Talk:Gremlin

message: There should be links to similar creatures that are blamed for technology misfunctions?:
Cobalt and nickel were named after the beings that fooled miners.
What do you call the beings that introduce errata in printing?
--Error 21:12, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Previous creatures

message: Roald Dahl in his autobiographic short story Lucky Break claims that he was the inventor of the word: Early in this period I also had a go at a story for children. It was called "the Gremlins", and this I beleive was the first time the word has been used... The Gremlins had wives caled Fifinellas and children called Widgets. Unless someone provides earlier references, I am going to change the article accordingly.
:I read the same account when I read Henry Sugar. Edited. --KJ 14:03, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the first known recorded account of the gremlins is from issue 13 of the servicemen's fortnightly Royal Air Force Journal dated April 18, 1942  It is extremely unlikely that during his RAF service Dahl would not have been familiar with the stories of the gremlins, from which it is logical to assume he took his inspiration. John laming claims the story was in circulation as early as 1940 among Battle of Britain Spitfire pilots DV 16:50, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

text: That is quite good, as etymology goes. We may never know where the word comes from. If there were a documented usage of the word "gremlin" to refer to a mischievous sprite before this, or some Iranian connection... In favor of that etymology, it's well known that in the small villages of England, odd words have been retained for hundreds of years.  Purely hypothetically, I suggest there might have been an RAF mechanic named "Gremmeling" (a Danish name not unknown in England) whose abilities were doubted by the RAF, and they started to speak of repairs being "Gremmlin(g)ed" and from there they arrived at an imaginary creature. 173.174.85.204 (talk) 04:47, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Claim of Authorship

message: I seem to remember reading that Roald Dahl had first shown the story to Eleanor Roosevelt, and that it was she who made Franklin D. Roosevelt contact Disney. I don't have a copy of Henry Sugar to check it. Can someone who has a copy of Lucky Break or Henry Sugar confirm or deny what I remember? --KJ 03:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just checked, and it's not true. --KJ 03:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Publication 

message: sex daddy  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:8081:D02:6DE:95FF:44BD:F4AA:F37C (talk) 04:05, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hobgoblin 

message: I have just started a major makeover of this article. Before my edit, the article had one small introductory section, a section on gremlins in popular culture, and a trivia section. The first part of the popular culture section dealt with the origins of the gremlins story among airmen, and how the story spread through Roald Dahl. This I put int their own section, Origins and spread of the gremlin legend. Most of the remainder of the popular culture section, I included in a section on other appearances of gremlins. I did however, trim most of the items because they gave to detailed plot summaries. The important thing is to mention the Gremlin-relevance, a reader might then get details at the article in question. 
What was now left was some information on gremlins that were mostly unrelated to the original air force legend, other than in name, as well as a whole bunch of trivia. I created a section to include references to gremlins of other varieties, and then kept the trivia-section at the end. I wrote a short introduction to the "Gremlins of other varieties" section, and cut away some of the most tangential and irrelevant pieces of trivia. 
I feel the structure I have suggested for the article makes sense, in that it divides the different kinds of gremlins. I also feel that it is the first section that is the most important, and should be the most substantial. The second and third sections have every possibility of diverging into long list-like collections of trivia and random references. It is partly to avoid this that I have included the little introduction at the start of the third section. It is important to mention that there are several different depictions of Gremlins in various media, but attempting to list them all is both unecessary and unmaintainable. I therefore suggest that we keep it to a small paragraph mentioning that a great variety of different depictions exist, and then include a few examples. The second section could very well be written in the same model.
A problem here is that even if we agree to a small number of examples to list, people will feel inclined to add references to the appearance or mention of gremlins in their favourite book, film, song etc. To avoid this, I suggest we put up some guidlines on the talk page, and include html-tags in section two and three:"
replies: text: Excellent work on the makeover.  Next step would be to try to get some WP:RS to confirm some of the mostly unsourced statements.  Is it true that there is no real folkloric basis for the term "gremlins" and their nature?  I did a quick pass over the article to integrate trivia items or delete them.  Some were handled via the disambiguation page.  In doing my pass it became clear that the article is really about Airplane Gremlins, a specific type of gremlin, and perhaps the original gremlin if the claims about the word being introduced via Dahl are true.  Unfortunately the article is poorly sourced, and I wish someone could get some solid references from academic folklore sources to establish no prior use of the term earlier.  If we can clean up the references and prove the claim of first use, it would be a real improvement. Buddhipriya 04:30, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the article at present claims that airplane gremlins are the original gremlins, and am unsure about the correctness of this. This was the claim made by the article before my cleanup, but it was actually difficult to sift it out from the poor structure of the article. The cleanup I did was mainly of an aestethic nature, now a factual cleanup is needed as well. If the airplane gremlins are not the first instance of gremlins, I suggest another "origins" section at the very beginning discussing the roots of the creatures back in folklore. There exists Gremlin articles in several other languages, perhaps we could get some sources by looking at them? Unfortunately, my language skills are somewhat limited, but it seems that the german article (stub) also focuses on the aircraft gremlins, and claim that they originated at the start of the 20th century. Dr bab 06:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

