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 returned for a fifth season Wednesday, 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.”