Good morning. It's, uh...
first day of the rest of my life
right here.
This is it.
[slide guitar music playing]
Hi, my name is Tom Green.
You may remember me
from The Tom Green Show,
or movies like Road Trip,
or my rap group, Organized Rhyme.
or my public access TV show,
or going on David Letterman.
- How are you doing?
- [Tom] Or Freddy Got Fingered.
Or hosting Saturday Night Live.
Well, for the last 20 years,
I've lived in Hollywood, California.
That's my house. And, well, I sold it.
And that's my new house.
I moved to the country in Canada.
A farm not far from my hometown.
That's my dog, Charlie.
And I'm making a documentary
about my life.
Don't make a documentary about your life.
It's weird.
Uh, hilarious, sometimes crazy,
sometimes strange, anxiety inducing.
But mostly, a relief to be able
to tell my story.
This is not really a documentary.
- What is it?
- I don't know.
I don't think there's any such thing
as a true documentary.
- Why? What Is it true documentary?
- The camera effects everything.
Ah.
As soon as you document something,
you change it.
So therefore you're not really
documenting it at all, right?
- Something like that.
- Mm-hmm.
Is it unusual for the person
who is being, um...
a biography of them,
is it unusual for them to direct
their own biographical movie?
Yeah. You're not supposed to do that.
Well, I don't know
if there's rules, but...
- I think there are.
- Are there rules? Who wrote those rules?
- I don't know, somebody who knows a lot.
- But conventionally.
Somebody who knows, like,
a lot about making movies.
- Okay.
- There's probably a reason for it, too.
Why? Because you can whitewash
what you say.
- Yeah, so...
- Yeah.
And you're planning to do that?
- Yes.
- [laughs]
[man screams]
[garbled audio]
This is The Tom Green Show
It's not the Green Tom show
This is my favorite show
Because it is my show
If this was your show
You'd probably like it more
But maybe that's just because
It was your show
But it's not your show
It's The Tom Green Show
[audience cheering]
[Tom] Big day, making a documentary.
This is gonna be cool.
We got some big cameras here.
We've done this before, right?
Mm. Not quite as...
- Elaborate.
- ...elaborate as this.
[Tom] Was there a moment
where you kind of sort of thought
that I was kind of weird?
[laughs]
[groaning]
You're my mommy!
- Let me have a hug.
- No way.
End of discussion.
- You're my parents.
- That's the sad thing, Tom.
- You're a creative person.
- [Tom] Okay, let's say that.
That's my mother.
We're gonna go shopping.
My mom and I are buying a piata.
- [woman] Oh.
- [Tom] Yeah.
- Going to smash the crap out of it.
- [Mary Jane] No, Tom. No, we're not.
[Tom] Was there a moment when I was a kid
where you started to maybe
worry about me?
- High school, maybe.
- [Tom] High school?
That's when I discovered stand-up comedy.
We heard about this comedy club in Ottawa
downtown called Yuk Yuk's.
We were able to go. I was 15 years old.
Had a restaurant license,
so you could go even though it was a bar.
Felt cool because it felt like
you were in a bar.
I was now going down to Yuk Yuk's
every week.
My parents would let me go on school
nights because they had an amateur night.
Phil, who was on The Tom Green Show,
went down with me those first many times.
- [Phil] Hey, Tom, how you doing?
- [laughs]
[laughter]
- [Tom] See that nervous tension?
- [laughing]
Were you a little nervous
about the date, Phil?
[laughing]
What's up, sweetie?
How are you doing?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- You know Phil.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- What's up, man? What's up?
- What's up, Phil?
- How's it going?
- What's up, Chris?
How's it going, man?
Come on, Charlie. Come on.
You want the keys?
I am Phil. Hello. This is Tom.
My oldest best friend right here.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- You're the oldest person I know.
No, we've known each other--
We've known each other longer.
Needed to get you out here
for the documentary.
Just do this? There's history there.
- There's a lot of stuff.
- Oh, yeah.
[Phil]
That's how we met, skateboarding.
Skateboarding.
Kind of like came across you.
I was like,
"This guy's into skateboarding."
It's obvious. And we kind of clicked.
I remember when we first started
going to Yuk Yuk's,
and obviously you were really into it.
We went to watch a few shows
and we decided to try it.
I remember we did amateur night
for, like, the next two years,
almost every week.
Before Yuk Yuk's,
you were doing stuff at your school.
You were always trying
to get on a stage and, like,
somehow perform one way or another.
I saw a kid who was willing
to take chances, and I like that a lot.
I think that comedy,
you need to shake it up once in a while.
Remember when you were a kid,
you could tell who the other kids were
who were the children of alcoholics?
[audience laughter]
Based on the ones
who carried their marbles to school
in that purple velvet whiskey bag.
Is it kind of strange
that it's been how many years?
Like 30-plus years
we've been doing this stuff?
- 35 years. How long has it been?
- At least 35, for sure. More.
About halfway through high school,
I discovered that there was a university
radio station at Ottawa U, called CHUO.
Welcome to CHUO FM 89.
I began volunteering there
on Friday nights.
[mellow acoustic music playing]
Look at this. It's amazing.
It's the first time
we've appeared on camera in...
together in, what, 20 years?
Glenn Humplik
is a money-grubbing b*stard.
- Oh, look at that spandex.
- God!
This is a weird thing, just to...
I instantly feel like something is weird
about this seating arrangement.
Can you tell me what you think it is...
Glenn, that camera
records our faces, okay?
...related to, like, the show?
Oh, I was always seated on that side.
- Yeah. Can we switch?
- Oh, weird. Yeah.
[Tom] Yeah.
I was just feeling
like it didn't feel right.
Oh, yeah. There we go.
[Glenn] Well, we met at CHUO
because I was doing
my radio show on Friday nights
from two to six in the morning,
called Nightfall.
- Mm-hmm.
- And you came in.
And you started doing--
It was a rap show, right?
[Tom] It was a rap music show
I got asked to do.
Then I just stopped
playing music and started talking.
Then you were playing music,
and then you stopped playing music too.
And you started hanging out
during my show.
- And then it just became...
- Midnight till six in the morning.
We're game to, you know, being a little
zany on the air sometimes, you know?
[Tom] And that was really when we knew
that I was gonna get into show business,
- I guess, right? Really?
- I don't think so because--
Well, I don't know
if I thought you'd be in show business,
but I felt that you liked
the feeling you got.
[Tom]
Did I say I want to do this, though?
- You didn't.
- [Tom] So when did I start saying that?
Well, probably when you started
getting interested in music.
- [interviewer] The band was called?
- It was called Organized Rhyme.
- [interviewer] And it was a rap band?
- It was a rap band from Ottawa.
I started a rap group
with my good friend Greg,
who was a couple of years
younger than me in high school,
but we both skateboarded.
We both liked rap music.
And at that time,
nobody was listening to rap music
except for a handful
of people in my school.
- MC Pin.
- MC Pin.
- MC Bones.
- MC Pin, MC Bones.
Rocking the microphones.
- Welcome, man. Good to see you, buddy.
- Thank you.
- You too.
- Been a long time.
Together as a group, as Organized Rhyme,
we've been together for two years.
We did the school show.
And then it's just been, you know...
That's changed our lives
from that point on.
When I was doing Organized Rhyme,
there was no other rap groups in Ottawa.
[rapping indistinctly]
When you're doing anything
artistic in Ottawa, you kind of feel,
"Wow, I'm really thinking
way out of the box here."
You don't feel like other people
are judging you.
We're gonna tell it how it is
growing up in suburbia.
Growing up in my neighborhood
Never doing no good
Maybe once or twice
Just like any other kid
[Tom]
It was right around then when you, Chris,
the man standing right here
behind this camera...
I'd like a more flattering lens.
[laughs]
[Tom] ...came and did a little story
about Organized Rhyme.
And that's where all this video that
you're looking at right now came from.
Get up. Move it.
Time to get.
- Okay, you awake now?
- Oh!
[Tom] Because that must have been
a sort of a turning point.
It was the CBC, right?
It was a big television
news sort of program.
I thought it was great.
I mean, you were getting success.
[Tom] What are you doing now?
I'm cutting the apples.
You remember when we went
to New York to record?
- I do.
- And you guys sort of paid for that.
[Mary Jane] Yeah, we did.
I remember this guy
pulled up to the door in his BMW.
[Tom] I think it was a Volvo, but...
- [Mary Jane] Was it?
His name was Boogie, from Brooklyn,
and he wanted to produce a record
with you guys.
[Tom] Yeah, and then we recorded
like five songs.
[Boogie] They came to New York.
His mother, God bless her soul.
She just had a beautiful presence.
She was supportive.
And I was like, this is what
New York hip-hop needs.
The, um... The support.
Like, that whole...
Family-family.
Like, family after family.
You know what I mean?
We support you in the home.
But we really support you
when you're go to your dream.
And when they came,
and they were really ready to...
You know, I'm like,
"Y'all more serious than I am."
Let me step up mine.
They actually made me step up
my production and my seriousness, so...
You think you want some
But you don't want none
The mic is a tool
I hold like a g*n
- Please don't sweat me
- 'Cause you might get me
- So upset
- And if the deejay let me
- Go toe to toe
- Elbow to elbow
[Boogie]
I'm born and raised in Brownsville.
That's a rough neighborhood.
If you do the statistics, it's real rough.
Now, I'm trying to keep an eye on them,
but you know who's missing, right?
Tom. He's on Rockaway and Livonia.
I can't explain his mother,
"I don't know where your son is at."
Like, this dude just rode a skateboard
down one of the most
dangerous neighborhoods.
When he came back,
he came back with friends.
I'm like, "Yo, what are you doing?"
"Yo, we like this dude.
This dude is cool."
We did come back from New York
a little bit different.
How could we not?
At that age, how do you not change?
Cool, cool, cool factor?
If you hadn't done that,
we wouldn't have recorded that demo.
- That's true, and--
- Wouldn't have gotten that experience.
That's right.
Wouldn't have been
taking it as seriously.
- That's right.
- Might not have gotten the record deal.
Yes, the record deal.
It all started
when we got this big opportunity
to open for this legendary
Canadian rap group, the Dream Warriors.
Now, what's my definition?
My definition
My definition, my definition
The reason we're going to T.O.
in January now is because
when we go down to do the recording,
we're also gonna do a video.
Check the O.R.
You like it so far
Smack your back
And you deal with a deep scar
I will test you from the West of ya
Now you know
That I'm better than the best of ya
Plus, we're gonna do Rap City
on MuchMusic.
This group hails from Ottawa.
They call themselves Organized Rhyme.
- We were nominated for a Juno.
- I know. And you went down to Toronto.
That's a pretty big deal.
I've been nominated for a Juno.
- Do you remember?
- I do.
When I was a youngster
When I was a youngster
I was very young
We won the Canadian Music Video Award
for the best rap video from MuchMusic.
