by Tom Vitale
“Exactly,” Tony said. “What do we include, what do we choose to leave out? Either way it’s our choice. It’s about the moral quandary of travel and white privilege. The camera is a liar. Drawing attention to it calls into question our own reliability and shows our hands aren’t clean. I want to show how manipulative even ‘honest, tell it like it is’ TV can be.”
That was one of the great things about Tony. He never shied away from complicated topics or from presenting himself in an unflattering light. And Tony wasn’t just honest about it, he often bent over backward to highlight just how manipulative the TV machine could be.
TONY WAS A BRILLIANT WRITER with an exceptional imagination, gifted with the ability to write like he spoke. Despite being the smartest and most literate person I’ve ever met—capable of wielding the English language like a pillow or a sword, sometimes in the same sentence—Tony didn’t have much of a formal education. High school, one year at Vassar in which he said his most successful academic pursuit was scoring Quaalude prescriptions, and a Columbia writing workshop. He often talked about his writing teacher, who had taught him to “kill your darlings.” This lesson became his most frequent creative direction. Tony repeatedly said, “The best piece of writing advice I can offer is to kill your baby. Lose what you think is your best line. It’ll be better.”
I remember Tony sitting in the recording booth reading voice-over when he trailed off mid-sentence. Looking up from the script, he asked, “What bong-smoking monkey wrote this? Did you sneak this in the script? It’s so heavy-handed with the drawing people together. We need a much lighter touch. You’re hammering all the stops on the organ like Elton John at a funeral. Subtlety. It’s a freaking virtue! I don’t mean just this specific line, I mean in general we’re falling into a formulaic, heartwarming get-out. Next it’ll be every fucking segment before commercials. You know… We’re going to have a group hug each episode, we keep this up. Is that what you want?”
He scowled at me over his reading glasses, one eyebrow raised high enough that I got the idea the question wasn’t rhetorical. I pressed the talk-back button and said, “Well, it’s just that I think we should say something nice, because the show has been a little sarcastic at times.”
“I know. So it’s particularly disingenuous and incongruous to turn around and get all schmaltzy at the end,” Tony said.
Tony viewed an end-of-the-episode conclusion as a betrayal of what was inevitably a much bigger and more complex subject. He’d always rather leave the audience thinking, keep them guessing, wondering. While I understood—and mostly agreed with—Tony’s knee-jerk reaction against feel-good happy endings with a neat and tidy message, I had less of an appetite for the unresolved. In fact, secretly, I was a bit of a sucker for a cotton-candy Hollywood ending. Over the years this led to many instances of head butting, and ultimately Tony would always win out. But sometimes he’d surprise me by unexpectedly insisting on a happy ending himself.
Without fail, Tony was completely unpredictable. One of his most important rules was the shows always had to be different each week. Manic depressively and schizophrenically different. Always pushing forward, doing the hard thing, even the stupid thing, as long as it was the different thing. Tony was a big believer in failing gloriously in an attempt to do something interesting, rather than succeeding at being mediocre. “If it’s not interesting, we may as well be working a lunch counter,” Tony said.
It had taken years, but by the time we began Parts Unknown, Tony had essentially assembled his dream production team. It was a Skunk Works where Tony encouraged wild and often inappropriate risk-taking, rewarded experimentation, creativity, and thinking differently, while at the same time publicly shaming traits like consistency and level-headed thinking. Tony advised to “watch movies, read everything you can. Be inspired by what others have done and learn from their mistakes. Stealing is fine as long as you can reasonably suggest it was just ‘borrowing’ in court.”
He challenged the editors, camera people, directors, and producers to come up with crazy shit, to innovate, and he fiercely guarded our freedom to try new stuff and to have fun while doing so. The point wasn’t to be sensational, it was to innovate by fucking with the format.
It was pretty extraordinary thinking about it. Tony helmed a show that had no business being on CNN—on paper at least—but along with the crew we’d all made it their number one–rated program. We might feature a gritty sociopolitical episode in Colombia one week, a sophisticated deconstruction of the world’s best restaurant in Copenhagen the next, then an episode in Tokyo investigating rope bondage subculture, or a trip to Buenos Aires visually inspired by an obscure Wong Kar-Wai film. Watching the shows, you never knew what to expect, and that was the point.
