In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss 1990’s “Gremlins 2: The New Batch.”
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And this week on Weird House Cinema, we're we're obviously tackling G two. We're gonna be looking at nine nineties Grimlins to the New Batch. This is Joe Dante. Is colossal sequel to four film Gremlins, which I had assumed when we picked it was a Christmas movie, but it's not. The original Gremlins is a Christmas movie. G two might well be in June for all I know. Yeah, I was released in June. Um. But yeah, I had this false memory in my head that this too was a Christmas movie. And evidently I'm not alone. I think you sounds like you had the same thing in your brain. And I rented the Blu ray from Video Drome here in Atlanta, the video store here in Atlanta, and they had it categorize with Christmas movies as well for the Holidays. So I guess this is like a collective misremembering that we're engaging in here. So it doesn't take place at Christmas, but it is a Christmas Tree of a movie, and it overfloweth with lights and uh and and shiny objects and and present spilling forth from beneath the bows. Absolutely now, I strongly remember the build up to this film's release. I would have been eleven at the time. It was said to come out in June. Gremlins to merchandise was everywhere. The film seemed just destined to satisfy everyone. The trailers just looked fun, even though I don't think i'd actually seen Grimlins one at that point, or maybe I've seen parts of it on TV or something, but I was convinced Grimlins Too was going to change the world. Of course, it didn't really change the world. The box office numbers ended up being I think disappointing. The critical reception was kind of mixed. At the time, Um, I was not aware of any of this, so I stayed strong with my desire to see Gruman's two, and when it finally became available on home video, I got to rent it, I got to watch it, and even then, at age eleven, I realized this film was a lot. Uh. Did the presence of the Hulkster have any sway with you at this time? No? No, not not at all. Oh okay, yeah, was it only later you would you would come to appreciate pro wrestling? Yeah, that would that would come later for me at the time. You know, you knew who Hulk Cogan was because a superstar um and yeah spoiler, but but Hul Coogan is in the movie. He's one of many Cano's many appearances in this film. You know, I think Gremlins Too is kind of ahead of its time. I do see that critical reception at the time was mixed. I think a lot of people didn't know what to make of this movie. But I think if something like this updated a bit for more modern sensibilities came out now, I think the the reaction might be more resounding appreciation. Yeah, it's I mean, I don't know if if someone could pull it off as well as as Joe Dante and his his his team here did though, because this is one of those rare films that is very self aware and yet delivers like it's it knows it's goofy, it's going for goofy, it's breaking the fourth wall, it's making fun of the previous Gremlins movie. It's it's totally wild in this regard, and this is the same kind of self awareness that will that has driven many other films just straight into the ditch. As far as watchability and enjoyability goes, Yeah, I would say it's kind of the The Evil Dead two to Grimlin's Evil Dead one, except whereas the Evil Dead movies are, they're they're kind of a parlor drama that you know, they take place in a single location. They're very focused. This is a voluminous, crazy, overflowing extravaganza. Yeah. Yeah, And I think over time people have come to realize that Growin's two is something special. Uh, it's it's definitely grown a cult following over time. Uh. There was that wonderful key and Peel sketch about the Hollywood sequel Doctor, which is correct and yet doesn't even doesn't even like tease half of the weirdness. And then the the oddities that pop up in this film, Like it's just the things in that sketch were in the film, it would already be insane. But that's just half the story. Yeah, So I think I have to realize, especially after rewatching it, I have to admit that eleven year old me was absolutely right to be excited about G two and it was, and is, in fact, the greatest Grimlin movie we could possibly hope for. Well A d percent agree. I did not see Gremlins Too when I was a kid, but I did see Gremlins one. My dad and I rented it, probably from Turtles Video when I was in elementary school, and I remember it being a real mood rattler because it has that mix of cute, cut league kids stuff like Gizmo is so adorable, and then mixing that with bizarrely depressing themes and gruesome violence. But despite this mix, I'm pretty sure I loved it at the time, and I was trying to remember the things that stuck out to me about the film, the things that really lodged in my memory. I remember, of course, Gizmo being very cute. I remember the rules, right. There's an important part early on when when a when the father character buys Gizmo from the antique shop and he has told the three rules you cannot violate. You cannot shine sunlight bright light, especially sunlight on the magua, because that will kill it. Number two is you can never get it wet, and number three is you can never feed it after midnight. Yeah, these these rules are great they're real head scratcher to try and analyze the green ones to itself pokes a little fun at this and uh and many years ago I had great fun when I was writing for How Stuff Works, doing a How Stuff Works article about Gremlin's and Magua where I made a go at describing the science behind all these weird things that they do. But it it really you really have to twist yourself into a not to do that kind of thing. The other things I remember, though, Gremlins being killed by Billy's mom with kitchen appliances. I think that one gets in the blender, she turns it on. Another one gets into microwaves, she turns it on, so appliances to the rescue. I also remember the Gremlins at one point watching snow White in the movie theater, and I think Zach Gallaghan playing the main human character Billy, He's like, they're watching snow White and they love it. Uh. And I also remember a scene of Gremlin's raucously partying at a bar, and there's one shot where a Gremlin is smoking three cigarettes at the same time, which was hilarious to my little brain. Um. But then the big thing that's stuck in my head maybe more than anything else involves no Gremlins at all, not a gremlin to be seen. It was a a part of the movie where Phoebe Kates is delivering a monologue about how her father died while trying to crawl down the family's chimney dressed in a Santa Claus suit. Yeah, that's just a real bummer of a scene, which is I think one of the big reasons that the film was so jarring and so totally inconsistent, uh is I think I grew to realize this as a kid because when you ultimately, when you're a kid, you kind of treat movies like you treat people. You take them too face value. You you don't pick and say, well, I wish this was different, I wish that was different, Like, well, this is the film. So it's a little jarring when you encounter a film like Gremlins that that is, you know, it seems to be divided about whether it's a cute film or a horror film, etcetera. And this seems just horrific. And I don't recall it really accomplishing much for the picture either. I mean, it's hard to I think it was maybe supposed to be darkly comedic, but it's hard to tell anyway that this infamous soliloquy is parodied in G two. So you've got to appreciate a sequel that directly makes fun of the original film. Like there's a part where Phoebe Kate's starts to launch into a monologue about how she has horrible associations with President's Day because there was a man dressed in an able Lincoln suit, and before she can finish it, they kind of just usher her off screen. Yeah, They're like, we don't have time for this. We've got to go to feed the Gremlins. So I wasn't really aware of Gremlins too until probably college, when a friend of mine told me we were talking about Gremlins. He was like, you ever see the second one? And I said no, and he was like, you've got to watch it because there's a scene where Hulk Hogan appears as himself talking directly into the camera, which confused me because you know, I've seen the original and that did not seem in keeping with the level of reality in which the the original movie is set. I mean, of course it's got fantasy elements, but it's a it's a film that maintains its own realism. Yeah, that I will say, and we'll get to the hull Cogan scene. The hull Cogan scene is earned. It does not feel jarring when it happens in the film. But but yeah, I can understand where just knowing this about the film could could set weird expectations for what it is. But but I'm also glad that you you again mentioned the grim Ones watching snow White in the first one, the grim One smoking and all, because I think one would be making an error in hating on G two by holding G one to some unrealistic, like serious standard that it wasn't going for either. No. Gremlins one is also supposed to be funny, but G two goes to heights unimagined by the first film. So the original Gremlins is very weird. It's kind of hard to say who it's for, Like, is this an R rated horror movie or a cute Christmas movie for kids? It's kind of both. But I think