For the homeless and Christmas parties for the kids shelter?

He'll have to find a new Santa seeing Fat Angie Luzt has given up that role

He should get Bobby Bacala to play Santa or go the Les Nessman route and throw them out of a helicopter.

Best episode! We watch it every Thanksgiving.


'As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly'

Hysterical. One of the top 20 funniest television scenes of all time. That's right up there with Jim taking his driver's test on "Taxi," and Chuckles the Clown getting killed on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

Have you seen the CNN series on the 70's? They have one just about TV shows. You might like it.

I'll look for it, Mighty.

You're still a little bit too young to see it. But when you hit true middle age, you'll realize that the year you graduated high school and the ensuing summer was one of the most memorable of your life.

In my case, that was 1977. And it was a particularly memorable summer, aside from the fact that I had just graduated high school. The Bronx was burning, it was hot as Hell, the blackout, the Son of Sam, the Yankees, and a dozen other reasons only added to it for me. Most memorable summer of my life. Hands down.

I watched quite a bit of it Saturday. I thought that it was very good, recommended the TV part to my mother. They had a bit of it on Monty Python, Roots, All in the Family. Great stuff.

Wow you guys are killing me . Those days are gone but not forgotten .
And no doubt how fun or scary or deadly, those were the days...

Pizza, my parents just started dating in the summer of 1977 and they always told me they were Terrified that the Son of Sam would come over the bridge to Jersey and kill them when they were on dates...

and I cant believe I wasn't born until 1984

It was no joke if you lived in the outer boroughs, especially the East Bronx. Spike Lee overdid it in his film, especially the way he portrayed some Italians, but he was correct in that there were dozens upon dozens of us hoping he'd show up. Of course, we were armed like the Israeli army, but that's another story entirely .


See, I have 25 years on you, kid .

I know I seen nino brown doing it in the movie and now every bum rapper does it to look good but I don't remember rappers in the 90 doing it. Biggie tupac or snoop nope. skinny was doing in that murderous city I give it to him but I don't think he'll ever be doing it again.

Soup kitchen down my park gives turkeys to poor peeps but run out quick.

I wasn't even born yet My summer I spent working so I don't have fond memories of the summer after I graduated

"Of course we were armed like the Israeli army" that cracked me the fuck up PB.

I'll tell you a similar story. I remember the day of the Boston Marathon Bombings. My dad and younger teenage brother were in the city that day and every area of the city was basically shut down to look for the then unknown bastards who did it. Everywhere except two areas: Southie, the Irish neighborhood, and North End, the Italian neighborhood, the latter of which my cousin lives in. So they called him and he invited them up there for the night. And when they got there, there were literally about a dozen guys walking around or sitting in lawn chairs with handguns or concealed pistols. These guys were just aching for the terrorists to step foot in North End. Because the minute he tried his ass was grass.

Pizza, I ain't even gonna say how many years ya got on me Paisan.

Spike Lee's first film, "Do the Right Thing" (yeah....'89), I wrote a lengthily essay on regarding the portrayal of race in film. College communications class. I went a bit off topic and wrote deeply of the portrayal of Italian-Americans in film, especially by that hack Spike Lee, and then briefly touching upon how Italians are portrayed as racist, blue-collar thugs....especially by Spike Lee (he must've really hated Italians growing up in NY). I even referenced the mobsters in "New Jack City", but devoted quite a bit of the paper to then-current MTV.......yeah "The Jersey Shore", and then compared it to, what I consider, the unoffensive, unoffensive portrayal of Italians on "The Sopranos".

The professor was a 60 year old black woman. She loved it.

Fuck Spike Lee.

Seriously though, the, by far most damaging image of Italian-Americans, are of blue collar roughs that are poorly educated. See: The Simpson's episode when Homer becomes a tow truck driver, Spike Lee films (all, if not most), etc.

Here's a link I just discovered, via Google:

https://www.osia.org/documents/Advertising-Report.pdf


PS:
Oh, and I wrote extensively of the race-relations of Italians and Blacks in NYC, especially the several incidents in the 80's; Yusef Hawkins, Howard's Beach, and "an unemployed weightlifter named Gino Bova"
I wrote of "A Bronx Tale" quite a bit

I've been a member of the Sons of Italy for 35 years, Nicholas. You're preaching to the choir, son. But that was a valiant effort on your part. You should be proud of yourself .

@Nicholas

the police killed radio raheem in do the right thing and you're complaining

spike lee doesn't portray Italians as murderous thugs

hell he puts john turturro in almost all of his movies

Radio Raheem? You mean the thug who walked into Sal's Pizza with his ghetto blaster blaring and then assaulted Sal after Sal rightly bashed the hell out of it for disturbing his business? Yeah, he was a real loss to the community. Just like Michael Brown.

Hooah. I gave $100 to the NIAF after I watched them criticzing MTV on the news. Must've been Fox

Thank you by the way Pizza

Thanks Ivy, I wrote quite a bit of how Aiello's character was essentially provoked, and spitefully used the "N-word", out of anger and impulse. My professor didn't mention it in her write up/review of my paper. I was also a bit miffed as to why Spike Lee, wanted to have John Turturro's character so angered over Aiello's character's affection for the young black girl when he was "flirting" with her. Seriously, WTF? If I was Turturro, Lee would've kicked my ass off the set, for my anger, that if I was Turturro would've been raised by Lee's writing of Turturro's character's anger over Aiello flirting with the young black girl.

Seriously, Aiello (in the film, and at that time) was like 60. The girl, about 16-20. Just an old man thinking a girl was beautiful. It ain't like the two of them are gonna hook up. Not where that movie took place in 1989, that's for damn sure.

I'm glad this movie came up. It jogged my memory over something I've wondered about for years. In the movie, about 15 minutes in, they have this establishing shot of "the neighborhood". It's right after Richie first shows back up. They have the overhead shot of the DA Beach Club and then the dead-end up against the Sound where they hang out and deal weed.

Anyway, they make a very specific point of showing the street signs of this intersection where the beach club and the hangout is. Except in the movie, the go out of their way to show LAYTON AVENUE and CLARENCE AVENUE. The only problem is, in real life, that's the corner of RANDALL and CLARENCE -- not Layton.

I've always wondered why they went out of their way to re-arrange these street signs during the taping.

And I'm not crazy. Go back and watch the movie. It's right after the scene where Richie wakes up in his underoos, with 1010 WYNS on and asking his step-dad for 20 bucks.

The only thing I could think of is that at one point, they mention "shutting down" the Layton Avenue bridge. Maybe Spike wanted it to seem like that bridge led directly to the dead-end hangout. In real life, it's actually a few blocks over from Layton. Layton has a similar dead end, but there's a pizza shop, no beach club and not as big of an apartment building.

Anyway, great movie, despite the stereotypes. And I wouldn't get up in arms about that anyway. I'm Irish; show me one piece of Hollywood that doesn't portray us as breaking down in confession, drinking away the last paycheck, getting sun burned every time we walk by a glare through a window, having mothers who cook shitty food, and running fools' errands for someone smarter. The thing is, a lot of it is true. That's why stereotypes exist, and paint a picture of certain people and places in time. If we're going to celebrate diversity -- which I think we should -- then we need to celebrate the differences. Otherwise, we're really only celebrating a homogenized version of what the people touting diversity want to see. Although crude and sometimes unfair, I think Spike's depictions make good movies. They at least spark conversation.

I mentioned that here years ago, Sonny Boy .

It wasn't anything sinister. They were doing heavy construction on the corner of Layton and Clarence in the Summer of '98, especially by the apartment building, when they filmed it. Plus, the beach club made for better scenery.

My daughters were both little girls at the time and were asked to be extras (along with a hundred other locals). I politely declined.

I don't know why I thought there was an off-chance you wouldn't have known this. So then why didn't he just keep it Layton and Clarence? Wanted to make it all seem like it was near the "layton bridge"?

Summer of '98 I was 14 years old. Living with my dad Upstate. I was nervous as hell to start 9th grade, but excited as hell to see how big every chick's boobs got. Arturo Gatti and Ivan Robinson I was the fight of the year that August. It was probably one of the last summers before there was ANY form of internet in a house I lived in -- even dial-up. I watched Howard Stern on E!, snuck out to raise hell with my friends, and wasn't even old enough to work. It was my first time getting drunk. My cousin took me to a party and I drank Tequila Rose and Old Mill until I couldn't see straight.

So if you were thinking "This kid was too young/didn't live around here back then" -- you were right.

I turned 39 in 1998. I hate you now. Don't talk to me anymore .

now you know how black folks feel about racial sterotyping ha ha.there is a tons of middle class black folks out there, but that is not what sells. all the old jim crow sterotypes about blacks is what the masses eat up.

Pb was born in the summer of 69.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgpcwYooLO0

Fall of '59. But thanks for trying, Sonny .

Get outta here cook.

Raheem should've gotten his ass kicked by Sal in that movie. Maybe if you'd focus less on rioting and more on changing things you'd be taken more seriously.

Spike Lee is a douche. He hates white people more than some Klan members hate minorities.

Remember that time he bitched about Clint Eastwood's "Flags of our Fathers" film that it had no black soldiers despite the fact that the army was segregated back then and it wouldn't be historically accurate. Luckily Eastwood just told him to fuck off

I am going to be honest only a brain dead black man could be happy with the racial deal in America. All that praying, marching and forgiving shit has not changed one thing. We saw Zimmerman get off for some crap I could never get away with in 1,000 years in the worst ghetto in America plus saw folks reward Zimmerman and Darren Wilson with bounty money for killing unarmed black teenagers.The Zimmerman case made me for the first time in my life say "hey it is time to get a gun" and I am 56 yrs old. My biggest threat is not the hoodlum in the hood but racist cops and everyday racists because they can kill me and lie and folks will let them walk.i had a co-worker say 'MLK would not be happy with folks rioting in Ferguson",I said what do you think he would have said about folks sending Zimmerman and Wilson 1.5 mil for the lying crap they got away with?.The state has no business killing unarmed folks over nonsense like jaywalking and driving without a front tag