It's one of the most fondly remembered and easily rewatchable movies of all time, so
tear open a Baby Ruth and never say die as you uncover some things you may not have known
about The Goonies.
Just before filming was scheduled to begin, Jeff Cohen, who played Chunk, came down with
a nasty case of the chicken pox. He reported to the set anyway, fully ready to work, fearing
that if he delayed the production with his sickness, the director would just recast his
role. Cohen kept the pox hidden until he had to lift up his shirt to do the "Truffle Shuffle"
for the first time which revealed the telltale spots.
"Come onnnn."
"Do it!"
Cohen's health improved, but he still had a hard time on set. He was self-conscious
about his weight, made worse because his character was almost always eating. Cohen particularly
lamented Chunk's whipped cream scene.
"Oh God, am I depressed."
The actor estimates that he had to do 50 takes of the bit, which meant 50 mouthfuls of cream.
J. Michael Riva served as the production designer on the film. The prop department had lovingly
crafted the movie's vitally important pirate treasure map, but Riva thought that it looked
too new. Since the movie was shooting on location in Oregon, he was limited in terms of the
materials he had on hand to age the paper, so he started by dumping coffee on it.
That made it look old, but he still thought it wasn't authentic enough. It was missing
something that would make it look truly like a pirate's treasure map: blood. The prop squad
didn't have a shade of red he liked, so Riva literally took matters into his own hands.
He told NPR:
"We actually had to cut our fingers and edge the sides of it with blood. You do these crazy
things. You get so into it."
The pirate ship that looms large in The Goonies is called The Inferno. As big as a real seaworthy
vessel, it was modeled after the ship in the classic Errol Flynn swashbuckler The Sea Hawk.
The Inferno was more than 100 feet long, with sails made up of more than 7,000 square feet
of fabric. Some of the riggings were recycled from Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean
ride, which was being remodeled at the time The Goonies was in production. It took two
and a half months to construct The Inferno, so the hype about what it would look like
was a feverish discussion topic on set.
Director Richard Donner made sure that none of the main cast saw the ship until the exact
moment their characters did. He wanted the reactions of excitement and awe he filmed
to be genuine.
"What?"
"Oh my god."
Josh Brolin, who played Brand, was indeed impressed. When he saw The Inferno for the
first time, he broke character and swore. The take was ruined, and another not-quite-authentic
reaction shot was filmed.
Before License to Drive, The Lost Boys, Dream a Little Dream, and the reality show The Two
Coreys, teen idols Corey Haim and Corey Feldman were just individual Coreys, going about their
business as child actors in Hollywood. They were often up for the same roles in the same
movies such as The Goonies.
The two Coreys actually met each other for the first time in the waiting room of Steven
Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, the company producing the movie. Both Coreys were up for
the part of Mouth. Feldman, of course, got the part, while Haim did not. But at least
he made a friend... and landed Haim his own breakthrough role at about the same time.
The Goonies has a little something for everyone adventure, action, comedy, and even some innocent
romantic moments. The script called for a kiss between older teen Andy, played by Kerri
Green and Sean Astin's young Mikey. In reality, Green was also older than Astin, by a difference
of about four years.
She dreaded the kiss, not because there was anything wrong with Astin, but because as
an 18-year-old adult woman — appearing in her first movie, no less — she felt creepy
having to kiss a 13-year-old boy. She jokingly likened it to a criminal offense to Seventeen
and said:
"The two of us were so scared."
It wasn't much easier for Green to film her kissing scene with the more age-appropriate
Josh Brolin either. The actress later told People:
"It's the time of your life when you are the most self-conscious anyway. Then you're being
filmed and you have to kiss Josh Brolin just humiliating!"
Today, re-experiencing a favorite film is easy. All you have to do is wait a few months,
and you can watch the DVD or stream it to your heart's content.
"Goonies never say die!"
Not so for the early VHS era. In the mid-'80s, when The Goonies was released, a VHS copy
of a movie could be expensive. On the other hand, novelizations were cheap.
Novelizations were once a major part of a movie's promotional arsenal. But to make sure
they were on shelves when a movie was in theaters, novelizations were written when the movies
were still in production. Novelization writers often wrote from an early version of a screenplay,
before scenes are cut out of the finished movie entirely. In the novelization of The
Goonies, there are some big extras that didn't quite make it to the screen, particularly
a lengthy epilogue. In the book, it's revealed that Chunk's family adopts Sloth. They even
throw him a bar mitzvah.
Sure, there was never an official, big-screen sequel to The Goonies, but the film is part
of a broader cinematic universe. There's no GCU or anything like that, but a quick, comic
scene in the movie connects The Goonies to the Gremlins franchise. When Chunk is trapped
with Sloth in the Fratellis' hideaway, he finds a way to call the police. These authorities
are of little help to poor Chunk.
"Just like that last prank about all those little creatures that multiply when you throw
water on them?"
Those critters are of course the mogwai from Gremlins, which multiply if they get wet.
Gremlins, like The Goonies, was a Steven Spielberg production, and Chris Columbus wrote the screenplays
for both movies. Complicating matters is how Corey Feldman appeared in both as well. Before
portraying a Goonie named Mouth, he was Pete, the first person who spilled water on a mogwai
in Gremlins.
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