,240 --> 01:09:51,280
Speaker 2: American fiction. Dick Miller plays mister Futterman, the grizzled everyman

1319
01:09:51,439 --> 01:09:54,639
Speaker 2: vet who relays the aviation origin of the Gremlins. Dick

1320
01:09:54,680 --> 01:09:56,600
Speaker 2: Miller is one of those guys who you will absolutely

1321
01:09:56,600 --> 01:09:59,160
Speaker 2: look at and go that guy. Yes, he was one

1322
01:09:59,160 --> 01:10:02,600
Speaker 2: of Roger Corman's stock players and later Dante's. He is

1323
01:10:02,680 --> 01:10:05,599
Speaker 2: known for playing grizzled every man and this is most funny.

1324
01:10:05,840 --> 01:10:08,560
Speaker 2: As a sort of industry in joke, he was frequently

1325
01:10:08,640 --> 01:10:12,200
Speaker 2: cast as Walter Paisley. Now this was a reference to

1326
01:10:12,240 --> 01:10:15,160
Speaker 2: his starring role in Roger Corman's early cult flick A

1327
01:10:15,200 --> 01:10:18,439
Speaker 2: Bucket of Blood. But bafflingly, he would continue to be

1328
01:10:18,560 --> 01:10:23,439
Speaker 2: cast as Walter Paisley even though he wasn't playing that character.

1329
01:10:23,960 --> 01:10:26,479
Speaker 2: This includes the Twilight Zone movie and the eighties Killer

1330
01:10:26,560 --> 01:10:28,880
Speaker 2: Robot Jim Chopping mall, that's great.

1331
01:10:28,880 --> 01:10:31,760
Speaker 1: He was also in My beloved Explorers, that movie with

1332
01:10:32,800 --> 01:10:36,439
Speaker 1: a young Ethan Hawke, young River Phoenix. I forget there

1333
01:10:36,479 --> 01:10:37,800
Speaker 1: was somebody else in it. To the movie where they

1334
01:10:37,800 --> 01:10:40,240
Speaker 1: turn a tilted world into a spacecraft.

1335
01:10:40,560 --> 01:10:41,519
Speaker 2: It's a good movie.

1336
01:10:42,280 --> 01:10:44,160
Speaker 1: That's in eighty six. It's an awesome movie.

1337
01:10:44,320 --> 01:10:47,640
Speaker 2: And lastly, Hoyt Axton, who plays Billy's failure of an

1338
01:10:47,680 --> 01:10:50,240
Speaker 2: inventor Dad, was far more known as a musician. He

1339
01:10:50,280 --> 01:10:52,799
Speaker 2: also apparently ad libbed like ninety percent of this film.

1340
01:10:53,720 --> 01:10:58,040
Speaker 2: His mom co wrote heartbreak Hotel, Yeah, wait, wait accent.

1341
01:10:58,080 --> 01:10:59,240
Speaker 2: Wasn't he a songwriter too?

1342
01:10:59,320 --> 01:11:01,000
Speaker 1: He wrote like he was joy to the world.

1343
01:11:01,040 --> 01:11:03,240
Speaker 2: He wrote, oh my god, Yeah, she wrote joy to

1344
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:05,879
Speaker 2: the World, popularized by Three Dog Night and The Pusher

1345
01:11:05,920 --> 01:11:09,960
Speaker 2: recorded by Steppenwolf for the Easy Riders soundtrack. And he

1346
01:11:10,040 --> 01:11:12,639
Speaker 2: was Dante's first choice for this role after seeing him

1347
01:11:12,720 --> 01:11:18,200
Speaker 2: in The Black Stallion with sound design notably by Alan Splett.

1348
01:11:19,000 --> 01:11:21,400
Speaker 2: I guess Joe Dante took one of the inventions, the

1349
01:11:21,439 --> 01:11:24,920
Speaker 2: Peltzer Peeler Juicer, and it is still for sale online,

1350
01:11:25,479 --> 01:11:29,160
Speaker 2: but it is like so filled with NFT jargon that

1351
01:11:29,240 --> 01:11:32,280
Speaker 2: I think it may actually be a parody. Like you

1352
01:11:32,280 --> 01:11:35,960
Speaker 2: can google Joe Dante Peltzer Peeler Juicer and it'll take

1353
01:11:36,000 --> 01:11:39,479
Speaker 2: you to an ostensible sale page. But it is so

1354
01:11:39,720 --> 01:11:44,600
Speaker 2: like jammed with cryptocurrency and NFT that I almost it

1355
01:11:45,120 --> 01:11:47,840
Speaker 2: has to be like a bit. I don't know where

1356
01:11:47,840 --> 01:11:50,000
Speaker 2: else to put this, but our man Jerry Goldsmith turned

1357
01:11:50,040 --> 01:11:51,040
Speaker 2: in the score for Gremlins.

1358
01:11:51,080 --> 01:11:53,120
Speaker 1: Well City Do, Air Force, One Little City Do?

1359
01:11:53,840 --> 01:11:55,960
Speaker 2: Didn't you just do Planet of the epide Ago?

1360
01:11:56,000 --> 01:11:57,800
Speaker 1: And he did at first one in like like six

1361
01:11:57,880 --> 01:11:59,960
Speaker 1: days or something crazy star Trek.

1362
01:12:00,080 --> 01:12:04,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a true and sneakily avant garde too, Like

1363
01:12:04,479 --> 01:12:06,880
Speaker 2: I remember when we talked about Planet of the Apes.

1364
01:12:07,120 --> 01:12:09,800
Speaker 2: You know, he was doing all these weird ethnic percussion

1365
01:12:09,880 --> 01:12:13,720
Speaker 2: things treated with a bunch of echo. And first of

1366
01:12:13,760 --> 01:12:16,400
Speaker 2: all he turns in two bangers. There's the Gremlin rag,

1367
01:12:16,439 --> 01:12:39,599
Speaker 2: which I think you should pump in here, and then

1368
01:12:39,600 --> 01:12:44,360
Speaker 2: there's Gizmo's La La By which is great, just super cute,

1369
01:12:44,439 --> 01:12:46,120
Speaker 2: and the one that was sung by a kid from

1370
01:12:46,120 --> 01:12:49,720
Speaker 2: his Synagogue. I couldn't find much about this screed Goldsmith's

1371
01:12:49,760 --> 01:12:52,240
Speaker 2: own words, but I did find a UK sheet music

1372
01:12:52,320 --> 01:12:56,000
Speaker 2: publisher that had this to say about the film. Incorporating

1373
01:12:56,000 --> 01:12:58,920
Speaker 2: a total of eight synthesizers, a drum machine, and a

1374
01:12:59,000 --> 01:13:02,519
Speaker 2: digital polyphonics sequencer, the Gremlin score reads like a who's

1375
01:13:02,520 --> 01:13:07,559
Speaker 2: who of classic eighties synths, Roland's Jupiter six, notably providing

1376
01:13:07,600 --> 01:13:10,719
Speaker 2: the cat's meow sound heard prominently when the Gremlins term evil.

