LOS ANGELES — There’s a huge sense of joy filling every room of the Goldbergs’ residence. Of course, those rooms are a series of sets in various soundstages on the Sony Pictures Studios lot — but the excitement is absolutely real.
The cast of the ABC comedy The Goldbergs are happy not only because they are returning for a fifth season at 8 p.m. tonight, but also because all 95 episodes from the previous four seasons are playing in syndication. That means the antics based on the life of series creator Adam F. Goldberg — captured by him with his video camera when he was young — can be seen on a daily basis.
Not bad for a show that Goldberg — the real one and not one of the characters on the show — had balked at making for years. He had shown his home videos to Doug Robinson (who would eventually become an executive producer on The Goldbergs) and he immediately saw them as fodder for a TV comedy. During an interview before the series launched, Goldberg said that when Robinson had told him his TV idea, he rejected it.
Goldberg said: “I can’t. There’s no way. My family will kill me.”
So what changed? “I think what really changed was I became a dad and just kind of had perspective on we’re raising our kids so differently. And that was really the thing that changed. It gave me kind of a new perspective on how to do the show. And then, as a sales tool, to have those videos like that was kind of the final puzzle piece to show those in the room to everybody and get people excited.”
Viewers got excited enough to keep The Goldbergs on the air. What they have mainly seen is how the world of the ’80s looked through the eyes of a young Adam Goldberg as played by Sean Giambrone.
Many of the episodes have been built around big events or movies from the ’80s and the season opener continues that trend as Adam tries to give his older brother, Barry (Troy Gentile), the perfect girlfriend, even if it means building one like they did in the movie Weird Science.
Although Giambrone wasn’t even born until 1999, he’s had no trouble understanding all of the ’80s references.
“For some reason, I had already watched a lot of the movies we have used,” Goldberg says, standing in the kitchen set for the show. “I do like them. I did go back and watch Weird Science two weeks before we started filming. It helps to know the movies because we do a lot of re-creation scenes where we just change certain things and bring in other characters you wouldn’t expect.”
All of the time watching films of the ’80s mixed with the political and social issues addressed in the series plus the fashions have given Giambrone a real understanding of the decade. The young actor is confident that he has so much knowledge that if he were to be whisked back in time by a flying DeLorean, he would be able to “have a good time.”
Giambrone smiles and proudly declares that he went to an arcade recently filled with retro games and he racked up the high score on both Asteroids and Q-Bert.
Now that The Goldbergs has been released in syndication, Giambone can see the work he did those initial seasons.
“I watched the pilot and it really startled me,” Giambrone says. “I had no idea how big a jump I made as an actor from the pilot. I was 13 in the pilot and starting this season I have just graduated high school. I can’t believe how much has changed.
“As for growing up on TV, I have just let things happen. At the start, I was worried, but Adam told me not to worry about anything and that we would all get through it together. He told me that we were going to tell a more sincere story about what happened to him. The cast and my own family have been great. I just love telling this story.”