it's great. Uh And though a bit of that DNA gets passed onto the sequel, Ultimately I think G two is something different and it is the purest essence of Grimlins, because what are gremlins with a lowercase G. They are not just any movie monster. Most movie monsters are more than anything, a threat. They're scary because they endanger the lives of the characters. They're scary because they will kill. The Gremlins in these movies do participate in violence, but the violence seems kind of secondary. It's just sort of one of their tricks. The violence is one of the outcome paths of their overall mission, which I think would be better uh designated as just chaos. The Gremlins represent anarchy, disorder, the dangerous and destructive side of fun, and in both movies, but especially the second, you see the Gremlins playing mean pranks and partying and breaking things and making a mess. Yeah, that the classic Dungeons and Dragons alignment system just breaks down in the face of gremlins because they would have to be they couldn't be chaotic evil, they couldn't be like chaotic neutral. They'd have to be chaotic chaotic, which just breaks the system. But fortunately, gremlins love to break things, so I guess it works out. Yes, when it's time to party, they will party hard. They will party so hard that there's just broken glass flying all over the place. Uh. There's you know, like the rooms that they inhabit are quickly quickly come to be filled with smoke and fumes for various reasons. Uh. And this actually, in a thematically wise decision, connects to the origin of the gremlin as a broader creature. Gremlin's, unlike most mythical monsters, do not originate in the myths and folk beliefs of pre modern times. Gremlins are a twentieth century creation. They're part of the culture of aeronautics and and piloting, I believe particularly the British r A F who made reference to gremlins as these devilish little saboteurs and mischief makers who would walk around inside the engine with a big pair of scissors and cut the wires while you were in midflight for a deadly prank. Gremlins play horrible jokes, Gremlins break things, Gremlins break the rules, Gremlins make a mess, and these antics end up with people maimed or dead. In fact, Robbi attached a couple of things for you to look at here. These are, uh, these are posters from the World War Two era saying you know basically watch out for Gremlins as a metaphor for saying be careful in the workplace, because the Gremlins could push you into the saw If you're not careful, the gremlins could fling things in your eyes. If you're not careful, you got to wear the safety goggles. You gotta keep a distance from the saw blade. Don't let the grimsters get you. So seeing as they're not your average movie monster, but rather avatars of chaos that you know, just mischief and entropy, I think Gremlins deserves something different from your average monster movie, and in G two, that is exactly what they got. This movie is absolute chaos. It does not tell a conventional story with a conventional plot. It does not attempt to maintain the suspension of disbelief, like there's not um integrity of its setting as a real world within the film. Instead, G two just wants to show you things. It's a lot of hey look at this, and some of those things will be weird images like hey, here's a gremlin made out of vegetables. It's got tomatoes for cheeks, or here's a gremlin with spider legs. Sometimes those things will be bizarre scenes like the the talk show interview where the brainy gremlin explains what the Gremlins want and it turns out what they want is civilization, or the part where there's like a chorus of gremlin singing New York, New York. Sometimes it's gonna be visual gags, like where the gremlin with bat wings flies through a wall and leaves a hole that is the Tim Burton Batman symbol, or just sometimes it's gonna be out of nowhere fourth wall breaking gags like when Hulk Hogan yells at us, or when we see the film critic Leonard Malton show up to give a one star review of Gremlins one only to then be murdered by Gremlins. Oh it's such a great scene. I mean, both of these scenes are great. Like the whole Cogan scene of course, is that the Gremlins have disrupted the film projector in the in the theater in which we are ideally watching the film, and then then we're sort of transported. Oh it's there are many layers to it. Yeah, so we're no, we should actually try to describe what happens there, just to give you a flavor of the Like how many walls are being broken. They break up to like the eighth wall. So you're watching the movie and then suddenly it looks as if the film you are watching that's been projected in the theater has been destroyed, like it kind of burns through, and then the screen turns white, and then you see gremlins making shadow puppets in front of the projector, and then we zoom out to see inside a theater. So I guess presumably at first you were tricked into thinking something has happened on the screen and you're in the theater, but now you're looking at a theater on the screen, and in the theater there's Hulk Coogan. Oh, there's a lady who walks out of the theater and complains to theater manager played by Paul bartell Uh saying like this movie is trash, and he's like, we don't make the movies, man, we just show them. The mom, by the way, is Belinda Blaski, who appears in a number of Joe Dante's films like The Howling Original, Gremlins and Kirana. Yeah, and then the Hulkster shows up and the Hulkster threatens the Gremlins. I think He's like, I'm gonna come up there and I'm gonna show you who's boss. And they listened, They listen, they back down. Yeah. So G two is not just a movie about gremlins. It was made by gremlins. Gremlins have taken over the script, the camera, the editing, and in that sense, I think it's almost sort of an an art film. G two is genius. It is. There's as much as I love the Kempel sketch, I've watched it so many times, and it is at one level it is correct about the vibe of the film. And I think Joe Dante and um and folks have kind of also said that they enjoy it and and and think some of it matches up with the experience. But on the other hand, yes, this is not a slap dash film. This is a film that knows exactly what it is going for and it succeeds at creating that experience. Yeah, and I think the result is a very enjoyable film. It's a great film. I'll say it. G two is a great film. I think it's better than Dances with Wolves, which one the Oscar that year for Best Picture. G two should have taken best picture. Well maybe, Uh, what's the elevator pitch? On G two. The first one that came to my mind is Grimlin's Take Manhattan, and that's I think that's it. Oh if only it had an opening theme song like in Jason Takes Manhattan. What what is that monologue? The City that Never sleeps? You gotta get the fear pumping good people? All right? Well, well, in a way we'll get the fear pumping a little bit because we're about to play for you. The audio of the trailer this is like, I think, an early trailer for it, but but it's a really good one. It reminds us of the rules, and if I'm not mistaking, it has a voice over by Don Lafontaine, the voice of God. So it's a good Remember the last time we told you not to feed them after midnight, We told you to keep them away from the like and the most important warning of all, we told you to never ever get them wet. You didn't listen. You didn't listen. Here we are the new change. Where is the building on? Fine? Oh no, that's a false alarms? Are you trying to panic to York City? Absolutely so, the monsters are real. I didn't think that Gremlins too the new batch now was that civilized? No, clearly not fun, but the no sense civilized now real quick, if you've not seen Grimmins too, or you want to see it again at this point, if you need a break and go watch it, We're lucky for you. This is a major release you can you can get a copy of this and pretty much any format you desire. It's a very widely available I ended up renning it on Blu Ray from Video Drone because I forgot that it was streaming on HBO Max. So if you're an HBO Max subscriber has of this recording, you can go watch it there. That's how I saw it, though, I guess ideally you need to watch it in a theater that is about to be overtaken by Gremlin's and you need to have Hulk Cogan in the audience with you. Yeah. Did Hulk Cogan attend the premiere? I don't know. This was this was a film that there there was a lot to wrangle with this film. I didn't get a chance to look at the premiere photos um and I guess it's a good point to mention this as we go into some of the connections the people of note involved here. This cast is immense if you count not only the main cast, but all the cameos and the bit parts played by up and coming actors whould lay later go on to to be bigger names. There's so many people that we're gonna not have time to mention or I'm just gonna have to mention briefly. Yeah, the cast is enormous, especially including all the cameos. And even there are people who I think we're not cameos at the time, they're just who were minor actors at the time who later went on to have recognizable careers. Like when we were watching the cast scroll down the screen, I was just saying, like, what, oh, minor part played by Isaiah Whitlock who played a character on the Wire, Or like, wait, is that Dean Norris? Yeah, Dean Norris is