Was Barney the Dog Secretly in Gremlins 2?

A lost friend hiding in plain sight

Introduction

Gremlins 2 is one of those movies where no matter how many times you see it, there's always some sort of easter egg hiding for you to find. Credit that to director Joe Dante's great sense of humor, but one of the big mysteries I had for years revolved around Billy's pet Barney, played by a dog named Mushroom.

Barney is a central part of the first Gremlins—a loyal protector and occasional target of the mischievous creatures. But when Gremlins 2: The New Batch hit theaters, Barney was nowhere to be found. Or was he?

Setting the Scene

There’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment about 35 minutes into Gremlins 2, as a taxi drops Billy off outside his apartment complex in a grittier corner of New York. The street is cluttered with trash, a glowing video rental store sign, and even a strip club on the same block— a far cry from the cozy small-town charm of Kingston Falls. As the cab pulls to the curb, a dog suddenly darts into frame, almost perfectly timed, as if it recognizes who’s arrived. The animal heads straight for a towering pile of garbage, digging in and eating scraps. Clearly it's a stray, barely surviving on the streets.

It’s a quick moment, easy to miss amid the noise and chaos of city life. Most viewers’ eyes follow Billy as he walks toward his building, exhausted from another day at the Clamp Center. But if you linger on that dog just a moment longer, there’s something uncannily familiar about him—the face, the coloring, even the way he moves. Did Billy and Kate bring Barney to New York, only to abandon him to a life on the streets?

It’s never confirmed in any official commentary, but the idea feels exactly like something Joe Dante would sneak in for fans who were paying attention. Dante is notorious for small, almost subliminal in-jokes and callbacks across his films—from reused props to reappearing actors (and, in this case, possibly dogs). Mushroom had gone on to appear in other films by the late ‘80s, including Pumpkinhead, but given Dante’s penchant for bringing back familiar faces, the possibility doesn’t feel far-fetched.

Joe Dante Answers:

So this was the question I had to ask Mr. Dante: was this scruffy street dog in Gremlins 2 a subtle in-joke, a callback to Barney from the first film? I reached out to Joe back in 2024 about this very mystery, and here was his reply:

“Hi Ian—

We thought of actually using Mushroom, Billy's original dog, but then thought people might think he'd been abandoned in New York! So we dropped that idea only to end up with a lookalike pooch supplied by the animal wrangler.”

So there it is—straight from Joe himself. The production did consider bringing Mushroom back for Gremlins 2, but ultimately avoided it to prevent audiences from assuming something dark and sinister had happened to Barney. Ultimately, swapping Mushroom for a similar looking dog feels less like coincidence and more like one of Dante’s trademark winks to the audience.