It did give me an early taste
of what it was like
to be in show business,
creating some sort of music
or silliness, putting it on TV.
I remember I was really interested
in your camera,
so I started probably asking you about it,
and you were very generous with your time,
and you invited me over to your studio
and showed me all your equipment.
I was like, "Wow, man,
if this rap thing doesn't work out,
I think I want to make funny videos."
And the rap thing didn't work out.
[laughs]
I don't think the station
would have let me do The Tom Green Show
if it hadn't been for the rap group.
Here. I know. It's true.
[Letterman]
Are you Colleen Boyle?
- Yes.
- Did you write this letter, Colleen?
You have a lovely room.
You have a nice room.
- You didn't go in my room.
- Ask me a question about your room.
You didn't go in, like, and see my...
This guy right here
was sitting on your bed.
Ew.
Change the sheets.
[Tom] As a kid,
I always knew
I wanted to do some kind of comedy.
And then I discovered David Letterman.
There was just something
about the absurdity of that.
You know, I remember all the famous ones.
He'd bring the fruit basket
over next door to the GE building
and get kicked out
by the security guard of his own network.
- Turn the cameras off, please.
- Okay, we just wanted
to drop off this basket of fruit...
- Okay. Cameras, please?
- ...as a gesture of goodwill.
Cut the cameras, please.
You have to talk to the director
right over there.
[Tom]
And you're thinking, "How crazy is that?"
Like, he's actually getting in trouble.
- I wanted to be David Letterman.
- And you would listen every night,
and I'd worry
that you were not getting sleep.
And I would have to get up
and go downstairs and say,
"Tom, turn off the TV. It's late."
[Tom] I remember when I did stand-up,
I wore Dad's blazer.
- Yeah.
- [Tom] And I wore sneakers
and beige khakis like Letterman did.
Right.
[Tom]
I also loved skateboarding.
There was a lot of skateboarding videos
that I would watch by Stacy Peralta,
who did the Bones Brigade videos,
and they were kind of raw
man-on-the-street-type things.
And it was very influential, I think,
for the way that I wanted to sh**t stuff.
Some people stand in the shower all day,
but I usually just have a short shower.
Getting access to video cameras
in those early days
was kind of like a magical thing.
You'd sh**t the video,
and then you'd put it back in
and you watch it.
And you sort of couldn't believe you were
looking at yourself on the television.
You know, you're with your friends,
you're out there,
you're pushing each other
to kind of do tricks.
And there's kind of a certain
comedy culture
and a razzing culture in skating,
almost like punk comedy,
getting yourself in trouble quite often.
- Which high school?
- [man 1] Sir Robert Ford.
- And you?
- [man 2] I'm just with them.
Okay. Where do you work, sir?
- [man 2] Uh, it's none of your business.
- Okay, that's fine.
[Tom] I went back to school.
I studied television broadcasting
at Algonquin College,
where I learned
how to edit and sh**t video,
do lighting and do photography.
Comin' in here with your g*ns all...
[imitating g*nshots]
All the things
that I would have needed to know
if I wanted to make my own
television show.
At least Brian's still with us...
[Tom]
I'm glad I did focus in school.
And that's where I met Trevor Cavanaugh,
Darcy DeToni.
I'm hunting for moths.
I'm Burning Feet Man!
I'll bring you light to attract the moths!
- How you doing?
- [Trevor] Good.
A little grayer.
- A little bit.
- A little heavier.
- Good. Looks good on you, though.
- Okay.
- I'm a little heavier. Am I heavier, too?
- Yeah.
- Yeah? We both gained weight?
- I think we have, yeah.
Trevor Cavanaugh, ladies and gentlemen.
Hi.
I'm Barry Manilow.
- [Tom] Yo! How are you?
- Tom.
- How you doing?
- How's it going, man?
- Good to see you.
- Good to see you, man.
Remember this guy? When was last time
you guys saw each other?
[Darcy] Been in a few years.
That's a good tactic, Trev.
Check this out.
- Oh, no! I think I know what that is.
- [Tom] You know what this is?
Volunteer award for outstanding
community producer, The Tom Green Show.
Tom Green, Darcy DeToni,
Trevor Cavanaugh.
- [laughs]
- Glenn Humplik.
- Wow.
- Nice.
[Tom] I'd never been
so focused in my life on anything.
In high school, nothing.
I did very well.
I got great grades in college.
I did not have good grades in high school.
You're in college all week,
and then on my Friday night,
I would then go to the radio station.
I'd be on the air,
and the kids at school would listen to it.
And I remember Trevor and Darcy
were listening to the radio show,
and we started talking about it one day,
and I was like,
"Why don't we go do a TV show at Rogers?"
- What's that?
- Pitch documents.
- [Darcy] Wow.
- [Trevor] Handwritten pitch documents.
[Tom]
Objective: target audience. Yeah.
We pitched the show to this guy,
Ray Hagel.
He had been listening
to my college radio show.
They gave us a four-episode test.
So we ended up sh**ting segments
all summer.
The first video we ever shot
for The Tom Green Show.
The idea was,
I have meat taped to my head.
What are you doing
out in the ByWard Market?
[laughing]
That's so cruel.
- How's the ice cream?
- Fine. This is art?
- What's that?
- This is art?
- Art?
- Yes.
- The ice cream is art?
- No, your head.
- Oh, okay, my head is art.
- Yes.
Thank you, that's the best compliment
anyone's ever given me.
[Tom] Meathead was probably the one
that sort of almost became
kind of a style of video
that we did on the show,
going out on the street,
doing something weird,
getting a reaction from people.
[crowd] Three, two, one!
[excited shouting]
[cheering]
[whistle blows]
[Tom]
Experimentation. No rules.
No commercial advertisers telling us
what we could or couldn't do.
[laughing]
[Tom] Back then, like, video cameras
were basically brand-new
and they were really expensive.
Or you'd sign one out at school,
but you'd get it for the day
for a school project.
White pants, white pants
I'm wearing white pants
When I walk
I put my hands in my pockets
All of a sudden,
the idea of like taking an idea
out into the real world
became a possibility.
That's when real people
became unwitting performers
in television shows.
[Burt] You could argue
that Tom was the first person
to really do reality.
Uh, first person in a long, long time
to do man-on-the-street kind of stuff.
Now, Steve Allen,
way back when in the '50s,
did some man-on-the-street kind of things.
But Tom took it
to a whole different level.
[Tom] Remember, before 1999,
most comedy shows were scripted
except for Candid Camera
and variety shows and talk shows.
But there wasn't anyone
going out in the street
with a video camera
without a professional crew,
just some kid goofing around on people
and putting it on TV.
We built our own set.
The idea was,
it was an upside-down set, right?
I actually think that the first set
was the best set that there ever was
in the history of the show.
The bright green walls.
- [Trevor] The fishbowl upside down.
- [Tom] Right.
[man] Hey, folks, how are you doing?
Welcome to The Tom Green Show.
This is Tom Green.
Let's give him a big hand.
[all cheer]
Rob Forest and Sean Potvin.
They are stunt performers.
This is an over the shoulder.
All right, this is a punch to the stomach.
Glenn Humplik,
who I'd met at the radio station,
and I asked him if he wanted to come down
and be my sidekick.
Hi, you're on the air
talking to Glenn Humplik.
[man, over phone] Hi. Hey, Glenn.
I just wondered,
do you want a bigger role in this show?
- You have a small role.
- You have a small, boring role.
- No. Oh!
- [audience groans]
You remember like I asked you
to do the show?
- Yes.
- Okay.
It was a pretty clear, mapped-out idea.
Like, it's gonna be like Letterman
or Johnny Carson,
and you're gonna be...
You had a good idea of what the show
was going to be in your head.
Did you notice that Glenn and I
are all snuggled up?
- [man, on phone] Yes.
- It's kind of strange right now.
That's because I noticed the camera
was pointing more at Glenn,
and I like to get my face on TV.
- Boy, we know that.
- Yeah.
Was there a moment when you thought,
"No, I don't want to do that?"
Oh, absolutely. The second you asked me.
- Oh, really? Really?
- Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- It's a $50 shirt.
- Just take it off quick.
- That was a good shirt!
- It was a good shirt.
Look at the way it burns.
- Nerve-racking?
- Yeah.
I've never felt comfortable on camera.
You just unplug it.
Unplug it before you burst into flames.
- Why did you do it then?
- Oh, I think I told you.
I said, you know, I'll give it a try,
and if this sucks
or if I don't like it then...
- Glenn Humplik exercising tonight.
- [audience cheers]
Then I went on my radio show
at the university
and I told everybody listening
to come down to the public access station.
And, like, a hundred kids showed up.
Guess they figured if it was anything
like the goofy radio show I was doing,
it was gonna be pretty weird.
And it was.
It was me with meat on my head.
- How's it--
- Going under.
You're having a poop-it party
or something?
[Tom]
By the time we'd done the four episodes,
a local reporter named Ken Rockburn
wanted to do a piece
about The Tom Green Show,
and he compared it to a crazy
indie version
of David Letterman, my hero.
And that kind of sealed our fate.
The powers that be at the public access
station gave us the go-ahead
to keep making episodes.
And we did.
- They picked up the show.
- I know.
[Tom] I would spend late nights
at the public access station by myself
editing videos,
my days on the streets sh**ting new ones.
I hardly stopped.
I had to make the show work.
I couldn't imagine being happy in life
doing anything else.
This was a fight for survival.
I was driven by fear
and a manic sense of urgency.
I had no plan B.
[audience cheers and applauds]
- [audience cheering]
- Don't hurt him!
Don't hurt him! Wait!
Wait!
[audience groans]
And people started talking
about this weird show
that was on late at night in Ottawa
on public access TV.
Shinny up the glass!
- Shinny up the glass!
- [chuckles]
[Richard] I thought it was just
gonna be another student thing.
- You know, they're never really...
- [Tom] I mean, honestly,
I probably didn't know
it was gonna work either.
[Glenn] I'm burning as it is.
[Richard]
People started talking about it.
"You see that crazy guy
on The Tom Green Show?"
And this would be some colonel at work.
- [Tom] Really? A colonel in the military.
- In the military.
"That guy is funny as hell."
[Tom] And while all this was going on,
we just kept experimenting
and trying weird things.
I remember going out in the street
and taping bread to my head.
It was all about the reaction.
Going on the street,
putting bread on my head.
Why not?
I make boys out of wood.
I call them wooden boys.
I don't know what to make of this, so...
[Tom]
I'd lie down on my face in the market.
We were sh**ting a hidden camera,
which we rarely did,
from the rooftop of a parking garage
across the street.
We took the time to get a wireless mic
so you could hear the people around me
talking when they came up to say...
[woman] Are you okay?
[Tom] And this kind of went on and on,
people come check on me.
Finally, someone said,
"Someone call an ambulance."