Credit is due to CNN for allowing us the creative freedom to experiment as well as the platform and tools that allowed the show to become what it had always wanted to be. At times it must have seemed to them like one series-ruining idea after another. A couple weeks into the Korea edit, Jesse suggested we cut the episode in reverse.
“Stick with it,” Tony said, instantly latching onto the idea. “Emphasize the reverse storytelling. I will back you up. But don’t let anybody water it down. We begin at the end, no explanation. We tell the story backwards. Let the audience catch up.”
Just like the editors, the directors of photography, Zach and Todd, were always experimenting, always pushing the boundaries of what was creatively as well as technically possible. Ditching our regular Sony F-55s for the Korea episode, they’d conceived of and jury-rigged an entirely new camera system, just for the Korea episode. It allowed for dynamic movement while operating miniature handheld lipstick-sized lenses capable of capturing broadcast-quality footage. The downside was everyone was tethered to what looked like a Ghostbusters proton-pack, all seventy-five vertebrae-compressing pounds of which was often strapped to me. We moved across Seoul, an unwieldy octopus of cables, cameramen, and delicate and finicky recording equipment. Really, it shouldn’t have worked, but somehow it did. In the edit Jesse took full advantage of the frenetic in-your-face camerawork, cutting the episode split and triple-screen as well as backward. We even played the show’s graphic open in reverse. The Korea episode was just a glorious, glorious mess. Which, as usual, our executive producer, Sandy, had to clean up.
“I’ve been on the phone with the network nonstop,” she said. Sunken cheeks and a pale complexion were evidence of the difficulty of mediating between Tony-inspired creative terrorism and network realities. Sandy’s job was as thankless as it was ludicrous. “The reference to eating dog vomit was helpful, thank you,” she said. “But the network is putting their foot down about running the credits backwards at the top of the show. They’re just too worried it will trigger people to switch the channel. I’m sorry, it’s the one thing they won’t approve.”
TONY WAS CHAMPION OF THE misunderstood, stragglers, stalwarts, pioneers, lovable drunks, the marginalized—those left behind or left out or fallen by the wayside. Maybe it was because he knew what it was like to be an outsider. Growing up, Tony hadn’t fit in; he’d always considered his time in the kitchen as being part of a pirate crew of misfits. Even though we made a TV show, Tony promoted the idea we weren’t a part of the mainstream. We always pushed for diverse voices and did our best to shine a light on underrepresented cultures and gave them the last word. Tony always stood up for what he believed was right, and everyone who worked on the show took pride in the responsibility. This was perhaps one of the best things about the show, and it could also be one of the most controversial.
“Sooo… Sandy and I just got off a very long call with CNN,” I said, regarding the Iran episode. “They actually accused it of being a ‘piece of thinly veiled anti-American propaganda.’”
“You’re kidding,” Hunter said, sounding worried. “… Right?”
I was not kidding. And I shouldn’t have been surprised that shooting a show in Iran had been wading into dangerous waters. Instead of th
e popular conception of Iranians being murderous exporters of terror, we met welcoming families, curious strangers, and young people hanging out on the streets at night in front of ice-cream shops. They smiled at the cameras; everyone was welcoming and liked Americans. Frankly, we’d all been utterly taken with the place and the people we met.
Of course, the country had problems. There was justified tension between our governments, and the rights and freedoms of Iranians were continually being repressed, among other issues. But our line of work had taught us there was a difference between people and their government. Iran was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of trip. We’d been given a real opportunity to tell a different story, and it was of the utmost importance we got it right. This episode had the potential to do what Tony had always aimed for and I was proudest of: challenge stereotypes while resisting the othering of people we met by treating them with dignity, respect, and approaching a complex situation with an open mind. The Iran episode also served as a reminder of what could happen to the people we leave behind.
