The Goldbergs Are Back!
The Goldbergs was a popular comedy-drama broadcast from 1929 to 1946 on American radio, and from 1949 to 1956 on American television, before being adapted into a 1948 play, Me and Molly, and a 1973 Broadway musical, Molly.
Joy and I first added a handful of The Goldbergs shows in 2003, but we have since found nearly 200 more episodes, so as the heading above says, 'The Goldbergs Are Back!' and we'll be adding many more shows over the coming weeks.
The Goldbergs were a Jewish family who lived in a tenement building at 1030 East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, before later moving to the suburbs, and the show was all about the struggles and joys of daily life in their neighborhood.
In 1929 it began as a 15 minute weekly show, then a 15 minute daily show, and then finally a 30 minute daily show in 1931.
It was a cross between a soap opera, because it had continuing stories, and a comedy, and was the second longest running radio show after Amos and Andy.
Common to many series of the day, Molly had a catchphrase introduction, hollering "Yoo-hoo! Is anybody...?" followed by Bud Collyer warbling, "There she is, folks - that's Molly Goldberg, a woman with a place in every heart and a finger in every pie..."
Gertrude Berg was the creator of the series, and as a writer-actress, she also starred as Molly Goldberg, the big hearted, lovingly meddlesome, strong Jewish matriarch, who was constantly helping others with their dilemmas and proving to be the hero time and time again. Although her role was somewhat stereotypical, one Jewish pundit said that the stereotype wasn't a bad thing, as the series did more "to set us Jews right with the 'goyim' than all the sermons ever preached by the Rabbis."
As a writer, Gertrude Berg was a pioneer of classic radio and wasn't averse to bringing serious real-world issues into the scripts - issues that affected Jewish families. In one particular 1939 episode, Kristallnacht and Nazi Germany were both addressed, along with episodes alluding to friends or family members trying to escape the Holocaust.
An upcoming actor, Himan Brown, was first noticed reading a Jewish newspaper column on the radio in a Yiddish accent, and soon found himself playing Molly's husband, Jake Goldberg. He was instrumental in selling the program to NBC, however, he only remained on the project for a couple of months after its broadcast, before he left the show and was replaced by James R Waters.
Other cast members included Roslyn Silber and Alfred Ryder played the children Rosalie and Sammy, Menasha Skulnik played Uncle David, Arnold Stang was Seymour Fingerhood, Garson Kanin as Eli Edwards, and Zina Provendie as Sylvia Allison.
In fact, The Goldbergs was so popular that performing stars in other arts sought to appear on it - and the Metropolitan Opera star Jan Peerce sang on Yom Kippur and Passover every year.
Happy listening my friends,
