The Goonies Octopus Scene

A lot people in my age group remembered seeing THIS scene in the movie and claim up and down that it was in the movie proper. There was always a controversy among movie fans about this scene and it still floats around today. Even I have read conflicting reports about this scene. People claim the scene was in the theatrical release, but deleted for many of the home releases. I watched this on HBO and tape and this scene was not in the movie, but was in the special features on the DVD.

IMDB and other sources claim this scene was cut for the HBO release. From IMDB, ((In a version broadcast on US cable channel HBO, several scenes were cut. These were back for the Disney Channel version, however. They include ))

Legends Revealed has a very good write up on the scene and I think this post holds true to the actual reality. From Legends Revealed, ((The scene did not appear in either the theatrical release of the film or when the film was released on VHS. However, a funny thing happened sometime in the 1990s. The Disney Channel aired the film and since the film had more than a few references that pushed the boundaries of acceptable children’s entertainment as far as The Disney Channel went, they edited out those scenes. After the edits were made, though, they wanted to make up for the time being taken away so they added a couple of deleted scenes, including the octopus scene (another notable deleted scene has the kids encounter Troy, a jerky local jock, at a convenience store. ))

The octopus does not hold up and looked silly even in the 80s. It seemed out of place with the rest of the movie's production. I also find it interesting that the scene was deleted from the final cut of the movie very later in post-production because the score was clearly written for this scene and the music for the player.

And, it seems odd in the manner they get rid of the octopus. Data shoves a radio/tape player into its mouth and it dances away from the kids. Why? It makes no sense. I know this was supposed to be a kids adventure movie with a bunch of random incidents happening to the kids as they went on their journey, but this is just plain strange.

The editors left the Data line about the octopus in the final cut too, which confused people.

And, I am not going to even talk about the even more obscure escaped ape scene which was allegedly filmed for the movie as well. With the exception of the these photos, there is little to no no footage of this subplot still in storage. Maybe it will turn up.

Here's another deleted scene that I and others remember being in the movie proper.