TV

The new ‘Gold’ standard for family TV comedy

For decades, family-oriented prime-time sitcoms have been an audience-grabbing staple for networks.

Shows like “The Brady Bunch,” “All in the Family,” “The Cosby Show,” “Roseanne” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” were considered destination TV for the whole family.

This season, though, the genre is taking a hit. NBC has already canned three homey comedies — “The Michael J. Fox Show,” “Welcome to the Family” and “Sean Saves the World” — and ABC’s ratings-challenged “Trophy Wife” is likely a goner.

But one show — ABC’s sweetly nostalgic “The Goldbergs” — stands out from the dwindling pack. It recently pulled more viewers than an episode of the edgy Fox comedy “New Girl” in its first post-Super Bowl airing.

“The Goldbergs” recalls the early adolescence of creator and executive producer Adam F. Goldberg and the antics of his dysfunctional middle-class family in 1980s suburban Philadelphia. It stars TV newcomer Sam Giambrone as the young Goldberg (with narration by Patton Oswalt as grown-up Adam); “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actor Jeff Garlin as his gruff father, Murray; scene-stealing “Reno 911!” and “Bridesmaids” star Wendi McLendon-Covey as his overprotective, boundary-free mother, Beverly; Troy Gentile as his histrionic middle brother, Barry; Hayley Orrantia as his self-centered older sister, Erica; and Oscar nominee George Segal as his retired maternal grandfather and confidant, Pops.

George Segal and Jeff Garlin seek out some furniture (and a new friend, it seems).ABC

Story lines — depicting such scenarios as clingy Beverly preparing to chaperone Adam’s first school dance and the discovery that Murray gave Beverly a second-hand engagement ring — are based on hundreds of home videos that Goldberg shot from age 5 into his late teens. (Actual clips from those videos are shown at the end of each episode.)

Goldberg says the key to the show’s charm and success is that a diverse audience can relate to his quirky relatives.

“It was an homage to my family, but I didn’t know if anyone out there would find my family appealing,” says Goldberg, now 37 and a married father of two. “On Twitter, people of all races, all ethnicities, are saying, ‘I have this mother’ … ‘My dad walks around in his underpants and yells at me’ … ‘My brother melts down at the drop of a hat’ … ‘My sister loves to emotionally blackmail me’ … ‘I was a giant nerd in the ’80s.’ That’s been the coolest thing.”

He adds that nostalgia is also a factor. “What sets it apart is my show’s simpler time. That specificity people are recognizing,” he says. “People in their 30s or 40s sit down with their kids and go, ‘This is what it was like for me back then’ and talk about life before cell phones and what it was like when you had a video store.”

Protective mom McLendon-Covey swipes the car keys from her son’s grasp.ABC

The end product, he says, is a “Disney-fied” version of his household that all ages can appreciate. “It wasn’t about doing ‘edgy’ comedy; it was about comedy everyone could watch together as a family,” he adds.

When he was pitching the series to various networks, he zeroed in on ABC, which since 2009 has been home to a pair of approachable family-oriented sitcoms he loves: “The Middle” and “Modern Family.”

And allusions to ABC’s 1988-93 coming-of-age comedy “The Wonder Years” — set in the 1960s and ’70s and starring Fred Savage and Dan Lauria — should surprise no one. Goldberg says it’s both his all-time favorite show and his inspiration.

“I taped and watched every single episode over and over,” he says. “I said, ‘This is what I want to do when I grow up. I want to make a show like this.’ I don’t think I could ever do it as well. But when comparisons say it’s just as good or almost as good, I’m very proud of that.”

Giambrone (right) makes friends with the Goldbergs’ new neighbor.ABC

Goldberg, a screenwriter whose only other stint as a show runner was on the short-lived 2011 Fox comedy “Breaking In,” says he toned down some of his family’s quirks to avoid alienating viewers. “People say the pilot was incredibly loud and off-putting. They think I exaggerated, but it was closer to my family in the beginning,” he says. “I actually had to pull back a lot when it came to my mom and dad because I think people would turn off their TV screens and run away.”

His biggest creative liberty, however, was to change his real-life eldest brother Eric into a big sister — Erica — for the small screen. “When I was pitching the show and thinking what could episodes be, I got really excited about what it would have been like if we had a girl in the family with my mom and my dad,” he says. “I took all of Eric’s qualities and put that into the character. Making it a daughter just opened up so many cool dynamics that I didn’t know.” He credits female writers on the show — as well as star McClendon-Covey — with bringing in some of their own personal stories to make Erica’s stories relatable. (Goldberg’s mother and brothers all still live in the East; his father and grandfather have both passed away.)

Goldberg says that while Baby Boomers and Generation Xers can chuckle at the show’s dated cultural references — jokes about roller discos, the movie “Tron,” actor Lee Majors, “jazzercize” and the kid show “Fraggle Rock” — the sitcom’s weekly formula always includes timeless rites of passage that even millennials can appreciate, whether about learning to drive or the pangs of first love.

“Hopefully, they like seeing what it was like back then and saying, ‘I’m dealing with this stuff right now,’” he says. “Every episode I try to pick one story that’s ’80s-centric and one that’s a universal everyone-can-relate story.”

The sitcom holds viewers by ultimately emphasizing familial bonds, too. “We always write to an emotional moment. We don’t want to be heavy-handed, but we want to say this family will yell and scream and do horrible things — and at the end of the day they love each other,” he says. “That’s my family to a T.”

And he thinks his show’s appeal is further underscored by his real-life home movies that cap each episode.

“The videos at the end, people are looking forward to. I get such a positive response,” he says. “My show’s been done a million times before. That personal aspect is maybe what makes it feel — not fresh, but maybe familiar in a great way to many people.”