Shortly before completion of the edit, we learned Jason Rezaian and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, both journalists who’d appeared on camera with Tony, had been arrested and detained indefinitely without charges. They’d been the kindest, most optimistic people we’d met in Iran, and it was unclear if their arrest was a result of having filmed with us, and how the show might affect their situation. What we did know was that in Iran, the line of what was okay and not okay to speak about was constantly shifting. Care had to be taken that nothing said in the show might inadvertently make the situation worse. It was a concern not only for Jason and Yeganeh, but also all the other people who’d helped us or appeared on the show. It was going to be a delicate line to walk between the Iranian government, the network, and the truth. Thankfully, Hunter was editing the episode. His big heart and nuanced and intuitive editing style brought a level of depth to everything he cut.
“The show is so powerful, Hunter,” I said when the edit was complete. “It makes me laugh, cry, and think. That’s a pretty impressive spectrum of emotion for forty-two and a half minutes of TV. You never resort to any cheap tricks or pandering and yet there’s not a dull moment or missed opportunity. With how awful and scary the world seems today—how hopeless these divides can feel—your show is proof that there is hope. The world just might not end after all! Thank you again for everything.”
Several weeks later, I watched the show’s premier broadcast. It was a poignant example of Iran’s seemingly mutually exclusive contradictions, and also those of our work. It was a powerful reminder of why I stuck with the job and the meaningful purpose behind it, which often got lost in a whirlwind of adrenaline.
The episode ends with Tony drinking non-alcoholic beer and eating take-out pizza alongside a group of classic American muscle car enthusiasts in north Tehran. The scene looked like it could have taken place in LA. Hunter cut together shots of vintage Mustangs and Camaros doing burnouts along with laughter and portraits of the various people we’d filmed throughout the episode. Tony’s voice-over said, “After ten weeks Yeganeh was finally released, but as I read these lines, Jason remains a prisoner. His future, the reasons for their arrest are still unknown.” The show made me tear up every time I saw it.
Later that night I received an email from Tony:
Such a great episode! You and Hunter should be very, very proud. Really a great accomplishment. Maybe your best. Iranians saw it by the thousands and have expressed huge love. Maybe the best twitter Facebook reaction ever—and huge ratings. Thanks for all the careful, hard work.
Tony
Sent from my iPad
IN THIS WORLD OF EVER more rules and regulations, Tony was a rebel who constantly dared to say fuck it. Every hero needs a villain, and ironically for us, the bad guys were also the ones who paid the bills. Networks—in general—strive to remain inoffensive to the largest group of potential viewers and therefore advertisers. It’s a sound financial strategy that Tony—a natural-born risk taker—blamed for the ubiquity of bland, derivative, watered down, and generally mediocre content. It was almost like Tony was genetically programmed to resist network TV mores. While in Inukjuak, an Inuit village in Arctic northern Quebec, for an episode of No Reservations, Tony forcibly squeezed his hand into an oversized furry mitten, then turned to the camera and said, “Feels like fisting a Samoyed.”
To our delight, Tony’s fisting comment was broadcast without being censored. That Tony had made a reference to inserting a fist into a dog’s anus or vagina only came to the Travel Channel’s attention when viewers wrote in complaining. After that, some poor intern was assigned the job of checking the script against urbandictionary.com.
CNN, on the other hand, was far more organized and had an entire department charged with upholding the typically conservative principles of network decency. It was called Standards and Practices, or S & P for short. These corporate arbiters of morality decided what was acceptable to broadcast, keeping the airwaves free of potentially offensive language, visuals, or subject matter.
S & P had their work cut out for them when it came to Tony. Out of countless skirmishes our Thailand episode stands out. It was a rice whisky–soaked food stumble across Chiang Mai, punctuated by inappropriate behavior, dildos, green-screen animation, slurping down a bowl of particularly graphic raw blood soup, ladyboys, and frequent profanity.
“I want blood,” Tony said. “Lots and lots of blood. And cursing. Go overboard. That way when the network cuts it back, we’ll still have plenty left in the finished show.”
