A Gremlin is a fantastic creature commonly depicted as mischievous and mechanically oriented, with a specific interest in aircraft. Gremlins' mischievous natures are similar to those of English folkloric imps, while their inclination to damage or dismantle machinery is more modern.
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Origins in aviation[edit][]
Although their origin is found in myths among airmen, claiming that the gremlins were responsible for sabotaging aircraft, John W. Hazen states that "some people" derive the name from the Old English word gremian, "to vex".[1] SinceWorld War II, different fantastical creatures have been referred to as gremlins, bearing varying degrees of resemblance to the originals.
The term "gremlin" denoting a mischievous creature that sabotages aircraft, originates in Royal Air Force (RAF) slang in the 1920s among the British pilots stationed in Malta, the Middle East, and India, with the earliest recorded printed use being in a poem published in the journal Aeroplane in Malta on 10 April 1929.[2][3] Later sources have sometimes claimed that the concept goes back to World War I, but there is no print evidence of this.[1][N 1]
An early reference to the gremlin is in aviator Pauline Gower 's The ATA: Women with Wings (1938) where Scotland is described as "gremlin country", a mystical and rugged territory where scissor-wielding gremlins cut the wires ofbiplanes when unsuspecting pilots were about.[4] An article by Hubert Griffith in the servicemen's fortnightly Royal Air Force Journal dated 18 April 1942, also chronicles the appearance of gremlins,[5] although the article states the stories had been in existence for several years, with later recollections of it having been told by Battle of Britain Spitfire pilots as early as 1940.[6]
This concept of gremlins was popularized during World War II among airmen of the UK's RAF units,[7] in particular the men of the high-altitude Photographic Reconnaissance Units (PRU) of RAF Benson, RAF Wick and RAF St Eval. The flight crews blamed gremlins for otherwise inexplicable accidents which sometimes occurred during their flights. Gremlins were also thought at one point to have enemy sympathies, but investigations revealed that enemy aircraft had similar and equally inexplicable mechanical problems. As such, gremlins were portrayed as being equal opportunity tricksters, taking no sides in the conflict, and acting out their mischief from their own self-interest.[8] In reality, the gremlins were a form of "buck passing" or deflecting blame.[8] This led folklorist John Hazen to note that "the gremlin has been looked on as new phenomenon, a product of the machine age—the age of air".[1]
Film by Disney[edit][]
Original 1943 cover of The Gremlins by Roald Dahl
Author Roald Dahl is credited with getting the gremlins known outside the Royal Air Force.[9] He would have been familiar with the myth, having carried out his military service in 80 Squadron of the Royal Air Force in the Middle East. Dahl had his own experience in an accidental crash-landing in the Libyan Desert. In January 1942 he was transferred to Washington, D.C. as Assistant Air attaché at the British Embassy. There he wrote his first children's novel The Gremlins, in which "Gremlins" were tiny men who lived on RAF fighters, their wives were "Fifinellas" and their children were "Widgets". Dahl showed the finished manuscript to Sidney Bernstein, the head of the British Information Service, who came up with the idea to send it to Walt Disney.[9][N 2]
The manuscript arrived in Disney's hands in July 1942, and he considered using it as material for a live action/animated full-length feature film, offering Dahl a contract.[N 3]The film project was changed to an animated feature and entered pre-production, with characters "roughed out" and storyboards created.[10] Disney managed to have the story published in the December 1942 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. At Dahl's urging, in early 1943, a revised version of the story, The Gremlins was published as a picture book by Random House (later updated and re-published in 2006 by Dark Horse Comics).[N 4]
The publication of The Gremlins by Random House consisted of a 50,000 run for the U.S. market [N 5]with Dahl ordering 50 copies for himself as promotional material for himself and the upcoming film, handing them out to everyone he knew, including Lord Halifax, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who read it to her grandchildren.[9] The book was considered an international success with 30,000 more sold in Australia but initial efforts to reprint the book were precluded by a wartime paper shortage.[11] Reviewed in major publications, Dahl was considered a writer-of-note and his appearances in Hollywood to follow up with the film project were met with notices in Hedda Hopper's columns.[12][N 6]
The film project was reduced to an animated "short" and eventually cancelled in August 1943, when copyright and RAF rights could not be resolved. Thanks mainly to Disney, the story had its share of publicity which helped in introducing the concept to a wider audience. Issues #33-#41 of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories published between June 1943 and February 1944 contained a nine-episode series of short silent stories featuring a Gremlin Gus as their star. The first was drawn by Vivie Risto and the rest of them by Walt Kelly. This served as their introduction to the comic book audience.
