Tom Green | Club Random

Summary

Club Random with Bill Maher: Episode Featuring Tom Green

Release Date: February 23, 2025
Guest: Tom Green
Location: Club Random (undisclosed)

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1. Reunion and Personal Reflections [01:50 - 10:19]

Bill Maher welcomes his former neighbor and longtime friend, Tom Green, to Club Random. The reunion begins with nostalgic banter about their past residences and the infamous house fire that incidentally led to Tom relocating from Los Angeles. Tom shares his battle with testicular cancer during his time on MTV, highlighting the importance of early detection and the challenges of misdiagnosis.

Notable Quotes:

• Tom Green [04:51]: "Cause I had had testicular cancer while I was on MTV, so my show had ended."
• Bill Maher [07:07]: "But, yes, I'm skeptical of everything. You guys very often don't get it right."

2. Transition to Farming Life [10:19 - 16:25]

Tom discusses his shift from the entertainment industry to farming in Ontario, Canada. He elaborates on his daily life, including managing hay fields and caring for his mule, Shefanny, a hybrid of a Percheron horse and a mammoth donkey. Bill and Tom engage in a humorous yet informative discussion about the biology of mules and donkeys, touching upon their sterility and the challenges of crossbreeding.

Notable Quotes:

• Tom Green [10:35]: "I'm 53. And, you know, I'm in. I live on a farm. I have a hay field that we cut the hay, and I have a donkey and a mule."
• Bill Maher [11:57]: "What's odd to me about the whole thing is that donkeys and horses fuck."

3. Reflections on Past Careers and Health [16:25 - 25:03]

The conversation delves into Tom's experience directing his comedic film, "Freddy Got Fingered," and the subsequent backlash from critics like Roger Ebert. They reminisce about the early days of reality TV and the pressures of maintaining a career in the public eye while battling personal health issues.

Notable Quotes:

• Tom Green [16:35]: "But no, it's been an amazing thing...I knew I was not going to be."
• Bill Maher [20:15]: "People like you and me never have the whole audience and very few people do. And that's okay."

4. The Impact of Media and Politics [25:03 - 40:14]

Bill and Tom discuss the evolving landscape of media, the rise of partisan outlets like Fox News, and the increasing polarization in politics. They critique how media fragmentation has led to selective editing of clips, skewing public perception. Tom shares his insights from participating in reality TV shows like "Celebrity Apprentice" and his encounters with figures like Dennis Rodman, highlighting the manufactured drama within such formats.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Maher [40:14]: "But there are things going on in Europe right now where they canceled an election in Romania because the wrong people won."
• Tom Green [41:18]: "He tried. And Alan, you know, people never really appreciated what an amazing, dry, sophisticated wit he was because he was known as the sitcom dad."

5. Life in Canada vs. the U.S. [40:14 - 60:00]

Tom reflects on his return to Canada amidst economic turmoil and political tensions. The duo contrasts Canadian and American societal norms, discussing topics like freedom of speech, cultural differences, and the influence of Canadian comedians like Norm MacDonald and the "Trailer Park Boys." They also touch upon personal anecdotes related to friends and colleagues in the entertainment industry.

Notable Quotes:

• Tom Green [43:27]: "But I have one question for you. Have you tried ZipRecruiter?"
• Bill Maher [60:00]: "Johnny Carson had to have that revelation or something."

6. Personal Lives and Relationships [60:00 - 90:00]

The conversation shifts to personal relationships, with Tom announcing his engagement and sharing details about his life on the road with his fiancée and dog. They discuss the dynamics of living together in a camper van, the challenges of maintaining relationships amidst touring, and the balance between personal life and career.

Notable Quotes:

• Tom Green [75:00]: "I'm touring with my fiancée, so we're having a lot of fun."
• Bill Maher [84:16]: "She was on Real Time. And now she's going to be the prime minister."

7. Nostalgia and Evolution of Comedy [90:00 - 120:00]

Bill and Tom delve into the history of comedy, referencing influential figures like SCTV alumni, Martin Short, Norm MacDonald, and the evolution of stand-up and talk shows. They reminisce about the golden era of television, the differences brought about by the internet, and the shifting landscape of comedic expression. The discussion also covers the impact of censorship, media portrayals, and the responsibilities of comedians in shaping public discourse.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Maher [106:27]: "Johnny Carson also used to do an author every night."
• Tom Green [118:58]: "It just suggests things through the music that it could not possibly have known."

8. Closing Thoughts and Future Plans [120:00 - 135:00]

As the episode nears its end, Bill and Tom discuss their future endeavors. Bill contemplates stepping back from stand-up comedy, expressing his desire for more control over his creative output. Tom shares his ongoing projects, including potential podcast expansions and his commitment to farming and comedy. They conclude with lighthearted banter about their pets and mutual respect for each other's journeys.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Maher [126:22]: "You don't know what free speech is, then."
• Tom Green [133:22]: "I'm having a lot of fun in Winnipeg, you know, it's good."

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Conclusion

This episode of Club Random offers an intimate look into the lives of two influential figures in the comedy and entertainment industry. Through candid conversations, Bill Maher and Tom Green explore themes of personal transformation, the intersection of media and politics, and the enduring power of friendship. Their dialogue provides valuable insights into navigating public life, maintaining personal well-being, and adapting to changing societal landscapes.

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Note: Timestamps correspond to the provided transcript and may not align precisely with the actual podcast episode.

Transcript

[Bill Maher]

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[Tom Green]

You know, he was my old boss. He fired me on the Celebrity Apprentice.

[Bill Maher]

I have to hear this story. Claude Randall.

[Tom Green]

Hey, Bill. How are you?

[Bill Maher]

Tom. Tom, listen. Oh, my gosh.

[Tom Green]

Are we wearing the same shirt?

[Bill Maher]

Mine's better.

[Tom Green]

Good to see you, man.

[Bill Maher]

Yours is more like a farmer shirt.

[Tom Green]

Yes, exactly, because I'm a farmer now.

[Bill Maher]

I know you are.

[Tom Green]

I am a farmer.

[Bill Maher]

Mine's fresh.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, very.

[Bill Maher]

Listen, pretty farm. Like, I borrowed that weed walker from you 24 years ago and I have been meaning to give it back to you.

[Tom Green]

I actually got it back today. I was wondering about that.

[Bill Maher]

Ye. For people who wonder what I'm referring to. You used to live here.

[Tom Green]

That's true. Yeah, Very briefly.

[Bill Maher]

Next door.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Till it burned down.

[Bill Maher]

I lived here two weeks. And then you Burned your house down on purpose?

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Well, why?

[Tom Green]

It wasn't exactly the way it went, but Drew did. Yeah. I do remember having a conversation. I probably just moved to Los Angeles just weeks earlier, and I remember having a conversation with you through the fence once, because the dog ran over there or something.

[Bill Maher]

Through the fence?

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Just like regular people. Yeah, regular neighbors. Stars are just like us. I moved here in January of 2001. When did you move? Next door, which is now this store.

[Tom Green]

It must have been in 2000, I would say, because it was when my show was on MTV in Los Angeles. So we.

[Bill Maher]

Was Drew already living here?

[Tom Green]

Yes. Yes, she was. Yeah. Yeah, it was basically.

[Bill Maher]

So you moved into this place, but it was already here for. She already had it.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I was basically doing my show on mtv. I just moved to Los Angeles, and I was here for probably just a couple of months or something like that. Not too. Too long. But, yeah, it was because the place burned down. So then we moved. That was a scary thing. Now, were you. Were you here the night that that happened? Do you remember the fire or.

[Bill Maher]

It's so funny. The fight two weeks after I move in. And of course, you don't really know where you are in the house versus the street neighbor. You're just getting reoriented. There were still boxes in my living room. And I remember emailing my assistant and said, I think it was a Sunday. And I said, I didn't get the Sunday New York Times today. Do you happen to know why? And she emailed back, yeah, because there were 16 fire trucks on your street.

[Tom Green]

Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. And you must have slept pretty good through that, huh?

[Bill Maher]

Apparently, my bedroom is. I know it now is on the opposite side of my house. So this property, it was. And this house was set quite a bit back, but, yeah, you would have thought I would have heard. So I didn't think I'd sleep that well today.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, that was a scary situation, for sure. I had just gone about six months earlier. I'd just gone through cancer treatment.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tom Green]

Cause I had had testicular cancer while I was on mtv, so my show had ended.

[Bill Maher]

I fear that one.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. That's not a fun one to have, but it's a good one because you don't die from it usually.

[Bill Maher]

Right. How do they detect it?

[Tom Green]

Well, I noticed something was kind of. I. I felt some pain down there in my right testicle.

[Bill Maher]

Actual pain?

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it was a throbbing kind of sort of thing. And I went to the doctor and got checked out, and that's that's what happened.

[Bill Maher]

But you didn't feel anything?

[Tom Green]

Well, like, I mean, yeah, a little bit of pain and.

[Bill Maher]

No, I mean, like, when you felt your. Did you go, hmm, did I used to have three balls?

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. Well, actually, the right one had gotten significantly larger as well, which I was kind of thinking.

[Bill Maher]

That's what I mean.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah. So it felt like there was.

[Bill Maher]

So if I check my balls and they feel basically equa, I'm okay. You think?

[Tom Green]

I think so, yeah. You would. You would feel something. Some sort of a dull, aching pain is what I felt. Some people feel more pain, like, sharper pain, but I felt a dull, aching pain. And then you'll go to the doctor and sometimes they'll misdiagnose it. And so, like, I was misdiagnosed initially, as.

[Bill Maher]

Is that right?

[Tom Green]

Yeah, they said it was epididymitis and it was. Put me on antibiotics for a few weeks, and we went off and shot another show with Monica Lewinsky. We drove up to can't, flew up to Canada with her, and shot a television show for MTV with her.

[Bill Maher]

She's felt a few balls in her day.

[Tom Green]

You know, I'm just. I'm lobbing these up for you, Phil. I appreciate you, Monica Lew, taking the bait there on that one.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, anytime. Monica Lewinsky said. Well, not to get off on a tangent. Not that we have an agenda here, so one could buy everything is a tangent, but, you know, I take a lot of shit for my views about medicine, which I don't think are weird at all. I'm just more skeptical, I think, than most people. And it's because partly because, partly, and just anecdotally, I can't tell you how many times I've heard the phrase and it was misdiagnosed. And it's like, I'm not saying you guys aren't trying in the medical field. I'm not saying you're corrupt. Although there is some of that, you know, And I'm certainly not saying that everything Bobby Kennedy is right says is right.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But, yes, I'm skeptical of everything. You guys very often don't get it right. So don't fucking look at me like, how dare you question what we in the white coats are saying? Because when have we ever gotten one wrong? A lot you get it wrong a lot. So, no, I don't take anything you say at face value, and I'm just not going to march to whatever you say because you are the science.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, I think. I think.

[Bill Maher]

Damn it, Tom, you've got me all riled up about your balls.

[Tom Green]

Yes, absolutely.

[Bill Maher]

These aren't even my balls and I'm pissed off.

[Tom Green]

Did you just make yourself a drink?

[Bill Maher]

Yes. Can I do it for you?

[Tom Green]

I suppose I should have a drink then. Yeah, if you want. Yeah. What did you have there? What did you make? There's a little.

[Bill Maher]

It's just tequila.

[Tom Green]

Okay, that sounds good. Yeah, I think a little rot gut. Why not?

[Bill Maher]

I hurt a farmer like you.

[Tom Green]

Absolutely. Canadian farmer can have that.

[Bill Maher]

Can I make you the same drink?

[Tom Green]

Yeah. What do you mix?

[Bill Maher]

This is an interesting concoction. First, we of course have ice.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Would you like to call your own ice or. I don't want to put my hand in.

[Tom Green]

No problem. No problem. Yeah. Okay. And then would you just mix it with some water there or what are you putting in?

[Bill Maher]

We will add the. I'm doing a cooking show now. Yeah, I feel like our future has a cooking show in it.

[Tom Green]

Absolutely. I mean, that would be amazing if it involved tequila.

[Bill Maher]

It's always fun cooking with liquor. I'm going to call it. I mean, it's different. Okay. So then we add. This is jing. And this is because I'm a health nut. I love this stuff. It's a way to make sparkling water into a diet soda without any of the chemicals that are in diet soda.

[Tom Green]

Okay. Okay. Oh, sure.

[Bill Maher]

But not even the stuff that's in the non sugar ones, which are still chemical.

[Tom Green]

It's like a flavored sort of chemical.

[Bill Maher]

Yes. And then we add the sparkling water. Now there are some health nuts, real nuts. And anyone who is more to the left than me is nuts, of course, who don't even think sparkling water is good for you. But you know what, you got some.

[Tom Green]

Sort of carbon in that or something carbonated.

[Bill Maher]

I can't even remember why. I'm sure, you know, is it. Is anything as good as clear mountain water? No, but we got none of that here. What we got is liquor and a good time. That looks good. And you know, there we go.

[Tom Green]

That looks like a nice drink there for sure. All right. Cheers. Bill. Thank you.

