Six Pack of Mob Hits on The Sopranos

Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family

The characters who inhabit the modern mob world of The Sopranos endure a precarious existence. Death lurks around every corner - taunting even the most firmly established players. And when these sad saps eventually meet their makers, we find it incredibly hard to turn away. So in honor of the HBO show's finale (9 p.m. Sunday), we're paying tribute to the whackings that kept us buzzing around the water cooler. Here's a chronological list of the hits that were especially hard to forget.

1. Richie Aprile (Season 2): Janice Soprano may have fallen prey to some bad men in her life, but she's nobody's punching bag. So when former fiance Aprile administered a few blows before dinner one night, Janice retaliated by calmly firing two shots into his chest. Little brother Tony helped clean up the mess, sending Aprile to the chopping block at Satriale's and loose cannon Janice back to Seattle.

2. Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero (Season 2): Talk about a fateful trip. When Tony learned that his most beloved crew member had turned FBI informant, he invited him on a boat ride into the abyss. But hand it to Pussy for facing death like a man. After failing to talk his way out of the situation, he asked his executioners for one saving grace: to avoid shooting him in the face. Tony and his captains riddled his body with bullets instead and cast him overboard, dooming him to spend eternity swimming with the fishes.

3. Ralph Cifaretto (Season 4): A victim of one of the longest, most gruesome, most deserved beatings of the series, a drawn-out, drag-out brawl that ended with Cifaretto's head being stuffed into a bowling bag. And the worst part? The secretly bald (and apparently vain) Cifaretto (who drew Tony's wrath for allegedly killing the racehorse Pie-O-My) was buried without his wig.

4. Adriana La Cerva (Season 5): Poor, naive Ade. Believing love could conquer all, the show's hottest Mafia girlfriend turned mole confessed to her beloved Christufuh, hoping the made man would agree to life in the witness protection program. Instead, he ratted her out to his one true love. The last we saw of her, Adriana was crying and crawling away from a gun-wielding Silvio Dante in the middle of the woods, shots filling the air as her desperate face faded from the screen.

5. Tony Blundetto (Season 5): Call it a mercy killing. Blundetto was doomed the minute he rubbed out Phil Leotardo's brother, Billy. Though he initially rebuked Phil's call for retribution, Tony eventually did the deed himself, saving his cousin from a far more brutal death. Blundetto's demise came quickly, after Tony surprised him at a farmhouse hideout with a shot in the face.

6. Christopher Moltisanti (Season 6): In the end, Tony turned on his most loyal soldier, sure that his nephew had become his biggest liability. When Christopher, high on heroin, crashed his car on a deserted road, Tony decided to solve his problem, suffocating the severely injured Moltisanti and never shedding a tear.

Thanks to Erika Gonzalez

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Soprano Fans Mob Filming Locations

Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family

Every Saturday afternoon, the staff at the Satin Dolls go-go lounge clears the bar of matchbooks, coasters, napkins and anything else not nailed down because a sold-out tour bus is on the way from New York. But the luxury coach heading for the nondescript, windowless building on a busy stretch of New Jersey highway isn't carrying rowdy bachelors with Bacchanalia in mind.

Soon, about four dozens fans of the hit television series "The Sopranos" file into the club, which since 1999 has doubled as the show's notorious, mob-run strip joint, the Bada Bing.

"Everything gets stolen off the bar, even if it doesn't say 'Satin Dolls' or 'Bada Bing' on it," said club manager Rouz, who, like the scantily-clad young women working the brass poles behind the bar, prefers to be known by just his first name.

HBO broadcasts the series finale of "The Sopranos" on June 10, and locations made famous by the saga of a northern New Jersey mob boss struggling to keep both his "families" in line attract flocks of fans.

"The 'Bada Bing' brings extra attention from people who wouldn't normally go to a go-go bar," Rouz said. "Most of them come in and have a look, then buy some merchandise and leave. And they don't know about the state laws."

Rouz was referring to the poetic license taken by the show's producers regarding New Jersey's policy on topless dancing and establishments that serve alcohol: you can have one or the other, but not both.

So while Tony Soprano and his crew sit in "the Bing" and plot their latest crimes amid a gaggle of topless dancers, Satin Dolls patrons are entertained by girls wearing bikinis and lingerie, albeit of the skimpiest variety.

