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Growing Up Gotti

Written by sdettorre

When one thinks of the best moms on TV-the ones who exemplify the maternal instinct and mother’s intuition-the names that come to mind are Edith Bunker, Carol Brady, and Peg Bundy. Well ladies there’s a new sheriff in the town of Mom-ville, and if anyone crosses her she probably knows one or two fellas who could enforce her rule since she grew up witnessing whacks, hits, offs and jobs and she seems to have turned out just fine. But only time will tell for John, Carmine, and Frank if Growing Up Gotti is any different under the rule of Victoria than that of crime boss John Gotti.

Growing Up Gotti focuses on the day-to-day activities of Victoria Gotti, the daughter of the late John Gotti who was the head of a powerful crime family in the 80s. Victoria lives with her three sons Frank, Carmine and John. They live in a house that makes Will Smith’s house seems like he was the Fresh Prince of Secaucus instead of Bel-Air. Victoria’s kids are three of the most ill adjusted people on Earth. What teen-ager sees a $1900 fur coat and says to himself, “Oh yeah, I need that”? Fur coats are for two people; women and pimps (and I mean real pimps-ones that get paid even if the trick isn’t turned, not wannabe pimps like Kevin Federline and Colin Ferrell). The fact that these kids don’t know what they’re doing was exemplified when one of them bought a fur coat he thought was chinchilla but was actually rabbit with spray paint on it. They might as well walk around with signs that say sucker or moron around their necks. Also, whenever these kids go into a hair supply store, Crew’s stock price goes up 250%. They put enough gel in their hair to make Pat Riley jealous. If anyone invested in gel stock when these kids started growing hair they’re sitting on an island enjoying a champagne coolie as we speak.

Aside from Frank, Carmine and John, there is a cast of characters similar to Howard Stern’s whack pack running around casa de Gotti. The bar in Star Wars was more normal than this house. There are three people I’ll mention that make this show worth watching.

1-Jay: Jay was Victoria’s assistant whose job was to help her with her job. A quick question here…what is Victoria’s job? Jay is about as smart as Fredo Corleone. Victoria asked him to go to the store where her kids bought the rabbit fur and return it. So the kids mess up by getting ripped off and Jay has to bite the bullet and return the coat. That’s not my idea of a job description I’d take. Then again if I had a boss who strutted around in the outfits Victoria Gotti wears I might be singing a different tune. So all Jay had to do was take the receipt and the coat back to the store and the vendor would exchange it. Well since Jay is a moron and he didn’t have Silent Bob to give him some sage advice, he lost the receipt and couldn’t return the faux chinchilla coat. Since Jay lost the receipt then came home and decided to play poker with the kids rather than work, Victoria sent him to find work with the fishes, and fired him. So like Gredo in the Star Wars bar, Jay was knocked off and won’t be heard from again.

2-Robert: If Robert is straight then Katie Holmes really loves Tom Cruise and wasn’t brainwashed by Scientology. Robert took over the reins when Jay dropped the ball on returning the fake coat. He claimed he knew furs because his father was a furrier. I’ve never heard of that job, let alone someone’s dad who did it as a career. Then again Morty Seinfeld sold raincoats for 34 years so maybe the coat business is a lucrative career. I wonder if there’s room for a 28-year-old Italian Jew in the field who uses wit and sarcasm like Dylan used Kelly and Brenda. So Robert returns the coat and decides to deck out all three guys in furs for a big party they have coming up and Victoria is happy with this decision. I know my mom always wanted my brother and I to be laughed at wherever we went as kids so she dressed us up like Ewoks too. Regardless, Victoria was happy with Robert as her assistant to take over the vacancy left by Jay. If there is ever a Simpsons movie, Robert has a head start on the Smithers role.

3-Luigi: Luigi is hands down the guy who makes this show funny. He’s a little Italian guy who chain-smokes and is Victoria’s handy man. It wouldn’t surprise me if he and his brother defeated a dragon and rescued a princess in their youth. If Lucky Charms was an Italian cereal instead of an Irish one, General Mills would have their poster boy for the box. Victoria made a bet with Luigi that if he quit smoking for a week she would give him $1000 and if he smoked he had to work for her for free for one day. After Luigi asked Victoria, a mafia princess, if she was good for the grand he went upstairs to do some work. While upstairs, in the house where Victoria was, he lit a cigarette. It’s not like cigarette smoke is an obvious odor or anything. If he’s going to cheat on the bet at least go outside. But the funniest thing when he got caught was that he forgot he made the bet about 15 minutes ago. Well that’s not the funniest thing about Luigi, the funniest thing is that when he speaks, in English mind you, A&E feels it’s necessary to use subtitles.

Growing Up Gotti is an entertaining show that focuses on the lives on the descendants of a mob crime boss. There is a cast of characters that would give Lewis Carroll and run for his Alice in Wonderland money. Not to mention that since there’s nothing on televison Tuesday nights, A&E’s reality show about a mom and her three kids is a nice option compared to what ABC considers a sit-com.