Top of the Heap is truly the bottom of the barrel.
Granted, I only watched “Behind the Eight Ball,” the series’ third episode that aired in April, 1991. But, there is a reason this Married… with Children spinoff only lasted seven episodes. It’s comedic dregs, sitcom sludge, the sort of show even a laugh track finds humorless.
Top of the Heap focuses on the attempts of Charlie Verducci (Joseph Bologna) and his son Vinnie (Matt LeBlanc)—to get rich. Charlie’s “master plan” is for Vinnie to marry into a wealthy family; to this end, the father-son duo tries to break into high society, which includes Vinnie getting a job at a country club and Charlie pining for the club’s manager Alixandra Stone (Rita Moreno).
(How Mr. LeBlanc ever rebounded from this dumpster fire to join the cast of Friends three years later and ultimately earn $1 million per episode defies explanation.)
In “Behind the Eight Ball,” Charlie is concerned that Alixandra may have eyes for Warren Prado, a wealthy new club member, so Charlie tries to hustle him in a game of nineball. However, after witnessing someone call the man “Godfather” and kiss his hand, he quickly starts to backpedal, fearing for his life and “spelling help in [his] underwear.”
The acting is robotic, and the jokes are cringeworthy, but there are few highlights worth mentioning. Joey Lauren Adams plays Vinnie’s high school-aged neighbor (two years before her first major role in Dazed and Confused); Christina Applegate, reprising her Kelly Bundy role, appears for continuity’s sake; and two former Playboy models, Heather Parkhurst and a 24-year-old Pamela Anderson, show up to… show off. There are also two enjoyable trick shots, including one (seen here) that entails hitting five balls into four pockets with one shot.
But it’s hard to muster a smile amidst the egregious billiards inaccuracies, such as when the cue ball is ricocheted into a nearby aquarium and then miraculously appears on the table in the next shot. Or, in a game of nine-ball, when Charlie’s opponent sinks the nine with the cue, while leaving the two on the table (?!).
William Finnegan, The “Godfather of Pool”
It’s hardly a spoiler, but Mr. Prado turns out not to be that kind of godfather, but rather just some bub’s male sponsor. Of course, this got me thinking: what is the relation between billiards and criminal godfathers? Or, even better, between billiards and The Godfather?
For starters, several players have adopted the nickname “The Godfather,” including Taiwan’s Zhuang Zhiyuan and the Phillipines’ Aristeo “Putch” Puyat. Readers of my blog may also recall Steinway-Café Billiards regular William Finnegan, the self-proclaimed “Godfather of Pool,” who has appeared in multiple billiards reality shows, including The Hustlers, the “Emily” episode of In A Man’s World, and Kiss of Death.
Though none of these individuals appear connected to the mafia, the game of billiards has on occasion been associated with illegal activity, specifically gambling. So much so that in the 1920s, the Illinois Billiards Association was committed to keeping crime and booze out of billiards halls, as part of their “clean billiards crusade.” And before Johnny Torrio built the Chicago Outfit and turned loose his protégé Al Capone, he got his start in crime by opening a local pool hall in New York, where he ran an illegal gambling operation. More recently, Gerald Huber recounts many “war stories” of billiards, gambling, and mobsters in his autobiography The Green Felt Jungle.
Unfortunately, Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola chose to ignore the underworld billiards connection in writing and directing The Godfather movies.
Andy Garcia looking bored in “The Godfather III”
While plenty of gangster films have noteworthy billiards scenes (e.g, Mean Streets; The Krays; The Departed), the only billiards scene in Mr. Coppola’s trilogy is an unmemorable dialogue in The Godfather III between Connie Corleone (Talia Shire) and her nephew Vincent (Andy Garcia), while he is playing pool.
That’s a shame, given the iconic Hearst Estate mansion that was used in The Godfather as the home of movie producer Jack Woltz included a 32-foot-high billiards room.
It’s not like the Corleones – or at least, the actors who played them – didn’t know how to shoot billiards.
Marlon Brando in “Viva Zapata”
Twenty years before Marlon Brando became the Don, he was playing pool off set with his Viva Zapata co-star Anthony Quinn. So too did Robert DeNiro, the younger Vito of The Godfather II. He was quite happy at the table, as seen in The Deer Hunter.
Sonny Corleone’s gangster career may have been short-lived, but actor James Caan moved forward, picking up a cue stick one year later in Cinderella Liberty and then again – on horseback! – in Another Man, Another Chance. And, the incoming godfather, Al Pacino, makes one of the best “magic time” shots in eightball a decade later as Carlito Brigante in Carlito’s Way.
As for Fredo…poor Fredo. He wanted to be at the top of heap, but he took sides against the family and truly wound up behind the eight ball.
The “Behind the Eight Ball” episode of Top of the Heap is available to watch on Crackle.
