Fourth Draft script deconstruction - T-Bone to Funny Bone (and the gorillas I GUESS)

A Whole T-Bone Steak

Cutting back to our good friends Chunk and Sloth, here’s some interesting stuff in the Fourth Draft script.

Of course, as mentioned before, the iconic Baby Ruth bar was initially an Almond Joy bar. Something else interesting with the dialogue here is… something that people have been claiming for a long time is actually not entirely true! While it is true that Jeff Cohen was not expecting John Matuszak to pick him up (that they were meant to use wires to lift him up from behind the camera), his dialogue was scripted! Check it out:

Obviously not word for word, but the fact of the matter is that this was scripted. Fun trivia!

And now we come to the crown jewel of The Goonies’ Fourth Draft script, in my humble opinion. I present you, without context, with The Best Thing Ever:

That’s right. Sloth deadass just picks up a steak and eats the whole fucking thing. It is so incredible that I had about a ten minute laughing fit when I first read this with my very own eyes. Sloth just… eats a whole T-bone steak for no reason. Dare I say, he likes the cronch.

The icing on the cake?

THIS WAS FILMED. THIS IS ACTUALLY “LOST MEDIA”.

Frankly, if anything was to be recovered from what was known to be filmed, I would want it to be this. Fuck the leeches scene, fuck anything else in this script. I want to watch Sloth eat a goddamn steak, bones and all.

Please, Mr. Donner. Dick? Can I call you Dick? Mail me the negatives for this. I will give you my address. Let me own the only known copy of this scene. I will take very good care of it, I promise.

Not-So-Funnybone

Here we come to something that was a big setpiece in the film. Lots of our previous discussion has revolved around scenes that existed in the movie, save for some small differences (that are worth noting, or else this essay would have been for nothing!) While this does expand off of something in The Goonies (the pee break scene), it is far different in this Fourth Draft script.

In the room that contains the striking Skull Cavern, there was meant to be a large puzzle trap, with a riddle and everything. Three tunnels lead in different directions, but which is the correct one? “Tickle the funnybone” to find out.

For starters, this is actually meant to make Mikey’s story about his parents losing on a gameshow tie into the plot… loosely, at best. He sits there and says he “knows it’s door number two...Everything’s behind the second door….”

The funnybone they must tickle in question is one of the many bones on a skeleton seated in the center of the entire room. Mouth takes a wild guess and this happens:

This is such a goofy booby trap I kind of can't help but love it? But this of course begs the question: who is meant to reset these puzzles? But it’s just a movie, we should really relax about the logistics of such a thing.

While the boys are puzzling over this, the kiss scene happens, which honestly isn’t much different from the movie. Just some simple dialogue changes here.

Stef and Andy come out from that scene, which launches into something I already posted earlier in this essay. Stef is the one who solves the puzzle, by… well. Grabbing the skeleton’s crotch.

Good concept art, bad concept.

Readers, I am tired. Let me tell, you, it is one thing to read an original draft of your favorite movie and be disappointed with some things that were initially there. It is another thing entirely to watch your favorite character be used for the most obnoxious, unfunny bullshit throughout the entire thing. It’s not just a one-off thing, it is consistent. Chris Columbus just… really disliked her as a character or something.

I know a lot of the people criticize The Goonies for the weird casual racism, for the “haha fat character constantly eats and is the comic relief” stuff. Believe me, I agree! A good dose of criticism for even the things you like is healthy and necessary! But I do not think that, if the average person read this script, they would make it out of this alive.

Luckily(?), I am not the average person.

Our sloppy setup before pays off here… I guess. It’s less like a good honest payment for hours of work and more like, pocket change, a candy wrapper, and some lint. The skeleton, through a system of pulleys, because One-Eyed Willy (and Richard Donner) love them some pulleys, lifts its hand to point the way. It’s… the third door!

But you see, because One-Eyed Willy was blind, you’re actually meant to cover your eye and look and, if you do that, it’s actually the second door, holy fucking shit.

This would possibly be clever, if this wasn’t so messy and annoying. Maybe, just maybe, if the speech had been half the length, and maybe, just maybe, if the puzzle wasn’t this weird sexual joke, this would have been clever. But for whatever reason, this is just… the insult to top it off. Our shit sundae. Cherry and all.

Fuck your Door #2.

Oh yeah this happens

Sloth scares off the gorillas after a short game of tug-of-war. I wish that’s all I needed to say about this scene, but it continues. My god, do I wish it didn’t continue.

Bonzo and Bertha escape the zoo, and we cut to Troy agitating a gas station attendant. Somehow, the gorillas still retain their golf cart from the beginning of the whole script and have arrived, aimlessly driving into the gas station. They see Troy’s car and steal it in a fit of jealousy because red cars.

I don’t even know what to say. It’s a dumb scene. Aside from making Troy and his father completely unthreatening, it’s just filler. A theory I can offer is that Troy was conceptualized as being something more than just a rude asshole who bullies the Goonies, but when the movie transitioned to everyone being underground, Columbus wasn’t sure what to do with him. So, we got this, and I really wish we didn’t.