like a SWAT team member and I didn't even recognize I didn't notice him at all. Isaiah Jr. Is a fireman and I didn't notice him at all. So yeah, their names like that just sprinkled in there. But okay, first we got to do the director. So G two and G one both Joe Dante. That's right. And I don't know about you, but I always had a hard time classifying Joe Dante. You could say hard lead. Yeah, I think that's not incorrect. But he's also gotten more than a dash of that Spielbergian energy as well. Um, he's also a man after my own heart. He has a great love for film trailers see his long running Trailers from Hell series. As a horror director, we can instantly look to such films as The Howling from one, which is, as I recall, a pretty stellar werewolf film. There's Piranha from eight, and then I guess you could qualify Gremlins as a horror movie again, kind of all over the place with that one. Yeah, Piranha and seventy. That makes me wonder if Joe Dante had early association with the Corman camp. They're a number of Corman connections to be made just in this film alone. Yeah, Okay, then I can't confirm that, but I suspect it now. He also directed the segment It's a Good Life in Twilight Zone, the movie from three. Uh and yeah, on the other side of things, he did The Explorers seven's Inner Space, which I as a kid, I just haven't seen it and forever, but oh I would, I would build those little micro subs or my versions of the metal legos. Wait, is that the one where they shrink down and go inside a human body? Not just any human body. It's Martin Short, right the way with Martin Short is the human which was there was one? I think there were two different movies like that, weren't there like and one of them was the also the premise of a ride at Epcot Center? Am I wrong about the um? I'm not sure about that, okay, But yeah, Inner Space is the one where I think you had Dennis Quaid as the guy inside a little submarine and he goes into Martin Short's body and at times controls Martin Short's body and then uh yeah, there are a lot of antics ensued, but there's a lot of cool, fantastic voyage type stuff happening inside the body there. Oh yeah, I just looked it up. Interspace has a lot of cast overlap with G two, got Dick Miller, got Piccardo, got Henry Gibson. They're all showing up Picardo and that one plays the the like the enemy agent who gets in his own tiny submarine and Dennis Quaid and him have this battle inside of like Martin shorts stomach or something, and so Martin Shorts like, you know, physically ill while these two were bagging to the death inside of his stomach. Assid It's wonderful, nice Okay, wait, but back to Dante. Yeah yeah. So on top of that, there's The Burbs, Matinee all fun films, but but outside of the horror box by and large, I guess The Birds has horror elements. Though on top of that, he also did some TV work, including directing episodes of Police Squad with Leslie Nielsen. So I think if you take all of that in Green Ones Who is kind of an interesting amalgam of these apparent interests in cinematic values because, while while less totally inconsistent it, it does still manage to deliver some scares, some some goofy stuff, some creepy stuff. It definitely wears its love for genre cinema on its eve, with numerous references to various films. Uh. It tries it's its hand at some very broad parody, and above all, it's just it's fun. It focuses on the fun. Now, on the writing side of things, the original Green Ones was written by Christopher Columbus, of all people, though I believe he was like maybe the fourth person to write that script and was just the only name that retained credit Christopher Columbus, like the Home Alone guy. Yeah, okay, Yeah. This one, however, is the work of Charles S. Hass Born two, who wrote the nineteen nineteen rebel movie Over the Edge did uncredited work on the Tron screenplay, as well as nine nine Martians Go Home and Dante's Matinee. I think a lot of this movie, though, I mean, I don't know because I'm not looking at the script right now, but I imagine a lot of stuff in it is just concept work more than like writing out a scene with dialogue, like oh what, we showed this here and then we transition to that, and then we had somebody just improv and and so forth. Though it would be an interesting experiment to see someone write the script for Gremlins too, as if everything in the movie is on the page. Yeah, it's a good it's a good one for like really mean spirited screenplay writing. Uh, teachers, that would be great. Okay. Now, normally we don't talk about special effects until later, but we have to mention that the special effects supervisor and co producer or credit on this is uh the legendary Rick Baker. Special effects are front and center in Gremlins Too, and they are phenomenal. Yeah. When you when you think about Rick Baker, uh, and and I recommend you do he He has a great instagram by the way, definitely worth following. Um. You know, he's directed so many monster movies and also a lot of non monster movies, and it's easy to focus on things like an American werewolf in London or video Drome, or to go in a different direction, guerrillas in the midst. But I have to say Baker and his team just absolutely knock it out of the park with Grimlins Too. You go back and you look at the original Gremlins and the creatures have character, but they're very rough around the edges. There's a very much there. There's still kind of a feeling of throw a puppet across the room kind of a thing. You know. Gremlins Too is a hugely forward in puppetry and special effects, giving us just the whole mob of convincing grimlins, each with their own character and Gizmo Gizmo himself in this is just a living creature. I mean, Gizmo alone is a master stroke in this film. He's as real as he is adorable, and he is so adorable. Every moment he's on screen, the cute could not be cranked up any higher. It's just like supernatural. I mean not it's it's like supernatural, but also super normal stimuli. The close ups, especially like anytime Gizmos on the screen, you just can't help but squirm at just how adorable he is. I had the exact same reaction. The pets in this movie are alive. You could not tell me those are not real living gremlins. Yeah, they're just they're just so good. And of course with the gremlins proper, they're so gross. There's so many gross scenes with the there's some real slime, but then also there are lots of fun, very cartooning effects and on the and on the subject of cartoons, Worth pointing out that animation legend Chuck Jones the opening and closing animation sequences for this that feature. Although the opening has bugs, Bunny and Daffy Duck in it, and at the end we have Porky Pig as well, and no gremlins the opening animation is just an unrelated bugs Bunny cartoon. Yeah, but I think that sets the tone appropriately because it's just chaos absolutely, And yeah, if if you're your intro, it's it's like they're saying, this is going to be a cartoon. Just bear that in mind as we continue. All Right, So you want to try to do some of the cast, Yeah, I'm I'm not going to get into the very small parts. If they come up later in discussion, we'll reference them. But yeah, there are a lot of people I'm not going to reference. Let's just start with our main human cast, human characters who have some degree of you know, of of of of of character, and I don't know an arc if you will, but at the top we have we have billion Kate. Billy is played by Zach Gallaghan sixty four. This is our small town kid from the first movie, now living and working in the Big Apple. He's probably best known for his role in the Gremlins movies, but he was also in wax Work, It's sequel. He's in Hell Razor three Hell on Earth, which in a weird way is almost the Grimlins too of the Hell Raiser movies, but fall short of actually like pulling that off. So you can imagine the keym peel sketch style script meeting for Hell Raiser three. It's like, what about c D C D cinebyte. Um, it's in the movie. Yeah, but he's also He's also in The Warlock, the Armageddon. He's in the Strung Along episode of Tales from the Cript. This is one of at least a couple of twisted Puppeteer episodes. This is the one that starred Donald O'Connor but not. Okay, so that's Billy. But then Kate is played by Phoebe Kates born nineteen sixty three. This is Billy's girlfriend from the first movie they've She's moved to New York City with him and she also works at the same high rise building. Other films of note include N two's Fast Times at Ridgemont High eight three private School. Oh and also Drop Dead Fred, in which Rick may All plays her imaginary friend in a movie directed by Atte DeJong, who also did Highway to Hell, which week show previously. I don't think she's active as a as an actor anymore. It could be mistaken on thatible. I think she like runs a New York City boutique, and she's been married to the actor Kevin Klein since. Very very charming lead couple in both of these movies. It is hard not to like Zach and Phoebe in these roles. Absolutely. Now, we also have a character in this film by the name of Daniel Clamp played by John Glover. So first of all, let's just focus on the fact that this is the actor John Glover. Um. John Glover is an incredible character actor. He's got this this kind of this like handsome, charming, impish uh um um vibe to him. Uh. He plays the Mental Institution front