Boardwalk Empire Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014) Online

Boardwalk Empire Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014) Online

Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson, entertainment tycoon at the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, has gathered some of the most important members of the city council to a dinner at his nightclub Babette's Supper Club. It is two hours before the Prohibition will come into force on midnight January 17, 1920. At the dinner they discuss how to organize the distribution and selling of illegal alcohol. Next day Nucky makes an agreement with the smuggler Bill McCoy to buy 500 crates with Canadian whiskey for 35 grand. At a meeting at Nucky's restaurant the crime bosses Johnny Torrio and Big Jim Colosimo from Chicago, Arnold Rothstein and Lucky Luciano from New York, and Nucky himself discuss common interests. Outside Nucky's chauffeur Jimmy Darmody befriends Torrino's chauffeur Al Capone, both being veterans from World War I. Jimmy is frustrated with his inferior position in Nucky's new organization. He and Al Capone decide to rob the trucks that transport the 500 crates of illegal whiskey that Arnold ...

As of the date of its release, the pilot episode is the most expensive pilot for a TV show ever produced.

Real life gangster Arnold Rothstein would later be immortalized in F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel 'The Great Gatsby' where Gatsby introduces the narrator, Nick, to a friend and business associate of his called Meyer Wolfsheim, a Jewish gangster and gambler who had 'fixed the World Series,' a roman a clef for Rothstein, who did in real life.

Martin Scorsese encouraged the actors to improvise lines on set, something that is typical of his directing style but very rare on scripted television in which the shooting schedule is typically very strict, and in which the writer is usually outranks the director.

This episode takes place from January 15 to January 19, 1920.

Actress Molly Parker is seen as Nucky Thompson's late wife in photographs in his home.

The jokes told by Eddie Cantor (Stephen DeRosa) are told by the real Eddie Cantor in A Few Moments with Eddie Cantor, Star of 'Kid Boots' (1923).

Jimmy Darmody refers to his young son as "Skeezix," who was a character in the comic strip "Gasoline Alley," the second longest-running comic strip of all time. It was conceived and debuted in 1918 in order to communicate information about the the then new phenomena of automobiles. Each strip was meant to communicate useful information to its readers. It holds the distinction of being the first comic strip which had characters who aged.

The expression, "Joe, say it isn't so" is a reference to Shoeless Joe Jackson and the 'fixed' 1919 World Series with the Chicago White Sox (a.k.a Black Sox Scandal.)

The Sophie Tucker recording of "Some of These Days," which plays over the scene where Nucky looks in on the baby incubator store front, would have been nine years old at the time the events in this episode take place (it was recorded in 1911).

On its original airing, the pilot episode gained a 2.0/5 ratings share among adults aged 18-49 and garnered 4.81 million viewers.

The pilot episode was directed by Martin Scorsese and produced at a cost of $18 million.

Filming for the pilot took place at various locations in and around New York City in June 2009.

In the hold up scene at the beginning of the episode, it's Al Capone wearing a balaclava who hits the man with his shotgun.

The episode won 6 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Makeup for a Single-Camera Series (Non-Prosthetic), Outstanding Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series, Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series, Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series, Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series and Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.