[Bill Maher]

Great to see you.

[Tom Green]

Great to see you too.

[Bill Maher]

Congratulations.

[Tom Green]

Thank you.

[Bill Maher]

I.

[Tom Green]

My fiance is here as well. Oh, I'm engaged. My fiance's out in the. In the control room.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I hope you're engaged to your fiance because other than that, it doesn't look like much of a commitment. Yeah, no, but I saw you the front page of the New York Times. Arts and Leisure.

[Tom Green]

Wasn't that something?

[Bill Maher]

I was like, wow, this guy is iconic. He never sorts He. He always reinvents himself. The public never doesn't want to read about him or see him in whatever new iteration he's in, you know, he's a real artist. You are. I mean, you. When I think of, like, when you first blew up and you were like one of those rare rock star comedians, really cover Rolling Stone type stuff.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. It was wild time, for sure.

[Bill Maher]

And now you're a fucking farmer. No, but, you know, it makes sense because in life you do go through passages. You aren't the same person you are at 22.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

How old are you now?

[Tom Green]

I'm 53.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, 53.

[Tom Green]

And, you know, I'm in. In. I'm not essentially doing a lot of farming, really. I do. I live on a farm. I have a hate. There's hay fields that we cut the hay, and I have a donkey and a mule, and I ride this mule. I didn't know anything about it.

[Bill Maher]

What is the difference between the donkey and the mule?

[Tom Green]

Yeah, because I actually thought they were the same before I got the mule. A mule is half horse, half donkey, Right. Like a hybrid. So it's like the. Her fanny is her name and her father was a mammoth donkey. And her mother was a Percheron horse.

[Bill Maher]

Horse, Half donkey, half donkey.

[Tom Green]

They have 62 chromosomes. A donkey has. No, sorry, 63 chromosomes. A donkey has 62 and a horse has 64. It might be the other way around, but one way or another, the odd number of chromosomes, the 63 chromosomes means they're sterile, can't reproduce. So the only way you can make a mule. Two mules, won't make another mule. You can't breed mules. You have to get donkeys and horses and put them together.

[Bill Maher]

What's odd to me about the whole thing is that donkeys and horses fuck. Because the definition of a species usually is creatures that will only fuck creatures that are in, like, you know, leopards don't fuck tigers.

[Tom Green]

Right. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Although you'd think if you're horny one night.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You'd be like, okay, I was looking for a tiger. But I mean, is it that different? But they. But they don't.

[Tom Green]

It's generally the male donkey fucking. Of course, the female horse. I know the other way around.

[Bill Maher]

Right?

[Tom Green]

So, like, a horse doesn't generally want to have sex with a. I'll say it more politely. Have sex with a. With a donkey for some reason. So. And it's. I don't know, it's. I wasn't there when it happened. You know, I just got. I. She was 11, 10 years old when I got her. But it was. It was. It's been a lot of fun.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, well, you say you weren't there, but I've certainly seen in enough movies. And that's where I know everything I know about farming, from where someone has to assist.

[Tom Green]

Sure.

[Bill Maher]

The horse.

[Tom Green]

Sure. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

In the sexual act.

[Tom Green]

I think when you're getting two different species to procreate, there's a little bit of human interaction, even if it's not.

[Bill Maher]

Too, you know, just two horses.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, they want, of course, the horses to mate because they want a pony and. And who doesn't want a pony for your birthday? But they have to like, lubricate sometimes the horse.

[Tom Green]

Okay. Yeah. So I'm a new farmer, so I don't know everything.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I'm saying this is in your future. You're gonna have to learn to jerk off a horse.

[Tom Green]

I could see, you know, if you've seen Freddy Got Fingered. I mean, I know a little bit about that, but.

[Bill Maher]

Right. Oh, right. I forgot about Freddie Got Fingered.

[Tom Green]

But no, it's been. It's been an amazing thing. You know, I moved back to Canada where I'm from, so I live not too far from where I grew up and my parents lived down the road and, you know, I. I found this.

[Bill Maher]

Property and can we say what province this is?

[Tom Green]

It's in Ontario. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of between Toronto and Ottawa. Closer to Ottawa. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Don't tell the nuts where you live.

[Tom Green]

No, no, it's. Ontario's pretty big. Ontario's but twice the size of Texas. So we. They'll have a hard time narrowing it down just from that. But we're a big country up there. The future 51st state, potentially, you know.

[Bill Maher]

Well, fingers crossed.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. It'll be the only state in America where nobody in it want.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, I. I mean, except for Jordan.

[Tom Green]

Peterson, Wayne Gretzky, and that guy from Shark Tank.

[Bill Maher]

Well, Jordan is sat there. I'm a good.

[Tom Green]

He had Wayne on yet? Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Wayne Gretzky.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I know he's a hockey player. I never followed hockey.

[Tom Green]

Great one. The great one, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Why is he a big right winger?

[Tom Green]

Well, I. I don't know. I do. I do know that he hangs out a little bit at Mar a Lago and that it may be that. That Mr. Trump was. President Trump was attempting to maybe get him to run for prime minister, you know.

[Bill Maher]

Are you happier now that you're in Canada?

[Tom Green]

I am, actually not. It's not that I wasn't. It's just a nice. It's Nice to be closer to my family. And it's a nice change, for sure. I like, I like being in nature, you know, I like being out in the, in the.

[Bill Maher]

Is it something you couldn't have done unless you. That we're getting engaged? I mean, it's a very different thing to move alone to someplace.

[Tom Green]

Actually, I met her there, so I met her after, after I moved. I moved three and a half years ago, met her up there and, and so she's Canadian and my, my life's really coming together as soon as I went back to Canada. I don't know what it is, Bill.

[Bill Maher]

But do you have kids?

[Tom Green]

No kids, no.

[Bill Maher]

So do you think you're going to start a family now?

[Tom Green]

I would like to, yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And what will you tell your kids you do? Because certainly you're not going to admit to being Tom Green.

[Tom Green]

I mean, that, that certainly I'll show them the documentary.

[Bill Maher]

Not until they're like 20.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, exactly. You know, I, I don't know. I, I'll probably, you know, I, I'll probably tell him I'm a comedian. I too are doing stand up comedy. Maybe. I don't know if I'll bring them to one of my shows in the first 10 years, but, but yeah, maybe I'll show him the documentary that I just put out. That should explain it.

[Bill Maher]

What about Freddie Fingered?

[Tom Green]

You'll have to wait till they're at least 14 to see that.

[Bill Maher]

What was the, what was the controversy with that? I forget. I remember. It was a very big. They wrote about it a lot. You know, what year are we talking about?

[Tom Green]

We're talking about 2000, I believe it was 2000.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, really?

[Tom Green]

2000. 2001. Early 2001.

[Bill Maher]

It was like the fire and then that.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it was, it was. Right. A lot of things happened in close recession.

[Bill Maher]

Should have read your horoscope that week.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You were. Mercury was in retrograde or something.

[Tom Green]

A lot of good things happened. A lot of weird things happened. You know, I mean, the fact that they let me direct the movie and do this movie when I was just on mtv.

[Bill Maher]

Why were people so mad about it?

[Tom Green]

I think it was just. I mean, it's a good question because it's kind of gotten a little bit of a resurgence.

[Bill Maher]

Yes, that's what happens.

[Tom Green]

People actually say they like it now.

[Bill Maher]

We're time. Time is great for that.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah. It was one of these things where it was. Obviously it was a very. I pushed the envelope as far as the outrageousness in the scenes and it was very Silly. I don't know if there was a feeling of why was I directing this thing? Or, I don't know. It's really hard to say. It was one of those things, though, where I had that opening weekend experience where there was all of this anticipation. We were all really excited about it. We thought it was pretty funny. We enjoyed it. And then when it came, you know, when the, the Roger Ebert came out and sort of did his sort of review of it, it was kind of like, oh, that's not very good, is it now? You know, so it was, it was dis. Sort of very disheartening.

[Bill Maher]

Explain to the kid, Tom. Explain to the kids out there, this Roger Ebert you speak of.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, back in the, Back in the olden times.

[Bill Maher]

Yes, yes.

[Tom Green]

Three movies would come out every weekend, and it was very important that you went to the right one and spent your money in the right place. So they would have these critics who would advise you on how to spend your hard earned dollar.

[Bill Maher]

So people would watch that as a television show. They would watch critics talk about movies.

[Tom Green]

Called television, of course. Yeah, absolutely. And it was very, they were very respected their opinions.

[Bill Maher]

Would they tell you which movies had done best at the box office that week? Yes, they would, sure, of course.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

That was a big thing. Of course.

[Tom Green]

And it was very.

[Bill Maher]

And I remember there were people who complained about it. It shouldn't, we shouldn't know because we should just be able to decide on the merits of the movie and not by, oh, it's number one. Of course I'm going to see the number one movie. As if I ever did that. As if I ever looked at it, went well. It's number six. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's Kubrick, but it's six.

[Tom Green]

So the, the, the head of the studio, New Regency, Arnon Milshon, I don't know if you know Arnold.

[Bill Maher]

I know of him.

[Tom Green]

He took me aside after, after the Roger Ebert negative review and told me, you know, my very first movie, Tom was king of comedy and Roger Ebert, you know, destroyed it. And 20 years later, he actually was the only movie he's ever reversed his opinion on it.

[Bill Maher]

That's a Martin Scorsese movie.

[Tom Green]

Exactly. But funnily, funnily enough, he did kind of a few years later, Ebert did kind of give a little bit of. Not a complete reversal, but he said, well, I'm still thinking about that movie. There's something weird about it.

[Bill Maher]

But what did Gene Siskel say?

[Tom Green]

Well, it was, it was, it was Actually, Ebert and Roper, remember, there was of course, a short period of time there where it was that Roper. So. And he didn't like it either.

[Bill Maher]

So.

[Tom Green]

But that's. It wasn't really. It's weird because, you know. Well, it's very much like stand up in a lot of ways. You can sort of choose to shock or polarize your audience or, you know, maybe purposefully, you know, push half of the audience away for the entertainment of the other half of the audience. This is what I thought we were doing. We were making this movie that was gonna be so weird. Then maybe half the audience would get up and walk out of the theater and then the half that remained would be sitting there like they were in on the joke. Right.

[Bill Maher]

People like you and me never have the whole audience and very few people do. And that's okay, it's a big country. But I mean, I get it. The way you're explaining to me, it's like, that's what an artist does. I make the movie I think is funny. And some people are not going to like it. And I know that going in. And that's okay because I'm not playing to them. I mean, that's what I go by.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. And I think with that movie, part of it was, I guess we kind of felt like part of the punchline was the fact that some people just weren't going to get it. Like that was kind of the punchline, you know, like, this was so stupid that, like, how could you have made something so stupid? And people get angry about it and that's what's funny. And so I was surprised that, that Roger Ebert and Roper weren't able to kind of sort of step back a bit and go, some 28 year old kid who's just, you know, fell off the turnip truck here in Los Angeles and he's trying to. To make a weird movie. And let's, you know, maybe understand that this isn't, you know, he wasn't trying to make the Jazz Singer. You know, this is supposed to be stupid, but instead it was just sort of treated as it was. Well, not a successful.

[Bill Maher]

I'm sure you're a fan of Spinal Tap.

[Tom Green]

Sure, yeah, absolutely.

[Bill Maher]

And of course there's the great line in Spinal Tap where he says it's a fine line between clever and stupid.

[Tom Green]

Right, right. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

When they're accused of. Yeah. Club Random is brought to you by the audio marketing gurus at Radioactive Media. Congratulations. You survived 2024. Now the question is, how are you as a business owner or CMO going to ensure your business survives and thrives. As you've heard me say, Trump may have won the White House, but he's not going to win my mind this time. You have the ability to overcome anything by taking control and steering it in the direction you want to go. So why not utilize something reliable and stable for your marketing efforts and tap into the power of podcasts and radio in the the US Audio reaches more than social media and digital combined My friends at Radioactive Media know the recipe to launch, optimize and scale performance by building compelling audio campaigns which work. Their personal approach and knowledge of the medium is unparalleled. For advertisers who want to reach the right audience with the right hosts and programs, you need to speak with Radioactive media text random to 511-511-HECK, why not do something innovative and sponsor my show? If you're a mid sized company or a well funded startup, Radioactive can help. They believe in the power of audio so much they even use it themselves right here, right now. Learn how you can harness the power of text messaging. Go to RadioactiveMedia.com or text the word random to 511-511- discover how audio marketing can surpass your current strategies with new and innovative ways that sound better. Go to RadioactiveMedia.com or text RANDOM to 511-511-Text RANDOM to 511511 today. Message Data Rates may apply Even though I wear underwear every day, like most guys, I hope so. I have felt stuck in an underwear rut. The good news is that for those who haven't heard yet, Skims now offers men's underwear. And here to tell you it's worth the hype. I shoot hoops all the time, but I've never liked wearing that synthetic feeling workout underwear, especially when I'm done at the gym. Yuck. When I tried Skims stretch boxer briefs, it felt like I finally found the missing link. They give me all the movement I need for working out without feeling like I'm walking around wearing gym clothes the rest of the day. Plus, they never lose their shape or ride up. And maybe it's in my head, but I swear since I started wearing these, my jump shot has gotten a little bit better. Shop skims men'[e-mail] and skims stores. Let them know we sent you. After you place your order, select Podcast in the survey and select our show in the drop down menu that follows. Skims is the official underwear partner of the NBA, WNBA and USA Basketball Basketball. And in a way, there Actually is. I mean, it's just how something strikes you. I mean, there are people who saw a Spinal Tap and didn't understand it was a mockumentary at all. They just took it at face value and like, oh, this band isn't very good.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah. That's amazing because that was sort of, you know. What year would Spinal Tap have been? Early 80s or early 80s? Late 70s? Early 80s?

