Danger: Women Writing

I think one of my all time favorite classic television shows is THE TWILIGHT ZONE. One of the best episodes was NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET which was all about a gremlin that was trying to sabotage a plane. Of course the only passenger on the plane that could see what was going on was a very young William Shatner.

The origins of gremlins is an interesting one. According to Monsterpedia, gremlins are fictional mischievous creatures that are “mechanically oriented and extremely devious.” Because of their interest in mechanical things, gremlins came to be associated most commonly with aircraft. In fact, since 1942 Royal Air Force journals make mention of gremlins that were sabotaging airplanes.

Interest in gremlins appears to have spread after author Roald Dahl wrote his children’s book THE GREMLINS that was optioned by Disney, but never made into a motion picture. Eventually the characters in the story were optioned to Warner Bros. who used them in several World War II cartoons.

During World War II, many pilots complained of weird creatures sabotaging their planes and mechanics noted missing tools that were being hidden by the weird little creatures. Because of their association with planes, gremlins have even been incorporated in the logos of various air corps and patrols.

In recent times, people are more familiar with gremlins from the 1984 motion picture of the same name: GREMLINS. In that movie, gremlins were fuzzy adorable little creatures who turned into menacing and deadly demons if you failed to follow three little rules: never expose the gremlin to bright lights, never put it in water, and never feed it after midnight.

You can read more about gremlins here:

Monsterpedia: http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Gremlin
Wikimedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlin
GREMLINS, the movie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gremlins_(film)