1377
01:13:11,200 --> 01:13:16,679
Speaker 2: Sequential circuits, Prophet T eight, Rhodes Chroma, Yamaha's GS one,

1378
01:13:17,080 --> 01:13:21,920
Speaker 2: Mogue's Memory Mogue, a pair of Yamaha's ubiquitous d X seven's,

1379
01:13:22,160 --> 01:13:26,160
Speaker 2: and an Oberheim trio, the ob eight synth, DSX sequencer

1380
01:13:26,439 --> 01:13:30,639
Speaker 2: and DMX drum machines. Is that was what Kate Bush

1381
01:13:30,720 --> 01:13:33,280
Speaker 2: used to record Hounds of Love on? Yeah, The Oberheim

1382
01:13:33,439 --> 01:13:36,240
Speaker 2: is one of it's probably the second most famous eighties

1383
01:13:36,320 --> 01:13:40,200
Speaker 2: drum machine from the after the Lynn drum. And this

1384
01:13:40,240 --> 01:13:43,599
Speaker 2: is where DMX got his name. I didn't know that. Yeah,

1385
01:13:43,600 --> 01:13:45,800
Speaker 2: A lot of his early beats were done in a

1386
01:13:46,120 --> 01:13:49,240
Speaker 2: with an Oberheim, and he took DMX from it and

1387
01:13:49,760 --> 01:13:53,200
Speaker 2: I think later reverse engineered it into dark Man X

1388
01:13:53,760 --> 01:13:57,960
Speaker 2: God love DMX anyway, rather than being prerecorded or fed

1389
01:13:58,000 --> 01:14:01,639
Speaker 2: directly into the mixing desk. This I claims that these

1390
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:05,759
Speaker 2: synths were amplified and played live with the eighty piece

1391
01:14:05,920 --> 01:14:10,720
Speaker 2: orchestra that Goldsmith was conducting. That's cool, and this was

1392
01:14:10,760 --> 01:14:13,120
Speaker 2: his second reteam with Spielberg and Dante. He did the

1393
01:14:13,120 --> 01:14:16,480
Speaker 2: score to both Poultrygeist and the Twilight Zone movie. Poltergeist

1394
01:14:16,520 --> 01:14:20,920
Speaker 2: also has an iconic creepy children's theme sung by a

1395
01:14:21,000 --> 01:14:25,280
Speaker 2: child as well. If memory serves, Poultrycase must have terrified

1396
01:14:25,320 --> 01:14:27,120
Speaker 2: you the first time you saw it. Have you even

1397
01:14:27,200 --> 01:14:29,960
Speaker 2: seen it? Oh? Yeah, okay a long time ago. I

1398
01:14:30,000 --> 01:14:32,680
Speaker 2: figured you may have for Spielberg, but is not an

1399
01:14:32,720 --> 01:14:37,640
Speaker 2: appropriate film for children, as we'll cover. Yeah, that's what

1400
01:14:37,640 --> 01:14:43,920
Speaker 2: this was it Goldsmith and creepy kids. Well, and I

1401
01:14:44,479 --> 01:14:45,320
Speaker 2: think I watched it.

1402
01:14:45,320 --> 01:14:48,120
Speaker 1: After I heard that there was like a Poultrgeist curse

1403
01:14:48,280 --> 01:14:52,960
Speaker 1: with the little girl died and yeah, Dominique Dunn was

1404
01:14:53,040 --> 01:14:53,439
Speaker 1: she and that?

1405
01:14:54,320 --> 01:14:55,680
Speaker 2: Yep? Yeah, yeah she.

1406
01:14:55,680 --> 01:14:58,080
Speaker 1: Died too, Dominic Dunn's daughter who was strangled by her

1407
01:14:58,120 --> 01:15:00,639
Speaker 1: ex boyfriend or maybe current boyfriend.

1408
01:15:00,680 --> 01:15:03,840
Speaker 2: I don't know who's to say. Dominic Tongue.

1409
01:15:05,360 --> 01:15:10,280
Speaker 1: Man his like compendium of reporting for different high profile trying.

1410
01:15:10,320 --> 01:15:12,559
Speaker 2: I know you're obsessed with him for his like both

1411
01:15:12,560 --> 01:15:13,880
Speaker 2: his writing and his pay.

1412
01:15:14,240 --> 01:15:16,559
Speaker 1: Oh. Yeah, he had some contractory we get like one

1413
01:15:16,600 --> 01:15:18,880
Speaker 1: hundred fifty grand for Vanity Fair to write like three

1414
01:15:18,960 --> 01:15:20,719
Speaker 1: two thousand word articles a year.

1415
01:15:20,960 --> 01:15:23,680
Speaker 2: And then like an outrageous bonus per word if he

1416
01:15:23,720 --> 01:15:24,240
Speaker 2: went over.

1417
01:15:24,479 --> 01:15:27,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, meanwhile, I've written I've written that in the past

1418
01:15:27,920 --> 01:15:29,120
Speaker 1: five days.

1419
01:15:29,600 --> 01:15:31,439
Speaker 2: Yeah. He used to write two thousand words a day

1420
01:15:31,439 --> 01:15:32,320
Speaker 2: at page six.

1421
01:15:32,360 --> 01:15:34,560
Speaker 1: Sometimes I turned in a four thousand word article in

1422
01:15:34,600 --> 01:15:36,880
Speaker 1: the Beatles today that I wrote this morning.

1423
01:15:39,080 --> 01:15:42,439
Speaker 2: What have we done to this world? Remember when art man,

1424
01:15:42,479 --> 01:15:45,680
Speaker 2: Remember when artists were like considered artists and not just

1425
01:15:45,720 --> 01:15:50,120
Speaker 2: like annoying roadblocks in the path to content. I mean

1426
01:15:50,160 --> 01:15:53,600
Speaker 2: I don't remember it firsthand, sadly, No, just all the

1427
01:15:53,880 --> 01:15:56,200
Speaker 2: reading about it when we were kids. Yeah, reading about

1428
01:15:56,240 --> 01:15:58,360
Speaker 2: it and being told school one day I could possibly

1429
01:15:58,400 --> 01:16:02,200
Speaker 2: inhabit that world. Yeah, Alry, go ahead. Spiraling.

1430
01:16:03,120 --> 01:16:05,920
Speaker 1: Though Grandma's was initially scheduled for a Christmas release, it

1431
01:16:05,960 --> 01:16:09,320
Speaker 1: came out on July sixth, nineteen eighty four because America.

1432
01:16:10,320 --> 01:16:13,839
Speaker 1: Oh that was the same date as Ghostbusters was dropped. Damn.

1433
01:16:14,760 --> 01:16:17,720
Speaker 1: It was rushed out because Warner Brothers apparently found out

1434
01:16:17,720 --> 01:16:20,200
Speaker 1: that they had nothing going against Indiana Jones and the

1435
01:16:20,200 --> 01:16:22,680
Speaker 1: Temple of Doom or Colombia's Ghostbusters.

1436
01:16:22,760 --> 01:16:26,000
Speaker 2: It is amazing that Spielberg was quite literally pitting two

1437
01:16:26,120 --> 01:16:29,160
Speaker 2: of the Big five Big four how many biggest movie

1438
01:16:29,160 --> 01:16:30,200
Speaker 2: studies against each other.

1439
01:16:31,360 --> 01:16:34,360
Speaker 1: I'm surprised they wanted to compete.

1440
01:16:34,439 --> 01:16:36,800
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't you just let the other studios have that?

1441
01:16:37,000 --> 01:16:39,880
Speaker 2: And then, okay, because they're really mean spirited about it,

1442
01:16:40,160 --> 01:16:42,800
Speaker 2: the IDs to not let anyone have an exclusive hold

1443
01:16:42,800 --> 01:16:44,639
Speaker 2: on a particular date. Okay, fair.

1444
01:16:45,439 --> 01:16:49,320
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, this was a bad choice for Universal everywhere except

1445
01:16:49,400 --> 01:16:50,160
Speaker 1: New York City.

1446
01:16:50,800 --> 01:16:51,719
Speaker 2: Who I guess.