desk guy and John Carpenter's in the mouth of madness. I was going to say he's kind of evil Hugh Grant, but actually I think Hugh Grant is evil John Glover. Yeah, Like, there's even as he plays. He plays a lot of villains, but he brings a certain charm to them. Um. He will not only sinister villains, but also he he especially earlier in his career, he was able to play sort of p P villains as well. I don't remember this character entirely, but he played Bruce Cummings and Scrooged. I've seen Scrooge, but I don't remember who that is. I think this is just like the foil to Bill Murray, Like this is some guy Bill Murray's character doesn't like. Okay, Yeah, which I guess is kind of a that's kind of a trope character in and of itself. I think. He also played the sinister bombmaker in Revenge Filtering Payback, and he's had a lot of voice work as well. He voiced the Riddler on Batman the animated series. Oh I love Batman the MD series. We got a lot of great voice work on that. Indeed, his his TV credits are just all over the place. He's been in everything from Tales from the Crypt to Murder. She wrote, Uh, he also has Uh. He's had some interesting bit parts over the years. He plays an ex boyfriend in Annie Hall and has a weird scene in that, and he's the Magnavolt salesman and RoboCop two. RoboCop two is another movie that, in less child friendly way, has some Grimlin's to type energy. I think, so, yeah, that's another one I enjoy. Okay, but wait a minute, We've got some some stuff going on with this character because he so this is a kind of I don't know. You might say he's sort of set up as a villain of the movie but then doesn't really become one. His name is Daniel Clamp and he plays a a sort of fame hungry real estate developer in New York who owns a famous tower. Yeah. Yeah, so there's a little bit of Ted Turner to the character, and that he also runs like a cable channel network or something. But yeah, the Donald Trump parody vibes are extremely overt with this. It's impossible to ignore. However, this isn't nearly as distracting as you might think if you haven't seen this movie before, or you perhaps haven't seen it since you were a kid. Um, it's not like Donald Trump actually showing up in Home alone too. And I think part of this is that John Glover, of course, is just so good and has sort of a natural charm to him, and he doesn't do a straightforward impersonation. He's not doing an impersonation. Um, all of this real life individual. The character of Daniel Clamp goes off and kind of has its own dimensions. So, yeah, he's he's greedy, he's obsessed with his own image, but he's not the outright villain of the picture, and based on a couple of different interviews I read one from from Oh and there was also a Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview with Glover where he talks about green ones too. Based on all of this, it seems like maybe he was going to be more of a villain at some point in the development of the script, but they pulled back on it for a few different reasons, and so the final product feels distinct and a little like it's definitely a parody of Trump, but it's not Trump, and therefore I didn't find it nearly as distracting as I kind of expected it to, you know, like it doesn't force me to think about politics all that much whilst watching a Gremlins movie. Yeah, it's also so it's clearly the character is based on Donald Trump in terms of situation, like he is a fame hungry uh Manhattan real estate developer who owns the the high rise tower where the movie is set, and yet it doesn't seem to be strongly based on Trump's real personality, and the way Glover plays it is an interesting choice. You can almost feel the actor's role in diverting the character from its original trajectory because of how much fun he's obviously having with it. I think like elements of that raw, ravenous greed and the you know, the narcissistic nastiness still peek through, but Glover has transformed the character into something very different, like more of an exuberant, oblivious man child who is just so excited about being a billionaire and he's thrilled at all the fun stuff that he gets to do because he's a billionaire. I think the original, more strictly trump like, more overtly villainous version of this character would have worked, but it also would have been more familiar, more like the like, you know, like the villains we see in RoboCop and a bunch of other movies from the period, which are great, by the way. I mean, I love Dick Jones, I love all the o CP suits in RoboCop. But Glover's Daniel Clamp becomes something different, kind of fresher and weirder. He plays this character like a simple minded man who is surprised to find himself so rich and powerful and famous and just jazzed about it every day. Yeah, I think I think that sums it up. So it's a fun performance. There's a lot of screen time. Uh and uh and and and and hangs around longer than you'd think, Like in another version of grim Win's Too, he would have been eaten by Grimwin about halfway through or something, or you know, launched out of a cannon or something. But that that that's not how it goes down. All right, Let's see other who other other actors of note here are? These are kind of supporting characters. I'll try and move more quickly through these. Uh. We have a character and Grandpa Fred who pops up and honestly, up until this week, I thought this was actually Grandpa Monster a k or real name al Lewis, because that's essentially what the character is. It's Grandpa Monster. He's a late night horror TV host. But it's not al Lewis. It's Robert Prosky, who lived two thousand and eight, known for such films as Michael Mann's Thief as well as Michael Man's To Keep eighty seven. Broadcast News missed out Mrs Doubt Fire and Dead Man Walking. It took me a minute to uh figure out where I recognized him most from, and I realized it was from the the fantasy action film The Last Action Hero, where Robert Prosky plays the film projectionist who gives the kid in the movie the magic movie ticket that allows him to enter the world of films. Okay, alright, let's see another character. Okay, this This character is basically clamps right hand man. He's kind of like fixer and facilities manager. It's the character Forster, played by Robert Picardo born nineteen fifty three, a frequent Dante cast casting choice. UM. A lot of TV viewers are probably familiar with him from such shows as or at least older TV viewers from The Wonder Years, China Beach Star, Trek Voyager, and UH and also Stargate. But he was also in the films The Howling Uh. He was in the Seven Gromlins movie, Munchie's eighty Seven's Inner Space. Oh, he's Johnny cab in total recall. I didn't realize that was him. I didn't either, but he's credited as being the voice and the inspiration for the likeness. Now I can hear it. As soon as you said that the door opened, you got in. I didn't even realize this either, But in Ridley Scott's five film Legend, UH, he plays Meg muckle Bones. Huh. Yeah, okay, I wouldn't have recognized him there either. No, I mean yeah, I wouldn't recognize anybody under it. You could put anybody in the nickmuchle Bones makeup and they would be unrecognizable. But anyway, he's been in a ton of stuff. He was also in the sixteens Hail Caesar from the Cohen Brothers. Okay, in terms of villainous actors, though, we of course have to point out that Christopher Lee is in this. Oh, Christopher Lee is great in this. He plays a character named doctor Cushing Catheter. Yeah, Dr Catheter? Uh? And I think also obviously the first name is a is a Peter Cushing reference? Oh oh, of course it is. Yeah, that that one flew right past me. But but yeah, he plays the head of the uh, the genetic manipulation lab that is renting office space in the clamp Tower or whatever it's called here. And yeah, he seems like he's having a really good time hamming it up. Is this um? This essentially a mad scientist? And it was it was fun watching with my I watched the this with my son, and when Christopher Lee showed up, he was like Hey, it's Duku, and indeed it is Duku. I love how when we very first meet him, he's going through packages he received in the mail, hoping their various kinds of disease samples. He's like, I want anthrax and they give me the flu all right? Another bit bit roll. This is a character that shows up seeming more like an extra but has like a slightly bigger role. Is that progresses? We have a Getty Watton Abby playing um a character that I believe is credited as Mr Katsuji. But essentially what we have here is is he plays a stereotype of an Asian tourist, a man that we see going around with a whole bunch of cameras, just taking photographs NonStop and eventually gets roped into filming for the Grandpa character or our horror host character. And I guess there is a fun scene there where he says he says, hey, do you know how to work a camera? And he says, I am a camera and uh, and then they go off. I don't know why people thought this was so funny. There are so many movies from the eighties that have the stereotype of the Japanese tourist who won't stop taking pictures of everything. Uh It's it's really annoying cliche. But at the same Getty watching Abbe is an immensely likable guy, despite the fact that he's unfortunately cast in these stereotypical roles throughout the eighties. Yeah, I mean he he's still acting today in his roles have