14 Fun Facts About THE GOONIES
Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the classic 1985 Richard Donner and Steven Spielberg film The Goonies. This movie is loved by so many people, both young and old. No matter how many times I’ve seen it, I still enjoy the hell out of it. It always makes me laugh. In celebration of it being around for thirty years, I put together a fun facts list with some information about the film you may or may not already know.
A lot of the information that you read here comes from Imdb, but you can find even more information on the film here. I’ve also included several videos from the film as well. Enjoy a lot of the Goonies greatness that the internet has to offer!
- There was a Goonies Oath that was written for the film, but cut out. This is that oath: "I will never betray my goon dock friends / We will stick together until the whole world ends / Through heaven and hell, and nuclear war / Good pals like us, will stick like tar / In the city, or the country, or the forest, or the boonies / I am proudly declared a fellow Goony."
- The actor who played Chunk, Jeff Cohen, got the chicken pox after he landed the role in the film. He showed up to the set anyway, because he was afraid that they would have replaced him.
- The cast was not allowed to see the fully built pirate ship before they were shooting on it. Donner wanted to catch the genuine reactions at the size and scope of it on film. So the first time they saw it was when they shot out of the waterslides into the huge soundstage where they ship was set up in a large pool of water.
- The late Corey Haim auditioned for the role of Mouth, which eventually went to Corey Feldman. The two actors had not yet met at the time, but they were later cast together in The Lost Boys (1987) and became best friends, starring in 6 more movies together.
- Apparently One-Eyed Willy's skull was an actual human skull. Rumor has it the cast list for the film listed the skeleton of One-Eyed Willy was a man called Raul Woo, who died from lead poisoning.
- The story that Chunk tells about throwing up off a movie theater balcony was inspired by a real-life prank Spielberg pulled when he was growing up as a kid.
- In the storybook of the film, One-Eyed Willy's backstory is revealed. It was told to Chunk by Francis Fratelli, when the Fratellis take the doubloon from him. One-Eyed Willy’s real name is William B. Pordobel, and he was a court jester, “before becoming an ingenious pirate, when he was banished from five Spanish courts for his practical jokes and formed a band of pirates, whom marauded hundreds of the king's ships and accumulated a treasure worth millions. But, Willy's ship ‘Inferno’ was attacked by three of the King's ships and Willy steered his ship into a hidden underground cavern and was sealed within by the canon fire from the British. Willy and his men had spent a couple of years trying to repair the ship and had built underground caves with weird booby traps to protect the treasure and one of Willy's men escaped to tell Willy's story, which became a legend.”
- When NBC first broadcast the film on TV, they added a scene of Chunk and Sloth following the trail of the other Goonies, which wasn’t in the film. But they ended up cutting out 20 minutes of the film. You can watch that scene below:
- Sean Astin said he was allowed to keep the treasure map used in the film when shooting was complete. Several years later, his mom, Patty Duke, came across it and thought it was just trash, so she threw it away. Nooooooooooo!
- Spielberg’s Gremlins was referenced in the film when the sheriff was talking to Chunk about making up stories of little monsters that multiply with water. Here’s a little fan film that was created around that scene:
- Donner unintentionally started giggling when they filmed the scene where Chunk starts crying after the ice cream spoon is taken from him. If you listen carefully, you can hear the director giggling off-screen.
- Right before the cooler breaks in the basement, Mikey calls Brand "Josh." The actor who played Brand in the film was Josh Brolin.
- According to international maritime salvage law, the rights to a salvage vessel and its contents go to the person or persons who first successfully bring something off the vessel in question. Since Mikey brought the jewels off the ship, the Inferno and everything on it belongs to him.
- There was a scene shot with the pirate ship that featured an octopus trapping some of the Goonies underwater. It didn’t make the final cut of the film, but you can watch it below:
Below you’ll find the original trailer for the film, the music video that was shot with Cindy Lauper, and a video featuring some more deleted scenes and outtakes.