And then I just slowly got up
and I walked away.
But that was one of the ones
where we realized,
"Oh, sometimes they get a big reaction."
How about Bon Jovi?
That was a huge moment because that was
the first time we woke up my parents.
We were driving back from sh**ting.
It was like...
3:30 in the morning right now.
Sunday night.
We're gonna go in and wake them up
and see if they want to watch
a Bon Jovi Live in New Jersey
videotape with me, let's go.
[dog barking]
You would try to sneak in,
and the dog would start to bark.
Hello? Mom?
You said, "We need a prop.
We need like a reason."
[Tom]
I looked in the back seat of his car,
and there was a Bon Jovi
Live in New Jersey videocassette.
You guys want to go watch Bon Jovi?
- [dog barking]
- [Richard] No.
Your head was under the covers
and I was saying,
"You want to watch
Bon Jovi Live in New Jersey?"
- Tom--
- Come on, can we just go and watch it?
Tom, would you turn off the camera?
What the hell time is it?
Ten to 3:00. Forget it.
I have to get up in about three hours.
Really? I have to get up early
tomorrow too.
And the crowd went crazy,
everyone loved it
because you were upset.
Because I was upset,
you decided to do it several more times.
Do you want to just go watch
a couple minutes?
We quickly realized that was very
relatable to people watching.
"Are those your real parents?
Are your parents gonna k*ll you?"
You prank your parents, and I think
that's something everybody loves.
[Tom] But the first big eventful one
was probably when I...
-Painted their house plaid once.
- [laughing]
Yeah, that was pretty dramatic.
[Tom] I think my parents will be happy
when they come home and see I've done
some work around the house and not just
lazed around on my a*s all week.
I hoped my parents
would like their surprise.
I painted, I worked all week
while they were gone on their trip.
Mom said they wanted us to do chores
around the house while they were gone.
Never said to do that.
I thought it'd be nice to go
above and beyond the call of duty.
There he was. The car pulled up.
It looked like he liked it at first.
I thought my mom kind of liked it too,
but, well, I, well...
You painted the house?
I think your dad then took your car.
- And he hid it.
- [Tom] The car is gone.
[Richard] Car is gone.
- I did all the lawn too...
- My car.
My car. My car will be sold.
I'm calling the guy.
[Tom] What do you mean?
You have two days
to get that painted back.
You knew it was funny.
I knew it was funny,
but it was funny at my expense.
- [Tom] Right.
- So I was sort of torn, you know.
[Tom]
Starting out innocent enough at first,
but then later barging into their room
with all sorts of ridiculous scenarios.
It's 3:00 in the morning.
Well, see, my mother's gone away to Barrie
to visit relatives.
And my father's really lonely.
So then we surprised you
with dancing girls.
- Not again.
- [Tom] Dad.
["I Like to Move It" playing]
[girls laughing]
That part I enjoyed, yeah.
- Of course you did.
- [laughs]
Hi, I'm Lisa, and I'm a Taurus,
and I love camping.
Oh, yeah? Great.
Well, you'd be mad at first,
but then you would...
You wouldn't shut down the whole sh**t.
And then there'd be funny lines
you would throw in.
Whoo!
A little Tuesday night, eh?
[laughs]
[Tom] You had a cyst
being removed on the top of your head.
- Yeah.
- Followed you to the doctor's office.
And I had an electric frying pan with me.
And I asked the doctor
if I could fry up your cyst
after he removes it and eat it.
- Oh, yeah.
- Remember that?
But I always remember
you had a funny line.
- Oh, really? Okay.
- So I showed up. I had the frying pan.
I said, "I'm gonna go to your surgery.
I'm gonna eat your cyst."
You said, "No, no,
today's my hemorrhoid operation."
[laughs] Really? Okay.
[Tom] People weren't just laughing
at what I was doing.
They were laughing at the reaction to it.
That was the funny part.
Just a second. I'll be right back, okay?
We didn't have a lot of money for props,
so a lot of times we'd go
to the grocery store before the show.
[gagging]
Kitty litter.
[Glenn] Oh, God.
[Tom] Nice substance
to pour all over myself
to confuse everybody at home watching.
Bags of milk.
I got a bag of milk in my pants!
I got a bag of milk in my pants!
And the show became a big hit locally.
This guy is a clown.
[shouting]
[gasping and shouting]
[laughing]
[Tom] Let's go over to the storage space
where I kept all of my videotapes
of Tom Green Show archives
and everything I've shot.
The movies and videos
for the last 30 years.
[man] Oh, my God.
[Tom]
The Tom Green Show, episode one.
We're looking at probably
a few thousand videotapes.
It's almost like looking at these tapes
is gonna be looking at a different person.
The opinions expressed
in the following program
are those of the participants
and do not necessarily reflect
the opinions of the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation.
[Tom]
The show got bigger and bigger and bigger,
eventually catching the eye of the CBC.
We shot a pilot for the CBC.
We thought we had made it.
- [cheering and applause]
- [Tom] Look at them all!
There's a whole bunch of them!
Glenn Humplik!
What a band, eh?
What a band.
They make sounds with their instruments.
- [Glenn] They make me want to boogie.
- They make you want to boogie.
Glenn, this is great, eh?
And we have Punchbuggy, and we have
some guests on the show today as well.
- Joe Flaherty is gonna be on the show.
- [Glenn] Yes.
Tom was always driven
from the beginning
about making a funny show,
but also taking it
to a broadcaster somewhere.
What are you, a snake or something
for God's sakes?
For years it was like, how are we gonna
get someone to pick up the show?
Who wants to see Adam, the drummer,
go skateboarding?
- [audience cheers]
- Okay, let's go.
We worked on that for a year.
We made all of our videos
just as perfect as we could.
I'm actually a health inspector
during the day.
You don't want to buy bad mustard.
[croaking]
Has anyone ever come in the store
and gotten mustard in their eye?
I got mustard in my eye!
[audience cheers]
Hey!
- Those days must have been great.
- Oh, yeah, they were great.
- [Tom] Must have been nuts for you.
- Oh, yeah. Nuts.
- Dave Thomas.
- [Joe] Yes, yes.
Martin Short, Eugene Levy, of course,
we're seeing all the time.
What is your point?
Are you saying I'm not doing well?
- What are you up to these days?
- I'm in movies. Big movies.
- Oh, okay. Tell us about--
- All right?
- Okay.
- How about Speed?
I was in the movie with a piano.
A piano.
- We didn't see you in that anywhere.
- What?
- I don't want to call you a liar.
- Don't go there, Green.
- This is my first big show.
- I was in Speed, okay? I was cut out.
You're calling me a liar,
and I don't think that's a good idea.
You're not very experienced. You're green.
[laughs]
I'd like you to know I've actually done
shows before on the community channel.
[laughing]
I did 50, and they were an hour long.
[Joe] I'm sorry!
Well, I've been in big movies!
Yeah, oh, Mr. SCTV!
Mr. SCTV!
- Mr. Big Time!
- Oh, shut up!
Just shut the hell up! Shut up!
You idiot!
[audience cheers]
- Sorry, man.
- I'm sorry, too.
- What's your name?
- My name's Tom.
- Really-- This is different.
- I can't believe--
[Tom]
It was a really exciting time.
This was real television.
They aired the show on Halloween.
- Tom the b*mb.
- Dan the Man.
Tom the b*mb.
Punchbuggy, Joe Flaherty,
and Dan the Man.
Thank you very much.
See you next time, if there is one.
Okay.
Then we waited.
We waited almost a year.
Only to find out
they weren't gonna go forward.
They decided not to continue
with the show.
I was devastated.
I thought,
"How am I going to recover from this?"
But we didn't quit.
My friends and I, we persevered.
We looked at our options,
and there was a new network
called the Canadian Comedy Network,
which we managed
to get a small deal on to do 13 episodes.
We filmed them,
we shot them in a little theater
with the equipment
that the public access station lent us.
Plastic bag, plastic bag
Hi, you're watching The Tom Green Show.
And my name is Tom Green.
And this is Glenn Humplik right here.
- Hey, Tom.
- [audience cheers]
Oh! Ow!
Oh!
Why are you filming this? Keep straight.
- Why are you filming this?
- Get the f*ck out of here.
Turn the camera off, you know?
- Can I stick my head in that?
- I don't think it's safe.
- Mommy.
- I'm not your mommy, to start off with.
I'm just gonna rub my face on the ground
here while you eat your brownie.
[man] I'm not your mother.
I'm a man, not a woman.
[Tom] We had to do something big,
so we did Hockey Guy in Chicago.
You sure I'm not bleeding?
All right! It's all right, buddy.
It's all right.
It's all right.
We did this bit called...
Funnier when I'm drunk.
You got to be careful and responsible
when you drink.
I know in my brain the segment is called
"Let's Get Drunk."
I've had, like, seven f*cking jam jars
filled with rum and Coke.
We should...
[sighs]
[crew laughing]
Now, I'm like...
I remember at the time
when people saw that,
they couldn't believe
what they were looking at.
I like to say that this was real.
The first time somebody
really vomited on camera.
Pretty proud of that.
- Um...
- [man laughs]
There's nothing funny about this.
It's really embarrassing
buying condoms sometimes.
So I'm gonna bring the camera with me
just so it's less embarrassing.
Just gonna buy some of these condoms
because I'm planning on making love
to a woman tonight,
and I'm really excited about that.
So what are you guys up to today?
[Tom]
And we put all these episodes together.
It's just some cream
that came from my body.
[Tom] And we made a show...
[woman]
We will be having the cow brought in.
[Tom]
Humans usually drink milk out of glasses.
...unlike anything
that anybody had ever seen.
I like the way milk tastes!
It was weird.
It's time to clean the city.
[German accent] Oxyman...
Ha-ha! Pretty.
[shrieks]
[grunting]
[groaning]
[yelling]
I can't clean anymore.
My English, it's very bad.
Oh, no, you're good at English.
So do the sailors on the boat,
do they do they masturbate a lot, or...
- Yeah.
- A lot of masturbating.
All right.
[Glenn] Oh, sh*t!
[laughter and applause]
[Tom] Oh, my God.
That's my parents right there.
Oh, my God!
[screaming]
- [man] You okay?
- Yeah.
That bail was nuts.
I mean, The Slutmobile
was the classic episode.
It's 3:00 in the morning.
So to show my parents
how much I love them,
I've turned my parents' vehicle
into more than just a vehicle.
I've turned it into The Slutmobile.
This bit became infamous immediately,
and comedian friends of mine
still talk about it to this day.
He put "Slutmobile" on his dad's--
the hood of his car.
[man] Oh, my God, on his parents'...
- And then hid in the bushes.
- Yeah.
He didn't just like,
"Let me f*ck with random people."
My mommy and daddy.
[audience laughing and cheering]
Holy Christ.
- [Tom] You like it, Dad? Come look at it.
- Go talk to your mother.
