Gremlins: Mountain Dew commercial reteams Zach Galligan and Gizmo

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Fans of the Gremlins franchise have been waiting thirty-one years to see a new sequel, and while an animated series prequel called Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai will be coming to the HBO Max streaming service sometime in 2021, that's still not going to give fans what we want to see the most: the sight of Zach Galligan, back in the role of Billy Peltzer, sharing the screen with his Mogwai buddy Gizmo.

Thankfully, Mountain Dew has us covered. In a newly released commercial for Mountain Dew Zero Sugar, Galligan and Gizmo are reunited – and this commercial shows that Billy has started a family since we last saw him. He has a daughter who's reminiscent of Wednesday Addams and has a Mogwai companion of her own.

The Mountain Dew commercial can be seen below.

Galligan told Entertainment Weekly that shooting the commercial was a more emotional experience than he expected: 

There was a time when we were shooting the commercial, and we had a little bit of a break, and the puppeteer is next to me and he's manipulating Gizmo's arms. I leaned over to Gizmo and I was like, 'How are you doing, buddy? It's good to see you.' It was so realistic that, after hours of working with it, it has its own reality. I did get a little choked up, not so much about reuniting with the puppet, but more that it sends you rocketing back 37 years in a way that almost nothing else does."

He went on to say that he feels the animated series could pave the way for Gremlins 3 to finally go into production: 

You just simply have to look at the nature of the way large entertainment corporations deal with franchises and properties over the years and decades. It's not difficult to make an educated guess that the cartoon is a way of seeding the younger generation that's not aware of it. If it is successful, if it gets like Mandalorian-big, then I think Gremlins 3 is inevitable."

If there is a Gremlins 3, he feels that it would be 

exponentially easier this time around than it was the first time. The first time, if there was a wire or a cable or something [showing] you had to scrap the entire take. Now, if you got a great take with a wire or a cable you just CGI it out. So, my guess is, it would be five to ten times easier to do it than we did in '83."

While fans continue to hope for Gremlins 3, at least we have this commercial to enjoy: