IT'S ROALD DAHL DAY!!
Today is Roald Dahl Day, a day to celebrate the achievements of this prolific writer. Dahl would have been 95 years old today. And to celebrate, I thought I would take a look at The Gremlins, the first children's book Dahl in 1943 while he was still in the Royal Air Force.
Gremlins are, of course, those pesky little creatures that only fliers can see and which wreck havoc on their planes. In Dahl’s version of the story, the Gremlins were living happily in a lush northern England wood when one day, some humans showed up with the big trucks and machinery. First, the humans cut down all the trees and rolled over the dirt until it was hard-packed. Then, they built a factory that produced airplanes. In the process, they destroyed all of the homes belonging to the Gremlins.
Now homeless and angry, the Gremlins vowed revenge and set about sabotaging pilots and their planes. This was proving to be a problem during World War II whenever the RAF pilots came up against the German pilots. The Gremlins seemed to be as much their enemy as the Germans.
One pilot named Jamface told another named Gus that he had his plane's Gremlin almost reformed by feeding him transatlantic postage stamps, a rare delicacy in the Gremlin world. Gus tried that method, but with no success and on his next flight, he and his Gremlin were forced to bail out of their plane, because of the Gremlins antics. They ended up in the English Channel and for three hours, Gus tried arguing and reasoning with his Gremlin and finally won him over.
But while Gus may have won his Gremlin over, that was not so for all of them. The next time he went up in his plane, with a 102° fever, Gus didn’t
They appeared in comic books, military insignia, as dolls, and in advertisements but Disney’s Gremlins never appeared in an animated film. Or did they?
There are still a lot of animated films made for the U.S. Army and Navy during World War II that are completely undocumented. Recently a military film collector wrote to me asking about a film he had in his collection that contained Disney animation. The film he said, Fundamental Fixed Gunnery Approaches (1943), contained a sequence of Gremlins pulling a plane away from its mission.
I haven’t viewed the film myself, but I had him send me a few frame grabs so I could see what he was talking about. Take a look. What do you think? Five little Gremlins, with the letter “G” on their flight jackets, with large goggles, noses, gloves and aviator caps – similar to the Disney character designs. Could this be the only Disney animation of Dahl’s Gremlins?
Click the thumbnails below to see larger images of the film’s titles and an extreme close-up of the Gremlin frame grab.
Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation |
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Post tags: Gremlins
At one time, Inez Hogan was a prolific writer with 63 children’s books to her credit and often illustrated her own stories, as well as those of others. One story she wrote was an odd picture book about gremlins. I usually don’t like books about gremlins because they remind me of that itch that never gets satisfied, no matter how much you scratch.
But gremlins have a place in the history of World War II aviation and Miss Hogan’s book, Listen Hitler! The Gremlins are Coming is an amusing addition to gremlin mythology. The gremlin-aviation myth began in 1923, when they were discovered by the RAF. It seems, gremlins like fooling around with gadgets and planes are full of these. air
Miss Hogan opens here story with a little explanation of who gremlins are by one named Snoopy (no relation to Charles Schultz's Snoopy). Snoopy explains that gremlins have always caused all manner of problems for people, particularly pilots, but no one was bothered by them until World War II.
Snoopy, so called because he has big ears and like to eavesdrop on conversations, is quite indignant after overhearing an RAF pilot telling an American pilot to “watch out for [gremlins.] They are hindering the war for freedom.” Gremlins, he tells us, love freedom; freedom gives Gremlins more opportunities to create chaos.
Snoopy can't get anyone to listen to him because he simply can’t get the other gremlins to stop what they are doing and pay attention to what he is telling them. Instead, they start to reminisce about past accomplishments, providing an opportunity for the author to introduce the different specialties of each gremlin:
Subby specializes in submarines, causing subs to submerge when they shouldn’t, or blocking the periscopes;
Waacy causes havoc for WAACs, running their stockings or ruining their makeup just before inspection;
female gremlins or Fifinellas might untie the shoe laces of soldiers while they are marching;
and young gremlins, called widgets, go after children, doing things like mixing up the scrap they have collected for the war effort.
It is with great pleasure for me to announce The Autumn Society's biggest art show yet. In collaboration with
Gallery 1988 (LA), we bring you the
3G Show! A Pop-Culture art show in tribute to
Ghostbusters,
Goonies, and
Gremlins. 3 movies that defined our generation. More to come soon so stay tuned!
It's really crazy. I wrote an article the other night about submitting articles to free magazines and I can't find it. I've been having a lot of trouble with my computer lately. I'm hoping I saved it on my laptop which is trouble free...so far.
My troubles started with Microsoft Outlook. From the beginning if I tried to use it my computer hung and I had to reboot. Then my computer ate my Excel program - it literally just disappeared. After that MS Word started losing my files or saved them corrupted. I lost a 1200 word ms and several other research documents that I worked on for hours and hours and hours.
Thinking it might be the computer, I went out and got two zip drives. When working on my regular computer I only saved to the zip drive. Not wanting to lose any more files I did a backup of the zip I used (Zip A) to the second zip (B). Thank goodness, because I accidentally hit zip A while it was in my laptop and it broke. Talk about Murphy's Law.
I also thought maybe something happened to the Microsoft program so I had my husband delete it from my computer and he downloaded Open Office for me. I still had problems with files becoming corrupt or disappearing. Then, I lost Works Spreadsheet program - just disappeared. Is it Gremlins?
So, now I only use my regular computer for things I don't have to save. I also got a third zip drive (C) that I used to backup zip B. In addition to this, I'm going to get two more zips. One to backup (C) and another to keep just in case.
What's the moral to the story? Make sure you always back up your work! And, in cases like mine, backup your backup.
Karen
One pilot named Jamface told another named Gus that he had his plane's Gremlin almost reformed by feeding him transatlantic postage stamps, a rare delicacy in the Gremlin world. Gus tried that method, but with no success and on his next flight, he and his Gremlin were forced to bail out of their plane, because of the Gremlins antics. They ended up in the English Channel and for three hours, Gus tried arguing and reasoning with his Gremlin and finally won him over.
Fantastic post Alex. I don't know which one I liked better, the story or the art. Those pictures certainly look frameable.
http://www.ManOfLaBook.com
Great post and wonderful book. We visited our son in Australia at the beginning of the year and found an original 1st edition copy in a second hand book shop - the price? US$2.00! Not in great condition but it still has pride of place on my shelf. The illustrations are beautiful.
Fascinating mix of fantasy with history - or actually what were current events at the time of the writing!
Those pictures are nice, Man of La Book, but the originals are even better - richer deeper colors.
Barbara, that was a really lucky find regardless of the condition of the book, only 2 bucks and a nice visit with your son.
Joyce, it is an interesting mix of fantasy and history. I am guessing that much of what Dahl wrote in the gremlins came from his own experiences (sans gremlins) There is a similar crash landing in his book Going Solo.
I didn't know about this book, so thanks for introducing me to it, Alex.
(I was reading the masthead of your website, and I wonder if you've read Uri Orlev's The Island on Bird Street,' a middle-grade novel about a boy in WWII?)