While Roald Dahl was famous for making gremlins known world wide, many returning Air Servicemen swear they saw creatures tinkering with their equipment. One crewman swore he saw one before an engine malfunction that caused his B-25 Mitchell bomber to rapidly lose altitude, forcing the aircraft to return to base. Folklorist Hazen likewise offers his own alleged eyewitness testimony of these creatures, which appeared in an academically praised and peer-reviewed publication, describing an occasion he found "a parted cable which bore obvious tooth marks in spite of the fact that the break occurred in a most inaccessible part of the plane." At this point, Hazen states he heard "a gruff voice" demand, "How many times must you be told to obey orders and not tackle jobs you aren't qualified for? — This is how it should be done." Upon which Hazen heard a "musical twang" and another cable was parted.[13]
Critics of this idea state that the stress of combat and the dizzying heights caused such hallucinations, often believed to be a coping mechanism of the mind to help explain the many problems aircraft faced whilst in combat.
Differences between Dahl versions[edit][]
| Header text | In Gremlins | In Sometime Never |
|---|---|---|
| Habitat | In clouds and in hangars | In one forest in England before the Industrial Revolutionthen moved underground |
| Food source | Postage stamps | Snozzberries |
| Social Structure | Uncertain; rivalry between gremlins of different habitats; no established families | Ruled by one Leader, human-like society |
| Sapience | Comparable to children, no language or culture | Fully comparable to human; read human books |
In media[edit][]
- On 21 December 1942, CBS aired "Gremlins", a whimsical story written by Lucille Fletcher, on an episode of Orson Welles's patriotic radio series Ceiling Unlimited. U.S. Air Force officers discuss their experiences with the irritating creatures, and conclude that feeding them transforms them into an asset rather than a hindrance to aviation.[14][15]
- In 1943, Bob Clampett directed Falling Hare, a Merrie Melodies cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny. With Roald Dahl's book and Walt Disney's proposed film being the inspiration, this short has been one of the early Gremlin stories shown to cinema audiences in which multiple gremlins featured, even with Falling Hare only having one gremlin giving Bugs grief.[16] It features Bugs Bunny in conflict with a gremlin at an airfield. The Bugs Bunny cartoon was followed in 1944 byRussian Rhapsody, another Merrie Melodies short showing Russian gremlins sabotaging an aircraft piloted by Adolf Hitler. The gremlin in "Falling Hare" even has a color scheme that reflects one that was used on U.S. Army Air Forcestraining aircraft of the time, using dark blue (as on such an aircraft's fuselage) and a deep orange-yellow color (as used on the wings and tail surfaces).
- 1944 also saw animated gremlins playing a role in the romantic comedy starring Simone Simon called Johnny Doesn't Live Here Any More, with an uncredited Mel Blanc providing the voice.
- The 1947 novel by Roald Dahl, Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen, had the Gremlin leader as the protagonist of the second half of the book. He is described as leading an ancient nature-loving race away from the wars between humans and trying to let his race survive the destruction of humanity.
William Shatner and the Gremlin inThe Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (1963).
- A 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" directed byRichard Donner and based on the short story of the same name by Richard Matheson, featured a gremlin attacking an airliner.[17] In the original television episode, the gremlin appears as an almost ape-like creature which inspects the aircraft's wing with the curiosity of an animal and then proceeds to damage the wing. William Shatner plays a passenger named Bob Wilson (just recovered from a mental breakdown) who sees the Gremlin (played by Nick Cravat) on the aircraft's wing as he tries to warn the stewardess and other airplane staff members about it. Upon realizing that the Gremlin's work on the wing would cause the airplane to crash, Bob steals a sleeping police officer's revolver and causes a breach in the auxiliary exit to shoot the Gremlin. When the airplane lands, Bob is removed from the aircraft on a stretcher in a straitjacket. Rod Serling narrates that Bob Wilson's conviction will not be long as the final scene shows that the Gremlin left evidence of Bob's claim in the form of a damaged wing. This episode was remade as a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) with John Lithgow playing a similar character called John Valentine.[18] John Valentine (who is depicted as suffering fromaviatophobia) sees the gremlin and tries to warn the people on the airplane as the gremlin damages the wing. After stealing an airplane security guard's gun and breaking open his window, John opens fire on the gremlin, which defends itself and flies away. John is taken away in a straitjacket as the maintenance crew discovers unexplained damages and claw marks on the wing which alerts the people that are present.
- A gremlin makes an appearance in a Halloween special of The Simpsons (original airdate: 28 October 1993) paralleling The Twilight Zone 's "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", (the segment is even named "Terror at 5½ Feet") in which the gremlin (with its vocal effects provided by Frank Welker) attempts to destroy the wheel of Bart Simpson's school bus. Bart ends up using a flare gun to get it off the bus, only for it land on Ned Flanders' car. Bart is taken away in a straitjacket and later sees the gremlin outside of the ambulance holding Ned's severed head.
- The Eek! The Cat episode "The Eex Files" (original airdate: 5 November 1994) starts out with Eek on an aircraft beside a man claiming to see someone outside on the wing. Of course, when he looks there is no one there. At the end of the episode, Eek is dropped off by an alien on the wing of the aircraft and meets the gremlin, then promptly offers to help him "find his wallet". The final scene shows the half-crazed man looking out the window and "spazzing out" when he sees them both tearing up the wing.
