Fed up, 'Sopranos' fans fill in the black

In Englewood, N.J., a few miles from where "The Sopranos" filmed its strip-club scenes, the employees of Dale and Thomas Popcorn Company grumbled about the HBO show's controversial finale. Nothing seemed clear about New Jersey's first family: Had Tony died? If so, who had pulled the trigger? And if not, why would director David Chase conclude his epic underworld series with 10 seconds of haunting black nothingness?

"Of all the ways they could have ended the show, the real one seemed like the worst," intern manager Nell Lukosavich said. "We were all sitting around complaining, and we came up with like 50 ideas for other endings. They all seemed better than the real one."

Then another idea emerged: Why not film their own "Sopranos" finale? "Even if it was the most horrible, stupid thing you could make in two hours," Lukosavich said, "it wouldn't be worse than the actual ending."

So Lukosavich and a team of interns drove to the Jackson Hole Diner in Englewood -- which looks vaguely like the real finale's setting -- and filmed four joke versions of the now-famous final Sopranos family dinner. Called "Sopranos Ending 1, 2, 3, and 4" on YouTube, the spoofs present the finale in the style, respectively, of "The Blair Witch Project," a surprise birthday party, the Austin Powers movies, and a retro Kool-Aid commercial.

In the 12 days since "The Sopranos" ended, YouTube has been buzzing with fan-generated responses. From Hillary Clinton to the Pittsburgh Pirates to the supposed brother of a minor cast member, fans -- many frustrated with the show's vague ending -- are posting spoofs, rants, and frame-by-frame analyses of the show's final moments.

"Fans are compelled by a mixture of fascination and frustration," said MIT media studies professor Henry Jenkins , the author of "Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide." "They often question the final decisions of directors. They feel like the show has its own internal logic. And when this logic is violated, fans feel like they can challenge the directors. In a sense, they're protecting the show against its own creators."

The "Sopranos" videos fall into three categories: homemade spoofs, real clips re-edited with alternate endings, and first-person, diary-style explanations of hidden meanings and clues.

The most famous example in the first category was released by Hillary Clinton's staff Monday to announce the selection of Celine Dion's "You and I" as her campaign song. The clip, which has received half a million hits on YouTube, casts Hillary in Tony Soprano's role. For Bill's health, she orders carrots instead of onion rings. Then the couple discusses potential campaign songs. In another political spoof, called 'The Subpoenas,' a cartoon President Bush shares Tony's onion rings with Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

Like most "Sopranos" spoofs, these two videos include certain stock elements: a diner, a jukebox, the Journey song "Don't Stop Believin'," someone struggling to parallel park a car, and an unexpected black screen at the end. Digital editing technology has made the process easy; a "Sopranos" fan can intersperse images from the series with clips snagged from another show or movie and, voila, a new vision for the ending.

Last weekend, the Pittsburgh Pirates broadcast a "Sopranos" spoof on the big screen at PNC Park with the team's mascots starring as characters. "I thought it would be a little two-minute video," producer Eric Wolff said. "But Keith Olbermann's 'Countdown' aired it last week on MSNBC. Now we've got 60,000 hits on YouTube."

Because the real "Sopranos" finale was famously inconclusive, one variety of spoof involves the opposite scenario: over-the-top finales. In one such clip, the possessed child from "The Exorcist" flashes onto the screen at the last moment and screeches. In another, the world explodes.

"The clip is actually from 'Star Wars,' " said Ryan Farley , who made the parody. "It's the Death Star blowing up. We just edited in the Earth and put stars behind it. The idea was, How are they going to end the show? With the whole world dying?"

HBO 's Tobe Becker said the network views these fan flicks with a sense of humor. "Whenever you're part of pop culture, it comes with the territory," she said. "You just sit back and enjoy."

Within hours of the "Sopranos" finale, fans logged into YouTube to swap theories about its hidden meanings. Many argued that Tony had died. Others proposed that, like the ending of the "Newhart," the final episode had all been one of Tony's dream sequences.

But most agreed on one point: Despite its ambiguity, the finale had become instantly iconic. In one YouTube video, a "Sopranos" fan presented clips from famous films as though they had been directed by David Chase. In the "Gone With the Wind" segment, Rhett turns to Scarlett and says, "Frankly my dear. . ." And then the screen goes black.

Robbie Brown can be reached at jbrown@globe.com.