As parodied in the holiday classic Jingle All the Way, a staple of each and every Christmas season is the “it” toy of that year – the one that kids demand and parents break their backs trying to find. In 1998, the hottest holiday toy on shelves was the Furby, an electronic pet released by Hasbro company Tiger Electronics. Millions of Furbies were sold that year, and heavy sales continued well into the 2000s.
With massive eyes and ears, furry bodies, and beak-like mouths, Furbies looked like colorful owls, and it’s not hard to see why they became such a mega hit. For parents who weren’t quite ready to adopt actual pets, Furbies served as the perfect way to temporarily satiate that desire in their kids; and they allowed for children to get a little taste of what it was like to take care of an actual living creature.
But despite how groundbreaking the Furby line was, paving the way for similar domestic robots, there was something decidedly familiar about the furry little monsters. It didn’t take long for consumers to recognize that Furbies looked a whole lot like the loveable Gizmo from Joe Dante’s Gremlins, and Hasbro found themselves potentially facing legal trouble when Warner Bros. came knocking at their door.
That’s when things got really interesting.
The movie studio, who noted at the time that they had a good working relationship with Hasbro, didn’t sue the toy-makers but rather partnered with them, in 1999 releasing a special Furby that was directly modeled after Gizmo. Advertised as featuring “the actual voice of Gizmo,” the mash-up toy was reportedly limited to 250,000 pieces worldwide.
The release of a branded Gremlins Furby confirmed suspicions that Hasbro stole the design from the film, and the toy itself made the comparison unmistakable. A color change and the addition of arms and legs was all it took to turn the robotic pet into what was instantly recognizable as a Gizmo toy, and most consumers were completely oblivious to the behind the scenes drama that resulted in its creation.
Joe Dante himself addressed the controversy in an Ask-Me-Anything session on Reddit back in 2015, confirming the Gizmo Furby origin story when asked by a fan for his thoughts on the late ’90s toy line.
“Funny you should ask,” Dante responded. “Producer Mike Finnell and I noticed a certain similarity between Furby and Mogwai, and pointed it out to Warner Bros. Soon there was a Gizmo Furby for sale and, no doubt, some settlement money changed hands.”
Hasbro promoted the limited edition Furby with a fun commercial (below), recreating the scene from Gremlins where Rand Peltzer comes into possession of Gizmo. Though the small screen advertisement laid out the guidelines of owning a gremlin, the toy responded to the same stimuli as traditional Furbies, able to communicate with the push of a button on his chest and interact with all other models.
Given their limited nature, it’s not very common to come across a Gizmo Furby these days, though a search on eBay at any given time will turn up a handful of the toys. At the time of writing this, they’re selling for upwards of $200 mint-in-box, while loose ones starting at around $50. Needless to say, the toy was a real treat for Gremlins fans, going down in history as a fascinating relic of horror history.
Of all the Gremlins toys over the years, Gizmo Furby is easily the most must-own.