1447
01:16:51,960 --> 01:16:54,200
Speaker 1: Denizens of New York are used to seeing little creatures

1448
01:16:54,240 --> 01:16:56,439
Speaker 1: scurring around everywhere when they're out and about, so maybe

1449
01:16:56,439 --> 01:16:59,559
Speaker 1: that's why Nope, just read the next sent okay, Joe

1450
01:16:59,600 --> 01:17:03,040
Speaker 1: Dante Old Empire Magazine. Ghostbusters routinely beat us in terms

1451
01:17:03,080 --> 01:17:06,240
Speaker 1: of money everywhere in New York City because while shooting there,

1452
01:17:06,280 --> 01:17:09,640
Speaker 1: they pissed off so many New Yorkers that they decided

1453
01:17:09,720 --> 01:17:13,320
Speaker 1: not to see it. And for some reason, Gremlins was

1454
01:17:13,439 --> 01:17:14,160
Speaker 1: huge there.

1455
01:17:15,040 --> 01:17:18,800
Speaker 2: Grady City and Deward Baby Let's go, Men's being bong I.

1456
01:17:18,760 --> 01:17:22,320
Speaker 1: Remember my first semester, my freshman year at n YU,

1457
01:17:22,320 --> 01:17:24,719
Speaker 1: they were filming that Will Smith movie I Am Legend

1458
01:17:25,240 --> 01:17:29,000
Speaker 1: on in Washington Square, which was like the park that

1459
01:17:29,040 --> 01:17:31,120
Speaker 1: we had to walk through to get get to class

1460
01:17:31,160 --> 01:17:33,120
Speaker 1: every day, and every day people will be late to

1461
01:17:33,160 --> 01:17:35,280
Speaker 1: class because it was like, sorry, they just blew up

1462
01:17:35,280 --> 01:17:37,439
Speaker 1: a car in the middle of the park and I

1463
01:17:37,439 --> 01:17:39,720
Speaker 1: saw like sorry, sorry everybody. So yeah, by the time

1464
01:17:39,760 --> 01:17:41,720
Speaker 1: it was released in theaters too, we all could kind

1465
01:17:41,720 --> 01:17:44,679
Speaker 1: of a grudge against I Am Legend too, so I kind.

1466
01:17:44,479 --> 01:17:47,960
Speaker 2: Of get it. Yes, yeah.

1467
01:17:48,040 --> 01:17:51,840
Speaker 1: Coincidentally, Steven Spielberg sent Joe Dante, producer Mike Finnell, and

1468
01:17:51,920 --> 01:17:55,360
Speaker 1: Chris Columbus, and the film's editor to Hawaii as a present,

1469
01:17:55,800 --> 01:17:58,719
Speaker 1: presumably after the movie was done, and when they checked

1470
01:17:58,720 --> 01:18:01,160
Speaker 1: into their hotel, they bumped to Evan Reitman and the

1471
01:18:01,200 --> 01:18:04,160
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters guys who were on their own celebratory vacation.

1472
01:18:05,080 --> 01:18:08,040
Speaker 2: That is so f funny to me, Like, imagine being

1473
01:18:08,080 --> 01:18:11,720
Speaker 2: the other sci fi fantasy crew and you're just pummeled

1474
01:18:11,960 --> 01:18:16,919
Speaker 2: by Ghostbusters and you show up on your Spielberg sponsored

1475
01:18:16,960 --> 01:18:20,759
Speaker 2: vacation and they're at the same hotel as you. Forgetting

1476
01:18:20,800 --> 01:18:22,280
Speaker 2: Sarah Marshall like come on.

1477
01:18:22,760 --> 01:18:25,280
Speaker 1: Well, and also, I mean another Chris Columbus movie, The

1478
01:18:25,320 --> 01:18:30,200
Speaker 1: Goonies director Richard Donner finally gets away from these little

1479
01:18:30,240 --> 01:18:32,240
Speaker 1: bastard kids.

1480
01:18:32,280 --> 01:18:37,960
Speaker 2: Spielberg also shipped them to Hawaii to vex him further. Well,

1481
01:18:38,040 --> 01:18:42,080
Speaker 2: Spielberg loves sending people to Hawaii. I guess man, he's

1482
01:18:42,120 --> 01:18:42,559
Speaker 2: the best.

1483
01:18:42,680 --> 01:18:42,880
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1484
01:18:42,880 --> 01:18:45,360
Speaker 1: I didn't think I'd come away from this liking Spielberg

1485
01:18:45,360 --> 01:18:48,320
Speaker 1: as much as I do right now. Unfortunately, the studio

1486
01:18:48,360 --> 01:18:51,080
Speaker 1: battle director Joe Dante and Spielberg all the way up

1487
01:18:51,120 --> 01:18:53,280
Speaker 1: to the release. One of their notes was that there

1488
01:18:53,280 --> 01:18:57,160
Speaker 1: were too many Gramblins in it, to which Spielberg supposedly equipped,

1489
01:18:57,479 --> 01:18:59,960
Speaker 1: shall we cut them out and call it people instead?

1490
01:19:00,240 --> 01:19:02,800
Speaker 2: One of the all time studio comebacks. I just love

1491
01:19:02,840 --> 01:19:05,160
Speaker 2: the fact he had such big dick energy. He was

1492
01:19:05,240 --> 01:19:09,400
Speaker 2: just rolling around telling different studios again two of the

1493
01:19:09,439 --> 01:19:14,439
Speaker 2: biggest to just themselves like I'm Stephen Spielberg, how dare

1494
01:19:14,479 --> 01:19:18,040
Speaker 2: you speak to me like that? And he was righting

1495
01:19:18,120 --> 01:19:18,559
Speaker 2: to do it.

1496
01:19:18,880 --> 01:19:23,200
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hence, the expectations around Gremlins were not high, which

1497
01:19:23,200 --> 01:19:24,880
Speaker 1: made it all the more incredible when it became a

1498
01:19:24,960 --> 01:19:28,639
Speaker 1: runaway hit, eventually grossing over one hundred and forty eight

1499
01:19:28,800 --> 01:19:32,799
Speaker 1: million dollars during its initial run worldwide on a budget

1500
01:19:32,840 --> 01:19:34,720
Speaker 1: of eleven million. I had no idea it was that

1501
01:19:34,760 --> 01:19:36,559
Speaker 1: big of a hit. Oh yeah, this is such a

1502
01:19:36,560 --> 01:19:37,479
Speaker 1: blind spot for me.

1503
01:19:37,600 --> 01:19:40,680
Speaker 2: Like I really don't know and really like now that

1504
01:19:40,720 --> 01:19:43,400
Speaker 2: I'm telling you to watch like four hours of gremlin stuff,

1505
01:19:43,439 --> 01:19:45,600
Speaker 2: but you should really watch both of them. No, I mean,

1506
01:19:45,640 --> 01:19:48,680
Speaker 2: I've done worse to you. I mean, they're just so fascinating,

1507
01:19:48,720 --> 01:19:52,200
Speaker 2: this one because it's so mean and so like really

1508
01:19:52,320 --> 01:19:55,439
Speaker 2: wildly out of pocket for what would be a children's film,

1509
01:19:55,640 --> 01:19:58,000
Speaker 2: and then the second one for how bat shit it is,

1510
01:19:58,040 --> 01:20:00,439
Speaker 2: which I would joyfully talk about later. Okay.