[Bill Maher]

70S, mid-80s?

[Tom Green]

That early 80s. I don't know what year it came out.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, it's Rob Reiner's first movie, right? Yes. Let's just say 80s.

[Tom Green]

It's kind of amazing to think that people would have actually believed it was. Was real insight. I remember when I started my show in the 90s and I was pulling pranks on my parents, people didn't understand that they were not actors at first. They thought, oh, those people would say, are those your real parents? You know, they. They hadn't. Hadn't sort of been inundated with reality TV yet. So they were sort of unable to sort of process the fact that some kid would go, you know, paint pornography on his parents car or paint their house. And so they just thought they were actors. Which blew me away because, I mean, they obviously weren't actors. It was obviously a home video kind of thing.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, I mean, it was, I feel like a bridge to something like Borat.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it was like just before that, Right?

[Bill Maher]

Just before that.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah. So it was.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Tom Green]

So when. So, so let me ask you this. When did you decide you wanted to do a second TV show in your living room here?

[Bill Maher]

Well, of course it's not my living room. I bought your house. Sure, sure, sure. So this is. This. This was always a strange room, this. This building. Many people told me to tear it down. I mean, I didn't buy the house directly from you. Somebody else bought it for a few years and I bought it from him.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

So up top is a tiki bar. I would told Drew, put that in.

[Tom Green]

Okay. Yeah, I'm not sure. I. I don't actually recall ever being in this room, so.

[Bill Maher]

Really?

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it might have been the second after. After me was this was built or maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure.

[Bill Maher]

No, I think this was here when you were okay. I think you were just stoned and didn't see it. Really. You don't.

[Tom Green]

You know, I did not smoke marijuana when I was making my show back in the day. I was like afraid of it. I was like this uptight kid who didn't smoke marijuana. I do Occasionally now, but back then I was not. Maybe I'll wait a little bit because I might, I might stop me, I'll make even less sense than I make now.

[Bill Maher]

But they used to be so uptight about just mentioning stuff. I mean, it was like. I'm trying to think of what an analogy for today would be like pedophilia or something. Just like, you know, just Nazism.

[Tom Green]

It was an amped up anti drug era in the 80s with the this is your brain on drugs and Nancy Reagan and the egg and the frying pan. And it's like, that's my brain in a frying pan. Frying my brain. So, yeah, yeah, I can see why people would have been a little worried about it with that sort of being constantly plugged into our minds. But. But yeah, it was a billboard.

[Bill Maher]

I remember on the way to LAX back when I was often on that road, you know, that road that connects like the 405 to the. To lax.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

I can't remember it.

[Tom Green]

Right, right. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But I, But I was on it a zillion times and there was a billboard and it was, you know, like one of those this is your brain. But it was about coke and it was. Showed a line and every time I saw it I was like, you know, I'm not even a cokehead and I want to do some coke now.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, just seeing the line of coke, it's like seeing sort of like.

[Tom Green]

An ad for cocaine.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. It's like seeing the egg. I want eggs.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's. Well, that's the.

[Bill Maher]

Do you have chickens?

[Tom Green]

Because I have chickens. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Well, let me tell you, you can make a killing right now.

[Tom Green]

I've been thinking about this thing, getting into the egg business.

[Bill Maher]

Maybe you and I could work something out. Like, I mean, I'm here in America still. You get it to me, you can.

[Tom Green]

Be my egg distributor, my dealer. I'll be the. Yeah. Well, it's amazing, you know, how many eggs a few chickens will lay. Like, I don't eat a ton of eggs, so I don't actually go. I have six chickens and I have these other guinea hens they're called, which are sort of like a cross between a quail and a turkey. But they, they run around the property and they eat a lot of bugs and stuff.

[Bill Maher]

So it's not quail and turkey now, is it?

[Tom Green]

No, they're actually there. I mean, I don't think that's where they actually. They look like that, but they're not. They're actually their own Distinct species called guinea hens. They eat a lot of ticks. A guinea hen will eat thousands and thousands of ticks and bugs a day. So they clear out the whole property of all these.

[Bill Maher]

You have ticks up there?

[Tom Green]

Well, you know, we didn't until five years. Global warming, climate change has. They've moved north. They've been in the U.S. of course, forever, but they come up from Pennsylvania and New York on the deer. But five years ago, there were no ticks in Canada. So that's climate change.

[Bill Maher]

That is one you don't want, brother. Yeah, no, it's Lyme disease.

[Tom Green]

The Lyme disease. Yeah, exactly.

[Bill Maher]

I would never go anywhere near any place that had ticks. I mean, if. I don't know what I'll do if they come here, and they probably will.

[Tom Green]

They aren't in California, I guess. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Well, there are still some at the Morris office. No kidding. I'm actually with them now. I'm making fun of my own agency. I forgot.

[Tom Green]

It sounds better with the Morris office. It does more. It's more old school. You know, it was what I heard.

[Bill Maher]

When I was a kid. I thought it was so cool to be in show business when George Burns or somebody would say, like, absolutely, you know, the Morris office. And I would think, oh, gosh, absolutely, if I could one day.

[Tom Green]

I remember when my show was on mtv, I was where I. I was signed to the William Morris Agency. And, yeah, it was.

[Bill Maher]

It's like when you watch Danny Thomas as a kid, that's, like, who his agent was. That's who you. That's all you knew as a civilian, right, about agencies?

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Who'd have thought that they would have wound up being William Morris Endeavor?

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it's. It doesn't have the same ring to.

[Bill Maher]

It, but, no, it's not the Morris office of old. But that's probably good.

[Tom Green]

But I get about. So if I go in the chicken coop back to this egg deal we're working on.

[Bill Maher]

Yes.

[Tom Green]

And I haven't gone in there for a few days. I'll go in. There'll be like 45 eggs in there. Like, each chicken is laying one or two eggs a day. And so, you know, if you have six chickens, you definitely will never be able to eat all the eggs that those six chickens will produce.

[Bill Maher]

It is amazing to think that if we weren't a species that was so into chicken abortions, what. The world would be overrun with chickens.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Every egg we ate had become a chicken.

[Tom Green]

You know, the thing is. Well, you know, they're not fertilized. Yet, unless you have a rooster. So they're not really.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, is that right?

[Tom Green]

I don't know if it would be. What is chicken? Abortion until the. So I don't have a rooster. So if you don't have a rooster, then the eggs are never going to hatch.

[Bill Maher]

What does the rooster do to the egg?

[Tom Green]

Well, I think it just. Just the chicken, actually. But then.

[Bill Maher]

Then the egg comes.

[Tom Green]

Then the egg comes out and it's a fertilized egg and there's an embryo in it. And just like every egg that comes out. Class. Right. Now, Bill, you know what a chicken does? I know rooster does to a chicken.

[Bill Maher]

But I do, but it's before the egg. Once the egg comes out, it's ready to hatch.

[Tom Green]

That's the difference with the chicken. The egg hatches outside the body, but it's still has to be fertilized, I think, beforehand. So if you don't have a rooster, you never have a fertilized egg. And by the way, I didn't know any of this shit till three years ago either. So I have chickens now, so I know a lot of this stuff.

[Bill Maher]

So the ro. The entire bunch of hens.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. I mean, if you have a rooster, then. Then you're. You'll get fertilized eggs, but then the chicken still has to sit on it and incubate it for a period of time before it hatches. So even if you have a rooster, you can still.

[Bill Maher]

That must be where the connection is with calling a. After a rooster.

[Tom Green]

Sure. Absolutely. Yeah, I think so. Must be. Well, of course it must be. I haven't thought about that, but I must be.

[Bill Maher]

It must be.

[Tom Green]

Why would it not be?

[Bill Maher]

Tom, you're so reasonable. I can't believe people think you're a weirdo.

[Tom Green]

It makes sense to me. Y. You know? Well, it's. You know, it depends who you ask. You know, it depends who you ask. But. Yeah, no, it's.

[Bill Maher]

It's so funny that you go from, like, ultimate weirdo to, like, ultimate non weirdo.

[Tom Green]

I thought it's a great.

[Bill Maher]

It's a great arc.

[Tom Green]

I thought that, like, there's so much weird on the Internet now, right?

[Bill Maher]

You got like.

[Tom Green]

How do you sort of.

[Bill Maher]

You're weird.

[Tom Green]

You get up in the morning, you pick up your phone, you're seeing, like. Like violence and, you know, herons getting, you know, chased through malls and screaming at people and everyone fighting and. Right. And. And. And yes. And, you know. So were you gonna compete with that?

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tom Green]

Or. No? I thought maybe the weirdest thing that I Could do is to go do something really normal.

[Bill Maher]

You're so right.

[Tom Green]

Become a farmer.

[Bill Maher]

Zig when they zag.

[Tom Green]

Absolutely.

[Bill Maher]

You know that. That's it.

[Tom Green]

And there's a lot of comedy in my new show. I mean, my parents are on it. It's just more so it's you and.

[Bill Maher]

Nicole situation.

[Tom Green]

Simple life type thing.

[Bill Maher]

That's what it.

[Tom Green]

It's a little bit like.

[Bill Maher]

That's Ava Gabor, but you.

[Tom Green]

It meets the simple life, you know.

[Bill Maher]

Do you remember Green Acres?

[Tom Green]

That's. We were almost. We almost called the show Green Acres but. Because, you know. But. But it was taken. But wasn't that great? You know, that was a little before my time not to.

[Bill Maher]

You should watch them. Yeah, it was very.

[Tom Green]

I remember watching reruns of it. I was more of a Beverly Hillbillies kind of guy.

[Bill Maher]

There's a layer to Green Acres that's very sophisticated. It was almost surreal because, you know, the plot was of course, Oliver. Eddie Albert played him. He's a New York. You know, I guess he was a lawyer or something. He's wearing three piece suits. Marries Eva Gabor, whose darling, but she's hot and she wants to live in the. Oh no, he wants to live in the country. She's like, oh fuck it, we're leaving Park Avenue for the country. But he wants to. He has this thing in his head about. And so all the people around him on the farm and in the town, they're all like insane. He's the only sane one there. And yet they also vibe with the wife. Cause she's insane in her way. So they kind of meld even though she hates being in the. The country. And he's just like this. The sane guy in the middle. And it's really very well scripted. I think he would be impressed.

[Tom Green]

It was, you know, it was sort of the opposite of the Beverly Hillbillies.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tom Green]

Which was. They were.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, I think that show was funny too. And it had a similar thing where the. The hillbillies would in their own way meld with some people he wouldn't expect. But yeah, it was more just misunderstandings, you know, the cement pond and like what. What things were. And. But I. I feel like they. The writing back then, those writers were good. You know, those green Jean shows that they used to call them on cbs. That's what kept CBS alive for years. It wasn't just the Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres. There was also Petticoat Junction.

[Tom Green]

Okay, I've heard of it.

[Bill Maher]

And they were all sort of. And Andy Griffith Right.

[Tom Green]

Watch that quite a bit.

[Bill Maher]

No, they were all sort of. And they all kind of like cross pollinated at a certain point with the ones on the other shows. It was, I think it was all taking place like in North Carolina. I'm sure it looks very racist today.

[Tom Green]

But it was shot probably in the parking lot at CBS Radford or something.

[Bill Maher]

Of course it was. And it wasn't overtly racist. It's just that there weren't black people in existence in their world. The sixties and the sound. I mean that just. But that's where the world was, you know. I mean, yes, even liberals didn't think it was the wrong thing. So nobody should like fucking look back to the past and go, oh, we're better than you. No, you just came later. I've been on TV a long time and have gone through my fair share of hiring people. I have a team around me that helps me vet and hire the right people which I pride my myself on. But most employers don't have that support and thus make costly mistakes in hiring the right people. If you're an employer who can Relate, I have one question for you. Have you tried ZipRecruiter? ZipRecruiter has figured out how to solve this very problem. In fact, four of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com random how fast does ZipRecruiter's smart technology start showing your job to qualified candidates immediately. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology works fast and find top talent so you don't waste time or money. So relax employers and let ZipRecruiter speed up your hiring. See for yourself. Just go to ziprecruiter.com random random right now to try it for free. That's the same price as a genuine smile from a stranger, a picture perfect sunset or a cute dog running up to you and licking your hand. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com random ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.

