The only casting what-if found: Lee campaigned for Robert De Niro to play the pizzeria owner, but De Niro declined due to prior commitments.
With De Niro it becomes a different movie about De Niro; it might make more money or get closer to Best Picture, though Aiello's nomination suggests not.
De Niro would tip the ensemble's equal balance and bring baggage, so his smashing Radio Raheem's radio might be cheered; it is a morally different movie.
Danny Aiello was a 'that guy' at the time, known from Moonstruck with a very small Godfather role and other small parts.

Half-Assed Internet Research

Hitchcock-episode origin; revised ending; Stuyvesant Avenue location; security during filming; Lee on critics and Mookie; later references

In the discussion (8)

Approx. transcript time · 01:06:00Read transcript

As read on air, the idea came from the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode 'Shopping for Death', about hot weather increasing violence; it was also inspired by Howard Beach and Eleanor Bumpurs, and the screenplay was written in two weeks.
As read on air, the original script ended with a stronger reconciliation between Mookie and Sal and it is unclear why Lee changed it; the hosts answer that it is better this way and the original would have been more Hollywood.
One host argues the film was a Rorschach test: white people (and not only white people) had been conditioned to expect race movies on their terms with reconciliation, and blamed Lee for not solving the problem; the film cuts the bow like a play.
As read on air, the film was shot entirely on Stuyvesant Avenue between Quincy Street and Lexington Avenue, and the production designer painted the street red and orange to convey a heat wave.
As read on air, local crack dealers threatened the crew, so Lee hired Fruit of Islam members for security, and Samuel L. Jackson spent most of his time on set sleeping.
As read on air, in a 2014 interview the director called the critical fears outrageous, egregious and 'I think racist', saying they still bug him and that no one said that about Schwarzenegger films.
As read on air, only white viewers have ever asked Lee whether Mookie did the right thing; Lee believes those questioning the riot fail to see the difference between property and the life of a black man.
Later references read on air: police bring Sal's pizza to hostages in Inside Man, a 2016 Radio Raheem Air Jordan, and the Obamas praising the film in 2014 and saying they saw it on their first date.

Picking Nits

No affirmative selection

In the discussion (2)

Approx. transcript time · 01:22:05Read transcript

There is not a single nit to pick in a movie called perfect several times; Tina and Rosie Perez were discussed, but that is not a storytelling problem.
The key nit many people raise is why Mookie did it, but the hosts decline to have that conversation.

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Mookie's trash can was both rescue and rage; Pino is mad because a black girl rejected him; Mookie and Sal never patched it up; Mother Sister and the mayor got together; Tina and Mookie did not last

In the discussion (7)

Approx. transcript time · 01:30:30Read transcript

Whether Mookie threw the trash can to save Sal or out of rage is unanswerable; both can be argued, given his fealty to Sal as a kind of third son and the sense that someone has to pay for the death.
Pino is angry because he tried to step to a black girl and was rejected; Vito is not mad.
Asked how long it took Mookie and Sal to patch things up, given later Lee films, the answer is that they never did: he needed a job and Sal needed a delivery person.
Mother Sister and the mayor had been together before and probably spent the rest of their lives together, after she made him shower.
Tina and Mookie did not stay together.
Was Sal's pizza good? The pizza looks like clay; the story told is that the tight budget left only two pizzas and Turturro could not cut through them.
One participant would not eat Sal's pizza.