Trivia for
The Goonies (1985) More at IMDbPro »

• The pirate ship was entirely real. All the shots were filmed in the ship, not on separate stages. After the film, it was offered to anyone who would take it, but sadly, no one wanted it, so the ship was chopped into scraps.
  
  
• Richard Donner kept both One-Eyed Willie's head and a model for the ship.
  
  
• Some of the crew members played extras in the film. One cameraman played Mouth's father. Another played the dead man in the freezer. And an assistant director plays one of the cops on the AV scooters on the beach at the end.
  
  
• During the scene where the boys are sitting in the living room watching MTV, they were not actually watching the Cyndi Lauper "Good Enough" video, which was to be developed six months after filming wrapped up.
  
  
• Anne Ramsey really does slap Robert Davi when the Fratelli Brothers are arguing. She was told to hit him as hard as she could.
  
  
• Jeff Cohen got the chicken pox after he got the role of Chunk. He showed up to the set anyway, afraid that they would have replaced him otherwise.
  
  
• When Chunk calls the police to explain about the Fratellis, the cop disbelieves him, recalling all of Chunk's wild stories. One of which involved "little creatures that mutate when you pour water on them." This is a reference to Gremlins (1984), also written by Chris Columbus and also co-starring Corey Feldman.
  
  
• Jennie Lew Tugend, assistant to director Richard Donner, has a small role as Data's mom in the finale.
  
  
• The number of times a character says the word "shit" (or its derivative, "bullshit") is nineteen, not counting the line "Holy S-H-I-T!"
  
  
• One scene of Chunk and Sloth following the trail of the other Goonies was added to the NBC TV showing of the film, even though twenty minutes were cut.
  
  
• The original poster art (not used on the video tape box) featured the cast dangling from the feet of another with the top one hanging on a rock. Some of the newspaper ads featured slightly different artwork with the characters drawn in a different order from top to bottom.
  
  
• The cast was not allowed to see the pirate ship before the scene was shot. When they did see it, some of the kids said "holy shit!" so the scene had to be re-shot without them cursing.
  
  
• The model ship seen sailing at the film's end has a miniature R2-D2 (from Star Wars (1977)) hidden on the deck.
  
  
• Director Cameo: [Richard Donner] one of the sheriffs on the quads as the Goonies exit the cave with the ship. He's the one with the gray hair.
  
  
• The last name of the brothers who are chasing the Goonies is Fratelli. Fratelli means "brothers" in Italian.
  
  
• The newspaper photo of Chester Copperpot is identical to the image that appears framed on Judge Oliver Wright's desk in Shock Treatment (1981).
  
  
• The newspaper article photo of Chester Copperpot is actor Keenan Wynn.
  
  
• Data's belt has "007" inscribed on it. He also listens to the James Bond theme before sliding on the rope over to Mikey's.
  
  
• The music played when the kids discover the tunnel in the Fratellis' hideout by accidentally pouring water down it, is the same piece of music played in The Great Escape (1963) when the Germans discover the prisoners' first tunnel by accidentally pouring coffee down it.
  
  
• Cyndi Lauper co-wrote the theme song "Goonies R Good Enough", and shot a music video that features a cameo by the film's executive producer Steven Spielberg.
  
  
• Producer Steven Spielberg directed at least one scene in this movie.
  
  
• There is a song on the soundtrack entitled "8 Arms To Hold You" by a band called "The Goon Squad." However, this song was entirely removed from the film because it was used during the cut scene involving the octopus. However, because the filmmakers were convinced the song could be a hit, it was pressed as a 12" dance single. As it was cut out of the film, it wasn't promoted at all and thus sold miserably. It is still one of the most collectable Goonie items to date.
  
  
• Mouth (Corey Feldman) wears a Purple Rain (1984) t-shirt throughout the film.
  
  
• In the scene where Chunk and Sloth head down through the grate to follow the gang and the Fratelli's, you can see that Sloth is wearing an Oakland Raiders T-Shirt. John Matuszak, who played Sloth, was a former Oakland Raiders football player.
  
  
• The kids who played the Goonies were allowed to bring some of their families into the final scene where they are reunited.
  
  
• In the scene where rocks are falling from the cave ceiling, Jonathan Ke Quan (Data) screams "Holy S-H-I-T", spelling the expletive rather than saying it. He did this because his mother made him promise not to use any bad language in the movie.
  
  
• In the scene where Sean Astin and Josh Brolin hug on the front porch, you can see director Richard Donner's trailer in the background.
  
  
• Josh Brolin's big screen debut.
  
  
• The clip of a film played on TV in the basement of the Fratelli's hideout was that of the film The Sea Hawk (1940); the music, however, was from another of Errol Flynn's films, Adventures of Don Juan (1948). This theme, written by Max Steiner, is again played when Sloth and Chunk save their fellow Goonies from the Fratellis on the pirate ship.
  