One of the tour bus visitors is Paul Rickard of Inverness, Scotland, who says his rabid devotion to the show has little to do with the mob-related plot lines. "It's about family, food and togetherness," he said between sips from a beer. "The mob is just a job, a distraction. Despite scenes of extreme violence, the show is about love."

Swiss tourist Antony Simone, sitting just down the bar from Rickard, says he's dreading a world in which he won't have fresh episodes to look forward to. "I would like no end, because the Mafia has no end," he says.

While "the Bing" has played a central role throughout the show's run and understandably attracts a fan following, any association with "The Sopranos" can prove a boon for business.

Pizzaland, a few miles south of Satin Dolls in North Arlington, appears for about one second during the show's opening credits. Despite never actually being in an episode, the already-thriving neighborhood favorite saw pizza sales spike once the show gained popularity.

The surprise to owner Paul Pawlowicz was how big a slice of his revenues now comes from shipping pizzas nationwide. "They get shrink-wrapped, put on dry ice, and shipped overnight," Pawlowicz said as he pulled a steaming pie from the oven. "This week alone I've shipped pizzas to Texas, Louisiana and California, and I've sent 58 pies to a guy in Safety Harbor (Florida) this season alone."

"Hey, it's good pizza," he says, then adds a line that would be right at home in an episode of the show: "Once I get a customer, I got 'em for good."

Interior scenes of the Soprano family home are actually shot on a soundstage in the New York City borough of Queens. But exterior shots, often showing Tony in an open bathrobe shuffling down his steep driveway to pick up the newspaper, are set at a "real home" in the affluent town of North Caldwell.

No federal agents taking pictures or waiting to have a "talk" with Tony were seen parked in front of the house on a recent drive-by. But the code of omerta was in effect for two carloads of fans circling the cul-de-sac to have a look at the house: both sped off quickly when approached for a comment.

While most of the well-known locations on the show are actual commercial establishments, Satriale's pork store in Kearny has never existed. Signage and the large pig that sits atop the brick-faced building were put up only for filming, and the site that saw its share of sit-downs and dismemberments will soon be whacked itself: Kearny officials say the town's planning board has approved an application from the owner to turn the property into condominiums.

Whether sight-seeing fans will continue to seek out "Sopranos" locations after the show's finale remains to be seen. But tour bus guide Marc Baron of On Location Tours (http://www.screentours.com), who has been an extra in several episodes, is optimistic. "There is such an interest from overseas fans and the popularity of the show has only grown since it began showing on A&E," Baron said, noting the cleaned-up reruns now showing on another cable station. "I think we've got a good five years left."

Thanks to Christian Wiessner

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Mobster Frank Cullotta Gives Another "Exclusive" Interview

Friends of ours: Frank Cullotta, Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro
Friends of mine: William "Slick" Hanner

Investigative reporter Chuck Goudie traveled to Las Vegas for an "exclusive" interview with the former mob hitman, Frank Cullotta, who will be a key witness in Chicago's upcoming mob murder trial. Recently, Frank Cullotta gave another "exclusive" interview to George Knapp. Chuck needs to head back to Las Vegas and interview Slick Hanner as well, which is what George did. Plus, who can pass up a business trip to Vegas?

There was a time about 25 years ago when the Las Vegas Strip was dominated by the Chicago outfit. History will be revisited during this summer's upcoming Operations Family Secrets trial in federal court in Chicago, largely through the testimony of a hoodlum named Frank Cullotta.

"I only had a few legitimate friends. They were like my best friends. But everybody I hung with I stole with; robbed with; killed with," said Frank Cullotta, mob informant.

For decades in Chicago and Las Vegas he was a robber by trade and a killer by necessity. But, since Frank Cullotta turned on the outfit 25 years ago, he has been a professional government witness. When Cullotta makes his next court appearance this summer in the case against 14 accused Chicago mobsters, prosecutors are expected to have him explain the outfit's historical hierarchy and testify how lead defendant Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo has been Chicago's top hoodlum.

"He knew everything that was going on, it had to go through him. This is what I would believe, he's the boss," said Cullotta.

