Fifinella

Fifinella was a female gremlin designed by Walt Disney for a proposed film from Roald Dahl's book The Gremlins. During World War II, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) asked permission to use the image as their official mascot, and the Disney Company granted them the rights.

The story of Fifinella began in 1942 when Roald Dahl, who had been removed from flying with the RAF due to injury, wrote The Gremlins, a fairy tale about the hazards of combat flying; in this incarnation, the word "fifinella" only refers to female gremlins as opposed to any specific one. Dahl took the name from the great "flying" filly, Fifinella, who won the Epsom Derby and Epsom Oaks in 1916, the year Dahl was born.

Gremlins were imaginary beings endowed with potent magical powers. According to the lore, these mischievous, elf-like creatures were responsible for all kinds of mechanical failures and other problems. They would also be there to tickle the pilots and bombardiers right at the moment they were lined up for a good run, threatening them with last-second errors of judgment. At first, these gremlins were seen as enemy agents, but it was realized that they played their pranks anywhere, anytime, on anyone — regardless of nationality. Although gremlins predated Murphy's Law that "whatever can go wrong, will", they were obviously motivated by the same principles.

The Gremlins is a children's book, written by Roald Dahl. It was published in 1943 by Random House for Walt Disney and serialized in Cosmopolitan. It was Dahl's first children's book, and was written for Walt Disney Productions, as a promotional device for a feature-length animated film that was never made. With Dahl's assistance, a series of gremlin characters was developed, and although pre-production began, the film project was eventually abandoned, in part because the studio could not establish the precise rights of the "gremlin" story, and in part because the British Air Ministry, which was heavily involved in the production because Dahl was on leave from his wartime Washington posting, insisted on final approval of script and production.

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