The Goonies As Narrated By Chunk (1985)

Friends, by the time that The Goonies hit theaters back on June 7th of ’85 – I was already equating Steven Spielberg’s name on a film as something I had to see. While I hadn’t seen Jaws in the theater or Drive-In of my youth, thanks to catching iconic films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom I was most definitely a fan of Spielberg as a Director. Then you had movies like Used Cars, Poltergeist, Twilight Zone: The Movie, as well as Gremlins where he acted as producer. So when I caught the trailer for The Goonies at the beloved Razorback Theater of my youth, quite frankly I knew there was going to be no way that I would miss seeing it on it’s opening weekend.

As I have shared before on this site and of course on the Retroist back in the day, while money was extremely tight while I was growing up, my Father always made sure we had enough to see a matinee on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Movies were and still are an extremely important part of my life – as much or perhaps even more so than video games and comic books. And while the ’80s had an astounding number of great films, sitting there in that darkened auditorium while watching the adventures of Mikey, Mouth, Data, Chunk, Stef, Andy, and Brand – something just clicked with me. Perhaps I was at the perfect age when I caught the film, but in my mind, no truer words were spoken about the importance of friendship and childhood than in that wonderful speech delivered by Sean Astin below the wishing well.

While The Goonies had a smattering of merchandise, an official movie souvenir magazine, storybook and novelization, a board game, and a soundtrack – the most impressive offering in my opinion is the Read-Along book and record. Released by Buena Vista Records in ’85, the amazing thing about this particular retelling of the events of the movie is that it is read by Jeff Cohen who played Chunk in the film – in addition to the fact it is from the viewpoint of the character too!