‘The Goldbergs’ Confirms Crossover With ‘The Wedding Singer’

ABC’s The Goldbergs will return from midseason hiatus next week and it turns out that the midseason premiere, “The Wedding Singer” won’t just take its name from the 1998 movie of the same name — it’s a full-on crossover.

The Goldbergs creator Adam F. Goldberg confirmed on Twitter Wednesday that the show’s characters will actually cross paths with Adam Sandler’s “infamous” wedding singer, thanks to the show being produced by Sandler’s production company, Happy Madison Productions.

“Hey @goldnerds! January 9th at 8:00 is the big wedding episode of @thegoldbergsabc! Thanks to our producer Adam Sandler, my 80s family actually meets the 80s most infamous WEDDING SINGER! This is my favorite episode EVER. At 8:30 we premiere @SchooledABC and I am so proud of it!!” Goldberg wrote.

The post was accompanied by a teaser for the episode which shows two of the Goldbergs’ characters — Barry (Troy Gentile) and Lainey (AJ Michalka) — on a plane that turns out to be the same flight from the ending of The Wedding Singer in which Sandler’s Robbie serenades Rosie (Drew Barrymore) and wins her heart. The teaser is intercut with actual clips from the film which Goldberg — when prompted by a fan — confirmed means that the ABC show exists in the same universe as The Wedding Singer.

The crossover with The Wedding Singer fits nicely with the 80s movie theme that The Goldbergs Season 6 has been running with. While technically The Wedding Singer is a movie from the 90s, the film is set in 1985. Other 80s movie-themed episodes this season have included “Mister Knifey-Hands”, which saw A Nightmare on Elm Street star Robert Englund reprise the role of Freddy Krueger for the Halloween-themed episode and the midseason finale “Yipee Ki Yay Melon Farmer”, a nod to what Goldberg called “the greatest Christmas movie ever.”

“If you grew up in the 80s, you know how big a deal it was when your favorite movie finally aired on TV,” Goldberg explained. “Unfortunately, that usually meant a lot of stuff being edited out or cleaned up for kids. I remember how excited I was to show my family the greatest Christmas movie ever, Die Hard. I shushed everyone into silence in anticipation for John McClane’s iconic line. But they had dubbed it to make him say, ‘Yippee Ki Yay, Melon Farmer! I was like, ‘what is happening? That doesn’t make any sense! What’s a melon farmer?’ I’ll never forget my disappointment and confusion….”

The Goldbergs will return on Wednesday, January 9 with “The Wedding Singer” at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.