A look back at events in the goondocks
Feb 2021: Click here to read more about the change in organizational leadership for future goonies-related events in Astoria, Oregon.
2022
The 37th anniversary of the release of The Goonies was celebrated in 2022 during the weekend of June 3-5 and beyond. The Oregon Film Museum prepared a “passport” The OreGOONIan challenge booklet. Fans then could perform at least 15 challenges in the booklet and return to claim their reward pin to show that they were a part of the 37th anniversary.
Additional special activities included:
* The Goonies at the cinema (both Liberty Theater and Columbian Theater showed the film on the weekend’s bookending Goonies Day.)
* Costume contest at the Liberty hosted by the Clatsop County Historical Society
* 80s Dance Party hosted at the Astoria Arts and Movement Center with 94.9 The Bridge.
* One-Eyed Willy’s Never Say Dive Boat Race at the Flavel House pond
* Heart by Heart concert presented by Ohana Media at the Liberty Theatre
* Photo Ops IN the Goonies Jeep
* and several more activities and specials were hosted by local businesses to mark the occasion.
2021
2020
June 7, 2021 marked the 36th Anniversary of the release of The Goonies.
The Oregon Film Museum and our friends at the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce prepared a passport of 36 challenges.
Fans could pick up The OreGOONIan challenge booklet from either location, perform at least 10 challenges in the booklet and return to claim their reward pin to show that they were a part of the 36th anniversary.
We also saw the early release of new film tourism app from SetJetters. The new app will help film fans find locations across the world and learn a little about the communities they are in, too. Oregon, with the Astoria area in particular, served as an early test region for the app.
The 35th Anniversary Celebration livestream on June 7, 2020 is available here.
The video features 3 hours of The Goonies-themed content:
Adam F. Goldberg Q & A - From filming a Goonies homage episode for his hit show The Goldbergs, to the rumors floating around about The Goonies II: Never Say Die, we can all safely assume that Adam is a bonafide Goonie fanatic. Check out the reveal of his current project in the first hour of the video.
Contest Winners Announced - People from all over the globe have stayed home and stayed safe and a few of them used their time at home to create magnificent machines in the Rube Goldberg Bar of Soap Video Challenge. The Great Goondocks Bake-Off, Costume Contests and Collector’s Spotlight invited fans like you to have some goonies-style fun while at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We were joined by Beyond the Backlot host and superfan, Curtis, throughout the stream. He shared the pilot episode of their show which was filmed here in Astoria in 2017 about filming The Goonies on location.
Additionally, the One Eyed Willy Treasure Hunt was available in person in Astoria from July to December 2020. A video recap of this fan-favorite activity is available in case you missed it.
2010 to 2019
At the urging of many fans, the Chamber hosted a 25th Anniversary Celebration which took the town by storm. With participation from several cast members and around 10-15,000 attendees the event was a great boon to our local businesses. The 30th Anniversary Celebration in 2015 attracted about the same size crowd and built on the same event schedule that was so well-liked in 2010.
The Clatsop County Historical Society developed plans to open the Oregon Film Museum, which would be set up to meet film fans’ specific interests and offer them a publicly accessible place to focus their film-based travel. The museum opened in June 2010 during the 25th Anniversary Celebration and has had fantastic attendance numbers since. The CCHS hopes to expand the Oregon Film Museum into an additional building in the near future. Keep an eye on them for announcement of a fundraising campaign.
With the rise of social media and blogs, the Goonies’ online community of fans and Goonies-based tourism skyrocketed. As visitors were increasingly able to plan trips online without ever interacting with the Chamber, requests to tread lightly in the neighborhood around homes used as film locations were often unheard or unheeded. While the house from The Goonies didn’t become an attraction in itself overnight, the continued growth was not anticipated. Although the Oregon Film Museum could draw traffic away from the house, it has been seen as an additional site to visit, rather than a substitute to the house. Visitation to the Goonies neighborhood, reached an all-time high in 2014-2016. Increased efforts to mitigate crowds and detour them away from the neighborhood during this time and continues today.
Photos from the 2010 and 2015 Anniversary Celebrations. Click an image to enlarge.
Annual Goonies Day was celebrated in the years between the anniversary events from 2011 to 2019. These events were much less programmed than the celebrations, but still gave fans a chance to come together and connect over their mutual love of The Goonies and this town.
2005 - 2009
It all began with a message board at thegoonies.org.
Fans of The Goonies plan a group trip to Astoria to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the film. What better way to celebrate than to meet in the town where the film that brought them together took place? When notified of the plan, the Chamber saw the potential for the general public to participate in the event and created the 20th Anniversary Celebration, held in June 2005, attended by several thousand people.
With the rise of the Internet, more websites mention Astoria as a great destination to see film sites and the interest in seeing our regional film locations grew.