Gremlins: The Wild Batch, the second season of the animated Gremlins series based on the Amblin films of the 1980s, premieres this week on Max. I got to talk with actors from the voice cast and the creative team about Gizmo the titular Mogwai, horror movies vs. kid shows, the Chinese American roots of the Gremlins universe, and of course, karaoke.

Gabrielle Nevaeh (Elle), AJ LoCascio (Gizmo), and Izaac Wang (Sam Wing) form the youth + adorable cat/dog contingent of the show. Gabrielle is a familiar voice talent on numerous Nickelodeon shows, and would karaoke Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts.” Izaac recently starred in the indie feature Dìdi, and enjoys a singthrough of Keyshia Cole’s “Love.”

AJ doesn’t care for karaoke, but is the voice of Gambit in X-Men ’97, and graced us with one Cajun French-inflected line reading which charged this interviewer with little kinetic thrills.

Ming-Na Wen (Fong Wing) and James Hong (Grandpa) discussed the Chinese and Asian American touchstones in the Gremlins narrative, which starts in Shanghai and moves to San Francisco in the second season.

It was a pleasure to speak to Fennec Shand and Lo Pan, who between them have performed in every Asian American and/or Chinese American and/or superior Disney princess film and/or fantasy genre piece with which this interviewer grew up.

Showrunner Tze Chun (Gotham, Children of Invention) and writer/producer Brendan Hay (Robot Chicken) remark on The Wild Batch‘s spiritual alignment with Gremlins 2: The New Batch, the 1990 sequel film which was somewhat under-appreciated at the time. Gremlins 2, directed by Joe Dante, is wildly different in tone and concept from the first one, prescient in its sendup of TV/mass-media culture, and insanely hilarious. Tze and Brendan speak on their intentions to make Gremlins: The Wild Batch a similar deviation which both elevates and upends the origin story.

Also, Simu Liu is in The Wild Batch, voicing a charming scoundrel named Chang. Did I mention the show is a lot of fun and the voice cast is truly all-star? Ronny Chieng, B.D. Wong, George Takei, Kelly Hu, Keith David, Jimmy O. Yang, and Will Forte are also in it, for the love of Pete.

Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai is available now on Max, and Gremlins: The Wild Batch premieres on October 3.

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