"Go talk to your mother."
Like what was I supposed to do?
- [Tom] It's permanent. Come look at it.
- That's permanent.
- What do you mean?
- Walking down to the police right now.
[Tom] You're walking?
Why can't you take the car?
Don't walk to work.
It's not obscene. It's... It's love.
Those women are in love, Dad.
You like it? Mom?
My mom has no intention
of talking to me on camera
about The Slutmobile.
Fortunately, she left a few messages
on my answering machine.
[Mary Jane, on answering machine]
Tom, it's your mother.
Did you do that to our car?
[Tom]
Uh, Dad can't take the bus to work.
I'm gonna take The Slutmobile
to the bus stop.
Wow, there's a lot of people
at the bus stop.
I hope my dad's not embarrassed
by his Slutmobile.
Come on, I'll drive you to work.
- Come on.
- [Tom] What?
That thing better be washed up.
I don't know how you got it on there.
[Tom]
It's permanent. It's a present.
Were you embarrassed?
Or did you think it was funny?
By this stage of the game,
I was beginning to think it was funny
because I'd see them laughing
and I thought, "Oh, okay."
[Tom] Dad, don't worry
if your neighbors see The Slutmobile.
I mean, it's just your Slutmobile, right?
You understand, though,
that the reaction shot,
like, when you're not happy
about something is kind of funny, right?
- Well, not really.
- Like, you can't always be happy about it.
How many bits were there
that you don't like?
Do you remember?
Is there more than one?
Well, the one where you put
the frigging cow's head in my bed.
- Okay. Okay.
- That, I didn't like.
My parents loved the movie The Godfather.
[dog barking]
What the hell is that?
You're going to get bloodstains
on this bedspread.
- [Mary Jane] That's not real.
- Yes, it is.
[Mary Jane] Get it off this bed!
[Tom] That was the first time
you got really mad.
I thought I was gonna throw up.
[over PA] Tasty corn.
[man]
I don't want you doing that on my PA.
- Not allowed to do that?
- [man] No.
But if you want to do it,
just pick up the phone,
hit the button that says "page."
Mom, I'm up at the front.
Mom, I don't know where you are.
We're not allowed cameras in the store,
so I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.
[over PA] My brother's lost.
I'm really worried about that.
- Please.
- Probably back by the girls' sweatpants.
- Doing some shopping, I guess?
- Yeah.
So how do you know where the--
- You're not allowed on our PA system.
- Oh, no?
- This way, please.
- Oh, okay.
- First of all, this is private property.
- Well, I'm gonna leave.
- [guard] Yeah, let's go over here.
- [Tom] Okay.
I'll just go over here.
I'll just go this way.
There are certain bits
that people would just keep bringing up.
Where are you off to?
- Where I'm off to?
- Where are you going?
I don't know if it's any
of your damn business.
- I was just wondering where you're going.
- You do, eh?
- I'm wondering where you're going, yeah.
- You wonder?
- Yeah.
- That's too freaking bad, eh?
You don't want to tell me
where you're going?
None of your damn business
where I'm going.
People have been coming up to me on
the street the last 25 years, saying...
[man] None of your damn business
where I'm going.
So where are you going then?
I don't think it's any
of your damn business!
- No, I know, it's not my business.
- No.
- I'm actually--
- Do I ask you where you're going?
Answer my question!
Where the hell are you going?
- Um...
- Answer my question.
Where are you going, eh? Hey?
When somebody come up and ask me
where I'm going,
that's nobody else's business but my own.
Russell Chuadary is here, everyone.
He's a butcher.
[audience applauds]
[Tom]
The episode we had a butcher as our guest
became a memorable episode
for quite a few people.
And it wasn't because of the butcher.
It was because I decided
to destroy the set.
It was flattering years later
to have Eric Andr
thank me for the inspiration.
- Set destruction is really your baby.
- Yeah.
[drumroll]
[Tom]
Our producer, Merilyn Read,
was very upset after this
because we had not planned
on jumping through and destroying the set.
I was devastated for, like, 60 seconds.
And then I realized it's just part
of the whole scene here.
They didn't tell me it was gonna happen,
but they never told me anything anyway.
[Tom]
I just decided to jump through the set.
But the fact that that was not planned,
you know what I mean?
I just kinda got caught up in the moment.
[audience cheering]
And I didn't really realize it
until later.
People were always like,
"Where'd you get the idea for the show?"
But then just one day, I was like,
"Oh, that's from Tom's show. Tom Green."
And then I was like,
"Oh, I'm just biting Tom Green."
So thank you for your brain.
Wake up, wake up, wake up.
You look back at your life
and you go like, "Wow, holy crap."
"I put that on television."
I'm humping a dead moose.
Come on! Come on!
You know what's kinda interesting
about this, if anything,
is that we were just kids
figuring this out on our own.
I am Scuba Hood.
I steal from the poor
and give to the rich.
There wasn't some adult there saying,
"This is how we do it."
"Write it like this and do it like this."
We did the show from 1994 till 1999,
before it was really being done
in any sort of professional capacity.
Turn the camera off.
- What's your name?
- Scuba Hood.
- No, what is your real name?
- Scuba Hood.
[Tom]
By making fun of an authority figure,
you're sort of punching up.
- What is his real name?
- Okay, I'll give you my real name.
Doug Fisher.
Doug...
Fisher.
[upbeat music playing over radio]
- Get out of here.
- [Tom] Just playing the game.
- What the hell you doing?
- It's my radio.
- Get off the field.
- Why are you pushing me?
[upbeat music playing over radio]
This is a kid's league game.
- We're leaving. You're stalling us.
- Yeah, keep going.
- [man] Turn the f*cking thing off.
- [Tom] Don't touch him.
Soccer fans are insane.
You're just a bunch of English hooligans!
Sorry about that.
[audience cheers and applauds]
Yeah!
Baby...
Pierce...
[clipped chatter]
[screaming]
Please welcome Tom Green!
You were down at Mike Bullard's show,
and Howard Lapides became your manager.
- [Tom] Howard Lapides.
- May he rest in peace.
We were representing Mike Bullard,
and Mike had a talk show in Canada.
And Howard went up to deal with Mike
on a few things,
and Tom was a guest on Mike's show.
Howard and Tom clicked immediately.
Crowds of kids showed up with signs,
and they knew every bit that we'd done
on the Comedy Network.
He came back and told me about Tom,
and he said, "I want to sign this guy."
"There's something really special
about him."
[Tom] I sent him some tapes
of some of our wildest moments
from the show,
and he marched them into MTV.
And MTV had never seen anything like it.
They flew me to Los Angeles.
They had me pitch the show in person.
Are we all going?
[Tom] And the next thing you know,
I was being flown to New York.
And away we went.
This is The Tom Green Show
It's not the Green Tom show
This is my favorite show
Because it is my show
It's The Tom Green Show.
[Tom] We had writers, producers,
camera people in New York City.
They built us a studio in Times Square.
It was like I'd died and gone to heaven.
My dreams were really coming true.
Before you know it,
the show was on the air.
- [audience applauding]
- Wow, what an audience. Wow.
Holy doodle.
- Listen to them.
- Yeah, it's a great audience out there.
Listen to them roar.
Welcome to The Tom Green Show.
I'm Tom, and this is Glenn Humplik.
[cheers and applause]
Glenn Humplik!
A good friend of mine.
Been friends a long time.
- You're a good friend of mine, right?
- Good friend.
- And Phil right behind me in the window.
- [laughing]
He laughs a lot.
We've been doing a show like this together
on cable access for a few years now.
- Four years now.
- Yeah, and now we're here on MTV.
It's really...
[applause]
[Tom] We couldn't believe
how quickly things took off.
- [upbeat music playing]
- [audience cheers]
You take your pants off your now.
You're clapping?
You're the only one clapping right now.
[indistinct shouting]
[announcer] MTV.
Music Television.
[Tom] MTV took the place of what
almost like the entire internet does now.
If you cared about music,
if you cared about pop culture,
you go to MTV.
So all young people would go watch MTV.
Everybody would watch MTV.
So it was sort of a shell shock, you know.
When you were 15 years old,
you worked at a hamburger chain.
- Why are you doing this?
- Just tell the people what you did.
I went for a...
A piss in this big bucket of pickles.
We're gonna teach you
how to play a game of pickle...
roulette.
Before the show,
I, uh, urinated in one of these pickle...
So this is lesson-teaching time.
If there's a yellow dot,
you've got urine, okay?
It really wasn't a game of roulette here.
We wanted to make sure you learned
your lesson, so actually, all the jars...
[laughs]
We're learning a lot
about camouflage today.
I'm in the bushes.
You can't see me in the bushes
because I'm camouflaged.
[Tom]
When the show got picked up by MTV,
it had to be one of the most exciting
moments of my entire life.
At least up to that point.
Maybe ever.
Put your mouth on it and suck it. Yes.
It's time for one of my favorite
sporting events.
It only happens once every four years.
It's the c*ck Olympics.
We were trying to smash
the conventions of traditional comedy.
I get it now, that sounds, like,
a bit naive and a bit arrogant
and youthful, wide-eyed, but you
got to have that kind of confidence.
You know what I love about your story
is that you did that self-hustle in an era
where it kind of wasn't as easy
as it is now.
Like, you hear kids complaining, like,
"How do I..."
It's like, bro, you've got this.
This is all you f*cking need now.
You can make a TV show on this.
There's no excuse to not do it now,
but to do it--
- "What do I do?"
- How punk rock is it
that you did it in a time
where it was f*cking so hard to do it?
Today, we're gonna investigate guarantees
and whether or not they're effective.
Oh, this has a one-year guarantee on it.
You will have to pay for it.
- Can I use my guarantee here?
- No, you can't.
- There's a 90-day guarantee on this?
- Everything is 90 days in the store.
- "For a period of one year."
- I understand that.
You can even
break your head too like that.
Thanks anyways.
If you walk out of the store,
I'm gonna f you up.
This says "guaranteed for a year."
We're making a movie about guarantees.
I wouldn't give a f
if you were making it about Moses.
I will kick your m a*s
on camera.
Give me $50.
Tom is an extraordinary trailblazer.
He did a lot in comedy,
and he paved a lot of paths.
And he's a young guy.
That's the thing that's so astounding.
Everybody forgets that he really started
as a very young man
because he's a young guy now.
This is wild, man. This is where I lived
when I moved to New York City.
I lived right down the street here.
That used to be the studio right up there,
but the studio's not there anymore.
So it's pretty cool being back here.
- I absolutely loved your show.
- Yeah. It was right here.
- Did you watch it a lot? Cool, man.
- Oh, absolutely.
Undercutter pizza was amazing.
We're gonna follow that pizza guy
to his next delivery,
and we're gonna try and undercut
the competition.
- Did you order the pizza?
- Yeah.
What toppings did you guys want
on your pizza?
- [man] Extra cheese.
