Merlino can be a complete idiot quite honestly. To him, everyone is a rat which is completely ignorant and foolish. Sonny Franzese a rat? C'mon. He also called Greg Scarpa Jr a rat. Is he fuckin serious. Jr was arrested and sentenced to heavy time way before his father was exposed and he never knew about his dad. He did 35 years in prison , 3x the amount of time Merlino ever did. Scarpa Jr did give info about an islamic terrorist but that is patriotic in my view.
Hey Merlino, if you had info about a terrorist who was going to blow up a school or a commit some other atrocities, you wouldn't say anything and wouldn't save the children??? Are you fuckin retarded! If you ever did do that and word got out that you did, you would be the most hated man in America. That said, I do think a lot of your "rat talk" is bloviating while a lot of it is legit.
Do like his show though, he just goes off the rails sometimes.

I totally don't think Sonny Franzese was a rat, but I can see Merlino's point, which is that after his son cooperated, and even wrote a book, Sonny hung out with him. As for Scarpa Jr., he was a rat, he knew all along that his father was giving info to the feds, and he not only went along with it, he did not warn anyone, plus he passed along info to Scarpa Sr. to give the feds.

Sonny Franzese having out with his son is understandable to me. Scarpa Jr. is a total rat.

Merlino is a clown. Honestly I remember him for two things, his wife was sleeping with a bunch of guys and he got shot in the ass. As for Sonny Franzese I think it’s well established that he was old school til the end. However accusing him of being a rat because he had a relationship with his son is asinine. If he is claiming that Sonny had to completely cut off his son for cooperating it would show how bad the life is

Well, that IS, the Life, whether you like it or not. Nobody ever said it was pretty

I don't think that hanging out with his son made him a rat, but it IS the Life and I see where Skinny Joey is coming from. I guess the question is what would Skinny Joey do? Does he have a son? I imagine there's some examples of hardcore mobsters disowning their kids.

Haha Joey has daughters. If one of them witnessed a murder and decided to testify for the prosecution, he would probably start doing heroin. The man is a mental case.

Wrong to call Sonny a rat …. But wrong of Sonny to associate with the son. There are explains of sons being killed. …. Associating with a rat leads to an entire break down of what this whole thing is. However as we’ve seen time and time again there are too many rats. So to Joeys point, it’s very frustrating to see so many rats and his “off the rails” commentary is him voicing his frustration and witness rats rats and more rats. Too many rats!

Joey has essentially been allowed to retire and make his show but he cannot make a mockery of it. Notice he doesn’t use any of the words associated with his former life …

. Look if he wants to be frustrated that’s fine but making ridiculous accusations with no proof is not. It just makes him look like well….an idiot

The way he calls people rats who aren't makes ya question him a lot more....

He has nothing else in his life to talk about....

Who gives a hoot about his football picks ???

Greg Scarpa jr did 35 years in prison and Merlino did 11.

Most of these guys aren't smart. I've been saying it forever. Sadly, people are blinded by Hollywood's romanticized version of this life, a truly bastardized version of reality.

Merlino was not a rat. Merlino also did more than 11 years, Greg Jr. was along time rat, but he went to prison to silence him, and keep him away from the media.. If his father and the FBI handlers of his father had not been killing people all over the place, with tips from the FBI on where to find the members they were at war with Greg Jr would have not gone to prison.

What romanticized version? All movies on them make them look worse than they are in most cases. It is even more so in documentaries. It is clear that you are the one influenced by movies.

Exactly Jace, most movies make mob life look like ANYTHING but what you would want to be a part of. Even the movies that start off glamorous end up crashing down hard in the end.

Merlino is definitely not a rat but he should stay away from Scarpa Jr. Its bullshit. Leave the guy alone, he did 35 years are very hard time.

Merlino show sucks the novelty has worn off

Merlino is looking for suckers and ball washer to give him free stuff . Should change his name to Joey the Moucher

I sort of agree, and have said so, Where we disagree on this is I don't see him as mooching, but trying to make money honestly in a venue filled with mostly younger people and with no great support staff. He does not have great technicians. He is not looking for free stuff though, I think he has put money out of his own pocket into tis.

As for the quality , it varies in consistency. He has a great show, then 2 stiffs in a row. He needs a Bruce Cutler as a guest, John Gotti Jr may have been a great guest if he had agreed to do the show, but Merlino went off on him, so that is off the table. Merlino has to get into exposing biased judges, as he had in his early shows,

The best episode may have been where he exposed that rat John Rubeo as not only a fake (Rubeo tried to entrap Merlino) but showed how Rubeo and Borrello openly bragged on a podcast about how the FBI allowed him to get away with so many crimes he was making tons of illegal money through crimes, which he had never done before. Rubeo laughed with Borrello about how the FBI was getting him off and looking the other way on anything he did!
That show was great, but it was ignored by people on sites like this,

I have no issue with his show, it can be entertaining. I just think he gets completely stupid with calling certain people rats such as Sonny Frnzese. I also think calling Scarpa jr a rat is kind of uncalled for irregardless of what his father did.

I think part of the obsession with rats is that Merlino's own life and livelihood have been seriously damaged by guys who really did flip, including his own uncle (Yogi Merlino), one of his best childhood friends (Horsehead Scafidi), and then a whole handful of the older guys he knew coming up in the life: Tommy Del, Nicky Crow, Wayne Grande, etc.

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Most of these guys aren't smart. I've been saying it forever. Sadly, people are blinded by Hollywood's romanticized version of this life, a truly bastardized version of reality.[/quote]


100% accurate

I still stick to what I said, the vast majority of mob movies discourage people from wanting to be a mobster. Of course, many of us working stiffs want what they had when they had it, but it all comes crashing down in the end. Unless you count The Godfather, but that's fiction mixed with reality. Hell, even Michael Corleone died alone with nothing but a dog by his side. Not glamorous.