- A Tiny Toon Adventures special titled "Night Ghoulery" (original airdate: 28 May 1995) includes a spoof of Night Gallery, with Babs Bunny presenting in Rod Serling's style. It has a segment named "Gremlin on a Wing", which parodies "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", with Plucky Duck in William Shatner's place, accompanied by Hamton J. Pig in an aircraft, and a gremlin similar to that which appeared in the Bugs Bunny short Falling Hare.
- In the Johnny Bravo episode "The Man Who Cried Clown" (original airdate: 8 December 1997), which is part of "The Zone Where Normal Things Don't Happen Very Often," Johnny sees an evil clown on the wing of the aircraft and is having difficulty convincing the pilots and anyone of its existence which even included a cameo by someone resembling William Shatner who quotes "Oh no you don't! I'm not falling for that again." When he catches and beats up the clown in the airplane's restroom, he is confronted and informed by a pilot that the clown in question and another clown were needed to keep the aircraft in balance during flight. The pilots and some nearby people beat up Johnny and make him take the incapacitated clown's place.
- At the end of episode 9 of Muppets Tonight, Miss Piggy sees a gremlin outside of her airplane window. William Shatner is seen sitting next to her as he claims that he's been complaining about the gremlin for years, but nobody does anything about it.
- 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.
- The Real Ghostbusters episode "Don't Forget the Motor City" (original airdate: 3 December 1987) has the Ghostbusters traveling to Detroit to battle gremlins who are sabotaging a factory run by a fictional analog of General Motors.
- In Cast a Deadly Spell, a 1991 HBO TV-movie, gremlins are said to have been "brought back from the pacific" to the United States in World War II and are seen damaging cars and houses.
- Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode "The Tale of the Curious Camera" (March 2, 1994), After getting his portraits back from the basketball team Matt finds that he didn't show up in the photos. To make it up to him the photographer gives him an antique camera because it has apparently chosen him. Matt soon learns that anything or anyone he takes a picture of will have something bad happen to it whether he wants it or not. It is discovered that a gremlin inhabits the camera.
- In the Extreme Ghostbusters episode "Grease" (original airdate: 25 September 1997), the Ghostbusters have to capture a gremlin that was damaging New York's machines, while at the same time the FBI believes them to be the cause of the sabotage.
- In the cartoon series American Dragon Jake Long, the episode "Jake Takes the Cake" (original airdate: 26 August 2005) features gremlins who mess with any type of mechanical devices and cause a lot of trouble until they are put to sleep and captured.
- In Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), Alex sees Mort (mistaking him for a gremlin) messing with the engine and falling off the aircraft.
- In the Epic Mickey games (2010, 2012), Gremlins assist Mickey Mouse after he releases them.
- In the Cartoon Network animated series Ben 10: Ultimate Alien (2010) and Ben 10: Omniverse (2012), Ben Tennyson turns into an alien called Jury Rigg that has the ability to disassemble and reassemble machines, mimicking the appearance (pointed ears/cat-like eyes) and abilities of a gremlin.
- In the film Hotel Transylvania, the titular building is filled with gremlins, amongst other monsters. One old gremlin works as the activities director at Hotel Transylvania as it was seen hosting a bingo game. There is also an elderly gremlin who is known for eating different objects and saying, "I didn't do it."
- In the micro-series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, there is a species called Cloud Gremlins, which cast a spell in Ponyville. In the end, they are defeated by Rainbow Dash.
- The YouTube series Flite Test's logo features a Gremlin with its arms stretched out pretending to fly.[19]
Other gremlins[edit][]
Gremlin Americanus: A Scrap Book Collection of Gremlins by artist and pilot Eric Sloane may predate the Roald Dahl publication. Published in 1942 by B.F. Jay & Co, the central characters are characterized as "pixies of the air" and are friends of both RAF and USAAF pilots. The gremlins are mischievous and give pilots a great deal of trouble, but they have never been known to cause fatal accidents but can be blamed for any untoward incident or "bonehead play", qualities that endear them to all flyers.[20][N 7]
See also Ssh! Gremlins by H.W. illustrated by Ronald Niebour ("Neb" of the Daily Maily), published by H. W. John Crowther Publication, England, in 1942. This booklet featured numerous humorous illustrations describing the gremlins as whimsical but essentially friendly folk. According to "H.W.", contrary to some reports, gremlins are a universal phenomenon and by no means only the friends of flying men.[21][N 8]
Set of World War II gremlin-themed industrial safety posters
Gremlins are floor greasers! Watch your step!
Gremlins love to pitch things at your eyes. Wear safety goggles.
Gremlins think it's fun to hurt you. Use care always.
Gremlins will push you 'round! Look where you're going!
Another type of "gremlin" originates from psychology and the professional life coaching fields. In this sense a gremlin is one's self-defeating behavior