Peltzer) on coming face to are basically mischievous face with a Gremlin: creatures who live to
" They ' re repulsive , disgusting. When they get really angry they lean forward, their ears go down, their upper lips come up, and their brows furl. They start twitching and their breathing becomes more intense. Then they start snarling and giggling. They make you kinda go bleck! "
have a good time lousing things up and making life for people difficult. Not by attacking them physically, necessarily, but by getting into machinery and doing all sorts of tricks. They are practical jokers. And it makes them very original monsters." The term "gremlins" became popular during World War II. Gremlins Producer Mike Finnell were blamed for getting discusses the basic idea into machinery, parbehind the use of Grem- ticularly airplanes, and lins as creatures with a history. "We wanted to take advantage of the 'legend' of Gremlins. They
fouling them up. Thus the expression, when something goes on the fritz, that there "must be gremlins in the works." As stated in The Dic-
he creature
crew, in a sea of Gremlins. More than 100 of the beasts were used in all.
tionary of American Folk- (Fremlin being a brewer lore, "Gremlins are small in Kent, England.)"
creatures some airmen say existed as long ago as World War I who manage to get into machinery and cause inexplicable failures. It has become common practice to blame them for mistakes that no one else will admit to." But there are different theories as to the origin of the actual word. Brew-
Funk and Wagnall's Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Fable
claims that the name derives from the Old English word "gemian," meaning "to vex." Webster's Dictionary traces the word to a modification of the Gaelic "gruaimin, " which translates to "ill-humored little ers Dictionary of Phrase fellow." and Fable reports, "A gremlin was the goblin which came out of Fremlin's beer bottles