- [Tom] Extra cheese. Okay.
- Where's my pizza?
- [Tom] This is it here.
No, we're from Undercutters.
- How much is yours?
- Get the hell away from me.
- You get it cheaper from me, though.
- I really don't give a f. Get out.
Let the f dog out.
[Tom]
Yeah, but this is a new business--
[man] I'll get a new business
that's right up your a*s.
- [Tom] Hey.
- Get your f out of here.
[Tom] No, don't...
Don't...
- [man] Get this s out of here now.
- [Tom] Okay.
- We were gonna give it to you cheaper.
- [man] Whatever.
Do me a favor, take your s
and f somewhere else.
I'm sorry. But, you know,
we just go up to where the pizza people--
- Shut your f mouth and go!
- Okay.
He's got a hammer. Go.
- Is that a pizza you got there?
- You're Tom Green, right?
[Tom] Yes, sir.
How are you doing, my friend?
By the time we got to MTV,
we've been messing around
with a lot of stuff for a long time.
We'd figured out a lot of things
that worked and what didn't work.
Ten episodes of shows
that were edited out of six,
seven years of experimentation.
[announcer] From New York,
home to last year's Grammy Awards,
it's the Late Show with David Letterman.
[Tom]
We got a call from David Letterman.
[announcer] From MTV's
The Tom Green Show, Tom Green.
[Tom]
He asked me to come on his show.
I couldn't believe it.
MTV couldn't believe it.
David Letterman was the king of New York.
He was the king of television,
and I'm going on his show.
Our next guest has a brand-new
television program on MTV.
It's called The Tom Green Show.
Here's the host of The Tom Green Show,
Tom Green.
- Tom, come on out here.
- [audience cheers]
[band playing rock music]
[inaudible]
Wow.
- Welcome to the show.
- Wow.
Welcome to... Well, just welcome.
How are you doing?
- I got a new sweater for the show.
- It's nice. It's handsome.
It's got that stripe.
What is it, Gap, 40 bucks?
Something like that, yeah.
I could actually say that I'd maybe
achieved my dream in life.
- To be on the David Letterman show.
- [Mary Jane] Right.
When you were a kid
growing up in Ottawa, in Canada,
was this something
you always wanted to do?
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
And we got picked up
by this network in Canada,
and then MTV brought us down here
and it's crazy.
I've been here for five,
no, two months now.
This is like one of those
stories that you hear
every couple of decades
and it's just, "Oh, my God,
they picked a guy
out of obscurity in Canada,
and the next thing you know,
he's on the MTV. And look out."
Well, this is weird to be here,
you know, in New York City.
I live three blocks away from here
in a hotel, and, um...
[audience laughs]
In a hotel. And, um...
But you guys picked me up in a car today
and brought me here in the car.
- I only live three blocks away.
- All right.
- [audience laughs, applauds]
- [chuckles]
I thought maybe...
And it was like it's a really long car.
Like, it's a gorgeous car.
All tinted windows and everything.
And I wanted to ask them to take me
around the block a few times
- and have a little more time in it, but...
- [Letterman laughs]
I remember after the interview,
before I left the stage,
I did sort of a literally
like a Mary Tyler Moore kind of pirouette.
- I just looked around.
- Throw your hat in the air?
Yeah, kind of.
I just didn't want to leave the stage.
Wasn't the first American show
that I did, though.
The first American show
that I did was Oprah.
My friend Tom Segura recently talked about
this on The Joe Rogan Experience.
When Tom Green was on, I couldn't...
It was stuff I couldn't even believe.
Tom Green did Oprah.
- [Joe] Wow. Did he really?
- Oprah. Yes.
Oprah was like...
It was such a phenomena,
what was going on.
The show was so big.
Tom Green has been pulling pranks
on his own parents
since his days on radio.
How'd it start?
Started doing a show on a community
TV station a few years ago, and...
basically I realized
they were really good targets.
And then what happened after
we did a few of these pranks to them,
is I realized they actually
kind of secretly like it.
[laughing] Wrong.
This is where they got it wrong.
They showed a lot of your...
They showed clips from the show.
[Tom] You saw Oprah laughing
at all these clips, right?
And then she surprised you guys with what?
I love you very much,
and I just want to send you somewhere
far away from me.
You know, you can have some relax time.
And I want to send you on a cruise,
a Renaissance cruise
to Tahiti for 12 days, okay?
- Yeah.
- [Oprah] It's true. It's really true.
This is all--
Oprah helped set all this up.
Oprah was so nice. She had--
She put her arm around me
because she knew I was nervous, you know.
- Yeah, she was lovely.
- Yeah.
Here I am at the University of Cincinnati,
continuing to prove that everyone
loves the taste of Pepsi One.
- [bullhorn alarm blares]
- [screams]
Ready? Open up.
I couldn't believe it.
Pepsi hired me to do Pepsi commercials
directed by Todd Phillips,
and they aired during the NCAA Finals.
Millions and millions of new people
discovered The Tom Green Show.
[all] Go! Go! Go! Go!
[Tom] It changed everything.
Please welcome, everybody,
Janeane Garofalo.
- Come out from under the desk, Janeane.
- [audience cheers]
You might not know this,
but Glenn Humplik is a huge fan of yours.
And I, his. No offense.
You are the reason why I watch this show.
Wow.
Whenever you're ready!
[cheering and applause]
I just want to say thanks, Janeane,
for coming on the show.
Thank you for having me on the show, Tom.
- Thanks for getting in the porridge.
- I was my pleasure.
Your show was the first of its kind.
Like, you're a true original,
and that was must-see television for us.
- Oh, my God.
- I mean, I'm sure you realize it, but...
- And it was blew our f*cking minds.
- It blew our minds, man.
At one point off the website,
I had a general email,
and I got an email from Tony Hawk.
I remember you were in shock
when I told you about that.
Yeah, and then he came to New York
and did the show.
He did the show.
I remember that clear as day
because Tony Hawk was like my idol.
Idol, yeah.
He said, "I'll meet you at the studio."
I said, "What hotel are you staying at?"
I said, "Do you want
to skate to the studio?"
And he said, "I'm staying at this hotel."
I said, "Okay, I'll meet you at the hotel
and we'll skate to the studio."
And he said, "Sure." We skated through
New York to the studio, me and him.
- A dream come true.
- Oh, my God, it was crazy.
I couldn't even believe it.
Pretty cool when your heroes
can become your friends.
Tony and I hit it off,
and he'd come on my talk shows
over the years,
and we'd reminisce
about that first appearance.
This is exciting for me
to talk about this stuff.
- Me too.
- Remember we were doing the jumpy thing.
[Tony] Yeah.
[laughs] Wow.
And you got on your stomach
and literally swam through
and made me follow you,
and I was like, "This is insane."
"We're gonna get arrested here."
And you're like,
"Why did I email this goof?"
[excited shouting]
- I love you, man.
- I love Tom Green.
- When's your show gonna be on?
- What's that?
When's your show? How come there aren't
any new episodes on Monday nights?
It increasingly became more difficult
to do jokes on the street
because people were recognizing Tom
all over the place.
Yeah! Tom Green rocks!
- [excited chatter]
- All right!
[crowd] Yeah!
Yeah!
[cheering]
We were gonna sh**t a segment
out there today, but then...
Hey, guys.
- What's going on, man?
- [man] Not much.
- Cool, man.
- [man] Happy St. Paddy's Day, man.
You too, guys.
That's why we shot
"The Bum Bum Song" in Seattle.
Because we had to take our whole crew
and fly to cities
where there weren't
as many people on the streets.
We wrote and recorded a song, Glenn.
I have high hopes
that this song will place me
alongside the likes of Bryan Adams
and Celine Dion.
And we've actually made a video
for the song, Glenn.
Okay.
And we're going to world-premiere it
right now.
[announcer] The following is your first
shocking glimpse into the latest
top secret project from one
of the world's most notorious stars.
My bum is on the rail
Bum is on the rail
That's not very fun
If you fall down and hurt your bum
I like to put my bum on things
It's fun for everyone
We dropped our song
that we recorded three days ago
off in the studio
at a radio station here in Seattle.
And it just hit number two.
MTV took note.
Before we went back,
we shot a video the next day in Seattle
for "The Bum Bum Song."
We went on our show that week
and I said...
Call the radio station, say,
"I want to hear 'The Bum Bum Song.'"
And call Total Request Live and say,
"Carson, Carson, I want to hear
'The Bum Bum Song.'"
Okay?
The very next day, "The Bum Bum Song"
was the number one song
on Carson Daly's Total Request Live.
It was the number one song
all week that week.
Now, maybe you're not expecting that
then this new emerging artist, Eminem,
will come out
and make his big single all about it.
I just want to go on TV and let loose
I can't, but it's cool for Tom Green
to hump a dead moose
My bum is on your lips
My bum is on your lips
[Tom] Referencing your moose humping
and your "Bum Bum Song."
Let's check out what that little joker
Tom Green has to offer for us.
Everyone thinks they're the real
Slim Shady, but they're not.
Everyone thinks I'm a stupid dummy.
My mom, my dad.
But I'm gonna show them.
I'm the real Slim Shady.
- Please, say "I'm the real Slim Shady."
- I'm the real Slim Shady.
You're a liar!
[Tom] After about six months,
we couldn't sh**t
in New York City anymore,
so we moved to Los Angeles.
Welcome to the show.
I don't know if you noticed that things
look a little bit different here
but I'm in California right now.
[audience cheers]
We've actually been doing the shows
in New York City for the past year,
and I get a sense
that people might be a little bit worried
because they don't see Glenn
and they don't see Phil,
and they're probably saying,
"Maybe Glenn and Phil
won't be able to make it to the show
because they live in Canada."
[audience groans]
Yeah. You're worried, right?
That's why you all did
that sound with your mouths.
[laughter]
Wait, what's that?
Oh, they're here? Oh, okay.
Let's welcome, all the way
from a little place called Canada...
[audience cheers]
[laughing]
[Tom] Tonight, I invite you to listen
to an interesting story.
The story of an adventure
with Miss Monica Lewinsky.
The moment that I realized
that Tom was one of my heroes
was when he did a show
with Monica Lewinsky.
We just landed in Ottawa.
We're here with Monica.
[man] For the longest time,
Monica was the subject
of a lot of ridicule,
and people just made fun of her
because, you know, she was the hot topic,
and it was easy to punch down.
Today is Monica Day, of course,
across the United States.
Is it a federal holiday, I think?
- [man] Probably.
- All zippers at half-mast.
I don't know.
This is my parents' house, okay?
- Dad?
- [dog barking]
Monica, how are you?
Nice to meet you.
Hi.
I mean, I know a lot of people
are probably wondering
why is Monica Lewinsky in Ottawa with Tom?
We can't really answer
that question today.
We're gonna answer that question tomorrow
at Le P'Tit Castor restaurant.
