Saturday, October 16, 2010
Starting as a radio serial in 1929, "The Goldbergs" became an early television "sitcom" in 1949, migrating through several networks until its ultimate end in 1956. This episode, like most available on the web, is one of the later ones, after the family has moved out of New York City and into the suburbs.
It's fascinating watching this ethnic programming and considering what a large portion of network time it must have occupied in the days before 100 cable channels.
The internet archive has a number of episodes available (mostly the suburban Goldbergs), as well as a collection of earlier audio. The UCLA film archive has a DVD containing all 71 restored episodes known to exist at a very reasonable price.
I used to watch the Goldbergs while a child in Chicago. Every now and then, I can catch it on a rerun on the J Channel on Direct TV. It takes me back to a simpler time, with gentle humor and the kind of people who were our neighbors back in the 50's. Thanks for sharing, and reminding me of what used to be.
Simpler times indeed. I'm just amazed there were TV sitcoms around in 1949. Too bad so much was lost from that time, but I guess recording was a lot more difficult to do at the time.