I'm unusually excited about Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai which drops later this month on HBO Max.

I just learned that HBO Max is releasing an animated series later this month on May 23rd called, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai. It's a prequel to the original Gremlins film that came out in the early eighties. I have a few thoughts about this. The first is that the original Gremlins hasn't aged well. However, the bones of the storyline tying a mystical creature to ancient Chinese culture, has always intrigued me. So yeah, I'm going to watch this thing.

I'm sure that there are many people who won't be excited by this announcement. These are the people who would probably say we don't need to know anything about the Mogwai beyond what is presented in the first movie. However, I remember being a kid. And when I was a kid, I sure wanted to know more. Not necessarily about Gizmo himself, but I wanted to know more about what that creature does in the wild world. That being said, I'm also surprised an animated series with Mogwais as the main creature took this long to be made, especially with the rise of Dungeons & Dragons to regular pop culture and for fantasy films of all kinds getting huge budget treatments.

I for one hope that they answer the question of how the Mogwai's stay hydrated. As far as I know, living creatures need water to survive. So how does a Mogwai quench its thirst? As one of the three rules to owning one of these creatures, it seems like a pretty important thing to know. Maybe it will turn out that they drink blood or something like that.

Also, the "never feed after midnight" does seem like a time zone issue. I'm not sure how they will explain that one, but I hope that they do. Of course, the creators of this series are under no obligation to elaborate on the nonsensical rules for mogwai. Here's the trailer, if you'd like to get a sense of what this series is going to be like.