- Small Beaver?
- Yeah, the Little Beaver restaurant.
We can't talk about anything more now.
There's paparazzi showing up at the house.
We got to go.
- Is he still behind us?
- [Monica] Yeah.
If we could ask you
to stop following us now.
Yeah, sure.
Can't you just leave us alone?
Leave us be! You're scaring my mother!
You're scaring my mother!
[Glenn] Such a play into how
the news media is just so desperate
and looking for a story.
And Tom screwed around with them
so much on that.
Monica Lewinsky is making headlines
with a surprise appearance
north of the border.
Welcome, Monica Lewinsky.
Monica Lewinsky.
[man] We love you, Monica!
- [laughs]
- [crowd cheers]
[man] There's a way to be a good person
and still be goofy,
and Tom Green's that guy.
Whoo!
Osteoporosis rules!
I-27.
Whoa!
Crotch!
Ball! Some sex.
Joshua!
[zipper rasping]
[audience cheering]
Thank you.
Oh!
[laughs]
- Oh, my...
- Oh, wow.
[Conan laughing]
- What are the odds on that happening?
- [Conan] That is embarrassing.
Oh, wow.
No, no, because I wanted
to talk to you, Conan,
about something
that's very important to me.
[Conan] Uh-huh.
Camouflage.
[laughter]
- Really?
- Yeah.
Sometimes I think, you know,
I feel like maybe I should have
just showed up and just been
a normal human or something.
[Conan laughs]
[audience applauds]
[Conan] Yeah!
Conan did tell me that it was
one of his favorite appearances ever.
- It was hilarious.
- But sometimes,
I think when I'd go on the shows,
I would just try to go so crazy
because I was so desperate to make it work
because I was so terrified
that it wasn't gonna work...
- Right.
- ...that I would maybe overdo it.
[squealing]
You know, just...
I thought you guys would have laughed
at the bacon thing, now I'm embarrassed.
- [Martin] We did laugh.
- I was thinking,
I wanted to come out
and do something really wacky.
And I started doing wacky thing
with the bacon.
I'm realizing I'm sitting
between Ed Grimley and the Jerk.
- First of all, you have--
- [Steve] What else is in the box?
- Yeah, maybe there's more stuff.
- I mean, the box was just the box.
I was gonna do a robot.
I was gonna, like...
[muttering]
Well, I'm glad you didn't do it.
Now listen...
Please welcome Tom Green.
[audience cheers]
[Craig] Look at that.
That's pretty good.
Lookit. All my cans on the ground.
[Tom]
MTV picking up The Tom Green Show
opened up an entire world
of possibilities for me.
Your dreams are happening,
but then all of a sudden,
you're getting pulled in all different
directions from MTV executives,
from movie studios,
from advertisers.
I have to say, Starfish,
that I am honored...
[Tom] It was around that time
I got a call from Drew Barrymore.
Starfish, where are you going?
[Tom]
At the time, I was somewhat amazed
that Drew Barrymore would reach out to me
because she was a fan
of The Tom Green Show,
and the Chad was born.
Chad.
[Tom] I remember after working together
on the set of Charlie's Angels,
I asked her if she'd like to go out
for a bite to eat after work.
And we did.
I have to go now.
[Tom] We kind of sort of hit it off
right away, pretty much.
We had a lot of laughs together.
We met on Charlie's Angels, actually.
She asked me to be in that movie,
and then we met.
[guitars strumming]
[man] It's going to the next level.
[Glenn] Oh, God.
Playing a little guitar over here.
Oh, no, Glenn, don't say that!
I thought you were my confidante.
Like...
[indistinct]
My bum is on the cheese
Bum is on the cheese
If I get lucky, I'll get a disease
Well, um, I got lucky.
I got a disease, right?
Cancer, right?
- Testicular cancer, right?
- Yep.
And that's what today's show is all about.
It's a pretty delicate thing
to talk about, you know?
[laughs]
Yeah.
[dramatic music playing]
[Tom] We did our final episode
of The Tom Green Show for MTV,
documenting my battle with cancer.
And you guys flew down to Los Angeles.
Then the doctor came to me
after looking at my testicle
and he said that the cancer
might have spread to my lymph nodes,
and I'd have to go in
for a second major surgery,
where they cut me wide open and took
my intestines and lymph nodes out.
[Glenn] When he told me
that he wanted to do a show about it,
I was like... At first, I didn't get it.
I was like, "Why would you
want to do that?"
[Tom] That's the scar
where my testicle was removed.
It was pulled out of my body right there.
What did you think about the decision
to film my cancer and air it?
Well, at first I didn't want you to
because I thought,
gosh, you know, this is gonna be
not a pleasant experience for you.
And did you really want a bunch of cameras
and people around
when you're going through
something like this?
Back then, I had two testicles
at that time.
- [Letterman] Mm-hmm.
- And, uh...
[audience laughing]
...now I have one.
It's kind of gone to the middle,
and it's the middle one now, I call it.
I call it the middle one, but, uh...
I thought I was gonna die
because I just figured if I was so unlucky
to get testicular cancer
at that moment in time,
when everything was going so well...
- Mm-hm.
...that I figured I'm obviously...
Obviously, I'm gonna die too.
The odds are against you, eh?
- [tailor] You want to wear suspenders?
- Probably a belt.
- It's a good-looking suit, though, right?
- It's a beautiful suit.
Let's got a nice picture of it.
A nice last picture of me alive
with my mother in a nice suit.
- Tom, you're going to live.
- What's that?
I felt it was easier
to deal with the cancer diagnosis
by sort of making a joke out of it.
Yes, you did. And I didn't like that.
- Mm-hmm.
- Because I didn't find it funny.
- Hi there.
- Hi.
I have cancer.
I'm sorry.
We're having a big celebration tonight.
- Yeah.
- To celebrate the cancer
that I found out
that I have five days ago.
- What kind?
- Uh, testicular, actually.
I had one of my ba*ls removed
four days...
And, uh, they think they got most of it,
although it spread to the lymph nodes.
So I'm gonna be having an operation
where they're gonna remove my lymph nodes,
and hopefully I'm not gonna die.
- Do you want to see the wine list?
- [laughs]
[Mary Jane]
Absolutely, we want to see the wine list.
- Thanks, Mom.
- See you later.
See you in an hour or so.
- Thanks.
- Okay.
Take care. Good luck.
[doctor] We now can bring the intestines
out of the abdomen.
- That's my body.
- Yeah. That was it.
I was kind of hoping
it would have been funnier inside my body.
Look what he did.
I mean, he taped a special for MTV
that nobody would have ever thought
about doing back then,
and made his whole audience
and many and millions of more people
aware of what this was--
Of what this was all about.
It looks like the lymph nodes appear
to be all negative as far as we can tell.
Nothing grossly was involved,
and we were able to save the nerves.
I guess he was really worried
about being able to ej*cul*te properly.
I think that should be no problem.
[Burt] It wasn't Tom thinking,
"Hey, I'm gonna save a lot of lives."
It was Tom being Tom.
Just Tom being very innovative,
wanting to share his life
with his audience.
I guess what we're looking at right here,
Tom's testicle.
Cancerous tumor.
- You were playing with my testicle?
- Yeah.
The doctor let me play with it.
Remember the old days
when you used to play with my testicles?
Well, seems to be okay.
He got television and gets television
more than any comedian
that I can think of
off the top of my head.
[Tom]
That's really when my life really changed,
because there was a lot of extreme pain,
a long recovery.
It really did affect my mental health.
It was terrifying
to have to battle cancer,
especially at this time
when everything was going so well.
You know, your life flashing
before your eyes.
Your entire life.
I've been working on this show.
Finally, I'd made it to the mountaintop.
And, just kidding!
Let's pull the rug out from under you.
And it felt very unfair.
I prayed to God
that they would let me survive.
And, uh, I guess they heard me,
because here I am.
Hey, kids, feel your ba*ls
Cancer is no longer something
I think about every day,
but in recent interviews,
I've had the chance to
reflect on the profound impact
that it's had on my life.
It did change my perspective on work.
You remember the line where,
you know, seconds earlier,
the most important thing to you
was the show and how are we gonna,
you know, get the ratings up,
or how are we gonna get this movie going,
or all these things
that seem so, so important.
And then immediately,
that just all goes silent.
But then, Tom, you used it for good
and you went down
to what university in Florida?
- Yeah. University of Florida.
- And...
In Gainesville. Go, Gators.
- You filmed that.
- Mm-hmm.
19,000 people came out.
[cheers and applause]
[Tom] I just had cancer.
Cancer, cancer.
Testicular cancer.
I had a ball removed.
I had one of my nuts removed.
- [applause]
- Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
You support Tom Green's nuts.
Good for you, yeah,
it's a nice thing that it turned out well
and a nice that you called
attention to this.
How many people have told you
- that you saved their life?
- Hundreds.
Even though the trauma of cancer
had not subsided,
I put my game face on, and as planned,
accompanied Drew to the Academy Awards.
[announcer] The red carpet's
most courageous appearance
undoubtedly belonged
to MTV comic Tom Green,
who joined girlfriend
Drew Barrymore at the Oscars
just five days after surgery
in his fight against cancer.
It feels a little weird for me.
It makes me feel a little sad, actually,
just thinking how much time has passed,
you know, and how long ago that was.
And after I got sick, okay,
I was physically drained.
Energy-wise, drained.
Not just--
Not just emotionally drained,
but physically drained.
The show had gone off the air.
There was now sometimes
negative media coverage of me,
which was, I found
emotionally difficult to deal with.
And I...
became a different person
than the person that I'm looking at there.
And I look at that person and I go...
[chuckles]
[exhales]
I remember being that guy, you know?
[inhales and exhales]
[somber music playing]
- I had to quit the show.
- I know you did.
And then all those people lost their jobs.
Sometimes people think
the show got canceled.
I know, well, people think
whatever they want, even if they know.
- The show didn't get canceled.
- No, I know it didn't get canceled.
[Tom]
Taking time off while recovering
meant MTV no longer
had its top comedy series.
So they picked up a new show,
called Jackass.
[Jackass theme song playing]
Never forget, there would be no Jackass
if there was no Tom Green.
Don't f*cking forget that. Nobody.
I actually sat at my VCR,
um, recording Tom's shows.
And when the commercial break
would come on,
I would hit pause and I'd wait there.
And then when the show came back on,
I would unpause it
so as to record the complete
Tom Green season
without commercials.
But he did the old-man skit
before Jackass did.
Nobody lets an old man shop anymore.
Get up and get out.
I just want to do my groceries.
Help me!
He did a lot of stuff before Jackass did.
[Tom] And then
Todd Phillips' Road Trip came out,
and my life changed in other ways.
Can I feed Mitch?
Yes, actually, you can. You can feed him.
But not till tomorrow.
There's a brown box full of mice
next to his cage.
Give him one tomorrow.
