60 Fun Facts About Goonies

In which Oregon town is the film set, and where were its town scenes shot?

The town later turned the old county jail seen in the opening chase into the Oregon Film Museum, which opened on the film's 25th anniversary.

What is the name of the legendary pirate whose treasure the Goonies are hunting?

When Mikey finally meets him he lifts the eyepatch and finds bare bone underneath, which is why he got the name.

Which future Lord of the Rings actor plays Mikey Walsh?

It was his film debut at 13; his mother Patty Duke had played his abusive mother in a TV movie four years earlier.

Who directed The Goonies?

Spielberg supplied the story and produced through Amblin, and Sean Astin later wrote that the two men were like co-directors on set.

Which screenwriter, later the director of Home Alone, wrote The Goonies?

He wrote Gremlins and Young Sherlock Holmes in the same stretch before directing Adventures in Babysitting in 1987.

Why are the Goonies about to lose their homes?

The man behind the foreclosures is Elgin Perkins, whose spoiled son Troy is Brand's rival for Andy.

Where do the boys find the treasure map and the 1632 doubloon?

Mrs. Walsh warns Rosalita that Mr. Walsh does not like anyone up there, which is exactly why the boys go rummaging.

Which crime family uses the derelict coastal restaurant as their hideout?

Jake, Francis and Mama are the ones on the run; the fourth member, chained up in the basement, turns out to be the hero of the ending.

Which Goonie gets locked in a freezer and then abducted by the crooks?

He was on his way to fetch the police, but the car he flagged down belonged to the very people he was reporting.

What is Sloth's real first name?

He is the middle son of the family, chained up and much abused by his mother and brothers until Chunk befriends him.

Before playing Sloth, John Matuszak had been the first overall pick in the NFL draft for which team?

He spent most of his career with the Raiders and retired with two Super Bowl rings before turning to acting.

Which candy bar does Chunk offer Sloth when they first meet?

Chunk introduces himself first as Lawrence, adding that people sometimes call him Chunk, before tossing over the bar.

Complete Chunk's line as he abandons the group in the restaurant: 'But... I smell...'

The smell leads him into the walk-in freezer, and later Sloth finds him a tub of Rocky Road there.

Which flavour of ice cream does Sloth chuckle over when he raids the hideout's freezer?

The moment is one of the few in the film where the character gets to be gentle rather than frightening.

Which sitcom actor's real-life sister has a cameo as Chunk's sister on the beach at the end?

Cohen also showed up to work with chickenpox rather than risk being recast, and the spots are reportedly visible during the Truffle Shuffle.

Which Goonie is a James Bond fanatic who builds his own gadgets?

His swing across to the Goon Docks is scored with the Bond theme, and his 'Pinchers of Peril' save him from a fall.

Which language does Mouth speak fluently, which he uses to terrify the Walshes' new housekeeper?

His 'translations' for Rosalita involve drugs in the drawers and torture devices in the attic, and she concludes she is working in a madhouse.

Which future Oscar nominee made his film debut as Brand Walsh?

He was later a finalist with Johnny Depp for the lead in 21 Jump Street, lost the part, and the two became close friends.

After kissing someone in the dark cave, Andy asks Stef what question about Brand?

The kiss actually landed on Mikey, which Brand only works out on the beach when Andy asks what happened to his braces.

Whose skeleton do the Goonies find in the tunnels, still carrying candles?

The kids had already read about him in the attic: a reclusive scavenger who claimed to have the key to One-Eyed Willy and then vanished.

Andy has to play which unusual instrument correctly to keep the floor from collapsing?

After hitting a wrong note she protests that she is not Liberace, and Mikey warns that one more error will leave them all flat.

What is the name of the pirate's ship the Goonies find in the grotto?

The full-size replica was built on a Burbank soundstage and scrapped afterwards because nobody wanted to take it.

Why was the cast's first look at the pirate ship also their characters' first look at it?

The trick worked almost too well: the cast was so overwhelmed on the first take that the reveal had to be reshot, and the version in the film is take two.

Mikey tells the others not to take treasure from where, calling it Willy's tribute?

The Fratellis ignore the warning and grab that treasure too, springing the last booby trap and bringing the grotto down.

What do the Goonies discover their last 'candle' actually is?

The blast caves in the grotto, and it is Sloth who holds up the rocks long enough for everyone, Fratellis included, to escape.

Which item of Mikey's turns out to be full of jewels, saving the Goon Docks?

Rosalita finds it just as the foreclosure papers are about to be signed; the Fratellis had forgotten to search it.

Which sea creature is mentioned in the ending but only because its scene was cut from the film?

The deleted attack survives as level seven of the 1985 Datasoft video game, so players got the scene cinema audiences never saw.

Which singer had a top-ten hit with 'The Goonies 'R' Good Enough' from the soundtrack?

She later admitted she hated the song and refused to perform it live for years until Australian audiences in 2004 demanded it.

Which then-unknown band appears as female pirates in the two-part 'Goonies 'R' Good Enough' video?

Lauper was musical director of the soundtrack and brought her friends in; the video also crams in Spielberg and a roster of WWF wrestlers including André the Giant.

Which composer wrote The Goonies score, including the 'Fratelli Chase' theme reused in many trailers?

