Philly’s Nancy Glass visits ‘The Goldbergs’ as herself

Nancy Glass will revisit her 1980s TV past on ABC’s The Goldbergs this week.

Shoulder pads and all.

Glass’ Bala Cynwyd-based production company, Glass Entertainment Group, keeps her busy behind the cameras these days, but in the “1980-something” days of the Philly-centric sitcom, she worked as many as three on-air jobs at once, at one point cohosting both Evening Magazine in Philadelphia and the Lifetime talk show Attitudes, while contributing to PBS’s Sneak Previews. Later, she would host the syndicated news magazine American Journal.

On The Goldbergs on Wednesday, she’ll be playing herself as the host of a Philadelphia-based talk show that’s at the center of a rift between Barry Goldberg (Troy Gentile) and his best friend, Geoff (Sam Lerner).

“I’m their favorite talk show host, and they fight over tickets,” Glass said. “Then they get into the audience, and they’re still fighting.”

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While Glass joins dozens of people from Philadelphia who’ve been mentioned, or appeared, on the series created by Jenkintown native Adam F. Goldberg, it’s unusual for someone to be playing themselves decades earlier. In 2018, for instance, former Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. played his own late father on the show. Amaro and Goldberg are both Penn Charter graduates, but Glass’ only relationship with the show and its based-on-real-people characters until now has been as a viewer.

“I absolutely love that show,” she said. “I’m a huge fan.”

So when the casting department reached out and asked, “‘Would you play Nancy Glass?’ I said, ‘You know, weirdly enough, I look just like her. ... And by the way, I still have shoulder pads.’ ”

Not that the costume department stopped there.

“You’re not really near anybody” on the crew because of COVID-19 restrictions, but “all these ’80s accessories” were left in her trailer, Glass said. “So I put on these chunky earrings, there’s a chunky pin, chunky bracelet, and this hugely chunky necklace. I put it on, I go out of the trailer and the costume woman bursts out laughing and says, ‘Um, that necklace is actually a belt.’

“But it looked so ’80s! I don’t know. It’s been a while,” Glass said with a laugh.

Long enough ago that she didn’t bother to point out to anyone on The Goldbergs the fact that she hadn’t actually hosted a talk show in Philadelphia in the 1980s, when she was working on Evening Magazine here, but commuting to New York for Attitudes, which she cohosted with Linda Dano. “They think I did, so I’m just going to go with it.”

Working on the episode was “quite a thrill,” Glass said. “Those kids are unbelievable. ... They don’t know me. And they couldn’t have been more gracious. They couldn’t have been sweeter.”

The Goldbergs. 8 p.m. Wednesday, ABC.