The Second Greatest Music Video Of All Time

 

There are way too many awesome things that take place in Cyndi Lauper's music video for her song "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" than is possible to ever completely list.  Aside from being the Goonies theme song (which is super rad already), the music video they made for the video is the most insane, nonsensical, wacky, outrageous, brilliant video you will ever see.  I say that it is the second greatest music video of all time only because it is second to Michael Jackson's Thriller.  Although, it really is almost a tie in my mind.

 

Where do I even begin in trying to explain the greatness of this video?  It starts off with Cyndi and her "family" running a gas station, but they're in debt and the station is about to be taken from them by evil creditors.  Her father, once again played by WWF wrestler Captain Lou Albano (who also played Mario on the Super Mario Brothers Super Show), laments his financial woes to a picture of his "great great grandfather Captain One-eyed Pegleg booze guzzling mean Lou Albano" (which is a picture of Captain Lou in a cheesy pirate outfit).  Captain Albano apparently had a fortune of pirate treasure, but no one knows where it is.

 

Then the evil creditors show up, and they're played by WWF wrestlers "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, The Iron Shiek and wrestling legend "Classie" Freddie Blassie.  Arguing starts between Roddy and Captain Lou, and then for no reason whatsoever WWF wrestler Nikolai Volkoff rides by on the back of a truck as he's milking a fake cow and singing a song in Russian.  Then WWF female wrestlers The Fabulous Moolah and Wendy Richter start arguing and a bunch of Japanese chefs start cooking food from nowhere.

 

Perhaps in an attempt to get away from this craziness, Cyndi starts packing up the gas station that they're about to lose.  As she takes down the painting of Captain Albano though, she sees a huge gaping hole behind it.  She decides to explore this discovery and finds herself in a hidden cave where she finds a pirate skeleton with a map to the treasure.  All of this is helpfully explained for us by helpful subtitles that pop up and explain what things are as they appear on screen.

 

Now, just with the above stuff, this video already ranks as one of the craziest and coolest things ever, but we're only about 3 and a half minutes into this video, and it's 12 minutes long. 

 

Now comes quite possibly the best part of the video.  With no explanation whatsoever, and quite literally appearing out of thin air, the entire cast of the Goonies shows up in the cave.  Yep, that's right.  Corey Feldmen, Sean Astin, the kids who played Data and Chunk.  Hell, even Martha Plimpton and Josh Brolin are there.  And they've got a map too, so they start working with Cyndi to find the pirate gold.

 

Then, jsut to get the point across that this is a movie tie-in, tons of clips from the movie are played.  It's like a mini trailer for the film within the video.

 

The wrestlers then show up and kidnap the Goonies.  Cyndi is chased off by some pirates, and then there's lots of running around down in the caves.  Somewhere along the way, the wrestlers find some pirate outfits and swords and they begin chasing Cyndi.  As she's running, she finds that the mysterious japanese chefs are now somehow down in the caves too (complete with their hibachi grill).  She stops for a second to grab some food, and then the chase is on again.

 

Cyndi then finds herself on a set from the film  You know the one, where there's a wood log over a raging river.  It's from the scene where Data uses his slick shoes.  Anyways, Cindy finds herself surrounded on both sides.  To one side are the pirate WWF wrestlers, to the other are the pirates from the caves.  Not able to handle the pressure, Cyndi sits down on the log and starts crying.  She then breaks the fourth wall and cries out to Stephen Speilberg for help.

 

The camera at that point cuts away from the action to an editing room where none other than Stephen Speilberg himself is watching the footage of the music video.  He turns to the camera and says he doesn't know how to help her.  And then a narrator kicks in and the first half of the video closes to a cliff hanger ending.

 

Yes...you heard that right.  The music video has a cliffhanger ending halfway through it.  Name me one other music video EVER that has one too.  You can't!  You wanna know why?  There aren't any, that's why!  This is the only video ever with a cliff hanger in the middle of it.

 

As the video comes back, the narrator brings us up to speed.  Cyndi has been taken prisoner and we're now on the set of One-eyed Willie's ship from the Goonies film.  The pirates and the Wrestlers are getting along and working together.  Cyndi is forced to do manual labor, and her family is tied to the ship's mast.  We also find out that the Goonies have been chained up and are on the ship as well.  Things are looking pretty bleak for our heroes.

 

Then the octopus that was originally cut from the Goonies movie shows up and a giant tentacle starts to strangle Cyndi.  As she grabs a sword and starts to cut away at it, we see some new pirates on the ship.  These pirates are fairly young attractive women, and if you look closely enough, you'll realize that they're played by another 80's musical group...the Bangles.  Yes, the same Bangles who gave us such songs as Manic Monday and Eternal Flame are now dancing around in pirate garb with WWF wrestlers.

 

I believe we've just achieved possibly the greatest moment in musical awesomeness ever.  The Bangles, a bunch of WWF wrestlers, the Goonies, and Cyndi Lauper are all together on One-Eyed Willie's boat dancing and singing the Goonies Theme song.  They may possibly be too much awesomeness for me to handle all at once.

 

Luckily though, Cyndi's family and the Goonies escape from their bonds and the tide is turned against the evil pirates.  And then the treasure is found.  Some more movie clips are shown for no reason at all, some of the treasure is thrown to the Pirates to distract them.  As they're fighting over the greasure, Cyndi and the Goonies make their escape.  They get back to the gas station where Cyndi gives a bunch of the treasure to the evil creditors (who I guess aren't the same people as the wrestler pirates afterall, that's weird).  The wrestlers don't like the treasure though, and they turn down her offer of it.

 

In desperation, Cyndi whistles and out of an explosion of smoke comes Andre The Giant who is wearing a sort of Conan The Barbarian outfit, but with bright blue boots on.  Andre then proceeds to beat up all of the other wrestlers and runs them off from the gas station. 

 

As he leaves, Roddy Piper can be heard complaining about Stephen Speilberg and Richard Donner (the video's director).  Roddy's mad because, and I quote, "The video wasn't supposed to end this way!"

 

Once they're gone, Andre The Giant joins Cyndi and her family as they celebrate.  They've run off the wrestlers, stolen the pirate gold, and live happily ever after.  Although I'm confused as to why, if Cyndi could call up Andre The Giant whenever she wanted just by whistling, why didn't she do that at the beginning of the film?

 

But there I go again, trying to make sense of things that never will, no matter how much I try.  I should just shut up and enjoy the video for what it is,  the most insane music video that has ever (or will ever) be made.  God bless it!