Nostalgia for the Past: ABC’s The Goldbergs Returns Viewers to 1980s Culture & Television Stylistics

As I’ve said before, it’s hard for a sitcom to win me over.  This was the case for ABC’s The Goldbergs which debuted this fall.  As a product of the 80s, I was excited to see this much-promoted show packed full of 80s fads (rubik’s cubes, big hair, VCRs).  Although I only remember the later years of the decade with any real detail, the decade has always held a special place in my heart.  (I’ve always been a bit slow to let go of eras.  I was still listening to Madonna records, yes records, on my Fisher Price record player well into the alternative rock movement of the 90s).  So in love with 80s memorabilia, I once tried to purchase VHS’s “I Love the 80s” miniseries (only to find out it wasn’t for sale, big marketing error on their part).  So, I tuned into the first episode.

I enjoyed being transported back to the 80s with glimpses of television shows (Luke & Laura’s wedding on General Hospital), films (Ghost Busters), and toys I remembered (He Man), but for some reason the first two episodes of the show didn’t hook me the way that I thought they would.  At the heart of the show is, quite obviously, the Goldberg family and although no one character or relationship bothered me, none drew me in especially either.  So the series sat on my DVR for most of the fall.  But as 2013 drew to a close and my DVR queue dwindled down, I decided to give the show another chance and it was in this second attempt that I grew fond of it and started to appreciate how the show was operating.

What I realized as I watched the middle episodes of the first season was that it felt very different than the other sitcoms on at the present and that had nothing to do with the historical backdrop.  Or, maybe, in a way, it did.  What I finally realized was that it sort of felt like watching a 1980s sitcom in that it wasn’t as fast-paced and cynical as most sitcoms on today; it was instead heartwarming and positive (and even touchy-feely) in a way that reminded me of the great family sitcoms of the 80s:  Full House, Who’s the Boss, Growing Pains, etc.  While it is a staple of the sitcom to rest individual episodes around a familial problem that will be resolved by the episode’s end, this show almost always ends that familial problem with an emotional scene.  And more importantly, added emotion (and nostalgia) comes right before the credits roll. 

The premise behind the fictional series is that Adam Goldberg, the youngest child of three, is narrating his childhood as an adult.  A video enthusiast, he follows his family around incessantly shooting home videos.  The reality behind the series is that it was actually created by the real Adam Goldberg who did, in fact, spend his childhood documenting his family’s lives.  Ever the lazy pop culture scholar, I didn’t know this when I watched the first two episodes and the pre-credit video footage isn’t consistently present so it may not have appeared in the first episodes I watched (or, ever the lazy DVR fast forwarder also, I may have missed it).  But I first became aware of this connection when I saw one of these pre-credit videos on my second go at the show.   For example, after an episode about the father, Murray, a short video ran featuring the video of Goldlberg’s real father; after an episode about the new family, the Kremps, who moved to the block, real footage of Chad Kremp, Adam’s childhood best friend is seen; after an episode about experiences at the local video store, shots of the exterior of a Hollywood Video is seen with the epitaph reading “In Loving Memory of the Video Store, 1980-2013.”  I now eagerly wait for this scene before the credits because it makes for the perfect double dose of nostalgia at the episode’s close:  the sentimental end of the fictional narrative and the sentimental tribute to the family interactions that inspired it. 

The show also reminds me in a way of ABC’s The Wonder Years (1988-1993), the coming of age sitcom that followed Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) through the late 60s and into the 70s.   While the distance between these two nostalgia shows are a bit different (The Wonder Years was always looking back exactly 20 years and The Goldbergs is now transporting viewers back in time almost 30 years), the effect is pretty similar.  The Goldbergs lacks the subtle political commentary present in The Wonder Years (Kevin’s father works for a defense contractor during this cold war era and his love interest’s brother is killed in Vietnam in the very first episode), but the underlying longing for a simpler time (historically and developmentally) is shared by both.  In a way they are both love stories, not in the traditional sense, but love stories about childhood. 

In making the connection between these two shows, I was drawn to review how the ancestor show, The Wonder Years, ended.  (Thanks Wikipedia for always being a source of ever-so-available information):

The final sounds, voice-over narration, and dialogue of the series is that of the adult Kevin (voice of Daniel Stern), with children heard in the background:  “Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house, like a lot of houses. A yard like a lot of other yards. On a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back... with wonder.”  A little boy (Stern's real life son) can be heard asking his dad to come out and play catch during a break in the final narration. Kevin's narrative responds, "I'll be right there" as the episode closes.

Just re-reading that scene pulled at a heart-string and I realized that shows like this appeal to me because they look back on childhood through the rose-colored glasses that I long to look through when remembering my own childhood through aging photographs, diaries, and keepsakes.  They show the sunny side of childhood, the type I long to give to my little girls, and cast off the shadowy parts (at least by the episode or series close).   What do I get in watching them? A chance to smile slightly, murmur an “awe,” and remember ever so vaguely the wonder that was my own childhood.