The score went unreleased for 25 years until a 5,000-copy CD in 2010; he won his Oscar three years after the film for The Milagro Beanfield War.

Two years after playing Mama Fratelli, Anne Ramsey was Oscar-nominated for which film?

That role, terrorising Danny DeVito, also earned her a Golden Globe nomination and a second Saturn Award before her death in 1988.

Robert Davi, the opera-singing Jake Fratelli, went on to play the villain in which James Bond film?

His Fratelli was shaped by his own ideas rather than the script, and he was in Die Hard as FBI Agent Johnson in between the two.

Joe Pantoliano, who plays Francis Fratelli, later won an Emmy for playing which Sopranos gangster?

He is also Cypher in The Matrix and Teddy in Memento, making him one of the busiest 'that guy' actors of his generation.

Ke Huy Quan, who plays Data, had played which sidekick in Temple of Doom the year before?

He was cast at 13 after auditions at his elementary school, where his younger brother was also tried out.

For which 2022 film did Ke Huy Quan win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor?

He was the first Vietnam-born actor to win an Oscar, after a 19-year hiatus from acting spent as a stunt choreographer and assistant director.

Which fellow Goonie negotiated Ke Huy Quan's contract for his Oscar-winning role?

The former Chunk co-founded a Beverly Hills law firm in 2002 and was in the audience when Quan called him his 'Goonies brother for life' from the Oscar stage.

Who paid for the college education of the actor who played Chunk after reading his application notes?

Cohen had only asked the director for a recommendation letter; he went on to Berkeley and then UCLA law school.

Which real building is the lock-up Jake Fratelli escapes from at the start of the film?

The Flavel House does appear too, as the museum where Mikey's father works, and the jail became the Oregon Film Museum in 2010.

The Goonies bike to Ecola State Park and use which landmark to find the map's starting point?

The coastal scenes were shot at Cannon Beach, a considerable drive south despite looking like a short bike ride.

Where were the underground cave scenes, including the ship grotto, filmed?

The ship set stood on Stage 16, one of the largest soundstages in the United States, while the final beach scene was shot at Goat Rock in Sonoma County.

Which 1985 release beat The Goonies to the top of the box office on its opening weekend?

The film still finished among the top ten of the year in North America and took $125 million worldwide on a $19 million budget.

In which year was The Goonies added to the National Film Registry?

The Library of Congress selects films it judges culturally, historically or aesthetically significant, and this one qualified 32 years after release.

Which pop-punk band titled their fourth album after the film's Oregon setting, calling it 'So Long, ...'?

Marianas Trench went one better with an album simply called Astoria and a tour named 'Hey You Guys!!'.

Who was announced in February 2025 as the screenwriter of The Goonies 2?

Spielberg and Columbus are producing after four decades of on-again, off-again sequel talk that Corey Feldman once flatly declared would never happen.

What is Chunk's real name?

Jeff Cohen, who played him, became an entertainment lawyer; his chickenpox is visible during the Truffle Shuffle.

What is visible on Jeff Cohen's chest during the Truffle Shuffle scene?

He was ill during filming; Richard Donner later called the scene 'painful' to shoot.

Which Goonie is played by Corey Feldman?

Clark 'Mouth' Devereaux was one of a run of Feldman hits with Gremlins, Stand by Me and The Lost Boys.

Martha Plimpton, who plays Stef, is the daughter of which actor?

She later won an Emmy as a guest actress on The Good Wife and was nominated for Raising Hope.

How long did John Matuszak's Sloth makeup take to apply each day?

The character required a mechanically operated eye; Matuszak died in 1989 at just 38.

What does Mikey and Brand's father do for a living?

Which explains the treasure map and doubloon in the attic.

What happens to the pirate ship in the film's final shot?

The families watch from the beach as One-Eyed Willy finally gets his voyage.

Roughly how much did The Goonies take worldwide on its $19M budget?

About $64 million came from North America; the film has grown far bigger on video and TV than it was in cinemas.

On what date was The Goonies released in the United States?

Astoria's annual celebrations around the anniversary have drawn 10,000 to 15,000 visitors.

Which of these was NOT filmed in the same Oregon town as The Goonies?

Stand by Me was shot around Brownsville, Oregon; the other three all used Astoria after The Goonies put it on the map.

The 1985 film got a licensed Famicom/NES follow-up game from Konami called what?

Konami's sequel game arrived on the NES in 1987 even though no film sequel existed; a Datasoft home-computer game had come out in 1985.

Which company produced The Goonies?

Spielberg's company was on a roll: Gremlins and Back to the Future bracketed The Goonies within a year.

Andy, the cheerleader who joins the Goonies, is played by which actress?

Green had just been in Summer Rental and went on to Lucas with Corey Haim.

The Goonies' director married which film producer in November 1985, the year the film came out?

Lauren Shuler Donner went on to produce the X-Men films; Donner directed Lethal Weapon two years later.

Which member of the crew has an uncredited cameo as the sheriff's deputy in The Goonies?

Cinematographer Nick McLean also pops up as Mouth's father, and stuntman Ted Grossman played the murdered FBI agent.

Anne Ramsey won which honour for playing Mama Fratelli?

Sean Astin also picked up a Youth in Film Award as Best Starring Young Actor for his turn as Mikey.