Jimmy's Daily Planet

Spoiler Alert: This post contains content from the October 22, 2014 episode of The Goldbergs

Toasters flying in the air, pretending to hack the school’s computer system and covertly learning about important historical events is how high school kids in suburban Philadelphia rocked it in the ’80s, “JTP” style. Forget mansions, yachts and caviar, the true high rollers rode deep with Pepsi and sandwiches with potato chips in them. Plus, someone would randomly run around naked, as one does. The Jenkintown Posse (JTP) was “the” exclusive club to be in as seen by youngest brother Adam. In a truly rare moment, Adam saw his older brother Barry in a positive, cool light. How could he break this firewall between an “Oregon Trail”-playing, dying of dysentery kid to “one of the guys?”

One word/cult movie title: WarGames.

Speaking of war games, Beverly’s ecstatic excitement for a technology that printed her children on a bright white shirt could only be deflated by the sight of her daughter Erica and her friends with her newest suburban enemy: “the cool mom.” Wearing a sweater that only covers one shoulder is pretty bae. Anyways, it’s clearly foolish for Beverly to be concerned about not being viewed as “the cool mom” when she publicly (and proudly) wears a t-shirt with her three kids’ faces on it. It’s not like she’d ever say anything embarrassing to the random t-shirt vendor in the middle of the mall with a big smile on her face, right?

“I made these people, I made them with my body.”

Our efforts to be liked (ie – cool) is an aspect about life we all can relate to, especially when there’s a tether connected to our parents and/or older siblings. In the case of The Goldbergs, they had to act out in hilarious ways in order to fit into that exclusive club known as being cool. Whether this meant a mom dressing up and dancing like Madonna with a boom box (it’s a machine used to play music) in front of her daughter and her friends or typing gibberish on a computer screen (ie – askldjidxa!%*) that supposedly translated into grades being changed for the JTP (“JTP!”) or getting drunk with your hip dad Pops so your daughter would have to take care of you after stumbling in after curfew or even printing a fake hall pass to assist in stealing the rival school’s mascot (a real falcon) that would get his older brother back in tight with his posse, a big part of being cool is redefining the rules of the game. It’s probably safe to say we’ve all done stuff like this with our families in some ways. As the Goldbergs continue to prove, just being there for one another is what families are all about.

And that’s pretty cool.

See, no reason to be embarrassed by one’s parents.

Of course, it was just a bit shocking and unnerving to hear my dad (several years ago) tell a random airport custom’s agent who was asking about his three children’s passports that while we all had different birth places, we were all conceived in the same place.

True story.

In some form or another, every parent wears a bright white t-shirt with their children’s face(s) on it that’s primed for plenty of opportunities for public humiliation. And in those situations, it can make dying of dysentery on the “Oregon Trail” not seem so bad.

I just might bet a Bev Buck on that.