Tom Green is back to take over the world

By Yan Digilov     2/4/10 6:00pm

Since 1996, the name Tom Green has been synonymous with the audacious, the unorthodox and-at times-the downright scary. Green first burst onto the national scene with MTV's The Tom Green Show, which ran from 1999-2000, but the comedian has since become relatively quiet on the national level. Now on a world stand-up comedy tour for the first time in his career, Green continues to push the envelope in media unavailable to him before.The Thresher talked to Green about his online show, life after MTV and his newest endeavors into the world of stand-up.

Tom, there has been a lot of excitement for your newest project, the World Stand-up Comedy Tour. How has it been getting on stage?

This has been really exciting. I am finally doing stand-up again, which is something that I have been thinking about doing for quite some time, but I haven't gotten the chance to do it really since high school. I was concentrating on my show for so long that this has been sidelined, but now we are going on my first world stand-up comedy tour. We started it in Canada in the beginning of the year and after making a tour around the States, we are heading to Australia. It is really a different kind of lifestyle, and something I've wanted to do for some time.

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Your online show has really been doing things differently for some time. Tell us about how you transformed your own home into the set of "Tom Green's House Tonight!" on tomgreen.com.

You know, there are a lot of things that I can do now with my show on tomgreen.com that I just couldn't have before. I took a crazy chance and built a studio in my own home. It is really different; even my dogs make it on the show sometimes.

Whereas before we had to work with producers and executives, now I am in charge of my product. I am really able to have a lot more freedom, and with the expansion of capabilities on the Web, I feel like I am doing something that has my own brand on it like never before.

Even when my show had my name on it, I sometimes felt like I wasn't in control. There was also the interesting feature of potentially being cancelled, which is something that just can't happen when I put up my own show out of my own home.

And you know, it is interesting because I think that a lot more people are going to start doing this, now that we really can produce an entire show on our own - taking care of advertising on our own and having much more freedom. I don't have to worry about censorships, ratings, commercial breaks or any of those things that ultimately limit and shape comedy on television in a way that it perhaps shouldn't.

I saw a crazy video on the Web site of you literally just walking the streets of Los Angeles for about an hour straight. It just doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that any other comedians are doing, or showing, these days.

Yeah, you know with that we were just trying to do something new. I am really trying to do some more experimental things that I just couldn't do before. That has really always been what I am about: trying to expand the realm of comedy.

On TV, you just could never do that kind of uncut bit, where everyone would be telling you that commercial breaks have to go here and there. With this kind of medium, you can be creative and I feel like I am really connecting more directly with my fans who can follow me around on the streets of Los Angeles for an hour.

I remember seeing you do a stand-up show several years ago at a place called Joker's Wild. You said you had been working on some new material, and all you did was literally stand up on stage shrieking and screaming incoherently until you were asked to get off stage by security. How has your stand-up evolved since then?

We had a lot of fun with that bit, where I just got up there and essentially tried to scare the audience for as long as possible. I won't be doing that again this time, even though it was a lot of fun.

The show is a result of a lot of experiences that I have accumulated through the years since then. I have been through a lot of crazy things personally, working on the show, dealing with illness and just growing older. That is what the show is all about, but I really like to have fun with the audience.

We were just in Nashville and it was uncommonly snowing there, so before the show, I sent out a Twitter message that I would be having a snowball fight afterwards. We had a lot of fun with the people that came.

I really try to involve the audience a lot in my shows like that, and the new technology that we have allows me to interact with them in a whole new way.

You say you are growing older, but for a lot of us college students who grew up watching your show and seeing your movies, that is a very strange thing to hear. Can we see some of our favorites when we watch you these days?

You know, in the show I still do some of the old stuff that people love to see done from my movies or some of the music that I did. I just got on stage the other day with my guitar and sang "My Bum is On Your Lips," and the crowd loved it. But, of course, I have grown and I have a lot more to share with audiences. I am so happy to finally get up on stage and not just tell the same old jokes.

It has always been about trying new things, though. It is always about getting crazy and pushing the envelope. That is still there in my stand up and in my online show. Now, I have a lot more freedom to do express myself clearly, and I can do that without a television executive breathing down my neck.

It is certainly refreshing to see that you are still all about sticking it to the man.

Well, I don't want it to seem like I am just anti-corporate whatever, but I just really think that we have to keep exhibiting creativity. A lot of that creativity is now limited to television, and it is great that we have the ability to use the Internet and directly reach our audience. I love talking to the fans on stage and just interacting with them. It is something that has always been important to me.

Tom Green will be bringing his World Stand Up Comedy Tour to Houston, performing at the Improv today and tomorrow. Purchasing information can be found at www.tomgreen.com/tour.

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