Usually, Tony pushed the boundaries of what was permissible to air for an arguably artistic or even altruistic reason. But sometimes we just thought it sounded like fun to toss a bunch of monkey wrenches into the machine and see what we could get away with.
“Can we discuss the S & P notes on Thailand?” Sandy asked, dark circles under her eyes. Reviewing them quickly, I did my best to keep a straight face.
1:06:44 God Damn whiskey (God Damn is pretty offensive to some people)
1:10:16 I’d rather have a big pile of nutsack
1:11:45 Discussion of the blood soup that has cow feces in, lots of “shits”
1:12:30 Funky ass-tasting stuff
1:12:30 I’d eat it out of Chris Christie’s jock strap on a hot summer day
1:12:56 If you eat too much of this shit you’ll go blind
1:13:21 I don’t care if Justin Bieber took a dump in that soup, that was delicious
1:13:24 God Damn
1:13:35 If you ever stuck your tongue in the asshole of a really beautiful woman
1:13:44 Picture Angelina’s ass tasting like that
1:13:46 So here’s to analingus. This is CNN.
1:15:52 Intestine has that farmer’s daughter taste
1:16:26 Fuckin’ noodles
1:19:17 Is that a dildo in that woman’s mouth?
1:20:21 That’s a fuckin’ brilliant idea
1:21:23 “Lady Boy” puts her head between guy’s legs
1:22:0 Prostitutes with their sunburned ex-pats (recognizable images)
1:22:30 We’re drunkass walking to beat the clock
1:23:22 It’s like Guy Fieri’s scrotum
1:24:36 Drunk ass food
1:24:50 Fuckin’
1:26:10 God Damn that’s good
1:29:21 Ooooo, more boners. You know what’s weirder than shitting blood? Shitting someone else’s blood.
1:33:51 Fuckin’ delicious
1:40:50 Theoretically, if someone were to suck your dick, that could be really painful
1:40:54 #1 advice to young cooks, don’t touch your peepee after working with these chilies
1:41:23 Paid for tomorrow with ring burn (ass burn)
1:41:47 Pick what I want to protect myself from, like chlamydia
1:45:45 Tony describes his toilet after having one of these meals. Pretty gross.
“I forgot to pass on one other note from our lawyer,” Sandy said, sitting down at her desk with a def
lating sigh. It was four p.m. and she was only just getting to her lunch. “There are two nipple slips. Those shots have to be replaced or blurred.”
“Oh my god! The nipples are only visible for like three frames!” I cried, histrionically slapping my forehead to hide that I was trying not to laugh. I considered the whole game absolutely hilarious, though winning necessitated an appearance of genuine anguish. I was Tony’s emissary, and I didn’t take the responsibility lightly. Starting the negotiations, I offered, “We can drop the ‘shit’ from ‘If you eat too much of this shit you’ll go blind,’ but I want to keep all four ‘shits’ during the discussion of the blood soup with cow feces. They’re literally eating shit. It’s a technical reference. Also ‘funky ass-tasting stuff’ and ‘drunk-ass food’? Are they serious? What’s wrong with that? Same goes for all the times Tony says, ‘god damn, that’s good.’”
Sandy sighed while joylessly picking at her kale and walnut salad. “I’ll push back to keep ‘god damn,’ but please try to cut it down to only one or two uses,” she said.
“If we have to, we can lose ‘ass burn,’” I said indignantly. “Same goes for ‘touch your peepee with chilies,’ ‘painful dick sucking,’ ‘Guy Fieri’s scrotum,’ the Justin Bieber dump reference, the guy getting a fake blow job from the ladyboy, two of the three dildos, and all the ‘fucks.’”
I saw Sandy brighten slightly. She must have thought for a brief moment I was going to be rational. With her defenses lowered, it was time to go for the kill.
“However, after discussing with Tony we feel it’s vitally important to keep ‘big pile of nutsack,’ ‘I’d eat that out of Chris Christie’s jock strap on a hot summer’s day,’ ‘Angelina Jolie’s ass tastes like this,’ ‘farmer’s daughter taste,’ and most importantly Tony downing moonshine shots while toasting ‘So here’s to analingus. This is CNN.’”