Fascinating Facts About The Goonies

The Goonies was a 1985 film by Richard Donner about a group of adventurous kids who discover an old pirate map and follow it into an underground cavern in search of treasure to save their homes.

If you’re on this site, then you’ve probably seen the film (and if not you can remedy that right now), but here are five fun facts you may not have known about the movie.

1. The map was speckled with real blood.

Production designer J. Michael Riva thought the prop treasure map looked too new to be so old, so to make it look more than 300 years old like the script called for, he spent an afternoon aging it. He poured coffee on it to sink in and make it look aged well enough, but he wanted to add blood too. Unfortunately, the prop department was out of paint, so in a quick bit of improvisation, Riva cut his finger and dripped his own blood along its edges.

You can grab yourself a replica of the treasure map here

2. The Goonies takes place in the same universe as Gremlins

When Chunk calls the police to report what’s going on with the Fratelli’s, the officer on the other end of the line recalls one of Chunk’s previous stories about “little creatures that multiply when you put water on them,” which is a reference to the movie Gremlins. It also doesn’t hurt that Steven Spielberg was a producer on both films, and Chris Columbus wrote both as well.

3. Data mentions a scene that was cut from the movie.

You may have missed it, but at the end of the movie when the kids were talking to the reporters, Data mentions that “the octopus was very scary”. But there were no scenes involving an octopus in the movie. His line was referring to a deleted scene that involved Steph and Mouth getting attacked by an octopus after they get off One-Eyed Willy’s ship. You can watch the deleted scene below:

4. The slide at the end of The Goonies was real.

The slide the Goonies ride down to get to the cave with One-Eyed Willy’s ship was a fully functioning waterslide! Donner and the crew would allegedly sneak in after filming wrapped for the day to ride the slide.

5. The Goonies reaction to One-Eyed Willie’s ship was genuine.

Towards the end of the movie, when the kids get to the bottom of the water slide and discover One-Eyed Willy’s ship, they are all awe struck. That reaction was genuine, as it was the first time they had got to see the ship. Donner had denied the child actors access to the massive soundstage where the full pirate ship was built. The scene featured their genuine reactions to seeing it for the first time.