Oh, The Goldbergs, I really want to like you. You’re sandwiched between other fun/quirky family sitcoms I watch and I’d like two solid hours of mindless amusement. I like all the adult actors you feature.
But I am a child of the 80s and while I can overlook that the kids are not styled correctly for the time (that girl should have much bigger hair), why oh why can you not be correct with the dialogue? Every week I try and every week you have someone use current slang. Last night was the worst, when you had the younger son say “Let’s put a pin in that.”
Unless you hire writers who have been in a coma since 1989, you’re going to get bleed-through from expressions, culture and slang from the 1990s and the 2000s. So some inconsistency in language is going to happen. And note that the opening narration says ninety-eighty-something, so as to make it clear that the memories are fuzzy.
Finally, a Google Ngrams search finds that particular expression used much earlier than the 1980s, in particular in James Joyce’s Ulysses and books referencing that.
The kid version of the narrator said something in another episode a couple weeks ago that was even more glaringly anachronistic. I can’t remember what it was now though. But as mentioned, unreliable narrator syndrome can explain away a lot of that.
As for the lack of big hair, eh, I was a young adult in the 80s so I remember the era pretty well. There was a lot of big hair, but not everyone looked that way. Almost as common for girls in the 80s was to have very short hair, kind of like the look of a 20s flapper. Speaking of unreliable memory, the 80s were certainly a nutty era for style, but I think we tend to overdo in our minds how the 80s really looked- I think I’ve heard it referred to as “80s theme party syndrome” where someone will wear leg warmers, a single Michael Jackson glove, big teased hair, maybe some parachute pants, etc…
The funny thing is, whenever someone tries to come up with 80s fashion on TV, it’s always the extremes; if you watch something like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” or “16 Candles” or “The Breakfast Club”, those are probably more accurate than any modern-day screenwriter’s idea of what 80s fashion was actually like (the “80s Theme Party Syndrome”)
I mean, I remember a lot of the 80s crap, but it was because I was a pre-teen or teenager during that decade, so there was a lot of fashion idiocy going on among my peers at the time. And even at that, nobody was as extreme as the “80s Theme Party Syndrome” people.
Next you’re going to complain that you can’t/couldn’t buy beer in a Wawa in Pennsylvania. As a fellow 80’s teenager, from Philadelphia no less, I’m perfectly content to deal with the occasional anachronism so I can laugh hysterically and deeply appreciate the 95% of the things they get exactly right.
I took that not as slang, but him trying to play the role of a director or producer, since her was developing the music video. I thought him using that phrase was what made it funny, not a mistake.
Next you’ll be telling us everyone in the 70s didn’t wear disco pants, everyone in the 60s didn’t wear fringes and love beads and everyone in the 50s didn’t wear leather jackets and DAs…
I don’t think that expression would have taken me out of the story. I can think of better examples where they use recent slang or expressions. I think if all of their expressions and style of dialogue was confined to the 80s it would come across as too predictable and boring. They have to mix up with the dialogue to both, appeal to younger viewers, and to older viewers entertained.
I remember the episode where he had a well-worn VHS copy of When Harry Met Sally, which would not have been 1980-anything. That would’ve been 1990 at the earliest. So yeah, they play pretty fast-and-loose with anything period-related.
That’s bugged me about this show from the beginning, too…it’s like the whole decade happened all at once. And it seems like there’s 80s paraphernalia crammed everywhere—Rubik’s Cubes out on the counter, t-shirts and posters from 80s movies, etc., at every possible opportunity. The show can be funny, but I find the constant attempts to remind me that it’s the 1980s a bit distracting.