1511
01:20:00,640 --> 01:20:03,720
Speaker 1: Gremlin's also wound up the fourth highest grossing film of

1512
01:20:03,800 --> 01:20:07,799
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, behind Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters and Indiana

1513
01:20:07,880 --> 01:20:13,479
Speaker 1: Jones and the Temple of Doom. That's posting some serious numbers. Wow, Yeah, dude.

1514
01:20:13,840 --> 01:20:17,520
Speaker 1: Gremlins has also lodged in film history for being directly responsible,

1515
01:20:17,560 --> 01:20:19,559
Speaker 1: along with the Temple of Doom and Jaws for the

1516
01:20:19,640 --> 01:20:23,880
Speaker 1: PG thirteen rating, which you write, is kind of funny

1517
01:20:23,960 --> 01:20:27,840
Speaker 1: that Spielberg has this reputation as a sentimental family filmmaker. Well,

1518
01:20:27,880 --> 01:20:30,920
Speaker 1: he made three films way too violent for kids, for

1519
01:20:31,080 --> 01:20:34,400
Speaker 1: if you count Poltergeist, which incredibly also came out with

1520
01:20:34,400 --> 01:20:36,360
Speaker 1: a PG rating. Poltergeist was three D.

1521
01:20:37,360 --> 01:20:39,479
Speaker 2: Is this scene where man peels his own face off?

1522
01:20:39,960 --> 01:20:42,679
Speaker 2: Oh the look on your face right now? You forgot

1523
01:20:42,720 --> 01:20:44,080
Speaker 2: about that, bro? I remember it.

1524
01:20:44,160 --> 01:20:45,320
Speaker 1: I just can't believe it was PG.

1525
01:20:45,720 --> 01:20:48,439
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And it's so funny that you like it

1526
01:20:48,479 --> 01:20:52,640
Speaker 2: was just Steven Spielberg. I mean, surely other films, but

1527
01:20:52,760 --> 01:20:55,759
Speaker 2: like these are the ones that I always here mentioned Jaws,

1528
01:20:55,880 --> 01:20:58,560
Speaker 2: Temple of Doom, Gremlins and Poltergeist.

1529
01:20:58,720 --> 01:21:04,320
Speaker 1: I like almost don't belie leave you like I. Director

1530
01:21:04,400 --> 01:21:07,479
Speaker 1: Joe Donzelater told The Guardian at the premiere after the

1531
01:21:07,520 --> 01:21:10,639
Speaker 1: scene where one gremlin explodes in a microwave, a mother

1532
01:21:10,720 --> 01:21:13,280
Speaker 1: watching with her kid came storming up and shouted at

1533
01:21:13,320 --> 01:21:17,680
Speaker 1: me that it was totally unsuitable for children. Spielberg had

1534
01:21:17,680 --> 01:21:20,280
Speaker 1: in fact argue the NPAA down from an R to

1535
01:21:20,439 --> 01:21:23,800
Speaker 1: a PG, but the combined reactions to Gremlins and the

1536
01:21:23,840 --> 01:21:27,400
Speaker 1: Temple of Doom building on Paltrygeist forced them into a

1537
01:21:27,439 --> 01:21:30,439
Speaker 1: conflict with the MPAA Motion Picture Association of America.

1538
01:21:30,560 --> 01:21:34,599
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, now just shortened to MPa, and famously they're

1539
01:21:34,680 --> 01:21:37,439
Speaker 2: rating they're they're you know, I think we've covered this before,

1540
01:21:37,439 --> 01:21:42,080
Speaker 2: but their ratings process is one opaque and largely dictated

1541
01:21:42,120 --> 01:21:45,160
Speaker 2: by the personal grievances of whoever's running the organization at

1542
01:21:45,160 --> 01:21:47,880
Speaker 2: any given moment. There's all kinds of talks about different

1543
01:21:47,880 --> 01:21:50,960
Speaker 2: people going back for like edits from like literally cutting

1544
01:21:51,000 --> 01:21:53,719
Speaker 2: out like a frame or a second or too many

1545
01:21:53,840 --> 01:21:57,640
Speaker 2: like thrusts during a sex scene. And there's one that

1546
01:21:57,720 --> 01:22:00,479
Speaker 2: I think, like, I forget which film is, but they

1547
01:22:00,520 --> 01:22:03,800
Speaker 2: like literally lied to the npa A and we're like, yeah,

1548
01:22:03,800 --> 01:22:06,479
Speaker 2: we cut it again and it was accepted with but

1549
01:22:06,520 --> 01:22:09,679
Speaker 2: they hadn't made any cuts. So it's a stupid system

1550
01:22:09,760 --> 01:22:11,960
Speaker 2: an organization. And for a while, it was really that

1551
01:22:12,080 --> 01:22:14,599
Speaker 2: they could make or break a film, like if something

1552
01:22:14,640 --> 01:22:17,280
Speaker 2: came out with an R or god forbid an X,

1553
01:22:17,320 --> 01:22:19,559
Speaker 2: when that was still kind of a thing, like you

1554
01:22:19,600 --> 01:22:21,400
Speaker 2: were basically.

1555
01:22:21,439 --> 01:22:23,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know some people who work at standards and

1556
01:22:23,160 --> 01:22:25,240
Speaker 1: practices and it's pretty arbitrary.

1557
01:22:24,920 --> 01:22:25,400
Speaker 2: Wasn't there.

1558
01:22:25,800 --> 01:22:27,479
Speaker 1: I forget if it was an MPa a thing or

1559
01:22:27,640 --> 01:22:30,880
Speaker 1: just like a network TV thing where people would intentionally

1560
01:22:30,920 --> 01:22:34,479
Speaker 1: write things into scripts knowing that they were going to

1561
01:22:34,520 --> 01:22:34,800
Speaker 1: be oh.

1562
01:22:34,800 --> 01:22:36,760
Speaker 2: To see if they were reading well see if they

1563
01:22:36,800 --> 01:22:39,720
Speaker 2: were reading. But also, oh yeah, it was good will

1564
01:22:39,800 --> 01:22:42,599
Speaker 2: hunting as like.

1565
01:22:42,120 --> 01:22:44,000
Speaker 1: A sacrificial like okay, we'll cut this.

1566
01:22:44,160 --> 01:22:46,840
Speaker 2: Yeah you like smoke, like like a false flag.

1567
01:22:47,360 --> 01:22:50,120
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, like okay, we'll lose this, but you have

1568
01:22:50,200 --> 01:22:52,720
Speaker 1: to let us keep this. And yeah yeah, oh yeah,

1569
01:22:52,760 --> 01:22:54,240
Speaker 1: that was good will hunting where they wrote in a

1570
01:22:54,240 --> 01:22:57,160
Speaker 1: sex scene between Will and the Robin Williams character, just

1571
01:22:57,200 --> 01:23:00,840
Speaker 1: to see if any of theseecutives were paying attention. And

1572
01:23:00,880 --> 01:23:02,920
Speaker 1: that was why they went with Einstein because he always

1573
01:23:02,920 --> 01:23:04,360
Speaker 1: paid attention to the sex scenes.

1574
01:23:05,080 --> 01:23:05,240
Speaker 2: Hey.

1575
01:23:07,280 --> 01:23:09,840
Speaker 1: Spielberg later spoke of his conflict with the MPAA to

1576
01:23:10,080 --> 01:23:13,040
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair. He said, I had come under criticism, personal

1577
01:23:13,040 --> 01:23:15,840
Speaker 1: criticism for both Temple of Doom and Gremlins.

1578
01:23:15,880 --> 01:23:16,559
Speaker 2: That same year.

