By the time the Bravo series "Real Housewives of New Jersey" drew to a close during the spring of 2010, it had generated enough buzz, controversy, and water-cooler discussion to make devoted viewers forget the producers' original intention: They had intended this installment of "The Real Housewives" franchise to satirize the characters and lifestyle represented in cable hit "The Sopranos." As "The Real Housewives of Orange County" were supposed to mimic ABC's "Desperate Housewives," so the Jersey Girls were groomed to look, sound, and spend like real-life equivalents of Carmella Soprano. The New York Times summed-up, "[They are] loud, nasal, nouveau-riche wives who raise spoiled children and spend their husbands' money in vast marble and onyx starter palaces in Franklin Lakes, N.J. They boast about everything, including how soon they qualified for the black American Express card. As Danielle Staub puts it, "˜I actually got mine before Madonna did'." They even had the pedigree to support the role: Albert Manzo, husband of mater familia Caroline Manzo, is the son of Albert "Tiny" Manzo, whose body"”all 350 pounds of it"”was discovered in the trunk of his Lincoln Continental; in 1983, police described the body as "perforated" with machine gun bullets.

‍