Adam F. Goldberg

For me, I went to NYU, and at that point, it was 1995, and everyone wanted to be Tarantino. I was writing these stupid comedies, and I felt lost.

When I was nine, I got my head stuck in a bucket trying to be Darth Vader.

My mom was always trying to figure out ways to make Hanukkah exciting and compete with our neighbors the Kremps, who always had these amazing blow-out Christmas parties.

I grew up obsessively collecting Queen T-shirts and concert posters and rare U.K. imports of their CDs.

I wasn't a sweet kid. I was an instigator and provoked everyone with my goofy hyena cackle, loving every minute of the drama I could create.

My mom is a pack rat.

I like being surrounded by all the stuff that makes me feel creative and inspires me.

The only interaction I had with my brothers is like negative attention where I'd basically egg them on into beating me up - which was delightful! Otherwise, it was me with a video camera jumping on a bed pretending to be the Ultimate Warrior or setting up my robots making a Transformers movie because I was a lonely kid.

That's what happens when they give guys like me a television show: you try and get toys and Garbage Pail Kids!

When you hire directors, you're most concerned about whether or not someone from the outside will get the jokes.

I was so obsessed with 'The Princess Bride.' I loved it so much that I even have a re-enactment I did of a radio play of the iocane powder scene.

My dad would always get into fights over parking spaces. He would do this all the time.

My parents are interested in politics.

I had 'Breaking In' at Fox, and that was a constant stopping and starting of getting canceled and picked up again.

That's what Flyers fans are all about. My favorite thing about Philly fans is booing their own team.

I think a lot of guys have their favorite shirt that they wear for years and years.

My dad felt old school.

Do I think technology is bad? No. I think it's wonderful that the world is so connected now. But I think, as a result, childhood ends a little earlier.

I think the '80s works for a TV show because it's the last time the world was simple. It was before the Internet really changed everything and made the world really small.

My mom is not typical in any way.

My mom was always writing me notes to get me out of stuff.

When I was at the end of middle school and the beginning of high school, I fell in love with hockey in a serious way.

If you Google a list and just see all the movies that came out in 1984, they're classics, and they define that decade.

I followed Evan's career through the '90s and went to many Lemonheads concerts in N.Y.C. Since he was my best friend's family, he always felt like my family in a weird way.

In high school, I was so obsessed with the movie that I started an actual 'Highlander' club with my two best friends, Mike Levy and David Sirota. What began as a few geeks hitting each other with swords we made in woodshop soon became a school-wide game with 20 people playing. It became so disruptive that the administration had to shut it down.

As a family, we all loved the Flyers. To me, rooting for the Flyers were how I bonded with my dad especially.

My brother Barry was into all sports, and so was my late father. For me, hockey was the one sport I loved and played. I didn't really pay much attention to the other sports.

My brother was a huge Tim Kerr fan. He loved the way Kerr would power to the net, and he related to that playing style.

I was in college starting in '95, and 'Rent' was the only show I could see - because if you waited in line and camped out, you could try to get the lottery tickets.

I would make hockey movies: I would edit together Flyers games and do highlight reels of goals or fights, which I still have to this day.

Anything that I love, I love to the extreme. I'm obsessive. If it's 'Star Wars,' if it's 'Transformers,' if it's the Flyers, I geek out.

My middle school years were defined by memorizing every single word off 'License to Ill' and 'Paul's Boutique.'

I always wanted to meet David Hasselhoff, but I never did.

First love is such a big thing growing up.

Copyright law is too confusing.

I have many of the Rock Lords; Magmar, I'm obsessed with. That's a sign of how versatile the Rock Lords were, that they could come out with toys that turned into rocks.

'Breaking In' is a very different office comedy and a caper comedy. Aside from 'Chuck,' there is no half-hour comedy that does stuff like that.

I remember running down the hallway screaming 'We're Not Gonna Take It.' It was really one of those childhood anthems that really stirred you up and made you want to rebel.

I'm obsessed with musicals.

I never did video dating.

Jeff Garlin is essentially my dad.

Everyone in the '80s grew up, and for a lot of the film executives, that's what they know and love.

Because my home life was nuts, I didn't look to my parents for help. I looked to my teachers. They made me who I am. They took on a parental role. They're like celebrities or heroes to me.

For me, 'The Goldbergs' was about surviving a crazy family - and believe me, the show is a sanitized version!

Convincing Robert Englund to come out of retirement to play Freddy Krueger one last time is a true bucket-list moment for me as a writer. I've been a longtime obsessive fan, collecting Freddy artwork and action figures.

For me, every show that's about teachers - and there's been a number of them - they're like misfits who hate the kids and don't want to be there and hate their jobs. For me, having crazy parents, my teachers were the sane people who raised me, and they liked being there.

I'm terrible with titles.

I am a Gobot junkie, and I pitched the Gobots movie as an animated movie a few years ago, and we're trying to work something out now that the rights are cleared. But that's my dream project, besides 'The Goldbergs' - doing a Gobots movie.

I always say that even though my dad was alive during Woodstock, he was just not invited. He just seemed like he was from a different generation.

Watching Eagles games with my dad, whether at the vet or in our house, was a big part of my childhood.