certainly matured a whole lot, But um, yeah, he was. This particular role is reminiscent of some of the offensively stereotypical roles that that he played during the nineties, most notably his role in Sixteen Candles. But he also he pops up in other films, like he's in the otherwise stylish but also problematic in otherwise Grace Jones film vamp Um. He has this this very stereotypical and offensive character in that as well. He was also in the weird al movie u U HF. But I yeah, don't really remember who he played in that. I do not remember either, but uh F also a very chaotic fun movie. Now, another character that returns from the previous Green Ones film, at least in a very small role at the beginning, is the character of Mr Wing, played by Key Luke who lived nineteen o four through. Oh he's come up on the show before. Yeah, yeah, he uh. He was a Chinese American actor who was in a ton of films from the classic era, including Mad Love in Nive. So if you go back to our Mad Love episode, uh we we referenced him on that because he plays this kind of a background character. But he plays this character doctor Wong. Now. Naturally, given the time during which he was active, many of his roles also um uh conformed to Chinese stereotypes and stereotypes of Chinese Americans at the time, but you know, still a rather groundbreaking figure and a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. I think I read something about how in the Gremlins movies, so he's supposed to play an old man who runs this curiosity shop that sells the maguay to um to howit Axton or howit Acton or Ashton are whatever, the father figure in the first movie, and uh, I think what I read was that he uh is supposed to be an old man and despite actually being quite old when they filmed the movie, they had to put him in makeup to make him look older because he just looked too youthful when he got old. Yeah, I mean howit Axton was no spring chicken, a key Luke really took care of himself and he's eating right. He's he's living with a Maguay. I mean, that's the character that Maguay I would imagine, as long as it doesn't get wet and make the transition. Magua really adds earest to your life. If you you gotta have a good good well, I don't know. Well that's this is a big question regarding Gizmo, because Gizmo is good. Gizmo is a little too curious for his own good. Give this whole. Everything that happens in G two could have been avoided. Gizmo could have just remained in a drawer for two hours. But but still, he's very likable. He has a great demeanor, but the instant he reproduces via water splash, all of his offspring are chaotic and or nasty. So one wonders is like, is this like the sign of a of a mature magua that has been able to devote his life or its life to um. You know that the pursuit of um, of of of order and calmness and quiet life of recollection and reflection or uh, is this just an anomaly? Now, why is Gizmo unlike the others? That's a great question. Yeah, film will not answer that question. No, maybe we should talk about how exactly it works in case you've never seen either of these movies. So the gremlin progression is, giz Mo is the original gremlin. Gizmo is. He's a creature called a magua. He's a fuzzy, cute, adorable, good natured little critter. He's got, you know, just the adorable eyes and and he's great. But if you get him wet, things pop off of his back and they shoot all over the place, and they turn into also still fuzzy, but mean spirited little creatures. And then if the fuzzy but mean spirited little creatures eat after midnight, then they turn into green, scaly, slimy, murderous creatures. Yeah, like a question that might arise as well? What if? What what would happen if Gizmo were to eat after midnight? Now here's the thing. Gizmo would never eat after midnight. Gizmo is a good boy. He would never do that. And I don't know that we would want to explore what would happen if in a film. If he did. But if he did, would he be a good gremlin? It seems like maybe he would. Maybe it would turn him into like a beefed up good gremlin, so he could be like the scaly, big, brawny gremlin who can fight the other scaly gremlins because he's on the side of good. I would allow it in a picture, so long as he got to change back into cute mahuai gizmo at the end. You can't have Gizmo permanently changing into a scaly kremlin. That's just not good for business. Okay, we're barely into the cast because we've got to pick up the pace somehow. Okay, all right. We have a character named Marla Bloodstone played by Havilyn Morris Bore nineteen fifty nine, an ambitious, chain smoking, scarlet haired workplace vixen um a really fun, over the top character. Uh. This actor played Caroline in Sixteen Candles. She was also in the nineteen eight seven Madonna vehicle Who's that girl? Who was that girl? Well? It was Madonna? Uh. And then a whole lot of TV work over the years, including one episode of Tales from the Dark side. Yeah, it's an extremely over the top performance, but in Grimlin's who it works perfectly. She plays uh, she plays Zach Galigan's boss who is sexually harass him, and she's great in in this role, and she Uh. There's one really great moment at the end where uh, they're all like putting it together a plan to defeat the Gremlins, and they're giving tasks to different people and I think they say to uh, to Hevilyn Morris, they're just like, you smoke cigarettes, and she goes, okay, got it. Now. This already sounds like enough human characters for a movie that's mostly about Gremlins. But no, the Futterman's are coming to town as well. They're from the first movie. I don't remember them at all. I had to um, I had to be reminded. But yeah, Dick Miller plays Murray Futterman and Jackie Joseph plays Sheilia Futterman, and uh, yeah, they're here to visit our main characters. They just kind of seem to show up unannounced, right in the midst of all this Grimlin mischief. How many movies have we talked about that had Dick Miller in them? I can definitely think of two both Korman associated. He was in Chopping Mall as the janitor, and he was the vacuum salesman in Not of This Earth. He was in the Tales from the Crypto movie as well. Um uh the Good One, um uh. Demon Night. He was in Demon Night. Oh that's right. Yeah. Dick Miller one of our favorite character actors. He he livens up everything he appears, and even he's one of those actors I think you give him a bit part where all he's supposed to do is, you know, be a janitor and say, like, I gotta clean these floors. I hate my job, and he just he breathes life into that grumpy role. Yeah yeah, I mean that's pretty much what he did in Shopping Mall. Right, Yeah yeah, but um yeah, in in this he's fun. He gets to beat up on some gremlin's. Yeah, it's it's Dick Miller is always always great on the screen. Oh but Jackie Joseph, who plays his wife in this born three. She was a regular on The Doors Today Show in the early seventies, and she was in nineteen sixties The Little Shop of Horrors. All Right, just a couple more before we we move out of the humans here. But we also have a pair of identical twins, Don and Dan and Stanton playing Martin and Lewis. Uh. They were both born in nineteen fifty two. Obviously identical twin actors who play these It's like a Tweedledumb and Tweedled sort of thing, except they're scientists working for Dr Catheter. Uh. These guys were never in a ton of stuff, but they have a memorable scene in Terminator two. Oh. They played the cop who gets I spiked by the T one thousand and the mental institution. Remember that he one thousand. I guess he morphs up out of the floor and becomes one of them and then spikes the other one. Yeah, that's a scene where I never looked into it. Always thought it was just special effects magic. Turns out it was twin magic. Hiring twins probably cheaper than than doing special effects. Yeah. Oh, now this one's borderline cameo or small part. But Julius Sweeney plays Peggy, the receptionists for Dr Catheter. Born nineteen fifty nine, American actoring comedian, probably best known for her stint on Saturday Night Live. From the joke being that Dr catheter's receiving all these diseases in the male and she's sitting there at the reception desk like constantly sneezing and coughing, and at one point he's like, may I have the tissue? Yes? All right? So there are more humans. We may reference more humans, but those are some of the main ones. Real quick voice acting for for Gremlins and Maguai. Gizmo is voiced by Howie Mandel. Okay, Howie Mandel born. This may be Howie Mandel's finest work. And it's it's it's perfect, Like the voice is just perfect. There's you know, Gizmo doesn't say much, but what he does say totally resonates and feels cute. Um Mandel, of course, the Kadian Canadian American actor and comedian. He played a sea monkey Dad on The Amazing Life Live Sea Monkeys from and with the creator, producer and lead voice actor on the cartoon Bobby's World from Now. One thing this movie has that the previous movie does not have. There are a lot of things like that, but one really notable one is a talking full grim lefied emlin. Yeah, a gremlin that injects itself with brain serum, like super smart serum that's you know, very clearly labeled from the the the genetic splicing lab that dr catheter handles. And yeah, once he once this, this serum takes effect. Well, now he can talk. He's very intellectual. And of