HBO mob family has a few more 'relatives'

April 1, 2007

BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

You could insult Frank Soprano Jr. by saying he's just a number cruncher at his family's Chicago-area CPA firm, Soprano & Association. But when he hands credit cards to waiters, his whole world changes for a righteous moment.

"They say, 'Aw, Mr. Soprano!' " Soprano says. "I'm just a little guy getting though life. And everyone's like, 'Mr. Soprano!' "

Since "The Sopranos" is, by now, a cultural reference, he will probably continue to experience this phenomenon, even after the HBO show ends with nine upcoming episodes.

Like a lot of people, Soprano, 37, used to be addicted to the mob-family drama bearing his surname.

"But I think it was the third year it bummed me out. I was like, 'Come on. Start killing more people or something,' " Soprano says.

One time, Soprano overextended his Soprano-"Sopranos" connection. He bought a "Sopranos" video game for his godson. This was a Soprano going one "Sopranos" too far. The game sucked.

"It was like, 'Here's Godfather Soprano -- giving you a piece-of-crap game.' "

Some Chicago restaurants overplayed their "Sopranos" hand, as well. During the first few seasons, they screened new episodes on TVs during Sunday night viewing parties.

HBO issued cease-and-desist letters. The network wanted those customers to go home and pay for HBO.

One of those restaurants was Sopranos on North Sheffield Avenue.

Before the HBO crackdown, the Italian eatery served "bada bing" martinis and printed menus featuring a photo of the "Sopranos" cast posing in the style of Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper."

"That was on the menu," says Sopranos operating manager and "Sopranos" fan Nicole Javell, 27. "People kept them. One family framed it."

The restaurant name is a happy coincidence, she says. Sopranos opened 10 years ago, pre-"Sopranos," named as a nod to vocalists who sing a few octaves past middle E.

To the contrary, though, it's not easy finding an actual soprano or a soprano saxophonist who watches "The Sopranos."

"I don't have cable," says soprano Amy Conn, of Chicago a Cappella.

"I don't have cable," says Kathryn Kamp, another Chicago a Cappella singer.

"I don't have HBO," says Justin May, a local soprano saxophonist. (He also plays alto and tenor sax.)

These sopranos say they're too busy or otherwise interested in live music to watch much TV.

May says it doesn't make financial sense to subscribe to HBO only for "The Sopranos," even if it does feature "obligatory HBO topless scenes."

"None of those shots in the strip club has anything to do with anything, except to remind you, 'Oh right, I'm watching HBO,' " he says.

But until a couple of years ago, the soprano saxophonist, who's 26, did regularly watch and enjoy the show. That was when he was a college student stuck "in a crappy basement with three other guys."

May dug the show's morality issues as they festered among hungry mobster killers and their complicit wives.

This is how interested in mob fiction May's family is: Every Christmas season, they rewatch the entire "Godfather" trilogy together.

"We're all like Texas white trash who don't have nearly enough [motivation] to participate in something like organized crime," he says. "The most we could do is knock over a liquor store. And frankly, we don't dress that well."

Not every "Sopranos" fan is a direct Soprano. Some are honorary Sopranos, like Linda Riccio, who moderates sections of a "Sopranos" fan site, TheSopranos.com, from right here in Chicago.

Riccio, 51, has all kinds of "Sopranos" insights. She grew up in New Jersey neighborhoods where the show is shot. She says it's easier to get sucked in by the show if you recognize Pizzaland, the Passaic River and "the place where we used to make out when we were teenagers.

"If you're not Italian or not from Jersey, you'll never get half of these jokes" in the show, she says.

For one thing, non-Jerseyans may not have understood the time when characters referenced "Jackson whites." When Riccio was a kid, people would threaten, "The Jackson whites will get you."

The urban legend Riccio heard claimed Jackson whites were a "race of mentally handicapped, inbred hemophiliacs," but perhaps they were really just "fetal alcohol" kids "selling old broken bikes and stuff," she says.

This is exactly why "The Sopranos" is authentic, she attests -- particularly the wives, who shop all day in their gaudy clothes and done-up nails; the fathers who always work in waste management, and the macho criminals.

"This is how these guys are: big blowhards. They even talk about how they can have sex with guys in jail," she says. "But somebody tells somebody else Uncle Junior did oral sex on a woman, and it shames him for the rest of his life.

"These guys are like that. They're crazy. Especially these old guys."

So maybe it's not surprising Riccio harbors a golden hope for the final wrap of "The Sopranos" after eight years.

"If I had my dream, all the guys would get killed, and the women would take over," she says.

Carmela Soprano would make a good Godmother, she says. Rosalie could be consigliere. Janice, a soldier. Yada.

But if you're neither a soprano nor a "Sopranos" fan, validation is knowing not even a soprano must care about "The Sopranos." Kamp has no interest in the series finale. She's busy singing the praises of a completely different lifestyle.

"When you do this," the soprano says, "TV is just not interesting."

delfman@suntimes.com