Amblin Entertainment (distributed by Warner Bros.)

It's easy to imagine the 1980s as a time when everyone wore neon, all music was made on synthesizers, and Steven Spielberg had a hand in every single movie that hit the big screen.

The guy behind E.T. and Indiana Jones executive produced Gremlins with his Amblin Entertainment production company, making Gremlins the first film with the iconic Amblin logo. (Source)

But these fuzzy nightmareballs are about as far away from cuddly E.T. as you can get.

Not only did he grace the movie with his logo, but also Spielberg made a bunch of changes to the original script. (See our section on the screenwriter for more on the horrors that were too much for Stevie-boy.) Spielberg read Gremlins with dollar bills in his eyes, and wanted to make the movie more family friendly to maximize its profits. This meant upping the cuteness factor of Gizmo and cutting some of the more gory deaths in the script. (Source)

One scene that had director Joe Dante and Spielberg squaring off like Gizmo and Stripe was Kate's Christmas tragedy monologue. Spielberg wanted it gone, but Dante wanted it to stay. The director thought it encapsulated the film perfectly. (Source)

Is it funny? Is it scary? We're still not sure. All we know is that, thanks to Spielberg's changes, the movie became a huge hit for all ages…even if some of us slept with the lights on for three years after seeing it.