Tally Who?

A lot of theme material in there, and a couple of good ahas, thanks Rick!

Took a few tries to work out what was needed there at the end, but it did make sense!

Lookin' good as always.

I like this mechanism.

Complete guess, got it right on the first try. Now I need to find the mechanism...

That was FUN! Thanks, Cap’n!

Lol. So, I didn't know what a faux initial referred to. And Google offered no help. I thought the mechanism had something to do with those nine entries ending in "O" -- but once I saw the "Fox Terrier", well... the others followed. I entered Michael J Fox first then corrected the answer with just the J. Well done, Cap'n!

I looked for terrier breeds and found lots of red herrings: RAT is in the grid, BOSTON could be an alternate answer for "Massachusetts town", and, considering the central clue's reference to land ownership, MAYO hints at IRISH. For a while I thought TROT was another one, then I noticed its friends. It helped that I'm from Massachusetts myself. And that I knew the story of Michael J. Fox's name.

Ah, I see it now -- seven of them, I believe. Being from MA I should have seen 8 and 62 Across quicker than I did. Earlier, I was getting it simply from the idea of fox hunting, combined with the Frenchified spelling, and considering people with a distinct middle initial associated with their names. When I googled him and realized it didn't jive with his birth name...... (I first thought of Harry S Truman but I couldn't picture him in pinks.)

I know why I have it, but I don't really quite understand how I have it! :)

Wow!! Fantastic meta but I was sure on the remedial track to this one.

Thanks for the nudges. Since I could only find 5 "faux" words, I originally submitted "s" for Harry S. Truman.

Needed nudge #2 to get it! I knew we were on a fox hunt but I didn't have all of them and didn't know what to do with the ones I had, and I couldn't make any sense of the prompt... It's all so clear in retrospect, very nicely put together! Also I was today years old when I found out the J didn't really stand for anything, you'd think Teen Beat might have mentioned it back in the dark ages :-)

Very enjoyable puzzle. A went astray looking for names at first, but once I caught on, it was smooth sailing. Thanks!

NEVER would have gotten it without the nudges and still had to struggle and google! Fun in hindsight though. Speaking French, it took me awhile to switch gears and chase down the FOX.

Needed the hints to crack this one. Well done, thanks!