course he wears like a tweet jacket, puts some some spectacles and smokes a pipe. And his voice, as far as I could tell, is supposed to be a posh Australian accent. I was a little confused there. Yeah, it's it's kind of hard to nail down, but it is. He was voiced by Tony Randall, who lived through two thousand and four, legendary American actor, probably best known for his role as Felix Younger in the television adaptation of the play The Odd Couple by Neil Simon. But this is a guy that acted in film on TV on Broadway. Uh, and here he is in G two. Now you'd be shocked if Frank Welker didn't show up. Yeah, Frank Welker of course shows up. He's the voice of Moahawk, Mohawk Grim. I'm not sure which Grimlin. This was the grim one that kind of looks like the Grim one, the bad, super bad grim one from the first movie. But I don't remember what happens to this one. If he's the one, is this the one that winds up in the paper Spider Oh? I was thinking maybe this is the Spider one, but maybe he's the shred Er one. I don't know, it could be it becomes Yeah, it's easy to lose track of the pre mutation gremlins, and not all the grim Wins mute. There's one that just starts smoking a cigar and that's his thing for the rest of the picture. There's another one that gets his face burnt by acid. Acid that's clearly labeled do not throw in face. One of the other grim ones throws the acid in his face, and then he grabs the Phantom of the Art Opera mask and starts running around as the Phantom of the Opera. He plays the organ. So not an actual um you know, genetic mutation. But the grim Ones in this movie are quick to latch onto an identity. Alright, So there are a lot of cameos. Don't know, do you want to mention any of these these cameos that you were particularly taken with? Joint us way and see if they come up organically. Let's see. Oh well, I did have a note on Henry Gibson, which I thought was a funny choice. Yeah. Yeah, Henry Gibson pops up as an employee who's fired for smoking via like um security camera. Yeah. I think this is to show off the tower where the movie takes place, their surveillance and Henry Gibson is taking a smoke break and they like zoom in on his face and they're like, employee number five seven, five whatever, you are fired for taking a break. And this is Henry Gibson, who did many things. Most notable to me is that he appears in Robert Altman's excellent ambient drama Nashville from playing Haven Hamilton's sort of the old guard of the Nashville country music machine, wearing a newdy suit. There's a great scene where he's recording a patriotic song about America for the bi centennial that has the chorus, we must be doing something right to last two hundred years. Oh yeah, you know, I've never actually seen Nashville. Um, I'm familiar with it for it's you know, it's a legendary picture. For it's it's music and it's approached to music and all but great cast. I probably knew Henry Gibson best from Joe Dante's filmed Bourbs, in which he's one of Tom Hanks's many weird neighbors, which also include one of the other weird neighbors in that film is Brother Theodore. M What was the movie we saw with Brother Theodore? It was like Preaching on the Street or something. That was the film starring Warhawk Tanzania. Oh yes, the speech about how God is dead and the rats are screaming. Yes, yes, uh, Devil's Devil's Express. Yeah, yeah, for nineteen seventy six starring Warhawk Tanzania. You know, just your average New York martial arts picture about a demon from across the ocean that takes up in the New York City subway system. Okay, do we have to throw in the towel on cameos though, because we did mentioning a lot. Yeah, there are a lot of great ones. If they come up later in the discussion organically, I'll reference them. Otherwise, right in with your favorite and maybe we can talk about it on listener mail. Okay, So as far as plot breakdown goes, I'm gonna say Grimlins too, is actually uh somewhat light on plot, which is to say, the action of the film is not tightly logical. It is more a movie about creating situations or premises and then exploiting those for just lots of random bits of spectacle and gags. It's kind of a variety show. So what are those premises? Well, I'd say mainly it is a parody of modern city life as seen in nine, especially business culture, technology, media, and capitalism. And this is all wrapped up into one very convenient setting, the clamp Premier Regency, trade Center and retail concourse, a sort of cross between Trump Tower, the CNN Center, the Starship Enterprise, and the building from Chopping Mall. Yeah, there is kind of a chopping chopping mall, uh shopping mall kind of a vibe to it. So it's supposed to be this computerized marvel full of high tech upgrades, such as automatic revolving doors, which are a miracle of efficiency, as a voiceover informs us while we watch people getting stuck in them and not like unable to get out. In fact, it's a joke recurring throughout the movie that nobody can get through the automatic revolving doors and they have to just go around to the other doors. Even the SWAT team can't figure it out when they show up at the end of the picture. Yeah, and also every inch of the building is under surveillance with cameras and computers that have sensors on everything. But it's also the site of many horrible businesses, including the soulless real estate development firm where Billy works. At the beginning of the movie, he's I think supposed to be some kind of illustrator or designer, and this is Daniel Clamp's personal business. It's the business that he's going to use to, you know, destroy historic landmarks and replace them with god awful monstrosities. But the tower also includes television studios for airing things like, of course there's news, but there's like a cooking show that primarily uses the microwave, and an Elvira style hosted horror rerun program as you mentioned earlier, the one that Grandpa Fred is doing dressed as Grandpa Monster. But of course Grandpa Fred complains that he can't show the classic Monster movies he wants to show because Mr Clamp, who owns the network, does not like anything in black and white only color films. There's a there's a fun that a voice over in the background, like the p A system announcing how they're going to be showing Casablanca on the network now in full beautiful color. Uh. And then of course there is the genetics lab run by Christopher Lee as Dr Cushing Catheter. I think it's called Splice of Life, and it specializes in unholy, unethical experiment ends along with the Stanton Twins. They're uh like when we first go in, of course, Christopher Lee is receiving all his germs in the mail, and then we just see all kinds of stuff going on there, like walking a cow around the room with that like a mind control helmet on and it's saying, I like giving milk yeah. Uh. And then there is a frozen yogurt restaurant, which seems unremarkable to me, but I think this is supposed to be something the filmmakers thought was ridiculous and funny. Okay, But anyway, you got that whole situation. The gremlins are unleashed upon this situation, and what follows is a lot of disconnected, chaotic set pieces. But in the set up to that plot, let's see, we got a few things that that happened to sort of let us know what's going on. For one of the first things is that Robert Piccardo, as Daniel Clamp's fix Her, visits the Curiosity Shop, the antique store from the first movie, and meets Key Luke and he's like, hey, you know I'm here at your shop. I'm representing Daniel Clamp. He wants you to sell your business so that we can tear it down and replace all of the historic, uh you know, businesses and everything in Chinatown with this monstrosity, this big, ugly building that's going to reach to the clouds. And Key Luke is not interested, but he seems to be a sick old man, and Robert Picardo's just like, we just have to wait him out. He'll die soon. And meanwhile, we see Gizmo watching Rambo on TV. Yeah, because they leave the tell the television said that that Clamp uses to send his message and make his offer, and then they're just like, you can keep the TV. And so Gizmo like reaches out of his little cage and he gets the remote and it's one of the It's the first of many adorable moments of Gizmo. Yeah, he's watching, Uh, Sylvester Stallone being like to to win a war, you've got to become war, and later Gizmo will become war. Uh. And so unfortunately, the the old man eventually dies and then we see a very sad, lonely Gizmo and then the building is destroyed. There's like a wrecking ball knocking it up. So as the antique shop is knocked down, Gizmo escapes, only to be captured in the alley by one of the Stanton twins, the weird Ginger twins who work in the genetics lab. M. Then of course we meet Zack Gallaghan and Phoebe Kate's reprising the roles from the first film. As we said as Billy and Kate, they're living in the city now they're working in the Clamp Tower. Uh we get that for I laughed out loud of the first time we saw the revolving door not working, while the with the voiceover is telling us what a miracle of efficiency it is and um. And it turns out so that Zach Gallaghan is working for this real estate development business owned by Daniel Clamp, the one that's demolishing Chinatown. His boss again, his Marla Bloodstone. Make of that what you will. By the way, with the name, I think with Bloodstone, they're