1579
01:23:16,720 --> 01:23:19,080
Speaker 1: I remember calling Jack Flenti, who was then the president

1580
01:23:19,080 --> 01:23:21,920
Speaker 1: of the Motion Picture Association, and suggesting to him that

1581
01:23:21,920 --> 01:23:24,960
Speaker 1: we need a rating between R and PG because so

1582
01:23:25,000 --> 01:23:29,040
Speaker 1: many films were falling into another world, you know, of unfairness.

1583
01:23:30,040 --> 01:23:32,000
Speaker 2: I love that Vanity Fair refused to do the pretty

1584
01:23:32,000 --> 01:23:35,880
Speaker 2: standard practice of removing like, you know, another verbal tics.

1585
01:23:36,479 --> 01:23:39,240
Speaker 1: Unfair that certain kids were exposed to Jaws, but also

1586
01:23:39,320 --> 01:23:43,040
Speaker 1: unfair that certain films were restricted that kids who are thirteen, fourteen,

1587
01:23:43,120 --> 01:23:46,439
Speaker 1: fifteen should be allowed to see. I suggested, let's call

1588
01:23:46,479 --> 01:23:49,360
Speaker 1: it PG thirteen or PG fourteen, depending on how you

1589
01:23:49,400 --> 01:23:52,160
Speaker 1: want to design the slide rule. And Jack Flenty, the

1590
01:23:52,640 --> 01:23:55,880
Speaker 1: aforementioned president of the MPAA, came back to me and said,

1591
01:23:56,000 --> 01:23:58,479
Speaker 1: we've determined that PG thirteen would be the right age

1592
01:23:58,479 --> 01:24:01,320
Speaker 1: for that temperature of movie. The first film that came

1593
01:24:01,360 --> 01:24:05,320
Speaker 1: out designated as such would be Read Dawn. I'm not

1594
01:24:05,320 --> 01:24:05,880
Speaker 1: sure if I'm fair.

1595
01:24:05,960 --> 01:24:08,320
Speaker 2: That's the movie where the kids form an anti communist

1596
01:24:08,360 --> 01:24:10,680
Speaker 2: militia in their hometown Wolverines.

1597
01:24:11,200 --> 01:24:13,840
Speaker 1: Oh, with Swayze's and Swayze in that.

1598
01:24:14,080 --> 01:24:16,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like another brat pack movie. What's really funny

1599
01:24:16,479 --> 01:24:19,679
Speaker 2: about Gremlin specifically is that even after they instituted this rating,

1600
01:24:19,800 --> 01:24:23,400
Speaker 2: Prince continued to go out rated PG. Like. Even after

1601
01:24:23,439 --> 01:24:27,600
Speaker 2: they created a new interim rating retroactively deciding that this

1602
01:24:27,680 --> 01:24:30,479
Speaker 2: movie was not appropriate for children, it continued to be

1603
01:24:30,560 --> 01:24:32,080
Speaker 2: distributed with the PG rating.

1604
01:24:32,400 --> 01:24:36,879
Speaker 1: Hollywood We Read Down also has c Thomas Howell, who

1605
01:24:37,520 --> 01:24:39,080
Speaker 1: why do I know him?

1606
01:24:39,240 --> 01:24:41,000
Speaker 2: He's the blackfaced guy Soulman.

1607
01:24:41,240 --> 01:24:43,240
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

1608
01:24:43,439 --> 01:24:45,920
Speaker 2: Okay, for which Lou Reed did a cover of Soulman.

1609
01:24:46,760 --> 01:24:51,559
Speaker 2: If memory serves, Gremlins was basically a license to print

1610
01:24:51,640 --> 01:24:55,400
Speaker 2: money with creatures both cute and gruesome to adapt into toys.

1611
01:24:56,040 --> 01:24:58,559
Speaker 2: Jo Dante told Empire, I remember the day we watched

1612
01:24:58,600 --> 01:25:00,560
Speaker 2: dailies of Gizmo coming out of his box for the

1613
01:25:00,600 --> 01:25:05,519
Speaker 2: first time. These hardened Warners executives started going ooh. In

1614
01:25:05,520 --> 01:25:07,839
Speaker 2: the back of my head, I could hear cash register noises.

1615
01:25:08,080 --> 01:25:11,280
Speaker 2: They instantly put their merchandising staff into high gear board

1616
01:25:11,320 --> 01:25:14,559
Speaker 2: games and color forms and clothing and bedsheets. And it's

1617
01:25:14,560 --> 01:25:16,719
Speaker 2: easy to forget now, but merch ti ins with movies

1618
01:25:16,760 --> 01:25:19,719
Speaker 2: weren't as much of a thing until Spielberg with Jaws

1619
01:25:19,880 --> 01:25:23,280
Speaker 2: and George Lucas with Star Wars. This trend peaked with

1620
01:25:23,320 --> 01:25:26,160
Speaker 2: et and had actually dipped for a little while until

1621
01:25:26,200 --> 01:25:30,599
Speaker 2: Gremlin's and naturally, Gizmo was the star, various stuffed versions

1622
01:25:30,600 --> 01:25:32,360
Speaker 2: of him, becoming one of the defining toys in the

1623
01:25:32,439 --> 01:25:35,519
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties. But everything from trading cards to video games

1624
01:25:35,600 --> 01:25:38,240
Speaker 2: were lent the Gremlins name, and not even the food

1625
01:25:38,240 --> 01:25:40,840
Speaker 2: stuffs were safe. The film had a tie in with

1626
01:25:41,000 --> 01:25:44,519
Speaker 2: Hardy's where in the fast food chain released five story

1627
01:25:44,560 --> 01:25:48,439
Speaker 2: books and record sets that told the story of the film,

1628
01:25:48,840 --> 01:25:52,920
Speaker 2: manufactured and distributed by Disney. There was also Gremlins Cereal

1629
01:25:53,040 --> 01:25:56,679
Speaker 2: as well, although they really whiffed it by not calling

1630
01:25:56,720 --> 01:26:02,240
Speaker 2: it Gizmo's Hold for a Place Us manufactured by Ralston

1631
01:26:02,360 --> 01:26:06,360
Speaker 2: the Geniuses who also brought us Nintendo Serial System and

1632
01:26:06,520 --> 01:26:09,800
Speaker 2: Bill and Ted's excellent Cereal. I am not making that up.

1633
01:26:10,640 --> 01:26:14,719
Speaker 2: Dante and Gilligan both panned the serial in their Empire review,

1634
01:26:14,760 --> 01:26:18,160
Speaker 2: with the director describing it as just awful, like Peanut

1635
01:26:18,200 --> 01:26:23,120
Speaker 2: Butter gone wrong. Unsurprisingly, Warner Brothers wanted a sequel to

1636
01:26:23,200 --> 01:26:27,639
Speaker 2: Gremlin's immediately, and I do mean immediately, Joe Dante says.

1637
01:26:27,680 --> 01:26:31,320
Speaker 2: They asked him the weekend after the film opened to

1638
01:26:31,320 --> 01:26:33,920
Speaker 2: get started on a sequel. What unds about right, but

1639
01:26:34,000 --> 01:26:37,839
Speaker 2: he felt he needed a rest and also, unsurprisingly, Warners

1640
01:26:37,880 --> 01:26:42,200
Speaker 2: immediately began cycling through other writers and directors for pitches

1641
01:26:42,200 --> 01:26:46,320
Speaker 2: that Dante would recall included Gremlin's Go to Las Vegas

1642
01:26:46,439 --> 01:26:47,839
Speaker 2: and Gremlins Go to Mars.

1643
01:26:47,960 --> 01:26:50,720
Speaker 1: Wait did the studio pitch him on those or did he.

