There Was a Time Tom Green Was My Thing

Earlier this week I went back and watched the movie "Freddy Got Fingered". I had never seen it before and when I was younger I used to think Tom Green was hilarious. I used to watch his MTV show all the time.

Well, "Freddy Got Fingered" is terrible. It is not even fun bad. It is just flat out bad bad. It is not very funny, there's far too much gross out humor and I felt like Tom Green decided he was going to let the curse words fly left and right since he was making a major motion picture. I have no qualms with any of these ideas, but it came off bad on screen for me. I found it gratuitous. But I'm not here to write a review of "Freddy Got Fingered". People have already done that to death at this point. What I want to talk about today is Tom Green as a performer and actor.

Green came around at the exact right time for his style of humor. Before he was on MTV, the only real "shock" comedian I knew of was Howard Stern. Stern had a radio show and he did his thing, and became quite successful at what he did and now does. But Green was different. He was childish. I think that is what got me onboard when I was younger. I liked his childish humor. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was 16 when his show on MTV premiered. He was speaking to my comic sensibilities at the time. He would do pranks and stuff that seemed so out of left field, and it worked for me. I was all in on "The Tom Green Show". Hell, I even went out and tried to purchase his single for his song about putting his butt on stuff. The song was stupid, but it was the right kind of stupid for me.

He went on to have a, for me at the time, star turning role in "Road Trip". This is another in a long line of college road trip movies that came out in the early 2000's, and it was as cliche as they came. But Tom Green stood out as the older college student. I thought he was hilarious. He wasn't doing the gross out thing either. Sure, he put a mouse in his mouth during a scene, but immediately took it out and fed it to a snake. That part was really good for him. He got to make jokes, but didn't have to go to the extreme to make me laugh. I have not seen "Charlie's Angels", but I know he has a role in I believe the first one. This has to be due to his marriage to Drew Barrymore at the time. And the only reason I can think that he convinced Barrymore to marry him at the time was due to his fame in the early 2000's. Nothing else makes any sense to me regarding this relationship.

Green was also one of the first famous people I know who was diagnosed with cancer and openly talked about it on screen. He was very open about everything, including treatment and all. This was kind of eye opening for me. It is one of the first times I can remember hearing about a famous person getting sick and talking about it. This made me like him even more. I know some may have thought it was one of his bits, but he made sure to clarify any misheard or misunderstood information. My respect grew for him from there.

He did take a hiatus during his treatment, and to be honest, after he got healthy again I kind of forgot about him. He wasn't doing much and I kind of stopped watching his stuff. I know he wrote a book in 2004, but I never got around to reading it. He also appeared on "Jiminy Glick" during this time, but I have only recently watched clips from that show, and I have never seen Tom Green's interview. He has also dabbled in music since leaving tv, but I have zero interest in listening to any of that. And more recently he made his own documentary, which I have yet to see.

I think what Tom Green did best was capitalizing on his fame when he did. He got his chance and he ran with it. I think he also came around at the right time for his style. If he tried that nowadays it would not work. His schtick wouldn't have worked in the mid 2010's either. He used the shock comedy to the best of his ability during a time when not many could do what he did best. I have often thought about going back and rewatching some "Tom Green Show", but I don't think it will hold up.

Tom Green had his moment at the best time for him. My hat is off to what he achieved, but I have zero interest to go back and rewatch. Maybe that is for the best. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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