Peter Griffin, Meet Tony Soprano

The only thing these two guys have in common is Sunday night.

Sure, Peter Griffin and Tony Soprano both are dealing with kids, wives, middle age, friends with quirks, and everything else mid-lifers cope with. Both star in edgy, prime time shows.

That's it.

Well, except for one thing: Tony owes Peter his name.

The recent "Vanity Fair" stokes "The Soprano" fires with a huge article on it's creator, David Chase--how the show got spurned by virtually everyone except HBO. It tells how Chase picked the cast, James Gandolfini's struggles with memorization, the weird dream sequences that make no sense to viewers (they aren't supposed to, Chase says, because that's how dreams are in real life).

And, it tells of Chase's struggle to brand his creation.

HBO finally ordered 13 episodes, just as Chase's contracts with his chosen castmembers were to expire, but the wrangling wasn't over, "Vanity Fair" says: Chase wanted to call the series 'The Sopranos' after some kids in his high school. "But HBO had a problem with that," he explains. "They thought people will say, 'It's about opera,' " which proved true. "They had people generating lists of alternate titles, page after page after page: "New Jersey Blood", this terrible s--t. They wanted to call it "Family Man." Steven Van Zandt (who plays Tony's consigliore) said, 'This is insane! Are they outta their f---n' minds?!' Then a series went on the air called "Family Guy", and that was the end of that. So they said, 'All right, use "The Sopranos."

Nine episodes of what is arguable the best, most real television drama remain, the first of which airs April 8th.