1644
01:26:50,840 --> 01:26:52,559
Speaker 2: Know they were just bringing in anyone who had an

1645
01:26:52,560 --> 01:26:56,640
Speaker 2: idea for grounds And this went in two went on

1646
01:26:56,720 --> 01:26:58,840
Speaker 2: for two or three years. And then they eventually went

1647
01:26:58,960 --> 01:27:03,080
Speaker 2: hat in hand to both Dante and his producer Mike

1648
01:27:03,120 --> 01:27:06,400
Speaker 2: Fanell and just said, will you come back? Sorry, I'm

1649
01:27:06,400 --> 01:27:09,960
Speaker 2: getting ahead of myself. Joe Dante ran into Terry Simmel

1650
01:27:10,120 --> 01:27:12,040
Speaker 2: on the Warner Brothers lot, who was then head of

1651
01:27:12,040 --> 01:27:14,800
Speaker 2: the studio. Mike Ferrell told Consequence of Sound for their

1652
01:27:14,840 --> 01:27:19,040
Speaker 2: amazing Gremlins two oral history, and Terry said, look, we

1653
01:27:19,120 --> 01:27:21,240
Speaker 2: need this is the cigar jumping executive part.

1654
01:27:21,360 --> 01:27:24,760
Speaker 5: Look we need Gremlins two. We have to have Gremlins two.

1655
01:27:24,920 --> 01:27:26,800
Speaker 5: You can do anything you want. I don't care about

1656
01:27:26,800 --> 01:27:29,040
Speaker 5: the script. I don't care about the story. It just

1657
01:27:29,080 --> 01:27:31,920
Speaker 5: has to be called Gremlins two and have Gremlins in it.

1658
01:27:32,280 --> 01:27:33,439
Speaker 5: Anything else is your call.

1659
01:27:35,960 --> 01:27:38,479
Speaker 2: That is the quote I put it in a different voice.

1660
01:27:38,560 --> 01:27:40,920
Speaker 2: The film started shooting in nineteen eighty nine. Because of

1661
01:27:40,960 --> 01:27:44,240
Speaker 2: this protracted process, five years after the first one. That

1662
01:27:44,280 --> 01:27:46,559
Speaker 2: is insane to me, man like they should have just

1663
01:27:46,640 --> 01:27:49,479
Speaker 2: canned it. I'm sorry, but then we wouldn't have had

1664
01:27:49,720 --> 01:27:53,320
Speaker 2: Gremlins two, the new batch, which is, as I mentioned

1665
01:27:53,360 --> 01:28:00,559
Speaker 2: up top, possibly the defining blank check you film. Again,

1666
01:28:00,840 --> 01:28:05,360
Speaker 2: Dante agreed to do this because he had complete creative control.

1667
01:28:06,200 --> 01:28:09,200
Speaker 2: That's what they promised him, and with his enhanced budget,

1668
01:28:09,479 --> 01:28:13,519
Speaker 2: he went a. Gilligan and Kates both returned, but Chris

1669
01:28:13,560 --> 01:28:17,320
Speaker 2: Whyalas understandably declined and they brought in probably the only

1670
01:28:17,400 --> 01:28:21,200
Speaker 2: person better than him became Rick Baker of the thing

1671
01:28:21,520 --> 01:28:26,559
Speaker 2: and that was that was Rob Boteen. Rick Baker, Sorry,

1672
01:28:27,160 --> 01:28:30,040
Speaker 2: well we just said him on something. Well, he apprenticed

1673
01:28:30,080 --> 01:28:32,680
Speaker 2: on Star Wars. Oh, Planet of the Apes, he did,

1674
01:28:32,960 --> 01:28:35,400
Speaker 2: he did the two thousand and one. Yeah, and they

1675
01:28:35,400 --> 01:28:38,640
Speaker 2: went with the only person probably more suited by a

1676
01:28:38,720 --> 01:28:41,920
Speaker 2: hair than Chris Waalas, which would be Rick Baker, who

1677
01:28:41,960 --> 01:28:46,080
Speaker 2: won the Academy Award for Best Makeup seven times from

1678
01:28:46,120 --> 01:28:51,840
Speaker 2: eleven nominations. He's famous for assisting veteran Dick Smith on

1679
01:28:51,880 --> 01:28:55,519
Speaker 2: The Exorcist. He won for American Worlf in London. He

1680
01:28:55,600 --> 01:29:01,599
Speaker 2: turned Michael Jackson into a wearcat for a thriller. Yeah,

1681
01:29:01,680 --> 01:29:04,160
Speaker 2: Men in Black, Men in Black. And so with this

1682
01:29:04,240 --> 01:29:07,639
Speaker 2: expanded budget, and once again I have to stress no

1683
01:29:07,920 --> 01:29:12,680
Speaker 2: creative oversight, the two of them just turned in this

1684
01:29:12,800 --> 01:29:14,840
Speaker 2: incredible Again, dude, you just have to see it for

1685
01:29:14,880 --> 01:29:17,600
Speaker 2: how insane it is. I'll describe it to you and

1686
01:29:17,640 --> 01:29:20,120
Speaker 2: that will not get close the film is set in

1687
01:29:20,160 --> 01:29:23,519
Speaker 2: a thinly veiled Trump Tower, Billy and Kate having moved

1688
01:29:23,520 --> 01:29:26,280
Speaker 2: to New York City to make it, with character actor

1689
01:29:26,360 --> 01:29:30,280
Speaker 2: John Glover playing the namesake blustery tycoon who's a thinly

1690
01:29:30,360 --> 01:29:33,599
Speaker 2: veiled analog for Trump, and that is it as far

1691
01:29:33,600 --> 01:29:36,559
Speaker 2: as plot goes. There's a Gremlin's outbreak and then it

1692
01:29:36,640 --> 01:29:40,200
Speaker 2: is just an escalating series of site gags and crazier

1693
01:29:40,200 --> 01:29:43,559
Speaker 2: and crazier Gremlins stuff. I think Baker and Dante knew

1694
01:29:43,560 --> 01:29:46,519
Speaker 2: that they would never have this opportunity again, and they

1695
01:29:46,520 --> 01:29:49,400
Speaker 2: went balls to the wall. Baker didn't want to redo

1696
01:29:49,560 --> 01:29:52,000
Speaker 2: Chris Waylas's work from the original film, so they came

1697
01:29:52,080 --> 01:29:54,479
Speaker 2: up with the idea of having a genetics testing lab

1698
01:29:54,680 --> 01:29:57,800
Speaker 2: as part of this tower, and it is run by

1699
01:29:57,840 --> 01:30:01,240
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee in an amazing cameo. There's a great part

1700
01:30:01,280 --> 01:30:04,880
Speaker 2: where the secretary like coughs into a tissue in front

1701
01:30:04,880 --> 01:30:07,880
Speaker 2: of him, and he removes the tissue from her hand

1702
01:30:08,040 --> 01:30:10,479
Speaker 2: and puts it in a bag and take back to

1703
01:30:10,520 --> 01:30:15,280
Speaker 2: the lab. And this conceit of having this concept of

1704
01:30:15,280 --> 01:30:17,840
Speaker 2: having this genetics lab came up with the opportunity for

1705
01:30:17,880 --> 01:30:21,000
Speaker 2: them to just say, anybody have an idea for a gremlin.

