Remembering "the Truffle Shuffle"

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I was the Truffle Shuffle (or at least saw myself like that), yet loved that move. Dozens of kids in the theater I was in identified with “Chunk”,Jeff Cohen, instantly, and wept inside as others laughed. I think I springs and foam compress as we collectively tried to hide from the discomfort inside our seats.

I always hold out hope for a good sequel, set sometime near present where some descendants of the kids become human beings during another adventure to save the town or families. Of course, this time around, half of them have to be the aggressors and cool kids and are humbled into becoming Goonie’s again, except for that one that betrays the group at the end, only to redeem… no they never redeem themselves. The betrayer may fix the problem in the end, perhaps seeing which way the wind blows, but the kids acknowledge that they may forgive but not forget.

I want to see a film where Data, Jonathan Ke Quan, becomes a character like his real self while visiting the town. I want somebody to ask where his accent went, and I want him to reply, “I grew up.” I then want somebody to ask him to fix something and have him reply that he is a fight coordinator not an engineer or inventor, and then bring up that they all grew up and changed. He then becomes Chekhov’s gun , plus some choice drop in dialogue about never being a valet to a university professor, adults not paying attention, etc…

I want the adult Goonies to be adults with all the worries and weirdness that manifest when one becomes a parent. I want them to be nothing more than supporting characters who at most have a minor storyline to distract the police or something while they give their kids a chance to be kids, and dream one last big dream, even if they fail. Perhaps, at the very end, literally passing a torch. I want the new kid Goonies to be modern believable Goonies, and I want the teens to be annoying teens until they look up from their phones.

I want a film for my kids, that will be as fun for them, but not be so dated.

I am also torn. Like so many memorable films from my youth, I am happy that there are no sequels, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want the world to keep on going beyond what was in my imagination. Extending a world can be a dangerous thing, but the original will always exists.

Goonies never say die!

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My coffeepot at my shop was named “chester”. Very few got the joke.

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Read a lot of Chekhov, but TIL. :slight_smile:

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What a terrible movie, I tried to watch it with my kids, and they were like “Dad, this isn’t funny, and the kids are all dicks.” And they were right. By the way, Gremlins is also crap. Don’t rewatch it if you remember it fondly.

And as for “they were all outcasts in some way.” Sure. But only one of them had to jiggle his belly before the douchebag kid would even let him on the porch. They were all marginalized, and everybody’s got to shit on somebody, and Chunk was fat, so it was Chunk. His nickname was “Chunk” for fuck’s sake.

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Rewatch the scene. Both of us take away that one of the kids is a jerk and one is being tormented. But I also see one kid stand up to a peer, a rarity both in real life and in movies. It’s not the kind of strong standing up I want my kids to do, but the only other character there voices their disapproval and opens the gate- despite the stronger personality’s wishes.

That’s also how groups of friends are in our lives, and currently were for me when I moved from a big city to a small town.

I’m not totally disagreeing with you, the movie has its flaws, but my family likes it. I still would love to see a sequel that acknowledges it’s short fallings and continues the Goonie spirit.

I should also note, my kids are still young. My spouse and I checked the film out of the library while waiting for our second to be born. We had fun watching it. We’ll see how our media consumption rules change as we all get older. We do watch Bob’s Burgers together, and from youngest to eldest in the room we enjoy it and talk about story afterwards, and sometimes we even pause to talk about what a better response or behavior would have been for one of the Bob’s characters.

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It seems like Sloth was Chunk’s only real friend in the movie.

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Cohen described the excitement of getting the daily shooting schedule with the rest of the cast thusly:

“Oh wow, the rest of the Goonies are going to [escape a booby trap/ride a waterslide/fight a giant octopus*/explore a pirate ship]! And I’m… still stuck in the basement with the monster.”

*(The octopus scene didn’t make the final cut of the movie, though you can hear Data make a reference to it near the end)

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Because it was kind of real, I guess? Kids were jerks to each other when I was that age, but you just kept hanging out. At the very least you were all united against The Adults.

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This “husky” 80s kid resonated with Chunk, and also always liked the exuberant abandon of The Truffle Shuffle.

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There’s a story there.

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Yes, the hero of the movie did eventually get off the couch, after listening to the entire exchange. When the cool kid rolls his eyes and gets up to rein in his loudmouth friend, its more out of annoyance than anger or concern for his other friend who is actively humiliating himself for the d-bag’s approval. The cool kid knows what the truffle shuffle is. He heard the d-bag demand it. He didn’t do anything. After a bit, it got annoying, so he ended it. You are right, that is how some groups of friends are, the powerful and the powerless. Those who walk right in, and those who have to abase themselves. It’s a goddamn shame, but this movie portrays it as the magic of true friendship. It’s bullshit.