  
• John Matuszak's make-up took five hours to complete. One of the eyes (which was out of place on the face) was mechanically operated off-screen by remote control. Someone would count down from three to one and Matuszak would blink his other eye in synchronization. The cast was told not to get him wet in scenes outside of the pirate ship, but the kids inadvertently did so, holding up filming for an entire day.
  
  
• According to director Richard Donner in an interview with "The Directors", producer Steven Spielberg instructed the cast members to act cold and distant toward Donner on the last week of filming which puzzled him. Shortly after filming wrapped, Donner went to his beach house in Hawaii, ran into a frenzied neighbor who took up his entire day. When he arrived home, the entire cast was there with Donner to celebrate with a cookout. Spielberg flew them over to Hawaii on the promise that they not speak a word of the surprise to Donner, which prompted them to act the way they were on the last week of filming.
  
  
• At the climax of the film, Sloth pulls off his shirt, revealing a Superman shirt and the theme music from the Superman movies is heard. Richard Donner also directed Superman (1978) and part of its sequel.
  
  
• Scenes were mostly shot in sequence, with total production lasting for five months.
  
  
• For one line of dialogue, Corey Feldman had to dub in the name of fast-food chain Godfather's Pizza when Straw Hat Pizza refused participation in the film.
  
  
• Jeff Cohen thought of his mother dying to generate tears during his "confession" scene with the Fratellis.
  
  
• The Goonies Oath that was cut out goes as follows: "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."
  
  
• According to Sean Astin, he was allowed to keep the treasure map used in the film. However, the map was lost forever when his mother discovered it several years later, thought it was just a crinkled piece of paper, and threw it in the trash.
  
  
• In his first appearance, Corey Feldman is watching the first scene of Some Like It Hot (1959) while another car chase is going on in his backyard.
  
  
• One-Eye Willie's unspoken full name is actually William B. Pordobell.
  
  
• At one point in the movie, the character played by Sean Astin cries out "Holy Mackenzie!" Sean Astin's brother is Mackenzie Astin.
  
  
• In the original version of this film, the woman hired by Mikey's mother is a Hispanic named Rosalita (Lupe Ontiveros), and Mouth helps Mrs. Walsh by translating her commands into Spanish (of course, in Mouth's "odd" way). In the Spanish version of this film, the character is changed from Hispanic to Italian, and her name from "Rosalita" to "Rossanna". The Italian used by the Spanish dubber is much better than the Spanish used by Corey Feldman, which is clearly phonetically-memorized.
  
  
• During filming, Martha Plimpton made a bet with director Richard Donner that she would stop biting her nails. Donner paid up several years later, while they were doing the DVD commentary.
  
  
• The name "Rube G" can be seen painted on the contraption that opens the yard gate for Chunk near the beginning of the movie. This is in reference to Rube Goldberg, the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist who drew whimsical machines that achieved simple results in difficult ways.
  
  
• On the DVD commentary, Jeff Cohen (Chunk) claims that the confession of puking off the theater balcony is not based on anything in real life. This is incorrect. The basis for the theater story was a real-life prank pulled by Executive Producer Steven Spielberg while growing up in Phoenix, AZ.
  
  
• Robert Davi, who is a trained opera singer, came up with the idea where he sings to Sloth.
  
  
• During filming Steven Spielberg and Richard Donner sent the boys to the Dodger Stadium for Michael Jackson's Victory concert.
  
  
• Production Designer J. Michael Riva said in a National Public Radio interview that before shooting the first scenes with the prop map, he thought that it looked good but not old enough, so in his hotel room, he aged it with coffee and (when he couldn't find paint) his own blood.
  
  
• Near the end of the movie, Data says something in Chinese and Chinese subtitles are shown. The subtitles translate to "He is a big strong man".
  
  
• This is the first movie where the animated version of the Amblin Entertainment logo appears (rather than as a still image as part of the end credits roll, as in both "Fandango" and "Gremlins").
  
  
• During Chunk's (Jeff Cohen) confession scene, one thing he admits to is pushing his sister Edie down the stairs and blaming it on the dog. Cohen's real-life sister is named Edie.
  
  
• The bats were made of crumpled, black pieces of crepe paper that were shot out of an air cannon.
  
  
• More than 900,000 gallons of water was used in the movie.
  
  
• The oil substance shot out of Data's slick shoes was made of glycerin, water and food coloring.
  
  
• One Eyed Willie's ship, The Inferno, was 105 feet long and took two and a half months to construct. It was modeled after Erroll Flynn's ship in The Sea Hawk (1940). The sails required more than than 7,000 square feet of material and some of the ship's rigging was recycled from the Pirates of the Caribbean ship at Disneyland, which was undergoing renovations at the time.
  
  

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