Movies

Hilarious 'Key And Peele' Sketch Reveals How 'Gremlins 2' Was Created

Key and Peele Gremlins 2
By Russ Fischer

Let's get one thing straight: Gremlins 2 is a very funny film with a hell of a lot of energy, and one of the best jokes on the studio idea of sequel creation that has ever been made. I love the movie. You can't ding Gremlins 2 for being ridiculous and excessive, because it knows it is excessive. That's the entire point of the film.

That doesn't mean this Key and Peele sketch about the creation of Gremlins 2 isn't hilarious, because many of same jokes within could be applied to a lot of films that aren't nearly as entertaining as Joe Dante's 1990 sequel to his original 1984 film. Jordan Peele plays "the hollywood sequel doctor," who goes from observing the Gremlins 2 writer's room brainstorming session to taking it over and pushing things in absurd directions that will be familiar to anyone who has seen the film.

Here's the sketch (uncensored, so beware some dangerous curse words), via Comedy Central.

The best gags there aren't even really about the movie, but come thanks to the pitch-perfect delivery from Jordan Peele.

I'm somewhat sad they didn't work in the Edward G. Robinson or Of Mice and Men gags, or the fact that the spider gremlin reaches his final form to the tune of Slayer's 'Angel of Death.' Not really the song anyone expected to hear in a sequel like this.

Writer/director Joe Dante fortunately is game to play along, tweeting the following:

The audio commentary Dante recorded for Gremlins 2 has a lot of great stories about how the film got made, and how he and his co-conspirators (including effects genius Rick Baker) basically had license to do whatever they wanted to do with the movie, as long as it was a Gremlins film. But he has been even more concise about that process, saying not long ago,

When I was asked to do the sequel, which I originally turned down because it was so hard to make the first one... The only reason I decided to make the sequel was because years later they had tried to make a sequel and couldn't figure out how to do it, and they really wanted another one. So they said to me, "If you give us a couple of cans of film with gremlins in them next summer, you can do whatever you want." And they gave me three times the money we had to make the first one. So I made 'Gremlins 2,' which was essentially about how there didn't need to be a sequel to 'Gremlins.'

That's brilliant. In making the sequel, Dante basically created a live-action cartoon, and it happens to be oddly relevant today thanks to the film's spoof of Donald Trump.

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