[Tom Green]

I don't know if you knew this but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for 15amonth plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first 3 months only then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail] this episode is brought.

[Bill Maher]

To you by Progressive Insurance.

[Tom Green]

Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool.

[Bill Maher]

From Progressive you can find options that.

[Tom Green]

Fit your budget and potentially lower your bills.

[Bill Maher]

Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and.

[Tom Green]

Affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states. It's interesting living in Canada as a Canadian, having lived here and then moved back to Canada and you know, with these tariffs that are being implemented or threatened at least people are obviously very upset in Canada about this. Now it's going to completely decimate the economy and of course it's going to have a same sort of effect on the American economy in a lot of ways it's terrible. So it really doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Bill Maher]

No sense.

[Tom Green]

But then, you know, there's a hockey game U.S. vs. Canada this week and Canadian crowd booed the American national anthem. Of course now this was not a very nice thing to do normally under from my garden. Okay, I'll give that a try. Under a normal set of circumstances I don't think the Canadians would boo the straw spangled an but they banner but.

[Bill Maher]

They did not that I love everything that's been going on in Canada under Trudeau because I don't he did legalize weed though.

[Tom Green]

That was one thing he did.

[Bill Maher]

I love that.

[Tom Green]

But he also resigned so good for.

[Bill Maher]

He was super woke. Yeah, to a degree I can't hang with. I mean there is a thing about that should be very important to someone like you, Tom. Freedom of speech. There is a level of hostility to freedom of speech that's going on and of course the Republicans are criticizing it now but they have no leg to stand on because they're not for it either. But there are things going on in Europe right now where they canceled an election in Romania because the wrong people won and I'm sure they were the wrong people. But you know what? But once you start canceling elections and again Republicans no standing to make this case because who's the biggest election canceler than Donald Trump? He tried every which way to cancel the 2020 election. Still hasn't conceded it.

[Tom Green]

You know he was my old boss. He fired me on the Celebrity Apprentice.

[Bill Maher]

I have to hear this story.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, because I went out drinking with Dennis Rodman on the night I was the project manager first of all just.

[Bill Maher]

Dennis Rodman is hysterical and that you were drinking with him.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, well, it was after we weren't taping the show. We. The day I. I had a big job. I was the project manager. You. You seen the show before. You know, it works. You have. You have to sort of compete business tasks.

[Bill Maher]

I never watched that show.

[Tom Green]

It's a business competition, and I sort of fancied myself a pretty good businessman. We had to build a wedding dress store, and we were competing the guys versus the girls. I had to sell more wedding dresses. Joan Rivers and Khloe Kardashian and her team. And I had Clint Black and Herschel Walker and. And Dennis Rodman on. On my team. Right. And so it was very serious. Right. But then after the, you know, I could tell we were kind of going to lose because my team sort of mutinied against me. Scott Hamilton as well, Olympic gold medalist. They kind of. They kind of wanted to lose and then get me fired. And so. So I was kind of a little upset about that. So I went out drinking with Dennis Rodman after the show that night, and I guess we were a little hungover in the boardroom the next day. And the president fired me. The president of the United States fired me.

[Bill Maher]

Well, you know, going out drinking with Dennis Rodman, I have to say, is not something that recommends somebody as an employee. Again, that's just my thing with Trump.

[Tom Green]

It was worth it, though. It was worth it, though.

[Bill Maher]

I'm not gonna pre. Hate everything. Firing you, I feel like, was the right move.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah. It was not a business also like, thing to do, you know.

[Bill Maher]

No, you can't trust anything he says because, like, the next day he changes his mind or whatever. But I think he said last week he wanted to cut the defense budget by 50%. I've been saying that for years. Am I going to hate it now because he says it? That would be hypocritical. Right.

[Tom Green]

Or get rid of nuclear weapons or.

[Bill Maher]

Get rid of the penny.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, we don't need those.

[Bill Maher]

Well, we can't get rid of nuclear weapons unilaterally, but we should reduce them.

[Tom Green]

I think he was talking about trilateral China, Russia, US Plan to lower them.

[Bill Maher]

But I. I have to. I have to know, politics aside, like Dennis Rodman.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Back to this. Yeah. As a. Just very curious. I remember, of course, I'm a basketball fan.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You remember the court? Was that here when you were here, the basketball court? I don't remember that either.

[Tom Green]

Tennis court.

[Bill Maher]

Okay. Same thing.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it was A tennis court.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. Ben made it into a basketball court.

[Tom Green]

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Anyway, what was I going to say about.

[Tom Green]

We were talking about, oh, basketball.

[Bill Maher]

Dennis Rodman.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Big basketball. And so I remember Dennis Rodman as a player. He was.

[Tom Green]

That was best rebounder.

[Bill Maher]

And yeah, I remember I was in Chicago for some reason in 1996 when they won the championship the night they did. And I went to this club where the. Where they were partying. I met him on a championship night, like, at the. In the VIP room. It was like. Like, wow, it's really cool being a celebrity. You know, the show had only been on a couple of years, and I was like, wow, this is great. I get.

[Tom Green]

He's a lot of fun. We had a lot of. We became friends when we were there on the show. He was the only one that was kind of sort of not really uptight about the game. He was having fun with it. These reality shows are pretty nuts. Like, I assume you've never been on one of these shows. I got asked to do it, so I did it. It seemed like a fun thing to do, and it was fun to do, but, you know, it is. Is sort of like a Stanford prison experiment type of situation.

[Bill Maher]

That's exactly what it is.

[Tom Green]

And it's clearly purposely orchestrated like that. It's not unintentionally so. I mean, they'll put, you know, the celebrities. Will put them. The Celebrity Apprentice, it was called. Right. So they'll put the celebrities in a room. A room kind of like this, but it'll be Dennis Rodman and Herschel Walker and Clint Black and Brian McKnight and Scott Hamilton and myself and a couple other people. And then it'll be a day, you know, the television shooting day. Everyone will come in at, you know, nine in the morning. It's eight in the morning. And there'll be cameras all around, blocked off, with you know, no camera people in there. And then they just basically don't give you anything to do for, like, way too long, like four hours. So you'll find there's a cheese plate and a coffee. Yeah. And then people just. And there's a competition that has some rules, and there's a bit of a hierarchy that they create within the group because there's a project manager who becomes the leader of that group, and then people disagree with the leader, and they all form these little sort of Lord of the Flies type sort of groups. And then they film it, and it's pretty hilarious, you know, usually. And I think that's why people enjoy it. But being actually in there and being actually, you know, you don't want to be piggy. You know, it does seem.

[Bill Maher]

Lord of the Flies. It's so. Right. It does seem like a lot of reality television in America is about pitting people against each other.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Bill Maher]

We're a cock fighting loving nation. We don't. People who would not normally perhaps be fighting. Exactly.

[Tom Green]

They study this. I don't know for certain, but I would assume they have studied the science of it and they figure out exactly who's in there and, you know, what would get them mad at each other. And, you know, I think they cast.

[Bill Maher]

It that way also.

[Tom Green]

I think they cast it that way. I think they put a bunch of people in there that would probably be, you know, maybe a little bit right. Nutty people like myself and Dennis Rodman and Scott Hamilton. Everyone knows Scott Hamilton's a bit of a wild.

[Bill Maher]

Were allied with. You were. You had an alliance with Dennis Rodman. That was an. You were.

[Tom Green]

Well, so. Well, to break down the actual game because it did get pretty serious there for a bit. So in the second episode, first episode of my season, each episode, someone gets fired. Okay. First episode, Andrew Dice Clay, my good friend, who I'm sure you know very well, got fired. He got fired for. He was a bit. He was a bit aggressive with Donald Trump when he asked for. In the first episode, Dice kind of was a bit aggressive with Donald Trump because there was not enough butter for the bagels in the green room, and he got angry about it in the boardroom on the show.

[Bill Maher]

My guess is he actually didn't get angry about it. My guess is he sort of.

[Tom Green]

Well, I think he was doing it for fun, you know, but it.

[Bill Maher]

I think he likes to play the character of Andrew Dice Clay. That's a character.

[Tom Green]

Absolutely. I'm very good friends with Dice, too. Yes.

[Bill Maher]

But that's not really him.

[Tom Green]

I know. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And sometimes he just lets the character drive the bus because it's more fun for the character to be mad about the bagels than for him to be a reasonable person.

[Tom Green]

It was hilarious. I mean, it was so funny. I mean, and it was kind of probably not what you would really do if you were going to try to win the game, to start complaining immediately.

[Bill Maher]

What do you get if you win?

[Tom Green]

I think you win money for a charity of your choice. That's what it was. Yeah. So you don't.

[Bill Maher]

Why even try?

[Tom Green]

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it becomes. Then it quickly becomes a point of pride to the people in there about trying to prove that they Are smart.

[Bill Maher]

You know, Charity, Sick kids.

[Tom Green]

It was a cancer.

[Bill Maher]

Cancer charity. Yeah. You fucked a bunch of kids because you and Dennis Rodman wanted a drink.

[Tom Green]

No, no, no, no, no, no. By that point, I knew I was not going to be because I had an alliance against me, you see, Bill and alliance again. So my team had sort of turned on me and decided to get me fired. So I. I basically just. I threw in the towel pretty much and said, okay.

[Bill Maher]

Rough few years, bro.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it was. It was funny.

[Bill Maher]

Fire. Divorce.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah. By the President of the United States, too. By the President of the United States.

[Bill Maher]

Bad reviews from Roger Ebert. This was. Something was going on in your horoscope.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. I'm telling you, though, those were kind of. In hindsight at. As I look back on it, they become kind of. Become kind of funny, those things. Those are some of the.

[Bill Maher]

The.

[Tom Green]

The funniest things that happen when you.

[Bill Maher]

Think of what to overuse a term that's overused. Privilege kind of life we live.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Where what we do is something we basically consider to be fun. So do we work? Yeah, we work. But I've also had jobs when I was younger. That was work. In other words. I hated it. I didn't want to throw triangles of fish product into a vat of grease.

[Tom Green]

Is that something you did? Were you. Were you were. Did you ever work as a short order cook somewhere?

[Bill Maher]

No.

[Tom Green]

Fast food. Have you ever done that? I worked at Dairy Queen.

[Bill Maher]

I'm bragging about my. Yes.

[Tom Green]

Which one? Where. Which McDonald's?

[Bill Maher]

Arthur Treacher's fish and Chips.

[Tom Green]

Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips.

[Bill Maher]

Arthur Treacher was this old British actor.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

Who was Merv Griffin's announcer, like sidekick, like Ed McMahon.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And that was enough in this day, I guess this is the 70s, that was enough for Arthur Treacher to have gotten himself a franchise. Because he was British.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

A franchise of.

[Tom Green]

It was like a Kenny Rogers roaster.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, exactly. He wasn't that big a star, but they had. It was. It was a viable restaurant. It was a fast food shithole that I worked in. Yes.

[Tom Green]

So would you deep fry the fish in a fryer?

[Bill Maher]

It would. You'd be your arms because you had to wear a uniform and your arms.

[Tom Green]

Would have walked because the grease would come up. You'd be burns on your arms. Yeah, I know that. I used to cook. I got fired because I miscooked a chicken burger at Dairy Queen.

[Bill Maher]

So these kids who get offended at microaggressions and. Not that I'm A Marine. I mean, people have had way harder lives than me for lots of reasons.

[Tom Green]

That's definitely not the worst thing that could happen is getting a little chicken and grease on your arm.

[Bill Maher]

It really hurt when that. And then you'd have just all these red marks on your arm.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. I'm not saying it's.

[Bill Maher]

At a time of my life when I was, you know, thinking about asking a girl out, it wasn't the greatest thing to approach her with red marks all over my arms.

[Tom Green]

But you had a few bucks though.

[Bill Maher]

Because I didn't.

[Tom Green]

Because you were working.

[Bill Maher]

I went from that to selling pot in six months.

[Tom Green]

That was. That was.

[Bill Maher]

That was my last.

[Tom Green]

More lucrative than our.

[Bill Maher]

Way more lucrative and way more fun.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. That's cool. That's cool.

[Bill Maher]

I didn't smoke until I was a sophomore in college, but I went from first smoking it to selling it in six months.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Because I couldn't afford it otherwise.

[Tom Green]

See, the. The I. I have. Honestly not like I did not when I first ever tried that. I was kind of later maybe I was in my 20s and it made me sort of have a panic attack in a way. I. I found very paranoid the first.

[Bill Maher]

Time I ever smoked marijuana. Well, it can again.

[Tom Green]

Why does it do that?

[Bill Maher]

You asked me before about eating it. Yeah, that's another reason, right?

[Tom Green]

It makes you kind of paranoid.

[Bill Maher]

Well, it's just a more. It's more like tripping. It's a. It's a five, six hour experience. Which I'm not up for.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, too much energy required.

[Bill Maher]

I don't have six hours to give to your trip, you know, and yeah, you can be almost too high sometimes. It just. It's just you can't control it.

[Tom Green]

It.

