J:
This episode begins with a correction of sorts. How appropriate, that the first episode of ROX contained an error. How strange, that we would bother correcting it.
Were we thinking that people were checking us against the AP style manual and the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Bartender's Black Book? Apparently so. Self-fascination has never been in short supply whenever B and I took stage in front of a vid-cam lens.
This episode of ROX was one of the last pre-planned episodes in the entire series. Not pre-planned in the sense that it was scripted, exactly. Rather, we tried to follow an outline of discussion topics which I, J, sketched out in advance.
However, it's still pretty much improvised.
That's my excuse for the line in which I make reference to looking like a “fuckin' fairy.” It was a mistake, an eggregious error resulting from failed irony. Back then, I had this conceit — or this fault of character, if that's your preferred interpretation — whereby I occasionally made statements that were in direct opposition to political correctness. I myself knew these were not statements that were well-advised. That's why I made them. Trouble was, as a modern-day viewing of this episode demonstrates, those ironic statements did not necessarily come across as ironic.
What else is noteworthy here? Well, Ed the Meat Poet makes a guest appearance, sort of. I promise a debate of the merits of Batman in the next episode — a promise which I fail to keep. There is an abundance of demographic information comparing Bloomington, New York City, and the Yukon, which was likely inaccurate at the time, and is in any event completely useless and irrelevant today. And there's Conception Corner, in which we manage to spew actual sperm on television.
All in all, this episode is only worth watching for the improvised poem between myself and B, somewhere later in the episode after we're already quite drunk. Fortunately, that brief sequence is one of the shining moments of ROX.
Oh, and you'll finally learn the meaning of the word, 'hoary.'
