Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg
a film by 
Aviva Kempner
 

        Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg is a documentary about Gertrude Berg, America’s favorite radio and early television personality and savvy media entrepreneur.  Berg was the creator, principal writer, and star of the popular 1930’s radio show and then the 1950’s weekly television sitcom, The Goldbergs.  She pioneered the character-based domestic sitcom, which is still television’s most enduring format.

        Berg became a cultural icon against the backdrop of the twentieth century’s most difficult years for American Jews.  She incorporated social commentary into her shows during World War II and the Holocaust, and in 1951 took a stand against the Blacklist, refusing to fire her long-time co-star, Philip Loeb.  Her efforts proving fruitless, a distraught Berg ended up settling with Loeb, who left the show rather than see it cancelled.  In 1955, unable to find work and desperately unhappy, he committed suicide.

        Gertrude Berg is not well known in America today, especially by the younger generation of Americans, and Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg will show why she became such an important public figure at a time when positive images of Jews, especially mothers, were rarely shown in public.  Berg was a media trailblazer, and her creation of a specifically ethnic, but far from atypical, American life in the Goldbergs carries through to today.  Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg will bring this remarkable woman the recognition she deserves.

        Among those interviewed for the film are actor Ed Asner, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, TV producers Gary David Goldberg and Norman Lear, TV anchor Andrea Roane, and NPR commentator Susan Stamberg.