[Bill Maher]

And for a control freak, it's just not. It doesn't work.

[Tom Green]

Exactly.

[Bill Maher]

And I've tried to make it work.

[Tom Green]

It's a fear of a loss of control which feel. So. What. Why does that not always happen though? When. Why does it happen when people eat that? Not. Not when they smoke it then.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, everybody's different, you know.

[Tom Green]

I mean, I'm having a beer, by the way.

[Bill Maher]

Would you please.

[Tom Green]

Do you drink beer, Bill, or.

[Bill Maher]

I hate beer.

[Tom Green]

You hate beer, huh?

[Bill Maher]

I do. I really do.

[Tom Green]

Why. Why do you hate beers? Just never got into it.

[Bill Maher]

It stinks. It's like. It's cheap. Cheap.

[Tom Green]

It's cold.

[Bill Maher]

It's. It's. It's cheap. It's like low level percent.

[Tom Green]

It's an art form to make a beer, you know, about. I don't know how they do it, but it's. I know it's.

[Bill Maher]

It's German, you know, it's like barley.

[Tom Green]

And stuff in there.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Tom Green]

All beer tastes different. Different kind of, you know, this is a Pacifico, and I. This is a lager. Nice.

[Bill Maher]

No, I could. I could drink it. It doesn't, like, make me wretched. Yeah, but the idea of drinking something with only like 12% alcohol or something.

[Tom Green]

There'S not enough alcohol.

[Bill Maher]

If you're drinking, you're drinking to feel the effect, whatever it does, like, I always think it kills, say, 5% of my brain cells. Not permanently, perhaps, although I guess they are permanent. Okay. But I. At the moment, 5%. And for some reason, that makes you, in a way smarter, sometimes in many ways stupider. Of course, drunks do the worst things, but, you know, if you could control it, just. Why do people, you know, have a couple of drinks at dinner? I think it takes down a tension level in people.

[Tom Green]

Absolutely.

[Bill Maher]

And it makes you just more you.

[Tom Green]

But a beer with the 12%, it's still kind of a slower kind of tension. It's just a little more, you know. To me, it's almost like I'm rehydrating a little bit with a beer. It's almost like a glass of water sometimes. You know, Know, you don't have to think of it like you're just drinking it to. To get drunk or whatever. Right. With beer, it's sort of more like.

[Bill Maher]

Just a. I just.

[Tom Green]

Come on, Bill, have a beer. Just have one beer.

[Bill Maher]

I just saw this great show. I got to say, I'm a big Billy Bob Thorton fan. Anyway, I mean, even if he'd only ever done Bad Santa, I'd love him. He's done a lot of great stuff and his band is great. I've always been a fan, but I.

[Tom Green]

Was in an episode of the Trailer Park Boys with Billy Bob Thornton.

[Bill Maher]

What's that?

[Tom Green]

Canadian Legends. The Trailer Park Boys. Do you know them?

[Bill Maher]

I don't.

[Tom Green]

They're very funny. You have to have the Trailer Park Boys down here on the show.

[Bill Maher]

What does that mean?

[Tom Green]

Well, it's a TV show up in Canada.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, the Trailer Park.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, they've been. It's been. Hilarious show.

[Bill Maher]

It's been on now.

[Tom Green]

It's been on for a long time, but it's like kind of. Yeah, it's on now, too.

[Bill Maher]

For sure.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, my earliest years in comedy were when SCTV was on.

[Tom Green]

Right, right.

[Bill Maher]

And I would. I had the one. One of the first. I guess. Yeah. The first Generation, certainly, of a V, something I could tape off tv. It was like this big.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

And you had to like record it.

[Tom Green]

On a V, like on a VHS tape or a Beta.

[Bill Maher]

A VHS tape.

[Tom Green]

VHS tape.

[Bill Maher]

And you would just, like with the old tape recorder, you would have to push, like two buttons at the same time to, like press and play or something.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. And record and play. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

So it was on Saturday night, sctv. And that was always a big night to be out at the clubs.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But at the end of that night, I would be like drooling in the cab.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Going home.

[Tom Green]

Just to go home and watch that.

[Bill Maher]

Rewind. Watch sctv.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

It was like just on a level that was.

[Tom Green]

And that. So that would have been. How old were you when you were watching SCTV? Were you.

[Bill Maher]

Were you 23? Yeah, you know, my first year in comedy.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And living in. Or. Oh, no, I guess I was. Yeah, probably. I'm picturing it in the apartment. I. I got my main apartment there, which was not a nice place, but I didn't have the dots on my arms anymore, so it got evened out. But, yeah. So, yeah, 79, 80. Around there. 80, 81. I mean, early 20s and, you know, just at that part in your life where I've never had more anxiety because it was like, you know, am I going to go anywhere in this crazy job I've picked for myself?

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

Or, you know, and if not, what. And could I. Can I be happy?

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Doing anything else? Because I always kind of. Even when I was a kid, I kind of knew I'm not going to be happy doing anything else.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

That's a lot of pressure on yourself.

[Tom Green]

And so. Yeah, I felt that way. I felt that way at that point.

[Bill Maher]

Did you have a backup when you were starting?

[Tom Green]

I didn't really have much of a backup plan because, I mean, I went to school for broadcasting, so I knew I was going to work. I wanted to do something technically at least. I guess I could have done. And more technical side of the business, too. I do, like camera work and editing and stuff like that. That might have been, but. Yeah. So it's terrifying.

[Bill Maher]

You look like a director.

[Tom Green]

Well, you do. What does that look like? Exactly?

[Bill Maher]

I know you have directed lots of stuff, but I'm just saying you just look like a director.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, well, I.

[Bill Maher]

Much more than a farmer.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, well, it's. Yeah. So when you get to interview the cast members of SCTV for the first time. How old are you? When you first interviewed Martin Short, what was that like?

[Bill Maher]

Well, Martin Short's become a great friend.

[Tom Green]

Sure. So when the first time you met him though, was it just kind of an incredibly sort of weird experience for you?

[Bill Maher]

I'm guessing you haven't seen this. You should look this up on wherever you YouTube it. But I had a book out last year, so. So I was like in the one on one interview section of the show we do after I do a monologue, it's very often an author, you know, it's a topic. It's a single topic and it can be anyone, it can be a iconic celebrity, it can be the governor, whatever. But yeah, if somebody has like an amazing book, like Jonathan Haidt has this amazing book that's been on the charts for a year. It's, you know, the anxious generation about kids and phones and all that shit. But I was like, okay, but now I'm the person with the book. Can I have someone interview me and I'm the guest? Yeah, well, Jiminy Glick did it for me.

[Tom Green]

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And I'm telling you, it's like the funniest 10 minutes. I mean, I'm just playing straight, man.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Bill Maher]

I'm just. I did do my part well, but that's just because I understand that what's going on here.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And it's.

[Tom Green]

You had the VHS tapes. Yes.

[Bill Maher]

Get out of the way and let the genius do his thing and just. And of course just play everything straight as if he's a person who deserves. Deserves an answer. I mean, his first question was, why go after Harriet Tubman?

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, I was cr. I had to have a tissue box there for. I couldn't. You know, he is. There is a genius to Martin Short that really he deserves all the hon. Accolades he gets.

[Tom Green]

And it's probably you relate to that character because you probably would like to be Jiminy Glick sometimes on. When you're interviewing people, I would think, right. Would that be kind of a dream to be able to just sort of one night come out and just say, yeah? Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Well, just because it's silly.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, because it's.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, it's like the. The comedy of silly. You can't beat it. You can't beat getting someone giggling, you know?

[Tom Green]

Do you remember when you saw a talk show for the first time? Who. Who was it and who was your favorite talk show host from before 1980?

[Bill Maher]

Johnny Carson.

[Tom Green]

Johnny Carson. Okay.

[Bill Maher]

That was my era. I mean, I was a little other.

[Tom Green]

Than Johnny Carson, I guess I would say, oh, we'll talk about Johnny Carson a second.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, he Was so, you know, the Zeus of the universe that everybody. I mean, look, one of my great friends in life was Alan Thicke.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, I knew.

[Bill Maher]

Came with me on my first Canadian. My first Hawaiian excursion. I did for 12 years. I did a thing in Hawaii over New Year's, and he was on that first trip with us. Loved him. He tried. And Alan, you know, people never really appreciated what an amazing, dry, sophisticated wit he was because he was known as the sitcom dad.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, but that wasn't Alan. Alan was like. Like, slyly, the most hysterical guy in Canada.

[Tom Green]

He had a talk show, I believe it was, before the one. And he had in the US too. So we grew up with Alan thick on tv, a lot more, even.

[Bill Maher]

Let me tell you an Alan Thick story. That's so funny.

[Tom Green]

You had a show thick of the night, right? Was that.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, yes, thick. I have the T shirt. He got me the T shirt.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, he was hilarious. I got to interview him a couple of times on my. On my web podcast show that I did.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, you did?

[Tom Green]

Yeah. So I got to.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, he was a Canadian icon.

[Tom Green]

The best. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, I loved him. So listen to this. I remember, I'm meeting him one night, and he was newly engaged to Tanya, his third wife. I think she was Miss Columbia. Barry Allen, a beauty pageant winner. But they were like. I mean, it was hysterical because it was like nafta, the dry, unflappable Canadian, and then the Sofia Vergara character. And I love Tanya. She's awesome, but, you know, Colombian and fiery. And so it was just hysterical to have them on the trip. But I remember when they got. I was. I met them at a restaurant. It was just me. And I don't know why I was. But, yeah, I loved him. I saw him a lot. And she's like, you know, she wanted me to notice that she finally got the engagement.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, sure.

[Bill Maher]

You know, and it was girls, do you know. Okay, so then we were joking about that. Okay, great. Congratulations. We were talking about at the time, his kid was, like, four years old. Three or four years old, Carter. And he was playing hockey with that kid who was then 18 when he died.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

So Canadian.

[Tom Green]

Yes. To die playing. At least the very Canadian should get.

[Bill Maher]

A special Valhalla salute for that.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Bill Maher]

So, you know, I'm asking Alan about the kid, and he loves Tanya. That's great. I said, you know, I said, does he understand sex yet? And Alan said, I don't think so, but he knows it has something to.

[Tom Green]

Do with the diamond.

[Bill Maher]

He knows it has something to do with the diamond.

[Tom Green]

Oh, okay. Well, you know, that's funny. He was a great guy. He was a great guy. I. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Canadians, man, it's tough when the roster is, like, so impressive.

[Tom Green]

My. I got to know Norm MacDonald on when he came to my web show, and he's from my hometown of, you know, Ottawa. He grew up blocks away from each other, but he was not at the same time. He was a bit older than me, but I remember I was. I saw him for the first time at Yuk Yuk's when I was a kid. I would go down to Yuck Yucks and he was performing before he was on Saturday Night Live in Ottawa. I would see him in Ottawa.

[Bill Maher]

Where? What. What city?

[Tom Green]

Ottawa?

[Bill Maher]

Oh, Ottawa. The capital.

[Tom Green]

The capital. That's where I'm from. Yeah. So, yeah. And Yuck Yuck says, you know, do you know Mark Breslin? Probably.

[Bill Maher]

Why didn't I get that gig?

[Tom Green]

You know? Well, you know, you have to really. You have to be from Ottawa and then you probably.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, you really. They didn't have American Common comics. No, because we played. I played Montreal and.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, no, for sure it was. But it was a lot of, you know, Canadian comics just started at Yuck Yuck.

[Bill Maher]

I played Winnipeg.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's. Which one did you play? Have you played in the clubs there or Rumors?

[Bill Maher]

I mean, it was 1992.

[Tom Green]

You ever play the Rumors Comedy club in Winnipeg? Shout out to Rumors Comedy Club. It's a great comic club. It's been there since the 80s.

[Bill Maher]

That's probably what I was playing.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, I think for sure it's. Yeah, yeah. Winnipeg's. Did you enjoy your time in Winnipeg or were you kind of in and out?

[Bill Maher]

I did. I. I'm not going to tell the story, but I actually had a great time.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But I mean, the, the reason I got there does not favor well on Winnipeg. But that's not their fault. I only got there because my house had to be tented. Right. I called my agent and I said.

[Tom Green]

Get me a gig fast. Well, we got Winnipeg. Okay, whatever. Let's go. That kind of thing. That's cool.

[Bill Maher]

Exactly.

[Tom Green]

Well, I, you know, it's. I, I've. I have a lot of. I've had a lot of fun in Winnipeg, you know, it's good. Go Jets. You know, Canadian City, but Canadians, I don't know. There's really a reason why their team is called the jets, by the way. The hockey team is the Winnipeg jets, but I don't think there's really a Lot of jets.

[Bill Maher]

I think I love Canada.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I love the people. I have some serious connections with. Friends absolutely there. And I remember moments there that would never happen in America. Like somebody refusing a tip.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

Or somebody doing that, pushing the money back and saying, you've been generous enough. And I said, and you know, in America, you could be arrested for that. Refusing money.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah, that.

[Bill Maher]

That is.

