Gizmo was the best pet I never owned. Gremlins came out in 1984, and I was really too young to be making any successful attempts to get my parents or siblings to take me to see it. The promos and trailers rocked my world; I completely glossed over the fact that the reptilian creatures might scare the fuck out of me, instead zeroing in on that shot of Gizmo's cute little hand protruding out of its cool ass cagebox. When the movie finally arrived on video, my family rented it, I snuck into the living room theater, and all was well. The gremmies weren't really scary, but Gizmo was all kinds of motherfuckin cute. I so wanted Gizmo, and when I was five or six years old, it was hard to comprehend the truth of the matter: Gizmo was NOT for sale in real life.
It was as if I was a junkie addicted to a drug that didn't exist. In a world without Gizmos, I took the next best thing: Gizmo dolls. In particular, a 7" plastic Gizmo figure that some idiot idiotically idiotly sold me for two bucks at school. I treated that doll like it had a beating heart.
This Gremlins gumball dispenser is, for all intents, another Gizmo figure. It's not as adorable as the figures I had as a kid, but it's not like that's a shining testament to my own dolls' beauty, because this figural gumball dispenser is goddamned brutal. Setting aside the potential trouble with mustering a sense of animism for a doll that spits candy out of a hole in its stomach, just look at Gizmo's face. It's the toy that comes alive at night to eat you and your family.
Gumballs drop out of Giz's belly when you lift his arm, and now that I think about it, you could kind of pretend the gumballs were baby mogwai balls resulting from the moisture in your fingers seeping into Gizmo's skin as you lifted his arm. It'd really only work well with white gumballs, though. Or better yet, white gumballs with brown trim. Why don't they make those?
See more of Gizmo in my old Gremlins Water Hatchers review.
Posted by Matt on 08/16/2006. E-mail me!
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Eric – I loved Unico. The first time I saw it I must have been about four, and it didn’t really scare me…as I watch it now (finally managed to get a bootleg) I realize it’s pretty freaky, especially when the crazy demon prince gets impaled on the turret spire.