You might be scratching your head right now trying to make this work or thinking about what we could possibly mean when we say such a thing. But quite honestly likening The Goldbergs to GEICO commercials seems like a fair comparison since if you’ve watched either one then you’ve likely come to the conclusion that both are a bit, well, unique to put it politely. When you watch a GEICO commercial you get the sense that you’re going to be watching something silly, over the top, and possibly quite funny or at least in the realm of being hilarious since it’s designed to make you laugh and possibly forget that you’re watching something else entirely. That seems to be how some people feel about watching The Goldbergs.
It could possibly be that the Goldbergs are just a crazy family and over the top anyway since quite honestly their family dynamic is something that might drive a lot of people up the wall if they had to live with them for more than a day. But then it could be that being set in the 80s things were seen to be over the top on a regular basis sometimes and were simply expected to be, well, nutty in a very functional but dysfunctional way. I get it, that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but neither did a lot of the decade they’re emulating if you can remember. If you don’t recall then it’s because you were too young or weren’t around during that time, so don’t worry too much about it.
All in all though it does seem as though a return to the 80s is what some people would like to see in their TV shows at times since the nostalgia this brings on for so many people, Gen-Xer’s especially, is strong enough to serve as a kind of inspirational stimulant that keeps them glued to the TV for as long as it takes each episode to come and go. This gives you the impression that producers are at least paying attention part of the time to what people want since the shows that some folks tend to idolize and binge-watch are those that have to do with past events or have the same kind of thematic elements to them that make people want to sack out and spend hours and hours watching their favorite episodes. Even the 90s seem to be gaining this kind of attention these days since you can easily see the influence of the decade on movies and shows as they continue to come out, as though the material available here and now isn’t quite enough so we have to take a trip back down memory lane and see what we can dig up and create from what’s already been done.
Make no mistake about it, The Goldbergs has been implemented more than once in the past, as the format of their show has been seen in past decades in different programs and with very different casts. This is the trick that the marketing teams and producers and directors try to pull on us occasionally as they try to launch ‘new’ and ‘innovative’ ideas on the public. Those that remember the shows and movies of the past are usually those that say ‘here we go again’, while those that choose not to remember or just don’t recall at all what was happening back then might think that we’re seeing something exciting and fresh for once. And for those that weren’t around when the shows that were responsible for the current shows we have now first aired, they might never know the truth unless they look in the archives and decide to see for themselves where all the fun really started.
The fun part about new shows is that they definitely have a new take on old ideas sometimes but they also have enough respect for the shows that came before to include a few elements here and there that were tried and true and didn’t need to be changed so much. Thanks to this it’s easy to see how they can be reliable, faithful, and every bit as entertaining as the shows that helped them to even get to the screen in the first place. In a way the reliability aspect of The Goldbergs and GEICO kind of make them compatible enough to make that comparison as well, though some might think that it’s kind of a stretch to really put the two on the same playing field. It was an interesting theory to put forth however and one that might get a few people thinking in their own ways as their minds head off in different directions, down twisting pathways that might allow them to come up with even more interesting and hard-to-connect theories of their own.
