'The Goldbergs' exec. producer recalls memories of family vacations in anticipation of season premiere

Wednesday, Sept. 25, on ABC

In anticipation of next week's season premiere of “The Goldbergs” (8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25, on ABC), Executive Producer Adam F. Goldberg is sharing some of his fondest memories of family vacations. The premiere features the Goldbergs on a cross-country vacation, a la the Griswolds in the 1980s hit movie “Vacation.”

Goldberg loves every John Hughes movie, especially “Vacation,” which inspired this season’s premiere.

“ ‘Vacation’ was the one John Hughes movie we most related to,” Goldberg recalled. “In the Goldberg household, my mom, Beverly, was the Clark Griswold – always desperate to have family bonding time. This is why doing a ‘Vacation’ homage was the perfect way to the start of season 7.”

He added, “Every year my mother forced my grumpy dad to drive us on a road trip adventure in the family station wagon. And, while the idea was great in theory, packing my insane family into a cramped car for hours on end made for some of the loudest, angriest fights our family had ever known.

“My father refused to use a map and got us lost on an hourly basis. My brother would drink a gallon of soda and then spend an hour begging my mom for a pit stop, but she’d insist we stay on schedule. One of my funniest memories is my dad screaming at me that I was a moron for pretending to slip and fall into the Grand Canyon. We weren’t the Griswolds, but we were close.”

Goldberg said his favorite part of the premiere episode is “The Goldbergs” cast visits every landmark that his actual family visited when he was a child, including the dude ranch to the Grand Canyon and eventually Disneyland.

“Even though the endless road trip always felt like a series of disasters ,and the air conditioner in our car always broke, we always had a blast, and today they are my best family memories,” Goldberg said.

He often creates “totally surreal” moments in his show, featuring real experiences from his personal life of growing up in a suburban Philadelphia neighborhood in the 1980s.