1706
01:30:21,360 --> 01:30:24,439
Speaker 2: We're gonna do it. This includes a batgremlin, which at

1707
01:30:24,439 --> 01:30:26,960
Speaker 2: one point escapes and leaves a hole in the wall

1708
01:30:27,400 --> 01:30:30,000
Speaker 2: the exact shape of the Batman symbol, and then is

1709
01:30:30,000 --> 01:30:33,439
Speaker 2: covered in cement and freezes into a gargoyle on I

1710
01:30:33,479 --> 01:30:37,120
Speaker 2: think Saint Patrick's cathedral. There's also a lady, a sexy

1711
01:30:37,200 --> 01:30:41,200
Speaker 2: lady gremlin, a brain gremlin voiced by Tony Randall, a

1712
01:30:41,240 --> 01:30:45,680
Speaker 2: spider gremlin, a salad gremlin, and an electric gremlin that

1713
01:30:45,840 --> 01:30:48,760
Speaker 2: is trapped in the phone system. And I might even

1714
01:30:48,800 --> 01:30:52,519
Speaker 2: be forgetting some A salad gremlin. Yeah, he pops out

1715
01:30:52,560 --> 01:30:54,519
Speaker 2: of a salad bar and he's like all made of

1716
01:30:54,560 --> 01:30:57,960
Speaker 2: like like radishes and carrots and stuff. This is all

1717
01:30:58,000 --> 01:31:00,720
Speaker 2: parodied in an amazing Key and Peel Scale where they

1718
01:31:00,800 --> 01:31:05,000
Speaker 2: have this like completely like fake movie consultant come into

1719
01:31:05,040 --> 01:31:07,600
Speaker 2: a like a board meeting and get everyone to like

1720
01:31:07,960 --> 01:31:11,120
Speaker 2: pitch their dumb ideas for Gremlins, and then it ends

1721
01:31:11,120 --> 01:31:14,000
Speaker 2: with another exec coming in and saying, you guys, none

1722
01:31:14,080 --> 01:31:15,759
Speaker 2: of this will be in the movie, and then smash

1723
01:31:15,840 --> 01:31:18,240
Speaker 2: cuts to like a card saying all of this is

1724
01:31:18,280 --> 01:31:22,640
Speaker 2: in Gremlins too, which you should also look up as

1725
01:31:22,880 --> 01:31:26,400
Speaker 2: it's Jordan Peel's hilariou, isn't it the brain Goblin again

1726
01:31:26,479 --> 01:31:30,280
Speaker 2: voiced by Tony Randall? Is it's in? This is the

1727
01:31:30,280 --> 01:31:32,760
Speaker 2: movie is in that beautiful period where the technology for

1728
01:31:32,880 --> 01:31:35,640
Speaker 2: practicals was as good as it would ever get and

1729
01:31:35,720 --> 01:31:39,360
Speaker 2: before it was starting to be replaced by CGI. They

1730
01:31:39,640 --> 01:31:45,000
Speaker 2: recorded Randall's dialogue far in advance, and because this was

1731
01:31:45,040 --> 01:31:48,599
Speaker 2: because they had to feed it into a computer which

1732
01:31:48,760 --> 01:31:53,120
Speaker 2: was plugged into this device called a Gilder Fluke, which

1733
01:31:53,160 --> 01:31:55,120
Speaker 2: is just the name of the company. But what this

1734
01:31:55,160 --> 01:31:59,320
Speaker 2: thing did was map the animatronics movement to the dialogue

1735
01:31:59,400 --> 01:32:01,679
Speaker 2: via computer, so they didn't have to control it by hand.

1736
01:32:02,479 --> 01:32:04,519
Speaker 2: And that was how they get this thing to match

1737
01:32:04,600 --> 01:32:08,280
Speaker 2: Tony Randall's incredible dialogue. And this is all even aside

1738
01:32:08,280 --> 01:32:11,280
Speaker 2: the litany of insane cameos and references that are in

1739
01:32:11,280 --> 01:32:13,280
Speaker 2: this film, because the other thing is they weren't just

1740
01:32:13,320 --> 01:32:15,960
Speaker 2: content to make like an SFX showcase. They were also like,

1741
01:32:16,080 --> 01:32:17,920
Speaker 2: we have to make something that just puts its thumb

1742
01:32:17,920 --> 01:32:21,679
Speaker 2: in the eye of Hollywood as an idea and also

1743
01:32:21,760 --> 01:32:24,280
Speaker 2: like corporate greed. So the whole thing opens with a

1744
01:32:24,400 --> 01:32:28,679
Speaker 2: Chuck Jones Looney Tunes animated segment just apropos of nothing.

1745
01:32:29,080 --> 01:32:33,040
Speaker 2: They have a guy playing essentially Al Lewis as Grandpa Munster.

1746
01:32:34,439 --> 01:32:38,480
Speaker 2: Leonard Malton plays himself and is mauled by some gremlins.

1747
01:32:38,800 --> 01:32:42,720
Speaker 2: Hulk Hogan makes a cameo, Gizmo cosplays as Rambo, and

1748
01:32:42,800 --> 01:32:46,280
Speaker 2: Sylvester Sloane actually gave him their blessing for this. Julius

1749
01:32:46,320 --> 01:32:49,479
Speaker 2: Sweeney plays a receptionist, and the film also takes time

1750
01:32:49,520 --> 01:32:52,120
Speaker 2: to riff on the absurdity of the Maguai rules. There's

1751
01:32:52,160 --> 01:32:55,080
Speaker 2: a whole scene where people are like, well, what happens

1752
01:32:55,080 --> 01:32:57,800
Speaker 2: if he's on a plane. It crosses time zones and

1753
01:32:57,840 --> 01:33:01,479
Speaker 2: it's after midnight that way, it's always midnight somewhere, right,

1754
01:33:01,680 --> 01:33:03,320
Speaker 2: That is just a They just take a minute to

1755
01:33:03,320 --> 01:33:05,320
Speaker 2: have a bunch of guys sitting the round and like

1756
01:33:05,640 --> 01:33:09,120
Speaker 2: riff on how dumb the rules are. And the film

1757
01:33:09,160 --> 01:33:12,759
Speaker 2: whole thing concludes with a musical number where the Tony

1758
01:33:12,840 --> 01:33:17,000
Speaker 2: Randall gremlin sings New York, New York. There's also a

1759
01:33:17,040 --> 01:33:18,920
Speaker 2: fourth I forgot to mention the fourth wall break. There's

1760
01:33:18,920 --> 01:33:22,439
Speaker 2: an extended fourth wall break where the Gremlins sabotage the

1761
01:33:22,479 --> 01:33:26,600
Speaker 2: projection reel and they and they like tear apart the

1762
01:33:27,160 --> 01:33:29,760
Speaker 2: reel and there's like all these blots and burns, and

1763
01:33:29,800 --> 01:33:33,200
Speaker 2: then they cut a separate version of this. This is

1764
01:33:33,280 --> 01:33:35,880
Speaker 2: the dout of detail. This is so insane. Because the

1765
01:33:35,920 --> 01:33:39,760
Speaker 2: projection gag wouldn't work on home video, they cut a

1766
01:33:39,800 --> 01:33:43,519
Speaker 2: separate scene where it looked like your VHS and VCR

1767
01:33:43,640 --> 01:33:48,240
Speaker 2: were glitching out, with a separate John Wayne bit, which

1768
01:33:48,280 --> 01:33:51,559
Speaker 2: they had to reach out to Wayne's estate to approve. Also,

1769
01:33:52,120 --> 01:33:53,960
Speaker 2: the musical number of the New York New York is

1770
01:33:54,000 --> 01:33:57,680
Speaker 2: a reference to a Buzzby Berkeley number in Dames, a

1771
01:33:57,840 --> 01:34:04,280
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers musical from the nineteenthties. Again deep cut, and Dante,

1772
01:34:04,400 --> 01:34:08,479
Speaker 2: in his infinite genius, wanted to ship little cardboard gremlin

1773
01:34:08,560 --> 01:34:12,120
Speaker 2: cutouts to movie theaters so that when this fourth wall

1774
01:34:12,160 --> 01:34:14,760
Speaker 2: break happens and it looks like the projection is breaking down,

1775
01:34:14,960 --> 01:34:17,240
Speaker 2: audiences would turn around and look at the booth and

1776
01:34:17,240 --> 01:34:22,000
Speaker 2: see these little cardboard cutouts cavorting around in silhouette. This

1777
01:34:22,120 --> 01:34:24,600
Speaker 2: was like his idea. Yeah, he was trying to do

1778
01:34:24,600 --> 01:34:28,720
Speaker 2: a William Castle and they were wisely like no, dude, like,

1779
01:34:28,840 --> 01:34:33,559
Speaker 2: are you kidding insane film?

