The Office and 25 TV shows that were never supposed to be hits
By Kareem Gantt
23. The Goldbergs (ABC)
Series run: 2013-Present (6 seasons/127 episodes)
The lovable sitcom about a family in the ’80s was never supposed to be six seasons in right now.
Originally pitched to FOX, Adam Goldberg, the creator behind Breaking In, didn’t want to wait a year for the network to produce the series. So, he went to ABC, and they fell in love with the series and agreed to rush it into production to meet the 2013 television season.
The Goldbergs, which revolves around the life of Adam and his loud, eccentric family growing up in suburban Philadelphia in the ’80s, had a pretty uneven first-season, but it attracted enough of a following for ABC to greenlight the series for a second season.
That’s when the series took off.
Using its unique way of parodying some of the most iconic moments of the decade of big hair and new wave, in addition to a set of characters that viewers immediately fell in love with, the hilarious comedy became one of the network’s powerhouse shows. In fact, season two received a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which convinced the execs at ABC that it made the right choice keeping the show on the roster.
Six seasons later, the show has stayed remarkably fresh thanks to an elastic approach to covering the decade, which keeps The Goldbergs writers fresh with a bountiful amount of content. Pretty spectacular for a show that was supposed to be nothing more than a filler series just five years ago.