I saw the movie Gremlins when I was a kid, probably when I was about 9 years old. It set my young imagination on fire, as mogwai—cute little furry critters that were intelligent and friendly—transformed into mean, green monsters if you fed them after midnight.
Every kid wanted a gremlin or a mogwai of their own, and there were plenty of toy versions. The cultural impact was immense, and the word “gremlin” started to enter the lexicon of the typical 80s American kid. It’s hard to explain how hard it was to get away from all things Gremlins for a while.
The word gremlin wasn’t invented for the movie, though. Instead, Royal Air Force pilots stationed in Malta, the Middle East, and India seem to be the culprits. One origin story has it that the word "goblin" blended with the name of a beer the RAF pilots drank called Fremlin.
A more common word origin story is that gremlin comes from the Old English word "gremian," which means "to vex". Either way, some time during the 1920s, RAF pilots began to offer explanations whenever planes experienced unexplained mechanical failures.
There was a gremlin in there, you see, physically pulling all the wires out and such. It was the physical manifestation of the term “bug.” The airmen conceptualized gremlins as something akin to an imp from fairy tale lore.
This is a classic way to deal with a life-threatening situation: to recognize that there are forces beyond your control, and that no matter what you do, a gremlin might come in there and pull a few wires loose in a plane you’re about to fly.
It’s no surprise, then, that the concept of the gremlin gained immensely in popularity during World War II, with pilots and ground crew relieving stress by blaming things on gremlins. Around the same time, Roald Dahl published his masterpiece The Gremlins in 1943, and the idea of these mischievous mythical creatures began to spread across the ocean.
It was Dahl’s book that gave the vision for the movie I saw in 1984, and it was this movie that blew me away. Elements of horror (but not too much), science fiction, fantasy, and adventure blended into a very fun film.
Today, gremlins live on in the minds of Generation Xers, and in countless cultural references. This is my favorite one:
When
suggested I write about Gremlins, I thought about how to work this video in immediately. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!
Knowing this backstory makes wonder what AMC was thinking when naming a '70's car after mechanical failure? Took truth in advertising to a whole 'nother level!
Remember when the movie took that out-of-nowhere hard turn toward being insanely dark with the story of why Kate hates the Christmas season?
Honestly, when my wife and I rewatched it this last Christmas, I wasn't sure which surprised me more - the fact that she dropped the whole "my dad got stuck in our chimney doing the Santa thing and died" thing without any warning, or the fact that I'd completely forgotten it was in the movie while it was the one thing my wife remembered. Memory's a funny thing sometimes.