I didn’t know he was in Gremlins, or acted at all, and only know him as a song writer and the son of Mae Axton who co-wrote Heartbreak Hotel. Apparently Hoyt intended to write prose until he saw how famous his mother and her writing partner, Thomas Durden, became.
I think it depends on a person’s age. Younger people I’ve talked to know him as an actor. Most kids see Gremlins growing up. It’s easily and cheaply rented.
Older folks remember him as a singer/songwriter. One of my treasured LP’s is Hoyt Axton Live. A double LP I bought in the early 1980’s.
I didn’t learn he wrote Joy to the World until much later. It’s on his Live album but he sings it much differently than Three Dog Night. I can recall wondering why is this guy covering a rock song? 
Little did I know that he wrote it. Fortunately a lot of his music is on youtube for people to explore and enjoy.
Never understood why he didn’t have a break out career like Glen Campbell or other stars.
Brief hijack: the basic premise of Gremlins made no sense to me for two big reasons. Namely:
-
Hoyt Axton is shown as an absurdly unsuccessful inventor… but he had no trouble coming up with a wad of cash to buy the Mogwai.
-
Even if he DID have the money, the Mogwai was a present for a LITTLE kid, not for a son who was a grown man!
“No Hoyt no!”
True. I’m disappointed Jimmy Webb didn’t break out also. Goddess knows, he certainly helped Glen Campbell’s career.
I had no idea he had been in movies. Here’s my favorite Hoyt Axton song: “Officer Ray.”
He also did a McDonalds commercial for ‘Big Mac’ (Wikipedia says 1969) I just remember him singing the line “Would it be a boy or a girl? But it was. . . Big Mac!”
I had forgotten him in Gremlins.
I met him on several occasions at my brother’s bar and another club in the Nashville suburbs. Bro had met him on the set of Dallas: The Early Years where he played Aaron Southworth (Bro had a non-speaking role). His mom used to go to another club around town. Miss Mae and Hoyt were nice folks to be around and talented songwriters.
When I taught English grammar, Hoyt Axton’s Joy to the World was admired for the rare correct use of the subjunctive case “If I were the the King of the World.”
You can compress that leather with a couple nickels and a C clamp. one nickel on each side and tighten down the C clamp. Wait an hour and tighten some more. leave over night. The strap button should fit with no problem.
you only need a small 2" C clamp. a couple bucks at Home Depot.
So far, I haven’t had any problems with the nut on my strap coming loose. There’s only three threads holding it but it seems to work.
wow, Never Been To Spain is one of my fave songs
I posted to the wrong thread a couple minutes ago.
sorry… I goofed.
This.
When Ken Burns did his documentary on The Civil War there was an extra program called Songs of the Civil War. It featured many prominent folks singing songs from the era. Hoyt Axton sang The Yellow Rose of Texas. And they did it with the wording that specified that “the rose” was black. “She’s the sweetest rose of color/this soldier ever knew.”
Shoot, I thought I was the only fan of those songs. No one plays any Hoyt any more!
Love Linda Ronstadt, and I tend to sing When the Morning Comes if I’ve had a drink or three.
What about BONEY FINGERS!!?! 
I think he played a guy from “back home” who came to try and marry Jennifer in WKRP.
That was my first introduction to Hoyt. I generally dislike that kind of music, but I liked his stuff, it was much more folky than country-ie.
To this day, I still use “Chips are Falling!!!” in conversation.
I’m 36. Gremlins was a huge hit when I was a kid. Of course I remember all the characters. Not familiar with Hoyt Axton as a singer, though I had heard that bit of trivia.
I know about Glen Campbell and True Grit. Did not know he was in it.
This applies to me. I never rented it, but it made over $150 million at the domestic box office in 1984, and I have seen it on TV many times over the years. I see that in 1985 it made about $80 million in VHS rentals.
I place the Gremlins thing in much the same category as the Grand Central Station scene in Fisher King that had that famous musician in it. Obviously much less of a role, but he was n a few other movies (Lily Tomlin’s husband in Short Cuts, for one).
Tom Waits.