America's REAL first family -- the SOPRANOS

Finally! The SOPRANOS return on Sunday night. God, it’s bad enough Teri Hatcher had to contend with her DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE co-star, Felicity Huffman getting an Oscar nomination, now THIS. Anyway, in anticipation of the new season of the best dramatic series television has ever produced (it’s also maybe the fifth best comedy) here are some random SOPRANO thoughts:

The pressure on creator David Chase to live up to expectations must be enormous…although I’m sure Jon Stewart would say “waaa waaa”.

Interesting that most members of the writing staff are in their 50’s. You mean you don’t lose your talent at 32??

One of the show’s producers should serve as a real inspiration to writers. Matthew Weiner. He was a half hour guy. I worked with him for several years on BECKER. Super talented and funny. A few years ago he decided to reinvent himself and write an hour drama pilot. The networks of course were not the least bit interested but David Chase read it. Matt is now in his second season with the SOPRANOS after having written some of the best episodes from last year. And as a P.S., AMC just gave him the greenlight to make that pilot.

Reprieved from an earlier post – some past credits of the SOPRANOS staff (not saying these are all bad shows, just somewhat different from what you might expect…so I don’t want a lot of comments saying how great Secret Squirrel was.):

The Magician
2 Stupid Dogs
Batman (the animated series)
Cover Me
Swat Kats
Hack
The In-Laws
Baby Blues
American Gothic
DiResti
The New Flipper
The Naked Truth
Living in Captivity
Sister Sister
..... and of course – the Secret Squirrel Show.

Paulie looks the grown-up Butch Munster.

Meadow is now old enough that I don’t feel like a pervert for having a crush on her.

How is Tony going to listen to his oldies in the car now that WCBS-FM is gone? What he SHOULD do is whack all the stupid CBS radio executives who decided to change the station’s format.

More BADA BING scenes. Or at least new episodes of that Cathouse series.

What’s worse than death? Going from the SOPRANOS to the cast of JOEY. RIP Adrianna.

Switched at birth: Tony Soprano and UCLA basketball coach Ben Howland.

Is there a better actress on television than Edie Falco? And if the SOPRANOS was being cast by a network they would probably have insisted on Mel Harris.

Also, if the show were being done for a network the name “Pussy” would have to be changed to “Happy Place”.

I can’t imagine any season being better than the first. How are you going to top Tony’s own mother trying to kill him? I’m still not over it when it happened to me.

I hope Frankie Valli is back.

No wonder sister Janice is such a mess. Tony got the looks in the family.

My favorite character is still Christopher. I hear this year he sees SAW II and is inspired to write a gang related slasher movie. What scares me is that if Christopher were a real person he’d probably be a regular to this blog.

I bet in real life the scariest cast member is Lorraine Bracco.

Even in HD Silvio has no neck.

I don’t care if Cousin Junior ever faces trial or not. I just want the state to take away his drivers’ license. Believe me, he’ll kill more people with his car.

The inside word I hear is that this will be a great season, filled with lots of twists and turns. I can’t wait. It’s been two years…which is probably a longer sentence than Tony would serve for whacking those CBS radio execs.