[Tom Green]

Boys, you. You've been to every city in Canada, probably, right?

[Bill Maher]

I've been. No, but certainly I on the tour was always Toronto.

[Tom Green]

You've been to Toronto?

[Bill Maher]

Of course, Toronto.

[Tom Green]

You love Toronto. Vancouver. You've been to Vancouver?

[Bill Maher]

Yes, Toronto.

[Tom Green]

Have you been to Ottawa, the capital?

[Bill Maher]

No, no, no. I'm saying I. I've never played Ottawa.

[Tom Green]

I don't think. I haven't been to Ottawa. Got to come to Ottawa. Ottawa.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I'm not doing it anymore.

[Tom Green]

So you're not. You're not going.

[Bill Maher]

I just stopped as a. I did.

[Tom Green]

Hear you say that, but I wasn't sure if I believed it or not. But you got like 100 stopped or just, like slow. Well, you can still go and do a couple shows a year if you want.

[Bill Maher]

You know what I really feel you can't, because you have to be in practice to do stand up, at least the way I want to do it.

[Tom Green]

Because you would feel every. Every time you got up, you'd feel.

[Bill Maher]

You have to, like. I mean, I've kept in a groove, you know, for 42 years. I've had an axe. Like, there was my life on TV and then there was my act. Now there was stuff that bled between them. It was very good. I would.

[Tom Green]

How often are you. I mean, I don't know if people like to talk about. Hear about writing and sand up sets, but how often do you try to slide that material out or do you keep some jokes? For years.

[Bill Maher]

I never try. I never try. But I mean, well, now I don't even have to worry about it because I'm not doing it.

[Tom Green]

But for years, but hypothetically, we're still doing it.

[Bill Maher]

There was things. There was. There were. I'm not gonna say there aren't things that were written for real time that didn't wind up in my act. There are, but mostly I wrote that myself. It was just too stand up. Is just much more personal than like doing a monologue each week, which is really just about the events of that week. It's not. It's very impermanent. You know, stand it back. I just did a special. I mean, they can watch that for years. Not Everything will like.

[Tom Green]

It takes a lot out of you just having to exude that kind of emotional energy. Live every weekend.

[Bill Maher]

No, I like that part.

[Tom Green]

Is it the anticipation of it? Is there anxiety that you get before the show, the travel? Just exhaustion? Yeah, it's exhausting.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, it's like, you know when I said I wasn't gonna do it at the end of last, the beginning of last year and we didn't book anything for this year, all year I kept thinking, oh my God, I'm not going to be doing this after this. You know, there's eight more gigs, there's six more gigs, there's four more gigs.

[Tom Green]

It's not a legal contract. I mean, you can always change your mind at any time.

[Bill Maher]

That's why I never made an announcement.

[Tom Green]

You decide next year. I think I will do it again.

[Bill Maher]

But I was like really wondering when it comes to it next year, am I really going to be okay with this? And you know what happened? I was, I was right.

[Tom Green]

Like maybe, maybe another year you might.

[Bill Maher]

I just, I just don't get the itch for it. You know, A couple of weekends ago would have normally been, as it has been for so many years, the weekend when I first went out back on the road, the third weekend in January, the holidays are over. Okay. People go to a show again. I was so glad I didn't have to fucking drag my ass out of bed on a Saturday and go to Cincinnati. Not that I don't love Cincinnati or whatever it was. I just wanted to be home.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And that's it. You know, it just. Not that I couldn't. I'm not crippled in any way. People. I mean, it's not like.

[Tom Green]

Well, it's, it's, it's.

[Bill Maher]

I just don't fucking feel like it.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Have you ever. Did you ever take a break before? For a year or two.

[Bill Maher]

Never.

[Tom Green]

Never. Yeah, exactly. So that's why it feels weird. But it doesn't mean you can't take a break. It's because you've never done it before. It doesn't mean you can't take a break. It could just be a break. Maybe you're just taking a break.

[Bill Maher]

There's other things to do.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, but maybe it's just a break. Maybe even could be a five year break.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, but you don't have. I mean, I just don't think you.

[Tom Green]

Should set it in stone. I don't want you to see you quit doing stand up just because you decided to.

[Bill Maher]

But there. Standup is just a medium. Yeah, it's a medium for ideas. That's what this is in its own weird way.

[Tom Green]

Absolutely.

[Bill Maher]

And there are people who will watch us do this, who wouldn't watch us do anything else. And I get that. I am not that, but I get that, because there are. It's just like, there are people who want to hear a jam band instead of something polished.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Bill Maher]

And that's personal taste, and I get it. And Fine. But I want both. I want to have a jam band, and I also want to make Abbey Road every week on Real Time.

[Tom Green]

Right. And that's what. That's. I was. Cause I was actually about to ask you why you built a television studio in your. In your basement here. Or.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, I just.

[Tom Green]

But there's the answer. That's the answer. Yeah. It's fun. This is kind of like. You can just kind of.

[Bill Maher]

But it's still. I didn't change anything in this room. This room was always so cool. I mean, it was a mess when I got it, but. And I think Drew is the person who built that tiki bar up. It looks that thing that looks like a. You're in Mexico.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

Y. Y. I. I was told. I don't know how I know that.

[Tom Green]

Because I think that's true, actually.

[Bill Maher]

I think it is true. It's beautiful. I still love it as a place to. Like, that was.

[Tom Green]

I think she built that before I knew her.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I'm going to have a party this summer and invite both of you. It's time you reconnected. Oh, wait, you're married.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, absolutely. In fact. Well, you know, I was going to say relating to stand up. You know, what I've been doing since the pandemic is. How do you describe the pandemic? When you say since, do you say since COVID or since the pandemic? You know? Yeah, either one.

[Bill Maher]

Either one.

[Tom Green]

When the pandemic happened, that's when I kind of moved. Right. I moved back to Canada.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, that was the impetus.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it was. Yeah. Okay. And. And it was kind of like, because the. I was doing. I'm touring all the time, and my tour was canceled for the whole year. And I was sitting there going, okay, I didn't have a TV show to go to every day. So I'm sitting around my house going, like, what the hell I could freaking do this weekend?

[Bill Maher]

Right?

[Tom Green]

And so I got this Camper V. I got my dog Charlie. I started going out into the desert out here and filming some stuff for. For basically just because I wanted to go check out the desert. But filming some stuff for social media. And then I decided to move back to. Sold my house, moved back to Canada.

[Bill Maher]

Sure.

[Tom Green]

Thank you very much.

[Bill Maher]

What'd you do with that other one I gave you?

[Tom Green]

I smoked it. No, here it is right here. There it is. There you go. Thank you. Trade you.

[Bill Maher]

That sounds like a conversation I would have had at 19.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

What'd you do with that one? I had the.

[Tom Green]

The other one.

[Bill Maher]

Exactly. Oh, no, I didn't smoke it.

[Tom Green]

It's exactly what it was. But I got this camper van and so now I'm. I'm touring. You have that?

[Bill Maher]

No, I don't. I don't smoke. Smoke pot.

[Tom Green]

I'm touring with my. I'm. I'm now driving on my. Touring more is what I'm getting at. I haven't been going to the airport and flying to. Instead I've been doing these. So I drove here from Canada in a camper van. Oh, right now.

[Bill Maher]

What?

[Tom Green]

Yeah. So I left Canada.

[Bill Maher]

That's so Tom Green in my camper.

[Tom Green]

Van with my fiance and my dog. And we drove and we did gigs all the way down close. We're having a lot of fun, though.

[Bill Maher]

To be able to be together all day long in a camper.

[Tom Green]

It's. It's going well. I mean, it's.

[Bill Maher]

No, I'm not doubting it or wishing.

[Tom Green]

Still here. She's here.

[Bill Maher]

No, I get it. She didn't go.

[Tom Green]

She didn't leave yet. She didn't fly home.

[Bill Maher]

What is it. What is it that makes that you think. Think Allows one person to be like, so easy on your. Just vibe that you can be around them all the time. Because a lot of. I feel like, you know, success in a relationship is that. Can you just be around somebody.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And feel almost as calm as you do when you're alone.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You don't fart. Fart.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Not that.

[Tom Green]

I try not.

[Bill Maher]

Not that. No. Not that comfortable. Are we agreed?

[Tom Green]

Well, I mean, I'm not going to say what I'm guilty of in the terms of farting too much department, but I don't try to fart a lot, if that's what we're talking about here, Bill.

[Bill Maher]

Okay. Well, the only fart that ever should happen in your. Your mutual space.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I believe is an inadvertent fart. That.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Okay.

[Bill Maher]

The way you're like, yes, of course. Here on Meet the President.

[Tom Green]

I'm trying to think whether I agree with that.

[Bill Maher]

No, I mean. Well, you can't help it. It's like a nocturnal.

[Tom Green]

I mean, this Isn't really. Honestly, this isn't really the first thing I want to talk about when talking about my new engagement. Beyonce, you know, she's amazing, and that's why we're having a lot of fun. She puts up with the absurdity of this idea of traveling around in a camper, but we are staying in hotels, you know, when we're not.

[Bill Maher]

She loves it.

[Tom Green]

No, we're having a lot of fun. We're having a lot of fun. Oh, it's.

[Bill Maher]

Are you funny all the time?

[Tom Green]

Not. I, I, I, I get kind of. I'm pretty tired right now, now that you mentioned. You want to mention me? Because I've been. I drove here in a camper van.

[Bill Maher]

That's amazing.

[Tom Green]

I slept in the Mojave Desert.

[Bill Maher]

I appreciate it so much.

[Tom Green]

Four nights ago.

[Bill Maher]

I really appreciate it. Beautiful out there, putting out, like.

[Tom Green]

Have you ever slept out in the Mojave Desert?

[Bill Maher]

No.

[Tom Green]

It is so beautiful out there.

[Bill Maher]

I'm sure it is.

[Tom Green]

But there's also seeing the sunset coming up over the mountains in the Mojave Desert.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, my God.

[Tom Green]

Making some coffee. Just. Just.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, my God.

[Tom Green]

You drink coffee?

[Bill Maher]

I do, but not in the middle of nothing in the morning. Well, that's what's.

[Tom Green]

What's not what. What's what? Why does that sound bad? It's. It's not. Nothing there's beautiful.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, I know.

[Tom Green]

Cactuses and wildlife and.

[Bill Maher]

You know what it is?

[Tom Green]

It's flora and fauna.

[Bill Maher]

We're at different stages of life. Not that I would do it at 53 either.

[Tom Green]

Right, right.

[Bill Maher]

But especially just not your thing. You're just not a. I want to come.

[Tom Green]

Have you ever been catching camping?

[Bill Maher]

I want a comfortable bathroom.

[Tom Green]

Have you ever gone camping?

[Bill Maher]

A comfortable bathroom. Okay. I think. I think after. Comfortable bathroom. Yeah, you get the. It's just like.

[Tom Green]

You ever slept in a tent?

[Bill Maher]

No.

[Tom Green]

Wow. Really? That's amazing.

[Bill Maher]

Never sleep.

[Tom Green]

I'm not sleeping. I'm sleeping in a camper van. It's scary sleeping in a tent. Animals can tear through that tent, and.

[Bill Maher]

I did not sleep in a tent, but I once slept actually in a hammock.

[Tom Green]

Okay. For like.

[Bill Maher]

You'll never guess where. On Frankie Valley's tour bus.

[Tom Green]

You're right. I would have never guessed that.

[Bill Maher]

I am right, aren't I?

[Tom Green]

Would have never guessed that. No, that's right. That's amazing. So. And was that just kind of. Was he a friend of yours or.

[Bill Maher]

No, he was. I was opening for him.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. That's cool. And what year would that have been?

[Bill Maher]

That would have been 1982.

[Tom Green]

And what venues would. Would you be performing there? Still around today.

[Bill Maher]

Are you familiar with Wolf trap in Washington, D.C. okay.

[Tom Green]

No, I don't know that. No.

[Bill Maher]

Wolf Trap. Very famous.

[Tom Green]

Okay, cool. Cool.

[Bill Maher]

A lawn, you know, seating and then a lawn. It's a big summer.

[Tom Green]

Oh, nice, nice.

[Bill Maher]

Unless you're playing like stadiums.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Everybody will. Nobody turns their nose up at Wolf Trap in the summer.

[Tom Green]

That's cool.

[Bill Maher]

You know, James Taylor with Jackson Brown.

[Tom Green]

Right, right.

[Bill Maher]

Wolf Trapper. So that was one.

[Tom Green]

This sort of like a Hollywood bowl kind of.

[Bill Maher]

Yes, yes.

[Tom Green]

Sort of like a gravitas to it. But you're outside. It's like camping, but you're. You're not. You're watching a show. Show.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tom Green]

Sort of like camping. You feel like you did something in the nature.

[Bill Maher]

Right? Blanket.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Blanket may involve.

[Tom Green]

You've never really. Really never gone camping. It's anyways, it's. It's. It's fun because you get into nature and you really kind of sconce yourself in that. It's a very calming, a relaxing thing.