Somebody's gonna die tomorrow.
That's right.
One of you is marked for death.
[mice squeaking]
And first thing tomorrow morning,
the chosen one
will experience nature's wrath.
[Tom]
The movie Road Trip was a massive success,
grossing $118 million worldwide.
I didn't lie.
[Tom] Every major studio
was sending me scripts
and offering me lucrative movie deals.
I signed on to several films,
and my agents negotiated for more money
than I'd ever imagined.
I'm not the one who needs the money.
Why should I assume the risk?
[Tom]
While reading all these scripts,
we got the idea of writing our own comedy.
The comedy went on
to confuse a lot of people.
but looking back on it now,
I wouldn't have changed a thing.
Freddy Got Fingered, by the way,
is out a week from today.
- Not only do you act in it...
- Freddy Got Fingered.
And you co-wrote it, you directed it.
Where do we get the title?
Freddy Got Fingered?
Uh, it kind of gives away
the ending a little bit.
- I'd rather not say here.
- Then let's not talk about it.
Daddy, would you like some sausage?
[Jackie] Tom came in and he said,
"I want to direct this."
Tom was very persuasive.
We said, "You know what, Tom?"
"We're gonna send you over to New Regency
and let you have the conversation
with Sanford and the guys over there."
Oh, we're having roast beef?
- I'm eating a chicken sandwich.
- No, you're not.
Holy sh*t, this is crazy.
I'm a 28-year-old man.
I should be able to eat
a chicken sandwich if I want.
Tom went and met them,
and we got the call at the end of the day
that they agreed to let Tom direct it.
I'm really excited about the movie,
Freddy Got Fingered.
[Letterman]
You wrote and directed the film?
And you know how to do that stuff?
You know... kinda.
[Jackie] You know,
I go back to the same thing as Tom,
always goes into things with a vision.
And even if we get a little sidetracked,
or the producers get a little sidetracked,
he's kind of the one
that kinda pulled you back in
because he's got a vision.
[laughing]
I wasn't expecting that to happen.
The backwards man
The backwards man
I can walk backwards
as fast as you can
The backwards man
The backwards man
That's mainly what it is.
I want to surprise people.
I want people to sit down
and not know what to expect.
I wanted to do my own stunt in the movie,
paying homage to Buster Keaton's stunt
in Steamboat Bill, Jr.
The studio definitely did not
want me to do it.
The studio said absolutely not.
Insurance said absolutely not.
Tom insisted that he do his own stunt.
I think ultimately,
it was the right way to go.
Studio, producers,
they all have to make that final decision.
- They'll ask my opinion--
- But we're not gonna ask them.
You know they're all
gonna be down here.
- I don't want him to do it.
- Everybody else does.
[man] Three, two, one!
[indistinct chatter]
That's a rush, man.
[applause]
[dramatic music playing]
[Tom]
I was hosting Saturday Night Live
still recovering from cancer surgeries
and in unbearable physical pain.
The pain burned up and down my legs
and through my spine all day,
every day.
The pain was a secret.
This was the moment
I'd worked so hard for.
There was no time to rest.
[announcer] It's Saturday Night Live.
[Tom] When I hosted Saturday Night Live,
obviously I was completely, like...
I couldn't even believe that I was hosting
Saturday Night Live.
You were on Saturday Night Live.
- That's true.
- That was a lot of fun, actually.
I want to say hello
to my fiance here, Drew.
Despite being in a lot of pain
from my cancer surgery,
we still had a crazy show.
We did a fake wedding with Drew.
It was one of the wild
and crazy episodes of the year.
And I was thinking that instead
of doing it in the summer,
we get married here tonight.
Tom, we shoulda talked about this.
Don't say no.
I got the cake. I got the arch.
[audience laughing]
You said you would marry me,
and I thought it'd be fun to do it on TV.
And you said you would support me
when you said--
And you call this support?
Embarrassing me
in front of all these people?
In front of America?
This is public humiliation!
- All right.
- You're making me look like a buffoon!
- A buffoon!
- Okay, okay, okay.
Okay, I'll marry you right here on TV.
[audience cheers]
- I think he's got a vision.
- [man] Yeah, exactly.
[Tom] Nobody teaches you how to act
when your dreams come true.
But the world changes overnight
and so do the rules.
[dramatic music playing]
After our make-believe wedding
on Saturday Night Live,
Drew and I got married for real.
I was happy to be married,
but things were not going well.
Both Drew and I were going through
a lot of our own individual stresses
in our careers,
and with the cancer
and the media scrutiny,
it may have just been too much to bear.
It took its toll, but I survived.
Our marriage did not.
[Ebert]
What is the most disgusting film of 2001?
The champion is Freddy Got Fingered
with Tom Green.
It's a vomitorium of a movie,
starring Green as Gord,
who makes it his life's work
to freak out his dad,
played with teeth-gnashing scorn
by Rip Torn.
[Tom] The reaction to Freddy Got Fingered
was swift and brutal.
I was shocked at how mean
these critics could be.
It was hurtful and devastating.
They took aim not just at the movie,
but at me.
Why?
I was just a kid in his 20s
who was trying to make
a goofy and strange movie.
Somehow, it felt personal.
There's such a formula
to making comedy movies in Hollywood
that people have become used to watching
a certain format of comedy movie.
And if you do something that's not that,
it rubs them the wrong way.
Favorite Tom Green moment?
Obviously all of Freddy Got Fingered.
My favorite movie in the world
is Freddy Got Fingered.
- Daddy, would you like some sausages?
- Backwards man, the backwards man
I can move back as fast as you can
I saw Freddy Got Fingered
and fell in love.
Man, I love him. He's f*cking crazy.
And it is...
It was like he was doing sh*t
that people are doing now,
like full blast on YouTube,
and I f*cking love that, how he's like...
I think he's ahead of his time.
A big part of the reason why the movie
got reviewed badly was, A, it's shocking.
[screaming]
Cut the cord.
But also,
I was very overexposed at the time.
You know, I just had cancer.
You know, I was all over the media.
And rather than putting out a nice, easy,
accessible film that mainstream people
would be able to process,
you put out this button-pushing,
polarizing movie.
My daughter and her two friends,
it's their favorite movie.
Being a guest on Howard Stern
was always stressful
because you never know
how he's gonna come at you.
Let's just say
it was a difficult conversation,
having to navigate through, uh,
a lot of intense questioning
from him and Robin
without looking like I was too upset
about what had happened
with Freddy Got Fingered.
When your movie bombed...
- [Tom] It really bombed too.
- And I'm sure that--
It was like a Scud m*ssile
gone the wrong way.
[Artie] I thought it was funny.
[Tom] Yeah, no, it was a disaster.
Eight Raspberry nominations.
I won five.
- And everybody gets a Raspberry Award.
- It's interesting, sure.
It doesn't mean
you have to bring it up, though.
I was the first actor, "actor"
in the history of Hollywood, "Hollywood,"
to accept a Raspberry.
I accepted all five. I went down.
- Sylvester Stallone never gets his.
- I brought my own red carpet.
[Stern] They must have been thrilled.
They were very happy.
[reporter] Why did you decide to show up?
You're the first star to ever show up.
Well, this is an exciting day for me,
you know?
I, uh, I made a great movie, you know.
And I set out to make a crazy movie,
and here I am.
I'm getting a lot of attention for it,
and it's exciting.
I'm getting acclaim
that I'm overwhelmed by.
You know, when I made this movie,
I didn't think
that I was gonna get this much,
um, you know, praise and adulation.
For a guy like me who, you know,
was living in my parents' basement
just about four years ago.
And now to be up against
all these big movie stars
and things like that
at a real awards show,
this is certainly very overwhelming.
The New York Times
did give it a good review.
[Scott] I saw it
and thought it was really interesting.
I thought that it was
conceptually interesting,
and I thought it wasn't
just gross-out humor, in a way,
but that there was a kind of rigor
and inventiveness
and ingenuity
to some of these comic set pieces.
And I said that I thought it was, um,
a work of art.
Are you serious?
Get out of the car, Glenn.
Get out of the car.
I swear to God, I'm gonna f*cking cry.
Yeah, I hope you're not razzing me.
Obviously, I should k*ll this sh**t
and get back to the office.
Howard Lapides
is the best manager in the business.
No idea what's going on.
I'm hosting Letterman.
What?
When?
I'm getting on a plane today.
I'm hosting f*cking Letterman.
Holy sh*t.
- The dream come true, man.
- Yeah, no, I'm seriously--
I'm embarrassed
because I'm, like, tearing up.
When am I doing it? Tomorrow?
I'm doing it tomorrow!
Great, so not only am I hosting Letterman,
I'm bombing on Letterman.
Well, that's a good rehearsal.
f*ck this pit.
Get ready for my new show.
If it's as bad as this...
Well, tell them I'll do it.
[laughs]
- My f*cking God.
- Yeah!
- [laughing]
- Oh, God.
[announcer] From New York,
it's the Late Show with David Letterman.
Dave's guest host tonight is Tom Green.
[audience cheering]
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're probably all looking
at your TV right now saying,
"How the hell did this happen?"
[audience laughing]
Uh, or maybe you're just saying, uh,
"Oh, I guess Dave's taking a vacation
along with everyone else
in the entertainment business."
Yeah.
Nice to see you.
Damien Rice.
Good night, everyone.
[Glenn]
From beautiful midtown Burbank,
it's The New Tom Green Show.
And now, Tom Green!
[Tom] I had to get back to work.
My agent at the time, John Ferriter,
and my manager, Howard Lapides, and I,
we assembled a team
and started a production company.
And our first guest,
please welcome Ludacris.
[Tom]
And MTV bought The New Tom Green Show.
I am so glad this guy's
back on television where he belongs.
[Tom] I couldn't believe it.
My dream had come true.
Our Big Monster Spectacular Friday!
Burt Dubrow, producer of the show.
Can you just tell Glenn quickly?
Because he doesn't believe me.
We hired a great producer.
Burt really put Tom to the test.
He... He wanted Tom
to be the best he could be
at being a talk show host.
Tom became almost a fanatic,
and wanting to become better at it.
Fred Durst... Carson Daly... Gene Simmons.
[Burt] Tom just has the meat on his bone
to know how to do this.
He just innately knows it
because he studied it.
He and I literally would go
to the Museum of Broadcasting
and just watch clips over and over.
Linkin Park.
[Burt] I considered Tom to be
one of the better talk show hosts
that we've seen in years.
He really, really is excellent,
and in my opinion,
wasn't given
the appropriate opportunities.
I mean, you got Jimmy Fallon
and Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert now.
You sure could have put Tom in there
in a minute.
- My chin has never been that wet in life.
- [Tom] Oh, yeah.
"Weird Al" Yankovic.
It's like a lifelong dream of mine
to be on The New Tom Green Show.
This is amazing.
One of the better talk show hosts,
and I don't think anybody
understands the medium
as well as Tom Green does.
