The Frankie Valli Problem

[nen10dough]

OK, I don't know if this has been talked about in another thread or not, but I just wanted to know what everyone thought about this season's Frankie Valli situation.

Last night Valli made his Sopranos debut in a short scene with little Carmine, however it was not as a cameo but as a new character seemingly associated with the New York family named Rusty. Now let's go back to last season's episode "Christopher". Tony and his crew get lured down to Atlantic City by Chief Doug with the promise of a night at his casino with everything comped, only later for Chief Doug to use that night as an excuse to ask Tony the favor of getting the singer Frankie Valli to play some shows at his casino.

Alright, so here's the problem: The singer Frankie Valli exists in the world of The Sopranos as of last season, so to have the real-life Frankie Valli play anyone other than himself in the series does not make any sense. The reality that was established last season has now been breached, anyone in the show who encounters Rusty should be seeing him as the singer Frankie Valli and not as a "friend of ours". No one would ever think of casting John Favreau or Janeane Garofalo as different characters in the series because they have already played themselves on screen in season two, shouldn't the same rule hold true for Frankie Valli? I guess the best analogy I can come up with for this particular situation would be if Gary Cooper was introduced as a new FBI agent this season, given that he was still alive. If that were to happen Tony's "What ever happened to Gary Cooper?" line would just be confusing, leaving us, the audience, with a much unwanted answer: "He's coming after YOU!"

Granted the Gary Cooper analogy would be a much graver sin than what we now have with Frankie Valli, seeing as how Cooper has been referenced numerous times since season one and Valli only once as a part of a small sub-plot last season, but the inconsistency is still there. I know there have been at least three actor changes this season so far, leaving many people on this board upset with the complaint of inconsistency. Actor changes are, in my opinion, unfortunate but unavoidable occurrences in a long term television series like this one, but to me this Frankie Valli situation is a far worse offense and just sits as a big thorn in my nit picky side. I guess the producers of the show just thought no one would really know what Frankie Valli looks like nowadays, or that the audience had just forgotten that he was even mentioned in the series at all.

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[Wes]

Tim Daly, another newcomer this season was also mentioned on the show by the father to Noah Tannenbaum when Meadow was dining with him.

"Tim Daly sat next to me on the plane and bothered me the whole way."
"The guy from Wings?"

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[nen10dough]

You're right, I completely forgot about that conversation.

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[Matzner]

Lets not forget that practically half the cast of this show has been in mob movies mentioned in this show. I just see it as a type of humor in the show.

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[eruptus]

They've also talked about Casino, The Godfather series and Goodfellas. A lot of the soprano-actors have appeared in those films. The Frankie Valli-situation isn't the biggest "plothole". Then again, who cares about this. I understand that these people are actors.

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[nen10dough]

I'm sure everyone understands that these people are actors. When I first heard that Frankie Valli was going to appear in a few episodes this season I immediately thought back to him being mentioned as a friend of the Silvio's in season four. I just naturally assumed he would appear on the show as such, and seeing him last night playing a New York mobster instead of himself was a little jarring to the scene for me, much the same way as seeing the new Dr. Fried might have been for others. I'm sure Mr. Valli will do a great job this season. I was just curious as to what everyone else thought.

</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub132.ezboard.com/bsopranolandforum.showUserPublicProfile?gid=nen10d ough>nen10dough</A> at: 3/30/04 2:28 am

[Luban]

In the Sopranoverse, the characters of "Frankie Valli" and "Tim Daly" would be played look-alikes, just like they got somebody to play "Martin Scorsese" in a cameo in "46 Long."

</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub132.ezboard.com/bsopranolandforum.showUserPublicProfile?gid=luban>Luban</A> at: 3/30/04 2:30 am

[West Re animator]

But remember in Big Girls Don't Cry in Season 2, Christopher does an impression of Joe Pesci, who shot him in the foot in Goodfellas, so this has been going on forever. It is part of the humor of the show, but in the end it really doesn't detract from the realism.

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[Rightfielder21]

I really don't see it as that big of a deal, we never have saw him on screen as 'Frankie Valli', if we did then I would have a problem with it...

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[zerokarma]

Didn't AJ mention the Matrix when Ralphie was around?

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[Wes]

Well, he didn't mention it with Ralphie around, but he bought a copy of it for Carmella's birthday or something. Either way, he had a copy of it in his hands which happens to have Joe Pantaliano on the cover.

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[thegame1999]

This isnt a big deal at all; its better not to acknowledge these things in a negative light anyway. Bruce Springsteen has been mentioned and their music has been played in the Sopranos, yet no one mentions that Silvio is in the band.

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[bacala]

exactly, let's all have some willing suspense of disbelief.

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[Alas1119]

Personally I think it adds to the "inside jokes" that the Sopranos tends to play on.

It's like in that movie Scream, when some of the characters talk about what actors they would want to play them if a movie was made about them. And one of them says, "with my luck, they'd get Tori Spelling to play me."

And in one of the Scream sequels, that's exactly what they did...Tori Spelling played the character of Sydney in the "movie within a movie" called "Stab."

So it doesn't phase me that an actor's name is mentioned in one episode and then they end up playing a role on the show...

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[Vesuvio]

Overall, I don't think that having Frankie Valli play someone other than himself was a "hanging offense," though I, too, found it a little disturbing.

I think that there is a subtle difference between references to real people versus actors who played certain characters:

For example, I agree that if Gary Cooper were alive and played a character other than himself on the Sopranos it would be worse than, say, when the actor who played Al Neri in The Godfather was one of the old guys from Rhode Island who were hired to whack Johnny Sack - even though they constantly make GF references in the Sopranos.

That's because Gary Cooper was a real person whereas Al Neri was a character.

Another example: Last season in the Christopher Columbus episode they refer to the fact that James Caan is not Italian. Now, if James Caan were to appear on the show as someone other than himself, that would be more of a problem than if they never mentioned Caan by name. Otherwise, it would be ok if he appeared as someone else, even though he was Sonny in The Godfather.

Then again, it's really no big deal - just some inside jokes, as someone said.

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[Matzner]

Hell, UNCLE JUNIOR was in GF...

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