[Bill Maher]

I think nature's a great town.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I love nature.

[Tom Green]

Nature.

[Bill Maher]

I do. I live a mid. Nature. I feel like I don't. That's one reason I don't need to do that is because I feel like I see a lot of greenery and stuff that isn't urban every day.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Because you burned your house down. It always is gonna come back to that.

[Tom Green]

No, I did not do it.

[Bill Maher]

By the way, for the record, nobody did it. I'm joking. For the record, you know, it was a fire.

[Tom Green]

I knew you were joking. I just wanted to put on the record do it just in case there's any confusion. That's.

[Bill Maher]

I'm very glad some people might.

[Tom Green]

People.

[Bill Maher]

No, they.

[Tom Green]

I know there was no reason for them to think that, but some people confused and think the wrong thing. I just want to make sure I did not burn the house.

[Bill Maher]

Well, there's just too many people in America with time on their hands and they also have access to the Internet. So if they can just start some shit for no reason because they just. It entered their mind, they will do it.

[Tom Green]

So is it more fun doing television when you have the Internet as well as a factor, or is it more fun doing television when there was no Internet? Internet. Because you seem like you're having a lot of fun with the Internet. So I would expect that you would say that, but I'd expect you would say that it was probably. This is more fun to have this kind of but then you also have to deal with the complexity of all that kind of just energy on the Internet that we're talking about.

[Bill Maher]

You asked me about, I don't know how long We've been here, six hours or maybe 20 minutes. It could be the one. But at some point you asked me about, about something that is frustrating, which as you said. What about when they take like clips?

[Tom Green]

Right, exactly. Because you lose control over, you know.

[Bill Maher]

It'S amazing when you are somebody who's in the middle like me and not in the middle like in namby pamby way. And it just like, yeah, I'm a proud old school liberal, but no, I'm not going to go along on the crazy train to Nonsenseville. So know when you're in the, in there, what were you talking about? It was so important to me.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, well, I was just saying. Yeah, you know what, what were we talking about, Bill?

[Bill Maher]

Oh, good, now we're both too high to remember what the conversation was about.

[Tom Green]

No, but you, I, I knew exactly what we're talking about until you questioned it and then it made me sort of second guess myself and now my mind's gone blank. What the hell were we just talking about, Bill?

[Bill Maher]

I don't know. But you know, if this is what Al Alzheimer's is like, it's not that bad. Get a bigger deal out of sitting.

[Tom Green]

Around in these extremely soft chairs, by the way.

[Bill Maher]

You don't feel like it's.

[Tom Green]

I got a beer. You know, this is incredible. When you, what we were talking about. Okay. Is before the Internet.

[Bill Maher]

Yes. Doing, talking about clips and how they just.

[Tom Green]

I know what we were talking about. Just pretended we didn't.

[Bill Maher]

Good for you. Good for you.

[Tom Green]

I actually want to know the answer.

[Bill Maher]

Too, because I want to give you the answer because it is very frustrating that when you're in the middle. That's what I was saying. And over the course of an hour of real time, you can take like three or four great clips for you on Fox News and show them where I'm calling left out on their bullshit. Or occasionally saying, saying, yeah, you know, this is not the stupidest idea I ever heard of. And then you can do the same thing on the left wing stations. You can if you want to. If you want to make me look good to your audience, you can show all the times I'm excoriating Donald Trump and calling out that administration and that list of things I hate. Or if you hate me on liberal media, just show the ones where I'm saying the things that the Fox News.

[Tom Green]

Crowd That's what I'm saying.

[Bill Maher]

So I can't like watch the whole show.

[Tom Green]

You lose control of the narrative because the wrong clips go out.

[Bill Maher]

Totally. And people just want to hear what they already believe fed back to them. So if you already believe on the left that I'm some sort of red pilled person who's now become a conservative, you can be fed things where all you see me doing is saying, yeah, I don't hate this, let's get rid of the penny or whatever it is. And then you can do it. You can manipulate. And they do because that's what feeds their kitty. They want those same eyeballs coming back to them. So, you know, it's a lonely place in the middle. It can be a lonely place. Yeah, fuck them. I don't care. I've got my middle people.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. So before the Internet you didn't have to, but there were still. People would write about the show.

[Bill Maher]

Well, they got my first show canceled.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, exactly. So there was still this sort of different kind of.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, yeah. But then it.

[Tom Green]

Energy pushback.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Tom Green]

I mean, but this is a little bit.

[Bill Maher]

I was canceled when it was like literal. We're actually canceling. We're using that word to make sure you're not doing.

[Tom Green]

You've been credited with being coined that. No, you don't want to. You don't want to be credited with that. No.

[Bill Maher]

And, and also, I mean the things like people had been fired on.

[Tom Green]

Those were crazy times. It was 9 11. Right.

[Bill Maher]

9 11.

[Tom Green]

That was crazy times. And you know, that's. That was. Was that the beginning of this sort of new kind of crazy that we're seeing in our, in our politics?

[Bill Maher]

I mean, that was. Okay, so I moved in here January of 2000, 2001, which is actually the, you know, 2000 is still, I think technically the last century. I think the first year of the 21st century. So we're literally days into the 21st century.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Which is a little. Could be something if you were the kind of person who believed in spooky stuff. Okay, so I move in here January, and you're already here, and then, then the house burns down and then 9 11. I'm wondering, maybe it's you, Tom. No. Is that a crazy theory?

[Tom Green]

I mean, it's a heavy thing to blame me with for sure. It's like a lot, it's a lot for me to consider. You know, it's crazy though. Was that the beginning of. That's the beginning of kind of this sort. Sort of. Things weren't as Political before that. I mean, it seems weird to say obviously things have been political forever, but doesn't seem like there have been sort of a reprieve on this kind of divisive politics or something for 10 years.

[Bill Maher]

Or it literally goes back to.

[Tom Green]

I don't remember it being that crazy.

[Bill Maher]

I know, but Reagan, the Reagan. When Reagan, it goes through periods. I mean, the period when you were a formative youth. Yeah, you're right, it was. They were always at each other's throats, but there was a civility to it. And also they both played by the rules.

[Tom Green]

That's exactly what I was.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, in 2000, Al Gore lost or didn't. There was a lot of shenanigans. They talk about shenanigans with Trump in 2020. There was no shenanigans in 2020. No shenanigans. I could quote all the people who were involved, the election commission, many of his own appointees. It was one of the smoothest, fairest, most. They had their eyes on it for good reason.

[Tom Green]

There were hanging chats.

[Bill Maher]

That was 2000, right?

[Tom Green]

That was Gore hanging chads.

[Bill Maher]

The Secretary of state was Republican in the state of Florida. The governor was Jeb Bush, the guy's brother.

[Tom Green]

Well, that's where the chads were being counted in Florida.

[Bill Maher]

Whatever it was. You know what the truth is? Al Gore and Bush, they played to a tie. And then it was like, okay, the Republicans had the Supreme Court and that was it. And Al Gore said, yeah, you know what, I got robbed. But for the good of the team, that's gone with Trump. And that's why the people who think, oh, Bill, you're so clear eyed about the problems on the left. Yeah, I am, but I'm not coming over to your side. That's so much worse that you guys will not acknowledge when you lose an election. That is a non negotiable with me. You know, we can't, we can't talk about it. That. That's it. That's the essence of the country.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, so.

[Bill Maher]

So I'm moving to Canada is what I'm saying.

[Tom Green]

By the way, we'd love to have you, Bill. We?

[Bill Maher]

My girl, Christia Freeland. And I say my girl like I'm really close and I'm not.

[Tom Green]

But you should move to Canada, by the way.

[Bill Maher]

No, but she used to be on Real Time.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

And now she's going to be the prime minister.

[Tom Green]

Her. Okay.

[Bill Maher]

I'm a big fan.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

She was always great on the show.

[Tom Green]

Who is it though?

[Bill Maher]

Christia Free.

[Tom Green]

Oh, Christopher. Oh, yes. Right. I, I didn't hear you talking about Christopher. She's been on real Time. She's great.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, well she was the minister. Is that, is that she was a minister. I forget what department. But she was very important finance in the Trudeau government. And then quit.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And said she basically didn't believe in him anymore and, and that come up.

[Tom Green]

And campaign on her.

[Bill Maher]

That to me is the woke versus Liberal debate in Canada. The one I'm having here and I'm her.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Do you think she could be the next. She could be.

[Bill Maher]

I hope so. I think she's smart.

[Tom Green]

Trudeau resigned.

[Bill Maher]

Savvy.

[Tom Green]

But she's still not been an election as of yet. So they're going to calling an election soon and there's going to be a leadership race on the Liberal Party because Christia Friedland is running for leader of the Liberal Party and but she's. And there's also Mark Carney as well.

[Bill Maher]

You parliamentarians.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, I am a. I'm not personally one but parliamentary your country. I used to go up there all. I used to go up to the parliament buildings all the time though, when I was a kid in Ottawa, you know, I used to go down there and just play soccer on the front lawn of the Parliament buildings. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

So is that. Are you kidding or are you.

[Tom Green]

No, I actually did do that. Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Because.

[Tom Green]

Because I was doing a. I was doing. I was doing a college radio show in downtown Ottawa and I would say at the end of the show on midnight till two in the morning every Friday night, I'd say, anyone want to come meet me on the front lawn of the parliament buildings? Bring a soccer ball and some pizza and we'll go play soccer out there till 4 in the morning. Then we go and we play soccer on the. Not to cut you off that story, but it.

[Bill Maher]

No, no, no. That's, it's so that's one of the.

[Tom Green]

Fun things I love to do in Ottawa. That's why I, I, you know, when you talk about the Canadian government and Trudeau and all the elections and all that stuff that's going on out there, I also think of it sometimes just in like real personal terms. I basically grew up in Ottawa. Something. When you say Parliament, for instance, I think about, you know, how beautiful our parliament buildings are. Have you seen our parliament buildings? Have you ever. Have you seen them before, Bill? Quite beautiful buildings, by the way.

[Bill Maher]

I wanted to start that way when I got to Cornell. What you're describing. I wanted to be. Get on the college radio and be the College funny prankster on there. I thought that was gonna be my first entree.

[Tom Green]

Yep, yep, yep. And it was the easiest way to get. I did not succeed into broadcasting, though. Through radio, right?

[Bill Maher]

No, I mean, did you do radio for a while? I'm telling you, this is very evocative for me to hear you talk of it because when I went off to Cornell, I had already wanted to be a comedian for 10 years. I just kept it inside. So now I'm away from home. I really wanted to be in New York, like, hanging out at the clubs, but I gotta go to college first. And I thought, yeah, that's it. And I remember practicing, like, in my room, like, to be. Say things like pre. You know, pre ad libs that I could say.

[Tom Green]

Just announcing. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And I never even got the nerve to go audition.

[Tom Green]

Really.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Tom Green]

You wanted to do radio, but you just never.

[Bill Maher]

I was a shy person. I was very, very shy as a teenager. A K. And as a teenager into college.

[Tom Green]

So at what moment do you get up on stage then? When? What age? How does that decision get made?

[Bill Maher]

I. The first time I ever got on stage was in high school. I MC the talent show. And it was so exhilarating to get laughs that I was hooked like a drug. Like a drug I've never had since.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And the next time I got up on stage was at Cornell. They had poetry with reading on, like, Thursday. Thursday afternoon in the Temple of Zeus coffee shop. And I got up there when people are doing poems.

[Tom Green]

Wow.

[Bill Maher]

And I tried to do, like, material.

[Tom Green]

Stand up.

[Bill Maher]

Sure.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Well, it was like a top 10.

[Tom Green]

They must have loved that. I mean, it got to be better than poetry, you know? I mean, I like poetry. I'd rather see someone attempt stand up than someone sincerely pull off poetry, to be honest. Honest with you. It's fun even watching stand up when it fails, really, sometimes. Especially in that environment in college, you must have been good. So you. Did you do that regularly then or.

[Bill Maher]

Well, then, I mean, all the time I was in college, I was like, sort of like, why am I here learning about Homer when I should be, like, in New York City philosophy, telling Joe. I studied all the liberal arts stuff. I got an English major degree, but history, English, classics, I loved mine. The education they gave me at Cornell, I can not front. Awesome. And I. I'm a different person because of it. One who can survive in a cocktail party with anybody.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Not dominate, but survive and not be laughed out of the room.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

With any group of. Except astrophysicists. Not science, but anybody they don't party anyways. But so I give astrophysicists.

[Tom Green]

They don't really ever go out.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I think Neil Degrasse Tyson gets down.

[Tom Green]

Okay. Okay.

[Bill Maher]

I know.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. I guess you know more than I do. You probably. You've met more astrophysicists than me, so I wouldn't really know. I was just speaking off of a hunch, basically.

[Bill Maher]

I'm just. He's just a fun guy.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, not only when you see him on my show or any show, but like I've been with him at Seth MacFarlane's parties and you know, he's just a great, great guy to hang with. And you don't always, you know, he doesn't always want to talk about astrophysic. You know, he would like actually a break from that, I think.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But people.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it's because. Do people come up and ask him sort of technical questions that they really need answered?

