Roseville, gangsta style

Natalie Mixon thought it would be a good idea to see what happened to TV's most famous mob family before the series came to an end.But she and her husband weren't too far into viewing episodes from the 1999 inaugural season of HBO's monster hit "The Sopranos" before a small detail really caught her eye."I told my husband, 'Back that up for a second,'" said the 42-year-old Roseville resident. "He backed it up and there it was, sure as anything.""It" was a cardboard poster for the 1997 Placer County Fair in Roseville. The poster features red lettering and the fair's logo, a silhouette of people including a child holding balloons."I think it was that silhouette that caught my eye," said Mixon, who works as a massage therapist. "I was born and raised in Roseville, and I used to show animals at the fair. I drive past the fairgrounds every day on my way to work. I would know that picture anywhere."Mixon said she started calling all her friends to see if they noticed the poster."My husband jokes that it's my ADD," she said. "He and my friends all said, 'Oh yeah, only you would notice something like that."But Mixon wanted to know how the poster ended up on the set, hanging behind Tony Soprano's desk in Satriale's pork shop."We got a call from (Mixon) who said she saw the poster in the second episode of the first season," said Valeria Garcia of the Placer County Fair and Events Center. "She said you could see it plain as day."Garcia and others at the fairgrounds were stumped about how the poster found its way to New Jersey."Maybe someone from the show is from this area?" Garcia questioned.Local legend is Steve Sigler, the father of Jamie-Lynn Sigler who plays troubled daughter Meadow Soprano - grew up in Sacramento. Despite a Google hit for a Steve Sigler who graduated in Sacramento in 1964, officials at his New York office of the Mens Senior Baseball League, which he founded, said he never lived in the area.And representatives from the show aren't even sure the poster existed."Our set decorator, who's been with the show from the beginning, said she checked that set because it hasn't been torn down yet," said Tobe Becker, an HBO publicist for the show said. "It's not there; there's only a poster for a fair in North Sheffield."And our decorator said she always looked for items that related to Northern New Jersey," she said.A possible explanation is the poster, the style of which is collected by some, was purchased under the belief it referred to the Roseville Avenue School, which is located in Newark, N.J., which apparently hosts annual fairs. Calls to the school and HBO could not confirm nor deny that theory.So how did Roseville land a spot in the greatest mob series of all time?It's a mystery that might just sleep with the fishes.The final six episodes of the HBO series willair in the coming weeks.The first is scheduled for 9 p.m. Sunday.