Cullotta, an ex-con, is about to release a mob book, co-written with a crime author and a former FBI agent, timing that Lombardo's lawyer says is no coincidence. "There is no question that this was all orchestrated for the benefit of this horribly written book in terms of the writing style. Somebody said it was a third grade level. I think that is two grades above the level at which it's written," said Rick Halprin, Lombardo lawyer.

Much of the book and Cullotta's testimony will focus on Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro, the outfit's emissary in Las Vegas until the early 1980s. "To me, he was a friend...I grew up with this guy. I knew he was ruthless, he was mean, he was tough. He could kill easily," said Cullotta.

Cullotta ran Spilotro's burglary crew in Vegas, known as the "hole in the wall gang," and he helped collect on mob juice loans from broken down gamblers.

"Ya tell 'em, you know, 'We need the money. We're not gonna keep on waiting.' And after about the third time, if they didn't listen ,you just give 'em a beating," said Cullotta. "Or we'll make their wife a widow."

I-Team: "How many people did you take out?"

Cullotta: "Two direct, two indirect."

I-Team: "Who were the two direct?"

Cullotta: "Some guy, he was a union guy for the barbers union (in Chicago)."

Cullotta himself re-enacted the 1979 murder of Jerry Lisner (a small time drug dealer and hustler) in the movie Casino, shooting Lisner twice in the head, chasing him through his home and in real life strangling him with an electrical cord before dumping the body in a swimming pool.

"You become the judge, jury and executioner, so you justify that in your own mind so it makes it a little easier on you. Most of the guys who got whacked or got killed, I'd say the majority of them probably deserved it."

Cullotta has received immunity from prosecution for the murders and crimes he committed. The former FBI supervisor on Cullotta's case is now Cullotta's book partner. "In law enforcement you use the tools that are available. Sometimes you have to use tools like that. In fact, you want to use tools like that because I am not going get the information from you or anyone else. It has to be someone inside," said Dennis Arnoldy, former FBI agent and supervisor on Cullotta's case.

A few years after Cullotta turned on the mob, his former boss Tony Spilotro and Spilotro's brother were savagely beaten and buried in an Indiana cornfield. They are among the 18 murders that are central to this summer's Chicago trial. "If I had to, and I was ordered to kill him and his brother, I'd have just shot 'em...unless they told me to do opposite, then I'd find somebody else to do it," Cullotta said.

Tony Spilotro's widow calls Cullotta a liar and told the I-Team she would like to have a hand in administering justice for his killers.

"If I could do it myself I would," said Nancy Spilotro.

Cullotta still travels with a bodyguard, although he admits it is mainly for show. "I am sure somebody would like to whack me if they had the opportunity to try to make some points. I don't know if they were making any points. They would probably get whacked after they whacked me," Cullotta said.

There is not much whacking going on those days in the city of Las Vegas and hasn't been for the last 20 years or so. There are a lot of construction cranes and new buildings going up, including hotels and casinos.

For the record, defense lawyers in the Chicago case note that Cullotta's testimony has not always resulted in convictions, something they hope will be the case during this summer's trial.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie

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America's Most Wanted on The Chicago Syndicate for 6-9-07

America's Most Wanted and The Chicago Syndicate have partnered to highlight AMW's upcoming Episodes on Fox.

Jason Howard: Jewel and Mildred Cleveland had not been heard from for over a month. Then, 2004, police found their bodies buried in their own barn. Their mentally ill son Jason Howard has been missing since, and police believe he may be responsible for their deaths.

The Mad Hatter: The Mad Hatter got his nickname by wearing a different style cap for all 17 of his New Jersey bank robberies. Now, he has a new look—a red face. No, it’s not because he’s embarrassed. It’s because during his latest bank robbery, the dye pack exploded all over him as he fled the scene. Now police say they’re hot on his trail.

Unknown Usha Taneja Killer: Usha Taneja’s son was about to get married—she had been waiting for this day for years. But the night before the wedding, Usha disappeared. She was found dead on the sidewalk just blocks from her home, and now police are looking for her killer.

Derrick Lloyd: On New Year’s Day in 1991, cops say a man told Derrick Lloyd to watch the tone of his voice. Lloyd didn’t take kindly to this, and allegedly shot the man in the face. Since then, he’s been on the run. Police think he’s probably hiding out in Jamaica or Boston , Mass.

