Ep. 81: Tell Me What You Don't Like About Yourself

Hi! My name is Terry J. Aman and this installment marks my 81st episode of VideoFuzzy, reporting the progress I've made in cataloging more than 3,000 VHS transfers and digital recordings. For this installment, titled "Tell Me What You Don't Like About Yourself," in my Fuzzy Feature, I talk about third-season episodes of Ryan Murphy's "Nip/Tuck" leading up to the third-season finale and reveal of The Carver story arc. A plot point in that set of episodes traced Matt's dating life with a transsexual and a racial purist, and Julia's pregnancy with Conor. I found a photo taken of me at the exact moment Julia emerged from the examination room and her decision to carry Sean's baby to term – that scene, having been recorded to disc 1285, quite by chance marked the midpoint of my Classic Collection.

Wow.

And since it's been quite a while, I detailed the philosophy behind my "Studio Six Feet Under" challenge, highlighting these productions – Alan Ball's "Six Feet Under" and Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" – as the mystical centers of my media collection, noting the synthesis of the those energies in Ryan Murphy's "American Horror Stories" – particularly the focus on death and reality television in season six – and other emergent centers, but those two remain solid.

Cross connections through Dylan Walsh and Julian McMahon, Bruno Campos, Roma Maffia and Gregory Itzen, K Callan, as well as guest appearances throughout Nip/Tuck, Alec Mapa, Mary Gross, John Goodman, Dixie Carter, Delta Burke and Jean Smart, plus Jayma Mays who appeared in both "Studio 60" and "Six Feet Under," and in Golden Thread, I track appearances by John Billingsley.

In my Classic Collection (VHS-to-DVD) I find a disc with episodes from both "Studio 60" and "Six Feet Under," including a follow-up on the appearance of Mary Gross in "The Trip" I mentioned back in episode 67, and John Goodman's appearance as a judge in Pahrump, Nevada in the "Nevada Day" two-parter. I talk about the use of blackface in a third season episode of "Mad Men" at a Derby Day party set in 1963, and other appearances in media, society and politics up through today. Comments on "Veronica Mars," "Hustle," "3 Lbs.," "Medium," the Lincoln Meyer episode of "Boston Legal" and I go into some detail on "Criminal Minds" and "Grey's Anatomy."

Also, I found three tiny clips less than a second long that look like they were commercials overwritten with scenes from a second season episode of "Prison Break." One looks like it's from a car commercial. I posted them on my media sites and you can take a look. I don't really have any information about them, but if they look familiar, I'd love to know. Thanks!

In my Current Collection (direct-to-DVD), I archived the State of the Union Address, and historian Heather Cox Richardson's interview with President Biden. Also, the first season of "We Baby Bears," some "Kids in the Hall," "Doctor Who" and "Better Call Saul."

In What I've Been Watching, I took in a high school stage production of "The Book of Will," a community theater production of "See How They Run," and such movies as Robert Pattinson in "The Batman" and Kenneth Branagh's production of Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile."

Our host for the "Book of Will," my friend Kirk Nybakken, reminded me during intermission of our 2005 production of another Agatha Christie production, "Towards Zero" in which he'd played Neville Strange and I'd taken on the role of ancient barrister Mathew Treves. He recalled our Inspector Battle, Troy Madl, taking sick one night and his constable, Les Younger, heroically stepping into the Detective Inspector Battle role to get us through the final reveal. I reminded Kirk of the night I'd forgotten my lines at a critical moment and he had to cue me in character to get us through to the finale. Couple of serious day-savers!

Well, I was reminded of all of that while putting this together because Troy had been couch-surfing at my place while the "Towards Zero" was going on and his quick thinking resulted in that photo of me reacting to that moment in "Nip/Tuck."

Thank you Troy, and thank you Kirk, for that fun trip down memory lane.

And on the topic of Christie-related memories, I got some nice feedback from Kemper Donovan of the "All About Agatha" podcast regarding my "At Bertram's Hotel" entry around the 25-minute mark of episode 76, "Building a Mystery."

I posted my 10th ever "VideoFuzzy: The Video" installment at https://youtu.be/vu_HaYaiOAk with comments from my Fuzzy Feature and the backstory on that photo. This will likely mark my signoff for those entries. They're fun to put together, but unless something really demands a visual component, I think my audio-only format should be just fine. The audio availability will continue on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.

And this will likely be my last regular entry for a while. With out-of-town adventures and friends visiting from overseas, it has taken more than two months to put this one together despite my very best efforts. I just need to take a break, focus on some life stuff and oh yeah, plow through a BUNCH of media piled up on my Midco box.

I've been making semi-regular submissions since I started this project 80 episodes ago in June of 2017 with disc 229, cataloged through disc 1300 with a deep-dive bringing in my entire backlog with episode 10. It'll be a good break, but we're not talking years. I've still got this uncharted collection of media to go through and I absolutely want to get through it and talk about it. In the meantime, explore my back catalog, click through my blog, and if there's anything you'd like more information about, please let me know.

TOP TEN: Here's a "top ten" episode guide for people looking for a quick read-in on this blog and podcast effort: https://videofuzzy.libsyn.com/about Enjoy! 🙃