Oh man, Double Dare was a staple of my childhood, as it was for many other kids growing up in the ’80s. Combining trivia with a sloppy obstacle course, the program is rooted in nostalgic novelty. It would only make sense that The Goldbergs would highlight this game show aimed towards young ones.
When Double Dare representatives bring a mock course into his school, it gives Adam (Sean Giambrone) the opportunity to run through it to make it onto the real show, which apparently filmed in Philadelphia (I didn’t know this piece of information before this episode). He needs a partner to make this happen, so requests best friend Emmy (Stephanie Katherine Grant) to assist. Emmy, however, has other plans, and teams up with fellow student Ben, who everyone calls Handsome Ben. Hopefully he’s a recurring side character.
Adam, ever the optimist, does not give up, and calls in his grandfather (George Segal) for help. However, once Pops sets sights on the mock course, he immediately fumbles Adam’s big chances. The youngest Goldberg tries for Emmy’s partnership again, but she sticks with Ben, only because they’ve been training for the course for months underneath’s Adam’s own nose, or (in a reference to the episode’s dialogue), “scnhoz.” Once Adam finds this out, a battle occurs between the best friends in front of the representatives, and both of them are kicked out of the competition. Ben, meanwhile, teams up with random girl Amy. These two together just happen to be portraying the younger versions of the actors playing the Double Dare representatives that actually made it on the show in real life! Whoa! That was a cool little addition if I do say so myself.
As the episode concludes, Emmy and Adam patch things up in the way that all Goldberg episodes end; they talk it out and things go back to normal. Let’s move on.
While the Double Dare portion of the episode was a good time, I preferred the Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and Murray (Jeff Garlin) story line a bit more. Murray and Barry (Troy Gentile) have their superstitions while watching the Philadelphia Eagles play, and this includes Mama Goldberg staying out of the living room. However, when something spills on the floor during the game, Bev’s cleaning of said food brings the Eagles to make better plays. Barry votes that mom stays, but she continues to ask questions during the game. Murray puts his foot down and says his wife is not good in the knowledge of football and she needs to leave. Beverly misinterprets this information and heads to see Bill Lewis (David Koechner) to learn everything about the game. Erica (Hayley Orrantia) helps out as well. Beverly comes back with a bigger understanding of her husband’s love of the sport, but Murray pleads for his own space. Erica steps in and teaches Murray that his wife did all that hard work for his love, maybe he should reciprocate. Murray creates a horrible scrapbook to make amends, and the two find understanding over their mistakes. This was a better wrap up of things in this episode, as Beverly insults Murray with his scrapbook attempt-this seems like a natural husband and wife scenario.
Despite a throwback to a game show I loved, the parents won this episode after the kids bringing the laughs two weeks in a row. However, Barry, despite being held back during the course of events going on, gave us a fantastic slo-mo ending of him running through the Double Dare obstacle course with nobody around. Flag grabbed-last night’s episode The Goldbergs earned the win yet again.
Rating: 8.5/10
The Goldbergs get into the game every Wednesday night at 8:30pm on ABC
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Logan J. Fowler is a senior writer and video game editor on Pop-Break.com. He contributes his thoughts every week for Trailer Tuesday and ABC’s The Goldbergs.” Logan’s “kid at heart” nature has led to his discussion about pop culture that many geeks love to talk about, including superheroes, Super Mario Bros., Pixar, and Muppets, among other things. In addition, one of his first pieces for the site, “Top Ten Comic Book Movies,” was picked as a “Freshly Pressed” piece by WordPress and remains one of the site’s most well-read articles. Many of Logan’s friends have said that he moonlights as Spider-Man but this is so not true. Wait, are those police sirens I’m hearing?! Gotta go! -thwipp-
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You should rewatch the episode and correct your review.