And now, here's...
Tommy!
[audience cheers]
h*!
Ed McMahon! Wow.
I love the show,
and so does the New York Post.
Wait till you see this.
Total comparison to Johnny Carson
and a four-star rating.
[Tom] Wow.
[rapping]
Yeah.
Congratulations.
[clipped chatter]
[dramatic music playing]
[Merilyn] The word "genius"
comes to mind with technology.
Tom was always very, very on top
of technology, ahead of the game.
You want to be the central person
that is part of the convergence
- of the internet and television.
- It's called convergence.
The convergence of the internet
and television.
Basically, video is getting so much faster
on the internet now.
But you can now watch it
basically like television.
In your estimation,
how long until this convergence
fully takes place?
- It's happening right now.
- I know, but when will it be converged?
I think it's probably
about two or three years.
I think it's gonna be so fast
that someone like Steve Jobs
will put out a flat-screen TV
that's basically a computer,
you hang it on your wall,
and it does everything.
[electronic music playing]
[Tom] We're here in the studio.
It's a little late-night Webovision,
showing you a little behind the scenes
of the studio here,
which is, of course,
actually my living room
here in Los Angeles, California.
And when Tom came to us and said,
"I want to sh**t a show out of my house
and I'm gonna call it Webovision,"
um, I think most people looked at him
like he was a little crazy.
[Tom] These are the cameras here
we use at the channel.
The show that you do is a talk show.
It's in your living room,
in your home here in LA.
[Tom]
Yeah, there are eight cameras,
and they're running through
this cool switcher, and then...
[Daly] You can go live on the internet.
- [Tom] Any time I want.
[Daly] That's a great idea.
A talk show on the internet.
So I've moved the desk
from my old MTV show into the house.
[Leno] So people can watch it
and see you sitting at your desk.
It is 8:00.
We're live on the national Webovision.
- Thanks for coming.
- This is awesome.
And we just go.
We put a camera in my refrigerator.
- You have a fridge cam?
- Yeah.
Look, there's the inside of the fridge.
- You started a show on the web.
- [Tom] Mm-hm.
And now there's a new frontier.
[Tom] Live on the internet,
live on the world wide web.
Not again. Sorry.
[laughs]
Lifetime Public Enemy fan.
I've never met them before.
- Hey, Flav.
- Yo, yo, Tom!
Yeah, boy!
Bass, how low can you go?
Bring the noise
Any major network
could never have the vibe, the view--
- You're a very lucky man.
- [Tom] It's kinda neat.
I don't think I've ever
talked about it on the show.
When we're sitting here,
we're looking out at Hollywood.
- I think this is f*cking awesome.
- Thank you, man.
This is the craziest thing ever.
You have so many people
watching this show, okay?
Why are you trying
to freak me out, Tom Green?
- Little bit.
- You're responsible.
You're responsible for me doing this.
How about that?
Joe Rogan's got the biggest broadcast
in the world of any kind.
And I think to myself,
"Man, that's pretty cool."
Somehow, I think I might have
been part of that.
I was recently on his podcast and we
talked about the time he was on my show.
It's ultimately you. I'm like your kid.
Yeah, you know, Patrice used to say that
about comedians that imitated him.
"They're my babies."
- How about that?
- [laughs]
That's very nice of you to say.
It really is different,
you know, than television.
- This is way better.
- There isn't that time constraint.
There isn't that pressure.
You know, we want to keep it moving...
Not only that,
there's not a corporate pressure.
Your show in 2007,
when I went on your show,
that was 100% a major inspiration.
I remember very clearly, like,
sitting next to you on that chair going,
"Dude, this is it." Like, this is it.
All you have to do is figure out
how you make money from this.
- And then you figured that out, yeah.
- [both laugh]
[Tom] I think Entertainment Tonight
was there that day or something like that.
- [Joe] That's right.
- And you made this quote to them.
And that went out,
and it was defining what's happened.
And anybody through the internet
can become famous.
That's really what's gonna happen.
if you have something and you put it
out there and people are interested in it,
a viral growth of whatever
you're putting out there will spread
and it will get out there,
and people will know what you're doing
if it's funny, if it's entertaining.
And it's a way for people
to broadcast entertainment.
A way for anybody to broadcast
something entertaining to the whole world.
And when you had me as a guest on,
it changed the course of my life.
Because it really did,
it really was like--
I remember light bulbs
going off in my head, like,
"Why don't I do this?"
The idea came out of you, man.
Webovision was the original podcast.
- [Tom] Thank you so much for coming by.
- Thank you for having me as always, sir.
[Tom] Always nice to see you.
My living room here...
[Tom] Unfortunately,
the show was ahead of its time.
It just began to cost
way too much to keep it operating.
I started doing stand-up again.
That was an immediate success,
eventually doing a complete world tour.
This is my first show in the UK!
[audience cheers]
You know how to work a stage,
how to create excitement in a crowd.
And you don't see that much with comics.
He's a legend in the game.
Two words: Tom Green.
[Norm]
I got to say, I've never seen a guy
go on stage
that in command of the audience.
You went on stage
with complete control of the audience.
You hear in green rooms,
people like, you know,
"Tom Green started doing stand-up again."
You're like, "Yeah, how is it?"
- Everybody was, like, complimenting you.
- Oh, that's really--
That's good to hear.
I did a USO tour about four years ago.
- Have you gone over more than once?
- Yeah, I've been over a couple of times.
- Tom Green!
- [all cheer]
How you doing, man?
- [Tom] It's an overwhelming experience.
- [Jeff] That's a good word for it.
I don't think I fully even understood
what it meant to be a comic
till you do that.
[all cheering]
[Tom] And by the time I'd finished,
I was a seasoned stand-up comedian.
I didn't give up the dream of hosting
a late-night talk show.
[dramatic music playing]
[announcer] It's Tom Green Live.
All you do, Tom, is blow over the hole.
[Tom] That's what she said.
[laughter]
[Tom]
Mark Cuban's AXS TV channel
was filming a show called
Gotham Comedy Live.
I did stand-up there.
They saw my set
and offered me a show, and I said,
"Well, hey, you know,
I can bring my Webovision studio back."
We built a brand-new TV studio
in a warehouse, not in my house.
I can't believe I got to have Carl Reiner,
a show business legend,
and incredible legend of comedy,
on my show.
Uh, a true genius,
the creator of the d*ck Van d*ke Show.
Man gets here to make himself comfortable.
He takes his shoes off.
I've seen that a hundred times.
And then puts on exactly the same.
That's inspirationally brilliant.
Wow. Well, that really...
- You are either an idiot or a genius.
- [Tom laughs]
I would put a check
in the "A" box on that one.
That's why--
And that's why you're a genius.
[mellow guitar music playing]
Deal just closed. Sold my house.
[claps hands]
Let's have a drink.
18 years. 18 years.
Wow, my last sunset
at my house in Los Angeles.
Hi, Charlie.
We're gonna go to Canada, Charlie,
and you're gonna like that better
than this house in the hills.
Cheers.
Los Angeles.
Webovision Studios.
It's been fun.
Time for a new adventure.
This is where I grew up.
This is where I feel comfortable.
This is where I want to be.
And here we are,
my first day in my home.
We're out in the country,
and I feel I'm really lucky
that I found this property.
Hundred-year-old log cabin,
nice picnic table, nice cedar deck,
nice pond for swimming,
nice firepit, and then a nice grill.
I don't feel like I've made a mistake.
I feel like this was
a pretty good move, right?
[Rory]
He really loves where he's living.
It gave him a chance to just kind of...
take a breath
and think about things creatively.
I'm driving to New York City tomorrow
to go on the Drew Barrymore Show.
Oh, my God. Wow.
Face-to-face?
Yeah. First time in 18 years.
- Little nervous about it.
- Yeah.
[hip hop music playing]
We got the Taj Mahal here.
- This is nice.
- Very nice, yeah.
Yeah.
[Drew]
We have not seen each other face-to-face,
actually, in almost 20 years.
Please welcome comedian,
adventurer, pioneer,
and someone so dear to me, Tom Green.
[audience applauds]
How are you doing? Nice.
Thanks for having me on the show.
- And you smell so minty fresh.
- Oh, yeah.
Okay, well, yeah,
I took a mint right before I came out.
I just ate, like, cucumbers and celery
with some really weird sauce.
Oh, okay. Yeah.
I wasn't gonna say anything.
Okay, good! [laughs]
Congratulations on your show.
He looked a little nervous
when he started.
That made sense. I would have.
You would have.
What does it feel like
almost 20 years later to be face-to-face?
I kind of feel like
I'm watching this too right now.
[laughter]
But he quickly morphed into comfort,
a comfort zone.
Sort of a little bit
like an out-of-body experience.
I feel sort of--
It's very nice to see you.
Really, it does feel weird, though.
Not weird in a bad way. In a good way.
Appreciate it, Drew.
This is cool, I mean,
I actually think this is kind of a...
A nice way of reconnecting, actually.
[projector whirring]
[announcer]
Ladies and gentlemen...
- Tom...
- Green.
[clipped chatter]
Cancer.
Help me!
I've been back here
for just a very short period of time.
- I already feel like I'm home.
- Oh, really?
You're a lucky man.
[pastoral music playing]
- [Richard] Wow.
- [Tom] How's the water?
It's nice.
[Richard] Guess it can't be too cold.
It'd be cool to get, like, a nice...
The most extreme wide we can get.
Thanks, everyone.
Let's set up the cameras.
[light music playing]
[Tom] I'm so happy with my decision
to leave Los Angeles
and move to the country.
With my family down the road,
I no longer feel isolated.
Good girl, Charlie.
Living in Hollywood
for all those years was a great way
to learn about show business.
But now that I'm home,
I can feel the real me returning.
I'm comfortable here.
Hello.
- Hello.
- [dog barking]
Hi. Wow.
- [barking continuous]
- Okay, Charlie.
It's exciting, huh?
- [man] Thing works. Yeah!
- [piano notes playing]
[Tom] Technology now allows us
to communicate worldwide
in more ways than ever.
We can live our lives and our dreams
wherever we choose.
[dog barking]
[Tom] Whole new adventure.
Oh, you're going right for that grass.
And even though making this documentary
was not easy,
it was a cathartic exercise.
Try to be in a longer lens there.
Reliving all those amazing
experiences has felt at times unreal.
Mm!
It actually tastes good.
What do you mean they actually taste good?
[Mary Jane laughs]
But also, it's given me a chance
to contemplate
and learn and prepare
for this next chapter of my life.
Now, both personally and professionally,
I truly believe
that I'm just getting started.
It's okay.
And the best is yet to come.
[emcee] Would you please
help me welcome to the stage
the one, the only, Ottawa's own...
Tom Green!
[audience cheers and applauds]
[electronic music playing]
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This Is the Tom Green Documentary (2025)
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