The Tom Green Show
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The Tom Green Show was a Canadian (later American) television show which first aired in September 1994[1] on Rogers Television 22, a community channel in Ottawa, Ontario until 1996, and was later picked up by the Comedy Network in 1997. (In 1996, Green also produced a pilot episode for CBC Television, although the CBC did not pick up the series.)
In January 1999, the show moved to the United States and aired on MTV[2]. The MTV show stopped production when Tom was diagnosed with testicular cancer in March 2000, and he stopped production on his TV show, but continued to appear on the channel via reruns and other promotional materials.
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[edit] Personalities
The Tom Green Show was a comedy show hosted by Tom Green and co-hosted by two of his long-time friends, Glenn Humplik, who occupied the couch, and Phil Giroux, who sat behind a window at the back of the set and became known as "the guy in the window" usually drinking cups of coffee. Derek Harvie, who co-wrote the show with Tom, occasionally appeared in the segments.
[edit] Outrageous stunts
The show became notorious for Green's outrageous stunts, like humping a dead moose on the side of the road and putting dog feces on his microphone while interviewing people on the street. He also frequently abused his parents, at one point waking them up in the wee hours of the morning with a severed cow head.
[edit] Recurring characters and sketches
The show also had a few recurring characters and sketches, including Billy Bob (a redneck who loved caramels and shaking his leg), Hockey Guy (a hockey player who would skate up in front of people and clumsily fall down), and a police station sketch.
He also explored the quirks of his friends. Green drew attention to Giroux's unusual laugh and discomfort with the smell of copper. They aired clips from a lengthy argument of whether a bear or a cougar would win in a fight.
[edit] "The Bum Bum Song"
When the show moved to MTV, Green released a single called Lonely Swedish (The Bum Bum Song), encouraging visitors to download the song off his website, burn it onto CDs and distribute it to friends. After airing the music video on his show and appealing to his audience to request it, the song became an instant number one hit on Total Request Live. He quickly called for the video to be retired because "it's not fair to 98 Degrees." Later, in his autobiography, he revealed that MTV had pressured him to do so in order to maintain the image that Total Request Live was, in fact, a live request show (the next week's episodes had been pre-taped on location, and the producers of the show were completely unaware of "The Bum Bum Song" at the time).
[edit] Special episodes
In one episode aired in early 2000, Tom Green visited his parents in Canada with Monica Lewinsky[3], and used the occasion to fool local reporters into thinking that they would make an important "announcement" together, which turned out to be a related to Monica's new interest in designing fabric handbags.
In 2000, Green made a one-hour special out of his testicular cancer surgery[4]. The episode received wide critical acclaim for revealing a vulnerable, human side of an otherwise juvenile television personality.
In March 2002, he also starred in and directed a one-hour special called The Tom Green Subway Monkey Hour[5], where he tormented strangers in Japan.
[edit] Revivals
The show was briefly revived by MTV in 2003 as The New Tom Green Show[6], which was retooled to have more of a late-night talk show format, but was cancelled by MTV a few months after its premiere due to MTV deciding that wasn't the direction they wanted to go in.
June 15, 2006 premiered Tom's new live call-in show for his website called Tom Green Live. A partnership between TomGreen.com and ManiaTV.com. The show takes place in his own living room in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley, airing Monday - Thursday at 11 p.m. EST (and also whenever Tom feels like going on the air (there are also Freestyle Fridays).
[edit] Trivia
- A frequent rumor says that the show was cancelled because of an alleged segment where Green shows up at a Bar Mitzvah dressed as Hitler. Green, however, has repeatedly denied that such a segment exists. [7] Racist jokes were never done on the show.
[edit] References
- ^ "The Tom Green Show" (1994)
- ^ "The Tom Green Show" (1999)
- ^ Season 1, Episode 1: Tom Brings Monica Lewinsky to Canada
- ^ The Tom Green Cancer Special (2000) (TV)
- ^ Subway Monkey Hour (2002) (TV)
- ^ "The New Tom Green Show" (2003)
- ^ http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/tomgreen.htm
