Mister Magoo

March 13, 2006 1:36 PM

Re: Last night's Sopranos, what was the Italian phrase uttered in last night's episode? (Spoiler inside)

Before shooting Tony, Uncle Junior said something in Italian. What did he say in Italian and what does it mean in English?

posted by geoff. to Writing & Language (11 answers total)

I'm not sure it was Italian (I'll doublecheck the Tivo on my return home) but instead he yelled "Pussy Melenga" (spelling probably insanely wrong) at Tony. Due to his increasing dementia, he thought Tony was Pussy, a rival of his who had been dead for 6 years, coming to get him.
posted by unsupervised at 1:47 PM on March 13, 2006

Oh, and I thought he looked more like Mr. Six, the mascot for Six Flags.
posted by unsupervised at 1:49 PM on March 13, 2006

Someone on The Forums (at Television Without Pity) says it's "Uccisione Malanga!" or "Kill Malanga!" I can't confirm.

I get a lot more out of this show from reading these forums, even if it takes up too much time to read through them. Amazing what people notice. Scary! But also frequently interesting.
posted by theredpen at 1:50 PM on March 13, 2006

A translation. What would we all do without teh intarweb. I'm going to watch it again tonight and will listen closely. Sorry for the two posts.
posted by theredpen at 1:53 PM on March 13, 2006

Check out this post, which says that while the word "Malanga" was certainly in there, there was more -- apparently closed-captioning refers to it as an "unspecified Italian phrase." And in a Washington Post online chat today, Uncle Junior himself (Dominic Chianese), said: "I called out a name Malanga, Pussy Malanga, somebody known by Uncle Junior in a former time. In other words it was threat to Malanga. I thought I was shooting him."
posted by pardonyou? at 2:44 PM on March 13, 2006

I haven't seen it (I'm not even a fan), but if somebody has saved the clip (or audio file) somewhere I'll watch it / listen to it and translate it (caveat: I'm from the North, so my comprehension of heavily Sicilian-accented mafiosospeak is not that great, alas)
posted by matteo at 3:02 PM on March 13, 2006

From the HBO/Soprano website: "Junior's mind is playing tricks again-he's convinced that Pussy Malanga is stalking him, and that he stole 40 Gs from a job back in the '70s."
posted by ericb at 4:17 PM on March 13, 2006

Not Italian. I speak Italian and it was pretty clear he was calling out the guy's name. Junior mentions him earlier in the episode, once when they are trying to dig up the $40K in the yard and once when he's puttering around the house.
posted by lackutrol at 4:19 PM on March 13, 2006

And matteo, these particular wiseguys are of Neapolitan extraction, so it would be equally heavily-accented Neapolitan mafiosospeak. I've been able to understand during the episodes that take place in Napoli, so I'm sure you would too.
posted by lackutrol at 4:22 PM on March 13, 2006

Best answer: I thought I heard him say cazzo di Malanga, as in, "Fucking Malanga!"
posted by emelenjr at 8:10 PM on March 13, 2006

Best answer: My buddy who speaks native Italian said it was "Fuck You, Malanga!" when he saw it.
posted by SweetJesus at 5:37 PM on March 14, 2006