‘The Sopranos’ Star Steve Schirripa Officially Returns to His Mobster Roots
Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.
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Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of The Sopranos' infamous finale, yet all these years later, the HBO megahit still looms large. David Chase's portrait of organized crime in America, centered on the DiMeo crime family boss Tony Soprano, is recognized as the series that launched the modern era of prestige television. It's also one of the most iconic mafia stories ever told on-screen, with the complicated Tony and the people around him being exactly what many viewers still think of when imagining modern mobsters who balance everyday life with more nefarious activities. One of Tony's closest confidantes is now about to return to his glory days on Disney Channel.
Big City Greens Season 5 is welcoming Steve Schirripa to town this week, and with him comes a bit of danger for the titular family. The animated Disney sitcom has been following the 10-year-old country boy Cricket Green as he navigates life in the big city with his fish-out-of-water loved ones. His natural curiosity and mischievousness have gotten him and those around him into plenty of trouble before, but have also helped earn him a spot in his neighbors' hearts. There's never been a real-life mobster in the neighborhood, though. Ahead of the new episode "Wise Gals" airing tomorrow, November 7, Collider can exclusively share a sneak peek that introduces Schirripa not as "Bobby Bacala," but as the sinister Don Ravioli, who isn't afraid to get rid of problematic customers himself.
The footage opens with Nancy and Gloria waking up tied together and dangling over a near-boiling pot of pasta sauce. "Wise Gals" sees Nancy deciding to take Gloria out for a night on the town out of fear that she's grown too boring, but in their fun, they dine and dash from the wrong restaurant. Ravioli is determined to make them pay with their lives, ordering his goons to slowly lower them into the deadly, bubbling vat beneath them.
They're briefly interrupted by his nephew, Gio, who accidentally stumbles upon this execution and begs him to stop with all the mob stuff because "it's stereotypical and overdone." Don isn't ready to give up his old life as a criminal kingpin, though, calling it "cool" to drop people to their tomatoey dooms, and insisting Gio's just too young to understand the magic of the mafia.
Collider Exclusive · Villain Personality Quiz Which Criminal Mastermind Would Be Your Nemesis? Lecter · Joker · Moriarty · Chigurh
Four of the finest criminal minds ever put on screen. One of them would look at you and see something worth their time. Eight questions decide which one comes for you, why they picked you, and what they would want when they arrived.
🍷Lecter
🃏Joker
♟️Moriarty
🪙Chigurh
01
What would a criminal mastermind notice about you first? Great villains choose their opponents carefully. Something about you got their attention.
02
How do they make first contact? The introduction tells you everything about what is coming next.
03
What do you actually believe about right and wrong? Every nemesis is really an argument about the thing you believe most.
04
What finally gets under your skin? Everybody has a pressure point. Finding yours is the whole plan.
05
They have made their move. How do you fight back? This is the part of the film where the audience finds out who you are.
06
What would they use against you? A good villain never brings a weapon you have not already handed them.
07
What do they actually want from you? The money is never the point. Something else always is.
08
How does it end between the two of you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who comes for you.
The Case File Is Complete Your Nemesis Is…
Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours. Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from the encounter.
Hannibal Lecter
Your nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the conversation is.
- Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He never raises his voice, because he has never needed to.
- You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve is exactly the door he would knock on.
- The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence. It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person.
- He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part.
The Joker
Your nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on.
- The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence against him. It is the entire reason he showed up.
- He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool you would normally reach for.
- His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend the rest of your life proving him wrong.
- He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life.
Moriarty
Your nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time.
- Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from: a mind the equal of the hero's, pointed the wrong way.
- You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he has already built the room.
- This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs the game to be worth playing.
- It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down.
Anton Chigurh
Your nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way.
- Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the answer was decided long before you opened your mouth.
- You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no interest in how capable you are.
- No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work.
- Call it. He will wait.
'Big City Greens' Season 5 Injects a Little 'Sopranos' Magic
Although the elderly Don Ravioli is a bit different than the sensitive Bobby, trying to relive his heyday as a mob boss, the role still gave Schirripa a chance to draw upon his gangster persona once more. He hailed "Wise Gals" for capturing some of that Sopranos energy while also letting him relive his own glory days in a new comedic way. "Voicing the role of Don Ravioli on Big City Greens brought back some fond memories of my years on The Sopranos, and just like The Sopranos, this episode is smart, dramatic, and hilariously funny," he said. "I loved it!!”
Scirripa is the latest big name to join the Big City Greens voice cast in Season 5, which also notably welcomed Dylan Sprouse back to the Mouse House, and features Stephen King, Luke Combs, Chad Michael Murray, Meghan Stalter, Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Cobie Smulders, Clark Gregg, and Mike Colter, among others. The main ensemble includes Chris Houghton, Marieve Herington, Bob Joles, Artemis Pebdani, Zeno Robinson, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Anna Akana. In addition to "Wise Gals," this weekend's release will also see the family take part in "Big Sweater," following Cricket's grandfather Nick as he's forced to knit, well, a really big sweater after accidentally ruining Smalton's prized roadside attraction.
Big City Greens Season 5, Episode 7 airs first on Disney Channel on November 7 before arriving on Disney+ on November.
- Release Date
- June 19, 2018
- Network
- Disney Channel
- Directors
- Monica Ray, Natasha Kline, Tiffany Ford, Matt Braly
-
Chris Houghton
Cricket Green (voice)
-
Marieve Herington
Tilly Green (voice)
-
Bob Joles
Bill Green (voice)
-
Artemis Pebdani
Alice 'Gramma' Green (voice)
- Writers
- Amy Hudkins, Jonathan Wallach, Kiana Khansmith, Charlie Gavin, Raj Brueggeman, Steve Wolfhard, Ariel Vracin-Harrell, Chris Pianka, Cheyenne Curtis, Aaron Austin, Faryn Pearl, Ben Adams, Caroline Director, Tyler Chen, Ian Mutchler
- Creator(s)
- Shane Houghton, Chris Houghton
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.