Gremlins Ephemera!

When Gremlins came out in 1984, there was a huge merchandising craze that surrounded it.... from apparel to stuffed toys, from stationary to breakfast cereal ("Gremlins, Gremlins, bite after bite, what a tasty way to satisfy a Gremlin appetite!"). The '80s was an era of excess, and man the Gremlins merchandise was excessive.

Hallmark Stores had giant Gremlins sections in their stores, as they had acquired the rights to mass-produce greeting cards, stickers, party plate-and-napkins sets and much more. If memory serves, there was also a TV commercial campaign for the Hallmark Gremlins merchandise, but as of 2012 it has yet to surface online.

Now, it should be said that in those days, there were no i-pods, no digital downloads and other mass-media-on-demand. VCRs were just picking up momentum and becoming affordably priced, and it frequently took more than a year for movies to hit home video. Yes, we'[re speaking of the stone ages here. So to promote the movies, they released storybook tie-ins for... well, virtually every studio movie from the '80s. Weird thing is,

The coolest ones were offered by the fast-food chain Hardee's: a set of storybook-and-record sets which told the tale of the film. For five weeks, patrons could get a different book with purchase of food. Manufactured and distributed by Buena Vista Records (i.e. Disney), the books are pretty faithful to the movie, they've got some phenomenal artwork, good audio production values, and Zach Galligan reprised his role of Billy Peltzer. Needless to say there are some slight deviations and a lot of omissions. Strangely, Disney released a ton of storybook-and-record-sets for flicks like "Gremlins" and "The Goonies," which their studio didn't produce or distribute. A few years after they were first released, the sets found their way on to shelves in several chain stores like Toys Are Us and Kay Bee Toys -- these books were probably overstock, as there's no discernible way to differentiate the Hardees sets from those found in stores.

Unsurprisingly, Golden Books had to get in on the act with their oversized novelization of the movie. These sorts of books had become commonplace following the success of "Star Wars," and one was made for virtually every kid-aimed film from the late '70s to late '80s.

Golden Books also had a habit of cartoonizing movies for their softback junior paperbacks. "A New Friend" was the first part of a two-book set released by Golden books, which chronicled the first part of the movie (minus the Chinatown sequence) on the day of Gizmo's arrival. The second book, "To Catch a Gremlin" follows the Gremlins from birth to death. Wow, that sounds like kiddie fare alright.

The illustrations are comic-ish and the characters barely resemble the actors who portrayed them in the film. The illustrations aren't bad but they certainly pale in comparison to those in the 5 part book-and-record sets that were available at Hardees restaurants.

Yes, the Gremlins were everywhere, like this June 1984 issue of "Film Comment," in which Joe Dante discussed the film.

But the coolest piece of press had to be the Gremlins "Souvenir Magazine." Chocked full of photos and interviews, this is the sort of thing movie fans had to buy before there was an internet. Primitive times.

There was also a retail push for "Gremlins 2: The New Batch," but it was nothing like the merchandise that flooded the market following the first film. One of my favorite things from the second film is a tie-in poster released by Sunkist soda. It's ironic that Gremlins like Sunkist since they're allergic to sunlight.

One of the kitschiest pieces of merchandising from the second film is, without question, the Gremlins 2 Print Kit. Released by Hi-Tech Expressions, this was basically the Gremlins print shop.

Unfortunately, it was 1990 so the "Hi-Tech" graphics sucked.

Kind of a cool item, but good luck finding a physical copy today. And better luck finding a printer to run it.

"Hello? Is E.T. there?"

And remember: No matter how much they cry, no matter how much they beg, whatever you do, never, never let them fall asleep... after midnight. No wait, that's not quite right...There were too damned many quotable movies in 1984!