text: The german wiki sites this article, where it seems that the Gremlins did indeed exist before the aircraft legends. Unfortunately, this article itself cites no sources.Dr bab 06:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A quick search found this academic paper that cites the word as being coined in World War II, but also notes controversy over the entymology.  I added it to the lead.  I am actually sort of surprised that this cleanup has produced a fairly clear stub of an interesting article so quickly.  In the next few days I will see if I can find my OED and see what it says. Buddhipriya 06:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I threw in some references to the academically-acceptable article in the F&W Standard Dictionary of Folklore. Some might disagree about the facts I cited from there, but I believe that they should nevertheless be mentioned because (1) it is a mainstream source that is often referred to & (2) some of it is entertaining. (And it's the only article in the entire book which I am sure was atimes written tongue-in-cheek.) -- llywrch (talk) 09:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Makeover 

message: When I was very young - in the mid-1940s - one of my favorite picture books was about gremlins.  It was illustrated by a very famous cartoonist for the New Yorker, whose name I can't recall, and the basic plot was about an American air force pilot who crashed and was wounded because of the malevolence of some gremlins, who then regretted their acts and helped him get back on flying status.  The climactic scene involved the gremlins attaching magical ropes to help him stay upright during a balance test involving standing on one leg for a period of time.  Can anyone nail this down?  Seems like it would be worth adding to the article, at least briefly, if it can be sorted out.
Hampete (talk) 21:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Gremlins and New Yorker cartoonist

message: How did they come to pick the name Gremlin?  Is there a history of the word?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darth Borehd (talk • contribs) 23:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See the section 'claim of authorship' above.Number36 05:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The word comes from a Kent brewer called Fremlin (later part of Whitbread). The deities were said to inhabit beer bottles, hence the aerial problems were sometimes assumed to be as a result of the pilot or crew 'having a few' before flying. During the 1920-1930's the in-joke amongst UK pilots was that the RAF was The Best Flying Club in the World, and moderate drinking in the afternoon by aircrew was not uncommon at the time.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.202.172 (talk) 10:59, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the Word 

message: Shouldn't the Gremlins from the Joe Dante movie get their very own page?
I mean, the Fembots from the Austin Powers movies have their own page, as well as the Disney version of Aladdin and the Shrek version of Puss in Boots, so why not them?
The "List of Gremlins" page is nice, but the Dante Gremlins need a separate page.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Agustinaldo (talk • contribs) 22:48, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separate Page for the [[Joe Dante]] Gremlins 

message: I have removed the following from the beginning of the article;-
www.gremlinlovers.blogg.se 82.8.0.109 (talk) 08:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Text 

message: This is included in the section on the movie The Gremlins: "Strangely, the gremlins in these movies look nothing alike the ones of folkloric mythology".  However, the article does not list a description of the folkloric appearance.  Does anyone have a source on the appearance the "eyewitnesses" gave?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.201.151.90 (talk) 14:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have edited the article to remove WP:NPOV. -Signaleer (talk) 13:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appearance? 

