The Gremlins

Popular culture

Used copies of the first edition book are highly prized and sought after by collectors of both Roald Dahl's works and Disney's; these copies may be valued anywhere between US$100 and US$10,000.[11]

In Warner Bros.' Falling Hare, Bugs Bunny tries to prevent the wrecking of an American military aircraft by a gremlin.

"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", a 1963 Twilight Zone episode, starring William Shatner, is a homage to the legend of gremlins, one being seen dismantling an airliner during flight. The role was played by John Lithgow in the 1983 film.

In the book Myth Conceptions, from the MythAdventures series, Robert Asprin describes a gremlin as a small, blue-skinned creature that has a tendency to vanish when the viewer's attention is distracted.

The 1984 film Gremlins, produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Joe Dante, is loosely inspired by Dahl's characters, featuring evil and destructive monsters which mutate from small furry creatures.

"Treehouse of Horror IV", The Simpsons' episode 5 of season 5, includes a segment involving Gremlins called "Terror at 5+1⁄2 Feet" – itself an allusion to the Twilight Zone episode.

In September 2006, Dark Horse Comics published The Gremlins: The Lost Walt Disney Production, a faithfully restored and updated version of The Gremlins including an introduction by acclaimed film historian Leonard Maltin as well as creating a series of Gremlin-inspired toys and figurines, that were patterned after the original Dahl-inspired characters as well as Return of the Gremlins, a comic sequel mini-series in which the grandson of pilot Gus meets the gremlins when inheriting his grandfather's house in England.[12]

The gremlins appear in the Epic Mickey franchise as the mechanics of the Wasteland. Their leader Gus (voiced by Bob Joles in the first game and Cary Elwes in the second) serves as a conscience figure to Mickey (as Jiminy Cricket is to Pinocchio). Unlike in the book, the gremlins have the ability to teleport.


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