In 1969, he was fired by RAI when he described the company's managers as a group of boy scouts trying to pilot a supersonic jet plane unsuccessfully.

Named after the Portobello Road market in London, the show allowed the audience, via telephone from home, to buy or sell things, present ideas or inventions, or look for a partner or someone they had not seen for years.

It was claimed that this was most likely a wrong identification with a man bearing the same surname, but the pentiti continued to accuse Tortora of offences related to cocaine dealing.

[clarification needed] In September 1986, the Court of Appeal of Naples fully acquitted Tortora.

In 1987 the Supreme Court definitively affirmed Tortora's total innocence, and took action against those magistrates who had unjustly tried and sentenced him.