Five Things – 6.9.14

1.  The Goonies (Famicon) – The Goonies was released in 1985 and was, domestically, one of the top 10 performing movies of the year.  So it makes sense that a video game was created in Japan for the Famicom system and never really released or sold over in the US, right? The game loosely followed the structure of the movie, featuring levels like the Fratelli’s hideout, and the pirate ship at the end.  It diverged from the movie in its objectives, where Mikey uses things like bombs to open doors and rescue the other Goonies.  This default state of kidnapped Goonies would surface again in the much weirder Goonies II.  There were also tons of human-sized rats that had to be defeated, and the Fratellis were never far behind.  One of the Fratellis, apparently, was a music buff and would blast you with musical notes – you had to find a pair of headphones to minimize the damage the notes somehow caused.

The Goonies eventually did make it stateside, but not in a way that consumers could buy.  It showed up in those compilation arcade cabinets like the Playchoice 10 that allowed people to burn quarters playing a selection of Nintendo games. Seems like a huge missed opportunity not to offer this for sale on the heels of the film’s success.  Konami did release the much weirder and more awesome Goonies II in the US to much acclaim, but that’s its own story…   2.  Muppet Babies Happy Meal – The Muppets Take Manhattan introduced the idea that maybe the core Muppets had been together since they were infants through a musical number featuring the gang in a nursery.  Two months later, the Jim Henson Company and Marvel Entertainment released an entire cartoon series based around that concept. The success of the cartoon led to a brief line of toys featured in McDonald’s Happy Meals in 1987 and 1990.  And THAT’S what we’re talking about here.

Here’s the 1987 set, including the Baby Animal that was ONLY AVAILABLE IN CANADA: McDonalds evened the playing field with the second release in 1990, making it not just US-only but regional! This round had the Babies in more powerful vehicles:   3.  Space Food Sticks Knockoff – Remember Space Food Sticks from last week? Here’s a commercial for a clever knockoff called Space Energy Sticks:

 

4.  Scooby Pool – Then cool off (30 minutes after eating!) in this Scooby-Doo! pool that’s probably dripping with toxic chemicals:

Made by Coleco! Who knew?!

 

5.  Butter Cookie Cover – Here’s a 1960 cookbook for butter cookies that uses every font under the sun. Does it work? Is it awful? I can’t tell!     -ds