Movie Morsel: Double Feature (Ghostbusters and The Goonies)

I was thinking back to my childhood and how much fun it was to go to the local Colonia Movie Theatre and see movie with friends. We lived in the country, so going to the movie with friends was a rare occurrence for us, usually having to wait for our parents to drive us to see movies at night. There were, however, a few summers where we spent the weeks in town at a babysitter while my parent were at work. This was back in the days when they didn’t regulate how many kids could go to one babysitter, and ours watched a total of 24 kids ranging from newborn to 14. You’d think it would have been chaos, but this lady managed us all and I still feel a great affection for her to this day. It was nice for me, who had been isolated in the country with just my siblings, to have some kids around my age to pal around with. There were about ten of us who had a great time together. One summer, I believe it must have been the summer of 1985, we went to what we referred to as “The Double G Double Feature.” The movie theatre was showing, back to back, Ghostbusters and The Goonies. Could there be a better way for a kid in the 80s to spend their afternoon than watching these two films?

Ghostbusters had come out a year earlier and most of us had seen it by then. I think it was the law that you had to see it and learn the inanely repetitious theme song. For whatever reason, it was being rerun that summer. The Goonies, however, had been released in June of '85. Nerds on an underground adventure with pirate ships, treasure maps, and a Cyndi Lauper theme song? Yes PLEASE! It was the 80s after all, and we embraced such adventures for the escapism and leg warmers that they could provide.

I’m not really sure why I felt the need to tell you all about this special day at the movies, but the twelve-year-old in me has kept that memory alive. When you think back on those special days of childhood moviegoing, they really establish a time and place of nostalgia. It was just one of those perfect days augmented by cinematic fun. The idealism of our childhood memories is almost as magic as the movies themselves. Maybe that is why they go so beautifully hand in hand.