like going for can't get blood from a stone with Marla. The the film creators claimed that the name is a complete coin. It ends it was before there was public knowledge of of Marla Maples that they say that that's just yeah, just just serendipity. Yeah. I didn't know anything about the Marlon Maples thing. I still don't actually know what all this is about, but but I did see it referenced in that. I think that Terry Gross interview with with Glover where he was like, oh yeah, yeah, we we didn't know about any of that when we made this. It's just coincidence. Well anyway, she's like, you know, smoking cigarettes in the office. There's there's a great part where, uh we see that Billy has been drawing, and I think Robert Piccardo comes through to be like offended that Billy has been drawing, and he's like, how dare you, uh you know, muddy up this office with your with your art. We have paid millions of dollars to have legitimate art displayed on the walls. And he points to some kind of stupid looking abstract painting. Yeah. Yeah. And also he's offended that he has a potted plant. Yes, no, you can't. This is an infestation, which of course is a nice uh, nice allusion to what's coming ahead. You know, there's there's gonna be a real infestation occurring later in the picture. Yeah, So Billy's working up there. Meanwhile, Kate is working as a tour guide for the Clamp building, which looks like a horrible job. She leads tours around, uh and have to go like haulking copies of the art of the Clamp and it's, uh, you know, it's you feel for Kate. It's she has to wear this really stupid looking hat. So the setup of the film is that the Stanton twins bring Gizmo into the lab of Dr. Cushing Catheter and portrayed by Christopher Lee, and they're studying the fact that he can dance to rock and roll music. Oh, it's such a great secret. I watched this scene twice. It was so it's so cute, it's adorable. Like there's so much going on here because Christopher Lee's character is sort of scowling at the whole affair. Uh, Gizmo comes out and begins to dance, and his dance is very cute. It's and it's a special effect showcase because it looks totally believable. Meanwhile, the Stanton twins they're also dancing a little bit in the background, so much fun. You know, they're rocking and sync with each other. Uh in a in an almost uncanny way, I would say, with them, but uh yeah. We also learned about a bunch of their other experiments, like the this lab is just creating kind of DNA juices of various flavors, like here's a DNA juice that will turn a rat into a battery, so you can power in a light bulb by touching it to the rat. And oh no, will I will a gremlin drink that later and become electricity gremlin? I wonder electricity gremlin who becomes Who's more of an important part of this film than you could possibly imagine? Yes, uh, and many other things like that. There's just various animals in cages, assuming we're getting juice out of them to create DNA juice that would turn whatever drinks it into a bat or into vegetables or whatever. Um. So eventually Billy becomes aware that Gizmo is in the building because he hears a delivery man singing Gizmo's distinctive little song. He's like, where did you hear that? And it's you know, down in the lab. So Billy sneaks down to rescue Gizmo. He takes him, he hides him in his office file cabinet, and there's very like comedic high tension scene where Daniel clamp comes for an office visit and he's like, what does your drawer keep popping open? And babbling in a cute little voice. Uh, So Gizmo is almost discovered but not. But Billy cannot take Gizmo home because his boss, Marla Bloodstone, insists that he go out to dinner with her. To one of my favorite set pieces in the whole movie, they go to a Canadian Mountie themed restaurant. This was I found this especially funny because, um, when my family went to Epcot in the last year, so they have a Canadian themed restaurant there, like it's Canadian state restaurant you can go to and they actually have some some some nice vegetarian and vegan options there by the way, But but it is totally. It's like Canadian themed. It's not like the first thing I would think of, like a restaurant experience I want to have. But it was really nice. But there were no Mounties. There were no like all the the the the decorating elements in this scene are just amazing and it pitched perfect, like a giant moose head, those big ridiculous mugs they have, and no offense to Canada. In fact, I'm a pretty big fan of Canada. I don't I don't usually think of them being known for their cuisine. Oh you've got the poutine, I guess, yeah, yeah, and Molson. They're drinking Moulson. That's right, you want another Moulson? Yeah? Uh but yeah, So the Mountie themed restaurant is great. Billy sends Kate back to pick up Gizmo, but oh, before she can get there, one of the rules gets broken. You gotta break the rules for the movie to get cranking. A maintenance man comes along. He tries to repair a water fountain and it accidentally square some water on Gizmo, So Gizmos starts popping off. Here come the the fuzzy bad guys popping out of his back and how were they ever going to eat after midnight and turned into green, slimy, spiky boys. Well they're in clamp tower. There is plenty of food to be found. That's John Aston, by the way, the original um Um Gomez from The Adams Family as the maintenance guy who messes up the water filone. So Phoebe Kate's accidentally brings home one of the wrong Grimlin's, the google eyed Grimlin key and Peel sketch fame. Oh, this Grandmlin is ridiculous, like the I don't know what you call this laugh, It's very similar to the laugh that um Christopher Lloyd's character and who framed Roger Rabbit uses this. This kind of like just unhinged cartoon cackling. Well also, I think one of the weasels in that movie they can't stop laughing. Oh yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, it's yeah, it's ridiculous and it's NonStop all this. All the gly eyed Grimlin wants to do is eat some food, but mostly throw food and make a mess. Make him he loves to make a mess. So Billy comes home finds the googly eyed Grimlin. He's like, oh, this is not gizmo something has gone horribly wrong, and then the movie is just off to the races. I don't think we can describe scene by scene from here on, but maybe we can just focus on some of the subplots, like, okay, so what do we have to say about? Of course, the gremlins are going to get into Splice of Life, the genetics lab. So one of them drinks the electricity juice and becomes electricity Grimlin. One drinks something I think they were trying to. Oh there's a scene where they're trying to create more durable tomatoes and they show them like bouncing off a wall and they say they say, oh wow, they are durable, but how do they taste? And the guy goes, well, great news. Our contract is with the airline food provider. So it's a joke. It doesn't matter how they taste. But a Grimlin drinks that and uh turns into vegetables like you have his like he just kind of has vegetables growing out of him and his body is vegetables. We mentioned Brainy Gremlin, Um Spider Gremlin comes online as well. Back Back Gremlin leaves the batman hole in the wall and then later flies out on the street, attacks Dick Miller uh gets thrown into wet cement and then flies up on top of a church and sits down and becomes a gargoyle. Yes, yeah, like each of these gremlins too, is just amazing. Like back Gremlin is an incredible looking creature. He like has has uh ultimately ends up being like six six limbed gremlin because he has the flight arms and like little uh like little dinosaur arms and then his legs as well. Uh. Just again, fabulous job on all the effects here. Oh there's lady Gremlin. What what are your thoughts on Lady Gremlin? Rob Uh, Lady Gremlin is very much in this in the tradition of like bugs bunny wearing a dress. Um, but is uh potentially problematic? I guess today, I don't think you would necessarily do this today. Uh. In in your Gremlins movie, Um, she of course she ends up surviving. She falls in love with Robert Picardo and they're married. At the end, this movie ends in a marriage between a human and a gremlin. So um, I think that that speaks volumes about the tone of the film. But let's see, there have to be some other mutated again. There are plenty of gremlins who take on their own identity, like their cigar smoking gremlins, then their standing of the opera gremlin. There's also like, um, some just take on fashion choices, like there's a grimlin that wears a witch hat. There's a gremlin that seems to design and produce his own uh anti Gizmo T shirt. You see him hanging in the background, has a picture of Gizmo on it with a circle and a strike through it. I didn't like, Wow, they are mean to Gizmo. Yeah. Yeah, they know who Gizmo is and they hate him. Yeah. There there are a couple of gremlins. One it just has kind of like an overbyte, kind of a donkey face. Yeah. Yeah, he's kind of um yeah, he's not as googly eyed as the googly eyed gremlin, but he's also like a little bit goofy and he just kind of helps out. He's kind of like a stoogie gremlin. Yes, he the cigar smoking gremlin and him are kind of a pair, aren't they. Yeah, yeah, they're kind of they are a pair. And yeah, they never get mutated. I don't know what they would have mutated into necessarily, Like I remember a scene where