The Tom Green Show is a North American television show that 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, Tom 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 Green was diagnosed with testicular cancer in March 2000, but continued to appear on the channel via reruns and other promotional materials. In 2003, the show was revived as The New Tom Green Show. In 2006, Green launched Tom Green Live, a new live call-in show for his website. Later renamed Tom Green's House Tonight, the show takes place in his own living room.
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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 Green, occasionally appeared in the segments. Many of the sketches were targeted at his parents, both of whom appear to be embarrassed and not impressed by their son's antics.
The show became notorious for Green's outrageous stunts, like feigning sex with a dead moose on the side of the road and putting dog feces on his microphone while interviewing people on the street. On several occasions, Green has dressed up in women's clothing and wore exaggerated makeup and a wig, while parading around the street in a peculiar "persona." In "Oxymen Girls", he walked around the streets in this fashion while applying a white creamy substance liberally on his face while screaming "Oxymen makes me really pretty!" repeatedly to unsuspecting passers-by. One particular skit had him taking the film crew to a pharmacy to buy condoms, as he repeatedly used the word "condoms," lectured the pharmacists on STDs and described his various plans for sexual activity. He also frequently abused his parents on the show, at one point waking them up in the wee hours of the morning by planting a severed cow's head in their bed, because his father was a fan of The Godfather films. During an interview with his parents for their 30th anniversary, he turned the discussion into asking questions about their sex life.
In one of the more notorious stunts on the show, he had an X-rated, lesbian-pornographic scene painted on his father's car (which he called the "Slutmobile") to surprise his parents, because he thought they "liked lesbians." This went on to the point where he drove the car to a crowded bus stop to take his father to work, while embarrassing him at the same time. In another sketch, he painted their house plaid while they were away for a week, but he ended up painting it back to normal after being threatened with the loss of his car. Other examples of Green's stunts was where he picked a female audience member to go on a date with him in the studio. While Green was playing his guitar serenading the young woman, Glenn dropped his pants to show Green's and her names written on his posterior. At the premiere of the movie Grey Owl, he posed as a journalist, sang to actor Pierce Brosnan and kissed him. Occasionally, Green's skits were less off the wall, such as "People Helpers", where Green and a crew member seriously assisted wheelchair users, the skit more being about Green spoofing his own self.
One of the stunts that was considered hilarious and notorious in an episode was attempting to undercut competition. He dresses up as a pizza delivery boy working for a fake pizza restaurant called 'Undercutters' and follows a real pizza delivery to its destination in a neighborhood. There Tom quickly gets to the customer before the real delivery boy comes and pretends to do regular business to see if the pizza boy would be provoked. It ends up angering the customer, the pizza boy, and a neighbor who destroys Tom's pizza equipment (a fishing kit with toppings inside) and chases him out of the neighborhood with a hammer.
Tom once brought a list of negative comments that people said about Long Beach, California to the city itself. He then goes around reading the comments to local residents who are rather surprised or not amused by the negativity of the comments. Although some found it extremely funny on the comments of the city, others replied that 'that was rather dumb about em'. In the Bahamas on vacation, Tom and Glenn Humplik head to a zoo to disturb some flamingoes. While filming in the woods, Tom finds a dead cat and brings it to the veterinarian.
Tom also started intercom pranking in retail and department stores featured in an episode where he and his crew deliberately head into the stores and Tom shouts bizarre things on the PA like 'tasty corn, tasty corn, tasty tasty tasty corn' or 'Mom I'm lost at the front desk' etc., surprising or angering managers and employees working in the stores. They eventually ask him to leave, after which Tom angers them even more by repetitively going on the intercom or not taking what they say seriously. In one case, a manager forces Tom to stay in the store, citing that it was private property and that he intended make Tom pay a fine for trespassing it. As he makes Tom walk to his office, Tom deliberately makes an escape, making the manager chase after him. He even encourages viewers how to do it saying, "No you're not allowed to do that. But if you want to do it, just go ahead and pick up the phone and press the button that says Page".
At the end of one episode, Tom comments on how the show does not make any observations on regular life. He responds saying that he will start by commenting on people with a bullhorn often embarrassing them with inappropriate comments on whatever they are doing.
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. One sketch aired when Glen had to urinate, but couldn't because Tom and the camera crew were in proximity (but still reasonably far away). They aired clips from a lengthy argument of whether a bear or a cougar would win in a fight.
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).[3]
In one episode aired in early 2000, Green visited his parents in Canada with Monica Lewinsky,[4] 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.[5] It focused on his reaction to the cancer diagnosis, as well as his family's, and footage of the actual surgery was included in one scene. 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,[6] where he tormented strangers in Japan.
The show was briefly revived by MTV in 2003 as The New Tom Green Show, 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.
On June 15, 2006, Tom Green launched Tom Green Live!, a live call-in talk show broadcast on his website TomGreen.com. It began as a partnership between Green and ManiaTV!. In 2008, the show was renamed Tom Green's House Tonight. The show takes place in Green's own living room in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley.