Everything I know about The Sopranos I learned from Sopranos pinball
As the groundbreaking HBO series celebrates its 25th anniversary, let's toast one of the single dumbest ways to experience it via cultural osmosis
TV Features Pinball
This week marks the 25th anniversary of The Sopranos, a show whose influence on the modern TV landscape probably can’t be overstated. At least, not by me. Because, uh … I’ve never actually seen it.
A terrible confession, I know. Possible grounds for dismissal from the Formal Association Of Online Television Cranks, etc. But I’ve managed to simply fake it ’til I made it with David Chase’s groundbreaking drama series, largely through cultural osmosis. The fact is, it really wasn’t possible, from 1999 to 2007, to be present in any serious way on the internet in America without picking up some of the basic plot beats of this series, its most shocking moments, the bits that had the water-cooler buzzing. I had one secret ally in my corner, though, from 2005 onward, one that I now firmly believe is the single greatest way to learn as much as you can learn about The Sopranos without actually bothering to watch The Sopranos: The Sopranos pinball table, by Stern Pinball, an invaluable trove of detailed Sopranos lore.
This might sound like a joke, but I’m being entirely sincere: Produced in between the show’s fifth season and its extended final sixth one, the Sopranos pinball table is one of the most info-heavy, spoiler-filled pinball tables I’ve ever played, attempting to incorporate as many plot beats, episode ideas, and sexually explicit boat antics as designer George Gomez and his team at Stern could reasonably fit into it. Certainly, it’s one of the only pinball machines that I know of that can get you dirty looks in a quiet arcade by activating a bonus mode where the game constantly spouts profanities at the player, or loudly spoils the fate of Steve Buscemi’s character on the show. As one of my favorite tables to play, it’s a gold mine of semi-random references that have now been permanently burnt into my head, giving me an extremely weird set of touchstones for the series—and I thought it might be worth exploring everything a dope like me can learn by taking their prestige TV entirely in pinball form. Like, for instance…
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This probably isn’t lamer but my dad is a massive massive fan of the show since he’s from Jersey. He’d quote Pine Barrens and random Paulie lines and yell Gabagool from time to time. I was too young to watch the show. I thought for the longest time it was about a guy in the Pine Barrens who runs a walnut store who is worried about a Russian ghoul.
Yeah, Sopranos pretty much nailed that aspect of NJ life. There used to be some kind of weird industrial area breadstick place near my house growing up that neither sold nor made breadsticks and was never open except at random times in the middle of the night while big cars idled in the lot and beefy guys stood around the door looking warily with one hand on a holster.
We’d prank call them from a payphone mercilessly and in squeaky kids voice ask to speak to the capo. “Sal! Phone for you.” Ridiculousness would proceed from there as they inevitably threatened to strangle us, our mothers, or both. I guess a 14 year old saying “Michael… we’re bigger than US Steel” would be pretty rage inducing.Contractors would try to bribe my father’s work to get construction gigs and offer all kinds of things to sweeten the pot. Lots of front row tickets at the former Garden State Arts Center and dinners at the actual Four Seasons. My father went along with that but would say in a worried voice… “I just don’t take cash… because then they OWN you.”
Four SeasonsOh. You mean the hotel.
I’ve always said that the Sopranos pinball is nothing more than a glorified pop-a-shot.
Woke up this morning, shot myself some pinball.
Meanwhile, everything I know about the Sopranos (seriously, I have never watched a minute of this show) I learned from this comedic review of the 2006 Sopranos Playstation 2 game.I guess the Sopranos beat a lot of people up and then die on boats.
Woke up this morning… got some gabagool…
This is the most detailed documentation of the amazing callouts in this knockout of a game. You should play in more tournaments man, your IFPA page is a stub!
What’s your favorite sound design in the game and why is it the silence during Pinebarrens/Satisfaction
And what’s your least favorite sound design the game and why is it Big Points
Also Melfi does get a callout after the game ends: “Toodaloo!”
Does the machine simply shut off when you reach the end?
Two minutes before, actually. My friends and I have been arguing over whether I won or lost for ten years.
I never saw a Sopranos slot machine. I have played slot machines themed with Game of Thrones, Sex and the City and The Big Bang Theory, but never saw a Sopranos. Pretty surprising, especially in Atlantic City.
Too bad this came out before the series ended. They could’ve had an animation of Meadow struggling to parallel park if you were playing badly.
And if you were doing extremely well, an animation of Tony playing Mario Kart with one hand and winning somehow.
The people who insist on tell you that ‘I’ve never seen a single moment of X!’ people are the most boring, insecure people in the world. There’s plenty of extremely popular things that I’ve never seen, and I’m perfectly content to just continue to ignore them.
I really enjoyed this article. Fun, niche take on pop culture — exactly what I want from the AV Club.
Can they make The Wire pinball to help those of us who haven’t watched another one of those series everyone is supposed to have seen? Maybe with targets that the ball can hit that represent characters who get shot?
Please tell me the game doesn’t play “Don’t Stop Believin’”.