1780
01:34:33,720 --> 01:34:36,960
Speaker 1: I'm just on Joe Dante's Wikipedia page and his list

1781
01:34:37,000 --> 01:34:40,320
Speaker 1: of unrealized projects is pretty.

1782
01:34:39,920 --> 01:34:45,400
Speaker 2: Insane because of this. You know, this film ultimately came

1783
01:34:45,400 --> 01:34:48,920
Speaker 2: out in nineteen ninety, and it had the multiple catastrophes

1784
01:34:49,000 --> 01:34:51,880
Speaker 2: of Warner Brothers shuffling around its release date. They were

1785
01:34:51,880 --> 01:34:54,280
Speaker 2: originally going to put it out Memorial Day and then

1786
01:34:54,320 --> 01:34:58,920
Speaker 2: they moved it to compete with Warren Batties Dick Tracy

1787
01:34:59,000 --> 01:35:02,960
Speaker 2: remake from Disney. And also it was released six years

1788
01:35:02,960 --> 01:35:06,560
Speaker 2: after the first one, which maybe past the statute of

1789
01:35:06,600 --> 01:35:09,559
Speaker 2: limitations for a sequel. The film was a flop, perhaps

1790
01:35:09,600 --> 01:35:12,599
Speaker 2: needless to say, but it has become an enormous cult hit,

1791
01:35:12,640 --> 01:35:14,680
Speaker 2: which I urge everyone to seek out. I think it's

1792
01:35:14,680 --> 01:35:17,439
Speaker 2: been a talk of a Gremlins three since like forever,

1793
01:35:17,760 --> 01:35:20,200
Speaker 2: but the closest we've actually come is a recent HBO

1794
01:35:20,280 --> 01:35:24,280
Speaker 2: animated series called Gremlins Secrets of the Magua, which came

1795
01:35:24,280 --> 01:35:25,000
Speaker 2: out last year.

1796
01:35:25,240 --> 01:35:29,320
Speaker 1: What was the budget for Gremlins two to thirty and

1797
01:35:29,400 --> 01:35:30,200
Speaker 1: fifty million?

1798
01:35:31,080 --> 01:35:34,720
Speaker 2: That only made a forty one point five Yeah, so

1799
01:35:34,840 --> 01:35:37,679
Speaker 2: roughly three to five times the budget of the original

1800
01:35:37,760 --> 01:35:46,880
Speaker 2: and made a third ough Man, What a perfect movie.

1801
01:35:49,040 --> 01:35:50,640
Speaker 2: It's so good. I love how much you love this

1802
01:35:52,000 --> 01:35:55,000
Speaker 2: you have? I would actually tell you I would I

1803
01:35:55,160 --> 01:35:58,400
Speaker 2: watch two first. I don't know, man, Yeah you could

1804
01:35:58,520 --> 01:36:01,760
Speaker 2: if you only have time for one. Two is not

1805
01:36:01,840 --> 01:36:04,400
Speaker 2: as good of a movie, but it is a more

1806
01:36:04,760 --> 01:36:08,760
Speaker 2: entertaining movie because it's so much goofier and cartoony, Like

1807
01:36:08,800 --> 01:36:14,120
Speaker 2: the first one is kind of scary and mean in parts,

1808
01:36:14,160 --> 01:36:17,920
Speaker 2: and the second one is just like, we're gonna do

1809
01:36:17,960 --> 01:36:21,439
Speaker 2: Looney Tunes with our weird little guys from six years earlier.

1810
01:36:21,640 --> 01:36:26,240
Speaker 2: Just incredible stuff. I'm still thinking about it. I'm always

1811
01:36:26,240 --> 01:36:30,519
Speaker 2: thinking about it, to be honest. Who all right, folks,

1812
01:36:30,520 --> 01:36:34,160
Speaker 2: if I can get serious for a moment. Writing in

1813
01:36:34,240 --> 01:36:39,559
Speaker 2: Vulture in twenty thirteen, Anthony Scabelli hosited Gremlin's moral, spelled

1814
01:36:39,560 --> 01:36:42,599
Speaker 2: out by kay Luke's wisened old man, is that Billy

1815
01:36:43,080 --> 01:36:46,320
Speaker 2: and perhaps American culture as a whole, cannot take something

1816
01:36:46,360 --> 01:36:50,280
Speaker 2: sweet and pure like a Magua without transforming it, even

1817
01:36:50,360 --> 01:36:54,800
Speaker 2: if just inadvertently, into a Gremlin. When he's given it's

1818
01:36:54,800 --> 01:36:58,400
Speaker 2: a wonderful life, Dante must transform it into Invasion of

1819
01:36:58,400 --> 01:37:03,240
Speaker 2: the Body Snatchers quote, joyfully anarchic, but somehow still lovable.

1820
01:37:03,479 --> 01:37:05,880
Speaker 2: The Magua and the Gremlins represent the best and worst

1821
01:37:05,960 --> 01:37:09,160
Speaker 2: in not just America, but everyone. We're all just a

1822
01:37:09,160 --> 01:37:11,800
Speaker 2: few errant drops of water away from reverting to our

1823
01:37:11,840 --> 01:37:15,200
Speaker 2: bassist selves, and the wonderful tension of life rides on

1824
01:37:15,200 --> 01:37:18,559
Speaker 2: the razor's edge between those two halves. Folks, thank you

1825
01:37:18,560 --> 01:37:21,559
Speaker 2: for listening. This has been too much information. I'm Alex

1826
01:37:21,640 --> 01:37:25,080
Speaker 2: Heigel and I'm Jordan run Talk. We'll catch you next time.

1827
01:37:30,160 --> 01:37:32,679
Speaker 1: Too Much Information was a production of iHeart Radio.

1828
01:37:32,920 --> 01:37:36,160
Speaker 2: The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtog.

1829
01:37:36,320 --> 01:37:39,280
Speaker 1: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June.

1830
01:37:39,439 --> 01:37:42,519
Speaker 2: The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtalk

1831
01:37:42,600 --> 01:37:43,760
Speaker 2: and Alex Heigel.

1832
01:37:43,520 --> 01:37:46,759
Speaker 1: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

1833
01:37:47,080 --> 01:37:49,120
Speaker 2: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

1834
01:37:49,200 --> 01:37:49,679
Speaker 2: us a review.

1835
01:37:49,960 --> 01:37:54,240
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1836
01:37:54,479 --> 01:37:56,200
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite.

1837
01:37:55,840 --> 01:38:00,559
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1838
01:38:02,360 --> 01:38:05,439
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