Sit down, close your eyes and let your mind form the images as you relive the golden age of radio programs. Each week we'll feature a different and exciting program in MP3 format. Just click on the radio image below to be transported back in time.

This Week

The Goldbergs

Madame Shuman Heink

November 13. 1935

The Goldbergs, who lived at 1030 East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, appeared on radio from 1929 to 1946 and on television from 1949 to 1956. The show followed the daily life and struggles of a Jewish family living in a tenement in in the Bronx and, later, living in a more suburban area.

Gertrude Berg, who also developed and wrote the show, starred as Molly Goldberg, the stereotypical matriarch of the family.Though she played a stereotype, that doesn't mean that her stereotype was a bad thing. One Jewish pundit said that the series did more "to set us Jews right with the 'goyim' than all the sermons ever preached by the Rabbis."

Originally, the show was a 15 minute weekly in 1929 expanding to a 15 minute daily in 1931 and later to 30 minutes. The show was a cross between a soap opera, because it had continuing stories, and a comedy. It was the second longest running radio show after Amos and Andy.

  Huntington Beach News