A gremlin is a mythical creature, closely related in appearance and stature to imps and goblins and marked by a propensity to mischief and troublemaking—especially the sabotage of aircraft and other mechanical equipment.
During World War II, pilots and technicians in the RAF and Allied forces made light of their mechanical problems by ascribing breakdowns to gremlins, generally understood to be small, goblin-like creatures, between one and several feet tall, often either gray skinned or covered in fur. Beyond the wartime origin of the term gremlin, the exact etymology of the word is difficult to determine. It is phonetically similar to goblin, and also bears a strong resemblance to the British English gremmies, a slang term for a goblin or an imp. The earliest reports of World War II gremlins also suggest that the word is connected to Fremlin, a brand of bottled beer that was popular with RAF pilots. British servicemen are believed to have shared the gremlin mythology with their American allied counterparts in the 1930s and 1940s. In a common version of a gremlin tale, a pilot will report seeing a gremlin on the wing or fuselage of an airplane, attempting to damage or disable the craft, and will later experience a strange mechanical failure or malfunction. Gremlins were also frequently reported attempting to sabotage airplanes and machines on the ground.
Although the name and appearance of the gremlin seem related to the “goblin” of European folklore, the gremlin became widely known in the United States after World War II, during which American pilots heard of the shenanigans of airborne gremlins from flyers in the Royal Air Force. Gremlins were said to be responsible for unexplained damage to airplanes in flight, a theme reprised in a famous Twilight Zone episode. Most Americans today, however, derive their concept of these creatures from the 1984 feature film Gremlins. (HAWKEYE/Alamy Stock Photo)
Despite their British origins, gremlins have remained a visible part of American popular culture since the end of World War II, especially in television and film. An important example is the gremlin antagonist in “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone. Guest-starring William Shatner as Bob Wilson, an airplane passenger only recently recovered from a nervous breakdown, the episode begins with Shatner noticing a gremlin on the wing of his airplane, tampering with an engine. He attempts to alert the flight crew to the gremlin’s presence, but because the creature repeatedly leaps out of view before anyone else can see it, no one is convinced of the story, and it is strongly implied that Shatner’s character may be hallucinating. In a hushed conversation with his wife, Shatner does explicitly identify the creature as a gremlin, saying: “There’s a man out there. I don’t mean a man. I mean, I don’t know what I mean. I mean, maybe a—what did they call them during the war? You know, the pilots? Gremlins. Gremlins!” Later—after waiting for his wife to fall asleep—Shatner steals a gun from a police officer seated several rows behind him, opens the plane’s emergency hatch, and opens fire on the gremlin, who has continued to sabotage the engine.
Even though Shatner believes he has shot the gremlin saboteur and saved the plane, at the episode’s end we see Shatner strapped to a gurney and being loaded onto an ambulance. As the camera pans away from this scene, however, it passes over the plane’s wings, revealing to the viewer (though not yet to the other characters) the damage the gremlin (apparently quite real, as confirmed in the final voiceover) has done to the plane’s engine.
A version of this same story was reprised in the 1983 Twilight Zone feature film, where the basic plot was largely unchanged. The Twilight Zone episode was also parodied on The Simpsons’ 1993 Halloween special, “Treehouse of Horror IV.” In The Simpsons’ version of the tale, a sabotaging gremlin attaches itself to the outside of Bart and Lisa’s school bus. Bart is the only one to see the creature, which taunts him repeatedly, but despite his best efforts he is unable to convince anyone else of its existence and is instead punished for being disruptive. The Twilight Zone plot was also spoofed in a 2010 episode of Saturday Night Live, guest hosted by Jude Law, who plays Shatner’s original role. A 1967 episode of Star Trek, “The Trouble with Tribbles” (also starring William Shatner), though it does not explicitly feature gremlins, does depict a small, furry, rapidly multiplying creature called a “tribble,” which purrs pleasantly when held by humans and causes mechanical problems across the ship. Many of the tribbles’ physical traits are echoed in the 1984 Gremlins feature film (see below).
In print, The Gremlins is the title of a children’s book by Roald Dahl, published in 1943 as a tie-in to a Walt Disney animated film that was never released. Dahl himself served as an RAF pilot in World War II, and later as an RAF attaché in Washington, D.C. Dahl’s story is set in wartime England, where gremlins are actively working to sabotage RAF aircraft as retribution for the destruction of their forest home. In the course of the story the gremlins are persuaded to stop sabotaging planes and rather to assist with the Allied war effort against Nazi Germany, repairing RAF fighters with their mechanical savvy.
Modern audiences are most likely to associate the term “gremlin” with Joe Dante and Stephen Spielberg’s 1984 horror-comedy feature film Gremlins, starring Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates. In that film, a young bank employee played by Galligan receives a “mogwai”—a small, furry, good-natured creature—as a gift from his traveling salesman father, who has purchased it in a Chinatown gift shop. Caring for the mogwai, Galligan is told, involves three firm rules: never place the mogwai in bright light, especially as sunlight may kill it; never get the mogwai wet; and, most important, never feed the mogwai after midnight. Naming the mogwai “Gizmo,” Galligan soon learns by accident that when the mogwai gets wet it multiplies rapidly. Though the mogwai offspring are cute, they have a much more mischievous disposition than Gizmo. Later these offspring sabotage Galligan’s alarm clock to trick him into feeding them after midnight. This causes the furry mogwai to transform into hairless, reptilian creatures—now called gremlins—whose only apparent motivation is to cause chaos and mayhem throughout the town. At the film’s conclusion Galligan, Cates, and Gizmo work together to eliminate all the gremlins, and an on-screen news reporter is heard attributing the gremlins’ destruction of the town to an episode of mass hysteria.
In a 1990 sequel, Gremlins 2, Galligan and Cates reprise their roles, combating an infestation of gremlins in an urban office tower. Taken together, the films cemented the place of gremlins in modern American folklore and provide contemporary scholars with a compelling example of how modernization and technological development can contribute to shaping the folklore tradition.
John Gleim
See also Fairylore; Nin-am-bea; Tommyknocker; Yehasuri
Further Reading
Bryan, E. T. 1995. “Gremlore.” Gremlin Trouble website. http://www.gremlintrouble.com/html/gremlore.html. Accessed June 25, 2015.
Dahl, Roald. 2006. The Gremlins. Reprint of 1943 edition. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books.
Donald, Graeme. 2008. Sticklers, Sideburns & Bikinis: The Military Origins of Everyday Words and Phrases. Oxford: Osprey.
“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” 1963. The Twilight Zone. Season 5, Episode 3. DVD.