they attack the film studio while they're shooting a live episode of the cooking show Microwaving with Marge Uh and they havoc they cause is they throw metal utensils into the microwave and then get it going so that it explodes and starts a fire. Yes, yeah, they do they do that. Yes, I don't know. It's just there's just so there's so many questions one could ask about this film, like, for instance, when they realized googly eyed mo Guay is not Gizmo, they just stick him in a bag to bring them back to the office with them. What was their plan? It seems like they know what gremlins are all about. They know the dangers of having too many maguay in in a less family friendly film. It seems like they might want to euthanize the maguay right there in the apartment. I think this is a gremlin problem, gremlin control conundrum. I don't think you can. You can, with good conscience kill the fuzzy gremlins, even though they're the bad ones. You have to wait for them to turn into the scaly uh evil gremlins and then you can kill them. Yeah, you gotta give them at least a shot at not eating past midnight, though clearly this guy's gonna eat past midnight. He's been eating and throwing food NonStop. And now there's another subplot with with Grandpa Fred the horror host, which is that he has always wanted to be a newscaster, which why, I mean, if you get to do all you get to host a horror show, why would you be like, I really wish instead I was doing like the local news. That that just seems like a trade down in every possible way. Yeah, but he gets to live his dreams. He gets to like broadcast live from the depths of the Gremlin nightmare and uh and these are fun segments as well. This is definitely in the last half of the film where everything just gets exceedingly weird and crazy. Oh we also we haven't just got the Daniel Clamp subplot. So there's a pot where he gets attacked by a gremlin in his office, which he manages to throw into the paper shredder because oh uh, there's a thing. He goes by quick you might miss it where um his secretary informs him that his mail has arrived and she's shredding it. Now would she like him too, would he like her to shred anything else? Yeah? Yeah, and this of course leads to the shredding of the gremlins. This is kind of our The first film had all the the the horrible deaths for gremlins in the kitchen. This time he gets take place in a business environment, so the shredder absolutely has to eat a grimlin. Uh. And then we also find it well. Eventually, Billy and Clamp meet up and Billy explains what's going on to him, and he's like, they formulate a plan where they're going to get all of the gremlins together in the lobby and then they are going to open up the shutters to shine sunlight in on them and kill them. They're gonna fry the gremlins that way. And Daniel Clamp is going to execute the outdoor portion of this plan by going through his secret escape route, which is like a little like tube that comes up under a tree on the sidewalk. Yeah. And once he gets out, Dick Miller's character is there. He goes into the tube so he can go inside to help and of course fight gremlins. Yeah, Dick Miller is very excited about fighting gremlins. Um the Daniel clamp character also, like, it's interesting that he's he's very quick to be like, oh yeah, I see, I see that Gremlins are a problem. Let me help. And he's actually he's reasonably helpful throughout the picture. Yeah, like he he doesn't throw up any roadblocks to fighting the grim Ones for that. For that matter, Christopher Lee's character as well, once he encounters the Grimlin harror, he's not like, oh well, we must Thomas this uh power for our genetic experiments. Now he's freaking out two and I think even squares off animal testing before being killed by electricity Grimlin. We were talking beforehand, this may be the only human character that dies in the whole picture. Well, but also maybe Leonard Malton. It's unclear whether Leonard Malton survives his Grimlin mauling. Yeah, he might have fought him off and go on that that. I love that scene too, because he's he's really digging into Gremlin's one. He's like, this film is just trash, and the grim Ones are creeping up behind him, of course, and then they jump him and they start trying to strangle him with film footage. So eventually we set up for the finale where Dick Miller sneaks into the building. He hooks up with Billy, Kate and Marla and they end up using a fire hose and Electricity Gremlin to melt all the other gremlins. Such a classic movie monster ending to set a trap and use electricity to kill the monsters. Yeah, because they were gonna do the sun, but clouds and so this is the backup plan. Electricity Gremlin has been stuck for a good portion of the film in call waiting somehow, I don't try and think about it, too hard to put him on but they did. They put him on hold, so he's he's held. His electrical potential is in there, and his electrical potential is seemingly almost limitless. I guess when they blast Electricity Gremlin into the flooded hall of the flooded chamber that's filled with all the other gremlins that are transforming and popping off other gremlins, he has enough electricity to just melt and goify all of them, and I guess in the process he's destroyed as well. Yeah, I think that's the case. It makes me think, well, how much electricity would with the rat batter you have produced if it had consumed that. I mean, would you have made like a rat that would be lethal to entire city blocks? Well, I think they were not putting too much of the mutagant in the rat, because the rat retained its its physical form and just produced electricity. Electricity, Gremlin becomes electricity. Yea. But but still to your point, like maybe Splice of Life was doing good work, Like what if they could have harnessed the power of electricity Grimlin to like solve the energy crisis. That would be an interesting ending. Yeah, despite all of their unethical research, we do eventually find a limitless source of clean energy uh in in gremlin form. Uh And of course the movie ends with a childlike Daniel clamp uh. He sees the drawing that Billy has created of his hometown, which Billy was chastised for earlier, I think by Robert Picardo saying, like, you know, this is not real art. Clamp sees this drawing of his hometown and he decides that he must create an artificial, fake small town based on that drawing, and he will call it clamp Corners. And everybody just seems okay with this. This is after I should also mention when the Swat Team comes in at the end after the Gremlins have been killed with electricity. Daniel Clamp is like leading the charge and they've let him dress up in full Swat Team gear and he's armed, which was a weird choice. They armed Clamp and unfortunately they didn't need it because all the Gremlins were already melted. Oh and then Daffy Duck rifts the end credits. Yeah, yeah, Porky Pig. Well this is this is after the credits roll. It's like, this is the stinger Um. Porky Pig chose up to say that's all folks, and then Daffy Duck shows up and says, no, I'm going to do it, and uh yeah that's the film. Oh I should mention too. This is after the credits role with some more of the score by Jerry Goldsmith. Oh yeah, pretty good score, I think. Yeah, yeah, it's got that nice dad d you know, it's it's catchy. It's g two baby. You can't beat this movie. This is so good. It is indeed a party, a party to which everyone was invited. Like again, there's so many cast members and cameos that we could have profiled here that we just didn't have time for There's so many just little especially in the last half of the film. There's just so many little things, so many scenes of Grimlin mischief. Uh. There's the training montage where where where Gizmo trains up and then becomes war becomes this Rambo type figure and slays the Spider Grimlin to save both Bloodstone. Um uh and um what's your name? Uh, says Phoebe Kates uh from the Spider Grimlin. Like there's just so many moments, like there's no wasted energy in this film. Not a Christmas movie but uh, but no good any any time of year. Absolutely all right, Well, we're gonna go and close it out there, but we'd love to hear from everyone out there. Perhaps you have opinions and memories and um in theories concerning Gremlins and Grimlins too, right in, we'd love to hear from you. Likewise, Yeah, any of the various cameos and fun cameos that we didn't have time to uh to mention here, bring them up in listener mail. We'll talk about them in the future. Reminder that we're primarily a science podcast. In the Stuff to Blow your mind feed with core episodes on two season Thursdays, Uh Listener Mail on Monday's Artifactor, Monster Fact on Wednesdays, but on Friday's we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film like this one. If you want to see a quick listing of all the films that we've covered, you can go over to letterbox as L E T T E R B O x D. We have a profile there. Our user name is weird House, and we have a list there of all the films that we've covered, and you can look at them in order that we have covered them. I think we're up. We're up into the mid nineties. Now we're edging closer to a hundred. Oh yeah, we're getting close. Now we got to discuss what's gonna be our hundredth film. Anyway, huge thanks to our audio producer, Max Williams. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.