message: This article and Fifinella disagree over what Dahl called a widget.  This article says they were male gremlins, while that article says they were baby gremlins.  Which is correct? Carolina wren (talk) 19:38, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: To my knowledge, it's "babies", not males. Males are just "gremlins". --90.34.108.204 (talk) 15:37, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Widgets 

message: Shouldn't there be a fact that the Gremlins from the unmade WWII cartoon later appeared in the 2010 Wii video game Epic Mickey, as chief mechanics and residents of the Cartoon Wasteland due to being scrapped?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.216.234.49 (talk) 08:01, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Epic Mickey appearance 

message: In sam's Teach yourself Java in 21 Days it says that "Errors occur because... programs encounter situations out of their control, such as... sunspots, gremlins and on and on and on.
Should this be on the page?
-Nick Vanderplop  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.1.101.250 (talk) 16:28, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure why, this article is not to list every use of the term. MilborneOne (talk) 17:17, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gremlin reference 

message: I am not sure about Dahl popularising them outside of the RAF. They are referred to in the Three Stooges film I Can Hardly Wait, where the Stooges play aircraft engineers at the "Heedlock" Corporation. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJj6S0dgw0s  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tanyajane (talk • contribs) 22:41, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dahl Popularised them outside the RAF? 

message: Not totally sure, but recall that a Disney's Talespin episode, I think it was called "The Sound and the Furry," featured a version of gremlins, dismantling/sabotaging airplanes so a shady mechanic could scam the pilots. Perhaps this should be added to the page?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:646:8001:C726:C0FD:7CDD:583A:699F (talk) 04:50, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It could be; indeed it most likely is, in my opinion; but unless the Sound and the Furry creatures are called Gremlins, then obvious though it may seem, stating they are based on Gremlins would be unsourced original research. --90.34.108.204 (talk) 15:38, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Basis for Talespin episode? 

message: When I was working as an avionics technician in general aviation (1970-1984) gremlins had no physical presence. Instead, they appeared as troublesome symptoms that vanished when tracked down. Most appeared as intermittents that vanished even though nothing that could cause the symptoms was disturbed. If the trouble could possibly be explained rationally (without getting silly about it) they were just chalked up to an unknown cause. Only if no rational explanation could be suggested was it a gremlin, which happened a couple times a year in our three man shop. At least two of us had to try our hands at isolating the cause for us to accept it as a true gremlin. In all the flamboyant presentations we all collaborated in the hunt and only one gremlin survived more than 20 man-hours of troubleshooting. Potential gremlins that we did not have an opportunity to track down became "head-scratchers."
In my 31 years of my new career (IT field technician for a Fortune 100 company) I have never seen a gremlin, nor anything similar.
My personal experiences are not material for Wikipedia, but I am surprised a non-physical representation is mentioned only as a subset of spiritual manifestations. Everybody I knew thought of them as internal to equipment.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flagmichael (talk • contribs) 19:50, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Representation as purely technical misbehavior 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Gremlin. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100722212953/http://www.archive.org/details/merry_melodies_falling_hare to https://archive.org/details/merry_melodies_falling_hare
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://toonopedia.com/gremlins.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 01:41, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Shouldn't it be removed?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.25.251.130 (talk) 15:55, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Not to be confused with Kremlin" seems like a vandalism 

message: There was this advert in Canada, oh, perhaps in the early 2000s. It was a Midas Muffler technician who, while fixing a customer's car, explains that the problem is "flying gremlins". It was awesome, and surely merits a mention on this page...but Google Search doesn't agree (almost no hits at all). Anyway, maybe sources will materialize in the future, and this intervention will be worth a damn. 76.69.87.171 (talk) 14:10, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: This information and mention does not meet Wikipedia:Notability policy, and therefore is a moot point . -Signaleer (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Midas "Flying Gremlins" 

message: Google n-gram shows gremlin in literature before 1920 as early as 1806. 2601:14F:8006:3BE0:0:0:0:BFEE (talk) 23:51, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Google n-gram  "gremlin" before 1920 

message: Hello editor(s?) of this wiki page. Listen to me. You forgot about the season 1, episode 16 of Be Cool, Scooby-Doo called "Gremlins on a Plane". Please add this to the appearances in media section. Thanks. 64.49.122.234 (talk) 18:12, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forgotten media appearance. LISTEN.