Joseph Jermaine Woodbury Jr.: In 2005, Ricky Lamar Cooke was found shot to death on a rural road in South Carolina . And now, cops are looking for a man who they say may know something about what happened—his name is Joseph Woodbury.

Jerry Otis Robinson: Jerry Robinson had what seemed like an average relationship with his girlfriend Stacie. But in 1999, what started as a normal dinner date turned into a nightmare for Stacie. Cops say Robinson was going through some hard times, and after the couple split up, he out his frustration by shooting his girlfriend several times. Luckily, Stacie survived, but police say Robinson is on the run and should be considered armed and dangerous.

Bablu Hassan: Cops say when 5-year-old Chastity Adams woke up when she heard Bablu Hassan arguing with her mother. When Chastity realized that things were about to turn violent, she got in the way. Police say Chastity was slashed across the stomach before Hassan killed her mother. Now, Bablu is in big trouble and on the run. Some reports have him all the way in Bangladesh.

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Will Final Sopranos Whack HBO's Identity Too?

Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family

It's difficult to remember now, but way back in the mid 1990s during a crazy little century called the 20th, HBO was a network far more renowned for its longform production and documentaries than its series. Sure, it had "The Larry Sanders Show," possibly the most magnificent character comedy in recorded history, but "Larry" drew abysmal ratings in appealing to something of an elitist taste.

The three shows that would come to define the quality-rich HBO brand -- "Sex and the City," "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under" -- didn't arrive on the scene until 1998, 1999 and 2001, respectively. Nothing that came before ever brought the mighty Time Warner premium cabler anything close to the consistent acclaim and cachet supplied by this threesome.

Movies, minis and docus are great for collecting Emmys, but once they've run, they've run. Series are the gift that keeps on giving. Yet it hasn't escaped notice that aside from "Entourage," HBO is pretty much fresh out of even semi-buzzworthy series product of late.

And so we find that Sunday's much-hyped "Sopranos" series capper represents far more than simply the hour that will determine Tony Soprano's ultimate fate. It's the true end of an era for the network that birthed he and his goombas. Even before HBO programming guru Chris Albrecht's troubles that led to his ouster, the network has been unable to restock its ranks with new stars. The golden touch has turned closer to silver.

This is not a new observation, of course. And particularly this week in coinciding with the "Sopranos'" permanent fish-sleeping expedition, the eulogies mourning HBO's untimely demise are sure to come in waves. It really isn't as bad as all of that, however. For one, the original series cupboard isn't barren, what with "Entourage," the polygamy primer "Big Love" returning next Monday and another season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" rolling out later in the year. As well, critics continue to sing the praises of "The Wire," though they seem to be the only ones watching it.

There's also the new stuff: the David Milch paranormal surfer fantasy "John From Cincinnati" (premiering Sunday), the comedy "Flight of the Conchords" (arriving June 17) and the psych-themed half-hour drama "In Therapy" (coming this fall) that appears to recall the brilliant but shamefully short-lived 1991 six-parter "Sessions" that Billy Crystal wrote and produced for HBO.

It all sounds just swell, though there is now the distinct sense from HBO not of a front-runner's cool confidence but a boxer who has lost the sting in his jab and is unleashing a less-effective barrage in the hope something connects. Such is the towering height of the bar this network has set.

Yes, a retooling was inevitable. They can't all be winners, and "Carnivale" and "Lucky Louie" weren't. Yet more than that, aside from "The Sopranos" and the recently departed "Deadwood," even the schedule-stickers just aren't generating the kind of hyper-awareness that befits HBO's sterling reputation. As a result, FX ("Rescue Me," "The Shield," "The Riches," "Nip/Tuck") and Showtime ("Dexter," "Weeds," "The Tudors," "Brotherhood") have been able to swoop in and virtually eliminate any perceived qualitative gap while carving out their own unique niches.

Does any of this really matter to HBO? Financially, it's probably negligible. But in terms of perception and esteem -- both essential elements in keeping subscriber churn to a minimum while maximizing water-cooler chatter -- it's huge.

Unfortunately, coolness isn't a commodity that can be purchased outright or Bill Gates would be the hippest man on Earth. HBO hasn't lost its identity, merely its groove. It's simply going to take it a while to get it back.

Thanks to Ray Richmond

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