A Gremlins Easter Egg Ties The Movie To A '60s Sci-Fi Classic

Warner Bros.

Joe Dante was a pop culture obsessive before it was cool. Throughout his career, Dante has slipped references and cameos into his movies, reminding savvy viewers of his favorite films and TV shows. He even made a movie in 1993, "Matinee," that was wholly a tribute to one of the greatest American directors, William Castle, a notorious showman known for his in-theater gimmicks. In his 1984 classic "Gremlins," he threw in so many in-jokes and references that only fellow pop culture obsessives and/or industry insiders might be able to spot them all. To cite one example, Billy (Zach Galligan) has a conversation with an older fellow named Mr. Jones about drawing and art, and Mr. Jones is played by Chuck Jones, the legendary director of some of the best "Looney Tunes" cartoons. 

Billy's dad, Rand (Hoyt Axton), is an inventor in "Gremlins," and his malfunctioning gadgets may explain his attraction to gremlins. Gremlins, during World War II, were the imaginary imps blamed for inexplicable airplane malfunctions. Halfway through the movie, Rand attends an invention convention where he intends to hawk his wares and check out what other inventors are coming up with. In one notable scene, Rand is speaking on a pay phone while inventors bustle past him. One such attendee has seemingly invented Robbie the Robot from the 1956 movie "Forbidden Planet." Behind Rand, one can see an old man seated in a strange, steaming contraption encrusted with glowing red widgets, levers, and an outside metal disc. 

Cinema fans will recognize that contraption as the time machine from George Pal's 1960 film adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine." Yes, someone invented the best-known time machine. What happens next is utterly hilarious.

Warner Bros.

The time machine in question worked. During Rand's conversation, the camera cuts back to his home in Kingston Falls, where we see the other end of his conversation. When the camera cuts back to Rand, the time machine behind him has gone mysteriously missing, leaving only a puff of smoke. People are in the enclosure where it once stood, looking around, trying to figure out where it went. The implication, of course, is that the pilot activated the time machine and sent it backward through time. 

For those unfamiliar with Pal's film or with Wells' novel, it begins in the year 1900 and follows an inventor who has found a way to travel through time. His invention is essentially a chair surrounded by large disks and spinning lenses. A pilot can adjust a series of dials and go forward and backward in time. In the 1960 film, the inventor, George (Rod Taylor), initially goes forward in time, only to witness World War I in 1917 and World War II in 1940. He goes ahead to 1966, and finds that nuclear war is nigh (and to think that "The Time Machine" was made before the Cuban Missile Crisis!). Thanks to a nuclear explosion and volcano eruption, George becomes trapped in molten rock. His only recourse is to travel to a distant future after the rock has naturally eroded and radiation has finally died down. He arrived in the year 802,701. 

None of that is in "Gremlins," of course. It's a mere Easter egg for sci-fi fans. Dante merely threw it in as a gag. But imaginative cineastes can now speculate that "The Time Machine" and "Gremlins" are part of the same cinematic universe.