Last week myself and my wife decided that we would take the kids to the local drive-in theater to see Ghostbusters! My wife had a night off from work and we were ready to go...except the weather did not want to cooperate. It rained like crazy and we missed the opportunity to go. Upon checking the movie lineup the next week, we discovered The Karate Kid and The Goonies were playing! We had to go! The Goonies is one of my favorite, if not my favorite movie of all time.
You see, our family was planning on taking a trip to Astoria, Oregon this summer so we could see some of the sites from The Goonies in person. These would include Haystack Rock, Clatsop County Jail, the Walsh house, the Oregon Film Museum & Cannon Beach to name a few. Of course those plans were cancelled due to COVID-19, so getting to see The Goonies on the big screen for the first time in my life was a small but fantastic consolation.
It really brought back great memories for me and watching my kids laugh and enjoy the movie truly made me appreciate this film on another level. I can still remember seeing the commercial for this movie on TV when it was released in theaters all the way back in the golden age of 1985. I was five years old and saw these kids on an adventure that seemed like nothing I had ever witnessed before. The images of them sliding down the water slides was burned into my head.
My family rarely went to the movies at that time. There were 7 of us, so my parents probably had to take out a short term loan to take us. Therefore I never was able to view The Goonies on the big screen. It wasn't until 1986 when The Goonies was released on VHS that I would finally see it! My neighbor's grandma got him a copy and we watched it at his house. To this day, I swear the part with the octopus was included on this video!
Anyway after seeing this movie, I was immediately in love with it! Data was my favorite character and I even tried to create my own gadgets just like him. I use the word "gadgets" loosely because they included taking a piece of screen from a screen door and attaching it to the front of my bike as a bug catcher and putting a piece of twine that was used to wrap our Christmas tree up for transit up my sleeve so if anyone tried to kidnap me, I could eject it and tie up the would be bad guys. Not the most inventive, but still this movie captured my imagination in ways no other movie had before. The only thing that really stunk was that the movie I loved so much never had a toy line come out, but we did have The Goonies II video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System!
Finally, I was able to take on the roll of The Goonies in an attempt to defeat the Fratelli family and save...A MERMAID! Yup, you take the lead as Mikey and you need to save your Goonie pals from the clutches of Jake, Francis and Ma Fratelli by using weapons like yo-yos, slingshots and boomerangs before finally releasing the mermaid Annie from her watery prison!
This actually wasn't that bad of a game. Was it great, no. But it was entertaining and fulfilled my cravings for more Goonies for a little while. It would be many years before we saw the next big Goonies merchandise release.
It was 2007 when Mezco Toys released a line of The Goonies action figures. Sadly to say these came out at a time that I did not have the disposable income available to use on toys. Now if you check ebay you can't find a single carded or loose figure for under $50 each!
Luckily in 2014 Funko released a line of The Goonies ReAction figures. I really love these figures, because I feel that this is what we should have gotten back in the 80s if a line of toys was created. They just have the look and feel of a line created during my childhood. Our local Barnes & Noble had them on sale for around $8 each and I bought one of every character and they are fantastic! That takes us back to present day. I will always cherish these memories and am thankful for everyone who worked on this movie and brought it into my life. Maybe next year myself and my family can finally embark on our own Goonie adventure. Until then, at least we have Cyndi Lauper's song "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" to rock out to! ENJOY and always remember "Goonies Never Say Die"!
No comments:
Post a Comment