From an Article by Josh Wolk published in the EW Daily News

HBO's critical hit 'The Sopranos' pays tribute to 'The Godfather,' but in an unusual way

Many Mafia movies and TV shows strive to make "Godfather" knock-offs. But in the deconstructionist new series "The Sopranos" (HBO, Sundays at 9 p.m.), the characters themselves pay homage to the Corleones: In a scene from last week's premiere, for example, one wise guy berates another for misquoting a famous line from "The Godfather": "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes." This joke, it turns out, has a basis in reality. When "Sopranos" creator David Chase interviewed gangsters while writing the show, he found that the Francis Ford Coppola trilogy is gospel to them. "And why not?" Chase says. "The films present them as noble, larger-than-life, almost baronial figures."

Chase, who has worked on such network shows as "The Rockford Files" and "I'll Fly Away," says creating a series for cable gives him greater freedom, but not in the obvious way many expect. "A lot of people think the notion is, 'Oh good, now we can write 'f----' instead of 'screw,' or 'Now we can shoot the guy in the head,'" Chase tells EW Online. "But that's not the most important part of the freedom. At HBO you're allowed to tell stories in unconventional ways, with a slow build. They don't freak out if not all the information is vomited out and the audience says, 'Gee, I wonder what that means?'"

Still, what would a mob show be without a few grisly shots to the head? "When it comes time to be violent, the show is very violent," says Chase. "The hope is that you don't lose yourself thinking that these people are cuddly teddy bears. You see other parts of them that are very human and full of foibles and even sweetness, but they are very brutal men."