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The plot of The Goonies may not win any awards for originality, but that doesn’t stop it being a great example of the classic case of the evil business man who will bulldoze the homes of a group of kids and their families in order to build a golf course, or shopping mall or something, unless the parents can come up with an unfeasible amount of money to stop him. I forget exactly what the developer wants to build in this case, but it doesn’t matter as you’ve no doubt seen this plot a thousand times before. The kids, who call themselves the Goonies, find a treasure map supposedly leading to the horde of pirate One Eyed Willy. They decide to follow the map in a last ditch effort to save their homes.
Where The Goonies excels in telling this story is the wide variety of the misfit characters who work together to save their homes, the convincing back story, and the second set of evil comedy villains, the Fratellis, who follow the Goonies trying to claim the treasure for themselves. Everything gels together perfectly, as you would expect from a film that had Steven Spielberg, Richard Donner and Chris Columbus (no, not the explorer) behind it.
I distinctly remember Um Bongo being launched whilst I was still at primary school, as everybody would sing the TV advert jingle at the drop of a hat. Um Bongo the drink is a tasty tropical fruit blend containing 9 different types of fruit, and you can still buy it today. I must admit with the politically correct attitudes of today I’m surprised someone hasn’t found the name Um Bongo to be offensive and have it banned.
One of the biggest legacies of the original Star Wars trilogy will always be the way it changed the way in which film and TV related merchandising was considered. Obviously toys, books, games, lunchboxes and the like were tied in with films long before Star Wars came along, but the sheer range of merchandise branded with the Star Wars logo eclipsed anything that had come before.
Created at the tail end of the 1970’s, but repeated many a time on ITV’s lunchtime kids schedules, Chorlton and the Wheelies was a stop motion animated series with a catchy theme song that was all about the exploits of Chorlton the Happiness Dragon, and his friends the Wheelies from the imaginatively named “Wheelie World”.
Yahoo! It’s Buckaroo! A donkey doesn’t do what it doesn’t want to do. So went one of the TV ads for Buckaroo that I remember being aired as a child. Buckaroo involved a spring loaded plastic donkey that players took turns trying to load up with little plastic items such as a rope, a lantern and a shovel. They had to be placed carefully, as if you were too heavy handed the mule would kick up his back legs, spraying plastic tools every which way. Whoever triggered the bucking bronco would be pointed at by the other players and declared the loser.
In the mid-1980’s, Michael J. Fox was one of the most bankable movie stars, building up a loyal following of fans and a respectable collection of films to his name. Of these, the Back to the Future trilogy is undoubtedly the series for which he will forever be best known.
The Space Hopper originally appeared in the early 1970’s, and is still available today. The classic orange design with the big goofy face (apparently it’s meant to be a kangaroo) is instantly recognisable, and it’s the sort of toy that even as an adult, you can’t resist grabbing hold of and having a quick bounce.
Suggs and co., seen here doing their trademark too-close-together walk, are one of those bands whose songs you’ll instantly recognise whenever you here one. They have been variously categorised as a Punk or Ska band, but according to Wikipedia they are neither of these, but instead something called 2 Tone, which is a fusion of the two aforementioned musical styles. So there you are fact fans! Now you know!