A sequel that acknowledges the failings would be a tedious, unnecessary exercise. I would prefer that we stop confusing nostalgia for quality and move on.

I apologize, the above sounds angrier than the topic (or your friendly response) deserves. I just really bounced right the heck off of this movie when I watched it again.

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That is making the point I was trying to make better than I did above.

There is a HUGE difference between in group razzing - which as you said is a bonding ritual. And out group razzing which is harassment and bullying.

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i’ve never seen the goonies and refuse to start, suck it genx

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I don’t want to make anyone hate me but honestly I think I was more inspired by the friendship and bonding through the Dragonball Sagas and Sailor Moon, for better or for worse. I think I did see this film and I kind of remember liking it but not enough to make an effort to watch it again once I was older. It is pretty mean, it would be better if there was some inclusion of some kind of acknowledgement that “yes I was being an ass…” But maybe there is, like I said, I only kind of remember it.

Edit to add: Oh yeah and definitely Dragonball and Sailor Moon have some fucked up scenarios if you think about it. For sure. I guess either way I came to understand what I thought about those scenarios and why… and that’s what matters.

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This in no small part because the director of the Goonies film, Richard Donner, saw the real pain in that scene and took Jeff under his wing and helped him put a life together for himself.

Richard Donner is a fucking rock-star!

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Have you observed that something has actually changed since then? It’s a sincere question, since sometimes I do think so myself. Sometimes I hear kids talking or talk to them and can’t help but think how nice and sensible they appear. It goes against the expectations I have from my own childhood memories. And I’m not saying I was just a victim then, I was unfortunately a huge asshole to other kids as well.

My daughter isn’t old enough to worry about these things yet, but I would love it if someone who has kids at school age told me that there is indeed less razzing, playful or non-playful, going on these days than 30 years ago.

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I think bully culture is still firmly there, but I’ve got this impression that within “friend groups” specifically the dynamics have changed, on the average–probably because parents are more obsessed with crafting their children’s social lives, but also the kids themselves have more independent access to current ideas about the acceptance of differences. It’s probably just the optimist in me wanting to believe we’ve made some small progress…

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How old is your daughter? Mine is 12. Not being a girl, I was a little unprepared with how it works. My observation (and this is just my experience, so it isn’t a universal statement) is that girls early on form social groups and then it is a complex political dance of constantly shifting in and out groups. It starts out based on completely arbitrary crap. Like literally, “You can’t sit with us because you put a straw in your milk.” As they get older it will often center around activities, like a volleyball group, or a choir group. You will find a couple “main” groups headed by, for lack of a better word, “Alpha female”. These become sort of the gate keepers on who is “in and out”. What is really odd is I often hear people complain about the leaders of these groups as being mean and bossy, but people still want to be in them. I’ve even seen kids sorta admit they are difficult to work with, but the behavior doesn’t seem to change. It is really weird seeing kids who you thought were friends with your kid one year, be the complete opposite next year. The whole “mean girls” stereotype seems absolutely true, where there will be a clique whose function is to bring others down to lift them up (largely due to their own insecurities, IMO).

However, your kid will find a group or groups they do gel with, and within the group it is quite pleasant. It is like I said above, the in group teasing is way different than out group harassing. Especially if your kid has activity based groups, like music, or theater, or robots, or what ever. Their shared experiences and common goals and interests seem to be a catalyst of forming mutually beneficial bonds, vs seen as competition within social networks.

Now my kid isn’t on social media, but I have heard from people like Jonathan Haidt you want to keep them off of it until at least high school. In short, middle school aged kid are just the worst already. And with social media, they have more freedom to be monsters with less fear of repercussions and the ability to spread lies, rumors, and embarrassing things faster. And on the other side, the kid is less equipped to deal with these things mentally. They can’t shrug off a mean comment like adults or older kids can. They have no sense of self identity, and thus their peer group is their reflection of identity.

This isn’t just theoretical either. Haidt points out that there has been a very sharp increase in girls who practice self harm and attempt/succeed at suicide from ages 10-14 and started as smart phones and tablets became more common and affordable. Now this might be correlation, not causation, but he makes a pretty good argument that it is directly related. And Haidt has a sort of nuanced position where he thinks kids should be allowed to take more risks and be more independent in general. But about this specific issue it is best they don’t get involved until they are older.

Anyway - good luck. It should work out mostly for the best. Mostly…

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Speaking as a genxer, this is exactly the right response.

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She is one year old and she’s going to be in a group interested in robots, wearing pants with pockets with a knife and a multitool in them if I have anything to say about it :wink:

Anyway, that sounds not much different from what I remember, so my optimism may be premature. I’ll keep it for now until I have evidence to the contrary.

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