[Bill Maher]

I mean, it's. It's like seeing Rocky and wanting to punch him in the jaw.

[Tom Green]

Right, right, right, right.

[Bill Maher]

It's.

[Tom Green]

It's. It's. I don't want to talk about the wormholes or string theory anymore.

[Bill Maher]

That's it. Who else are you gonna like throw that question to that, you know.

[Tom Green]

So when at.

[Bill Maher]

So I see an asteroid that's heading toward Earth.

[Tom Green]

The astronauts.

[Bill Maher]

I said I see an asteroid is heading toward asteroid.

[Tom Green]

Absolutely. Yeah. No, 2032. Yeah, yeah. And there's also. I thought you were talking about the astronauts that are stuck up there, you know, that are.

[Bill Maher]

No, I just think it's a great conversation breaker there.

[Tom Green]

Absolutely. Nice.

[Bill Maher]

I see an asteroid.

[Tom Green]

The entire planet is going to be destroyed in 10 years. What are you planning on doing about that?

[Bill Maher]

A good question. Seven years actually, Tom.

[Tom Green]

But I was never really. Math. Good at math. But yes. Well, 2032. Okay.

[Bill Maher]

I'm torn between seven years trying to survive and kissing my ass goodbye.

[Tom Green]

Saying, making an extra effort to survive seven years so you can see the asteroid. Or would you rather just.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, if it's not.

[Tom Green]

Have to witness that.

[Bill Maher]

If it's going to hit and wipe out all life on Earth, I want it to hit me right in the head.

[Tom Green]

Right, right. Please make it a direct.

[Bill Maher]

I don't want to be. I want to be part of the cleanup committee.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Now how do you. Why do you think they're so exasperated by this? Because I assume it's the same reason why the dinosaurs were wiped out. Because it's not the asteroid itself that's gonna dent the Earth. So Bad it's that it creates a.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, the whole atmosphere is full of dust and the sun is bluffed out and becomes frigid winter and we all freeze to death. Except for those few hardy enough ones who dug little shelters for themselves and lived off freeze dried noodles for the next generation.

[Bill Maher]

How do you think it would have.

[Tom Green]

You want to be part of that group that ate freeze dried noodles underground for a generation to try to repopulate the earth? Or would you rather have a direct hit? You say direct hit?

[Bill Maher]

Well, when you put it that way.

[Tom Green]

You get to continue. You could probably open up a little, you know, comedy club in there or something like that, keep everybody entertained. Repopulate the earth eventually because of you. Because of you keeping everybody underground. Stuff to do.

[Bill Maher]

Literally underground stuff to do.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, so. So when you built the studio here, this has got to have been a lot of fun, right?

[Bill Maher]

Like I'm telling you, it's fun having changed at all.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, well, I'm not talking about the structure. Just when you put the cameras in, started doing the show here, that must have been a lot of fun, right?

[Bill Maher]

I mean, what's fun is that I wouldn't be here with you without it, which is a shame because I'm having such a great time. I always liked you. Liked. I mean, I was disappointed we never got to be friendlier when you were the neighbor. I always thought you were just an innovator and you know, so that's what's great about a podcast is that it's like you can summons people now. They don't have to answer the summons. Yeah, but it's like, I would like to talk to you.

[Tom Green]

So I, I had built a studio in my house in 2005. I was. Had a lot of people over and did a lot of interviews and, and I got to make so many good friends. I got to know Norm MacDonald. I mentioned who I was, you know, idolized growing up. But then I got to. And become friends with him. But you know, he, that's, that's a great thing about doing this. It's fun. So you, you, you. But you've got the, you, you've got a studio here. There's like, there's, there's.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, we got, we have to, I mean, you know, look, I'm trying to make it the least likely, the least. Like a studio.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, no, for sure.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. But yeah, there has to be cameras and, and people operating them somewhere, I assume. I don't get involved with the details.

[Tom Green]

So other than Johnny Carter Larson before 1980, who was your favorite.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I'll tell you who else was, including David Letterman.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

David Letterman didn't come. Didn't come along till 1982.

[Tom Green]

That's why I say.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tom Green]

It was. Yeah, all of the others, right. Merv Griffin, Jack Parr, I mean, the people.

[Bill Maher]

Well, Jack Parr was before my time.

[Tom Green]

Did you like Jack Parr? I bet you like Jack Parr.

[Bill Maher]

I, as I say, before my time.

[Tom Green]

But I mean, have you gone back and looked at his.

[Bill Maher]

All I know about Jack Par. No, I really haven't.

[Tom Green]

Really.

[Bill Maher]

I know about Jack Par.

[Tom Green]

He was great.

[Bill Maher]

Is that my parents spoke well of him.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But my parents are sophisticated so that I can.

[Tom Green]

He was a bit of a disturber too, though. He quit on the air.

[Bill Maher]

Yes.

[Tom Green]

Then he came back a week later and went back in the air and said some funny line like. No, I said. I said, there's got to be a. Because when he quit, he said, there's got to be a better way to make a living than this. Then he quit on NBC Live, walked off and then he went away to Africa and then he came back and he. The show was still a hit. He got the. They gave him the show again after he quit. He came back live on NBC and he said, I went and had a look and when I left, I said there was got to be a better way to make a living. This. I went and had a look and it turns out there isn't, you know, and then he continued the show for like another. I don't know how many years, few years, not too much longer. But. And I mean, Steve Allen after that.

[Bill Maher]

It's amazing that he had to have that revelation or.

[Tom Green]

No, it was Johnny Carson after Jackfire.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tom Green]

Steve Allen. Allen. Jack Park. Johnny Carson.

[Bill Maher]

Correct.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Jack Par. I know, was 57 to 62. So as a toddler, Carson.

[Tom Green]

Incredible interviews, though, with Jack Par. He interviewed, you know, Kennedy well, I mean, again, Muhammad Ali and all these people that.

[Bill Maher]

Well, first of all, the country was so different. The people were. Johnny Carson also used to do an author every night. An author?

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Can you imagine? An author?

[Tom Green]

Was the show 90 minutes?

[Bill Maher]

Yes, it was 90 minutes at the beginning every night.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

The country was different. And so the talk show hosts reflected that Johnny Carson himself, as great as he was, wouldn't survive today. Too slow. Attention spans are different. People's just with the phone and the pace of things and the depth of understanding. No, you can't do the show. He did, and that was just into the early 90s, you know, then Jay Leno was the right guy for the right time.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it's always been very controversial. The whole hierarchy in talk television.

[Bill Maher]

It is interesting. It is sort of like a royal family position in the country. That's the American, the talk show person who. And you know, it's a reflection of where I think. Well it was where the middle was. I mean Johnny and Letterman and Leno, they were in the middle. Now talk shows are just all of them are to very far left. Not to say I wouldn't agree with them on most of those issues, but they do not attempt to please anybody except the people who are already voting for Kamala Harris. If you're not voting for her, you are not going to feel welcome watching this. You're not going to feel welcome watching Saturday Night Live.

[Tom Green]

Exactly. Yeah. And it seems like it's become kind of the priority is to talk about that subject, politics. It used to be a one joke about Reagan or something and then we move on. So the whole monologue's about politics and it's all about the sort of social issues. Oh well, no, not as well.

[Bill Maher]

That is. Yeah. I mean and Leno and Carson, Letterman did jokes about what was going on politically also. But they found a way to do it in a way that wasn't obvious where their feelings were. And there was plenty to be made as there always is on both sides. But that's not where we are now.

[Tom Green]

Why is that? Why isn't there not a more. Is it because it's just social media's divided things so much that you have to pick a side firmly? Is that what it is or because does the Internet made that happen? Because the shows have their Internet. They get all these comments coming through.

[Bill Maher]

I think.

[Tom Green]

Oh, we better like it starts these comments.

[Bill Maher]

Well it starts with Fox News.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

That's the beginning of the problem. There was no such thing as Fox News like a right wing media. Every media organization tried to be down the middle.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

That's why why Leno and Letterman and.

[Tom Green]

Carson tried to be being a non biased observer.

[Bill Maher]

You're not saying to one half of the country we don't even bother. I mean twice when Trump won Saturday Night Live did not do an opening sketch. They had a fucking dirge. Now they just had their big 50th anniversary. Look, Lorne Michaels, I don't know him, never worked for him. Canadian, but yeah, Canadian, yes.

[Tom Green]

I'm just gonna say anytime you mention a Canadian, I'm gonna say they're Canadian. Just so you know.

[Bill Maher]

And he's the biggest Canadian because literally nobody even comes close to the effect this guy has had on comedy for a half a century. I mean, it would be easier to name the comedy movie star who weren't coming through the Saturday Night Live factory. I mean, not to mention the several late night franchises. Just the stamp on the industry.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it's unbelievable.

[Bill Maher]

Is just enormous. But to have a dirge. Okay, so I'm reading this article about him and he says, I said to the cast, and maybe this is in the early days, you know, know we're playing to all 50 states. Well, you're not anymore. Or at least not all people in 50 states. Trump wins. Like, I didn't vote for him either, but I wouldn't do a fucking funeral. Like where the cast is there. Somberly. Oh, we're here. Yeah, it's still America. Yeah, you're fine. Most people will be fine. Yes. There's a lot of shit I don't like. I've got a whole hate list. But this is how America voted America. I thought you loved democracy. But you can't do a sketch, you can't be funny. You have to like tell us how in mourning you are. It's, it's, that's that. That shit leaves me cold.

[Tom Green]

Do you feel it's too partisan? For sure.

[Bill Maher]

Is that what you got out of that story?

[Tom Green]

Sn Elvis have to be like, they won the election. Sure.

[Bill Maher]

And you're a comedy show and the left is so far from perfect. So the idea that we have to have a few.

[Tom Green]

There was always sort of politics in snl, but now more so than ever. I mean it was Gerald Ford fell down a flight of stairs.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, but that's not what's political about that.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, exactly. So. Yeah, well, so why is that though? Why has everything gotten so political?

[Bill Maher]

I guess I think it began with Fox News.

[Tom Green]

Right, exactly.

[Bill Maher]

And then I think they politicized news gatherings.

[Tom Green]

It's not the Internet, it was cable tv.

[Bill Maher]

I think that's the beginning when the.

[Tom Green]

Beginning of recession happened because for viewers he had to split the audience. And, and Right.

[Bill Maher]

Well, first of all, they felt that.

[Tom Green]

It was three channels and Walter Cronkite's on at night. Well, they can be not, they can be non biased and, or, or to be cent central. And then when, when the, when the cable came in.

[Bill Maher]

Okay, now Fox News would say, yeah.

[Tom Green]

CBS never went right wing and NBC went left wing back in 1953.

[Bill Maher]

Exactly.

[Tom Green]

Against each other.

[Bill Maher]

Exactly. What getting to Fox News would say, not without some merit, that it was necessary to have a right wing Media organization because the majority of the media had gone so far left and was in the pocket of the left. Now, there is some truth to that. It got crazy worse, but this is not how it was then. But just as an example, there was a whistleblower at NPR last year, a guy who worked there, I think his name was Uri Berliner. Okay. And he just didn't like the fact that you were squelched if you tried to present anything other than the super, super duper far woke left point of view on NPR.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

So it comes out that of the 87 top managers at NPR, the number who voted Democratic was 87. Now, even if you're a Democrat, that's not a good thing. No, no, that's when you have. That's incest. That's intellectual incest. And you know what incest produces?

[Tom Green]

Well, it's. Is it just. Cause the. Is it regional? I mean, you travel around the country, so, you know, is that what it is? Just. Cause most television has always come out of New York and Los Angeles, I guess. Right. So this is what happened.

[Bill Maher]

Well, yeah, I mean, the media definitely has an enormous effect on how the country's mores change, often for good. Gay marriage would never have happened if Americans didn't see gay people in sitcoms acting like regular people.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

Not horrible people and people you love and tv, nor. And that was a great thing that.

[Tom Green]

Happened after cable too, you'd say, well, that happened.

[Bill Maher]

When was Will and Grace on?

[Tom Green]

Yeah, so cable, when the TV expanded. There was. Yeah, so.

[Bill Maher]

Yes, but it was a network show.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, Network show. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And I'm sure there were other shows and you know, I mean, when I was a child, it was a scandal because at the end of a duet in the late 60s, Harry Belafonte, a black man, like planted, I think, a little kiss on the cheek of a white girl and lost all the Southern affiliates.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Okay. And then at some point, Tom Cruise kissed Thandie Newton in a mainstream movie. William Shatner, Star Trek kiss. Green chicks.

[Tom Green]

Canadian, by the way.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. And has sat there in that chair twice.

[Tom Green]

It must be fun to hang out with.

[Bill Maher]

I love him. Yeah, I love him.

[Tom Green]

You know, he was my first landlord in Los Angeles.

[Bill Maher]

I thought you were gonna say first lover.

[Tom Green]

No, this is.

[Bill Maher]

This.

[Tom Green]

That's not what I said at all.

[Bill Maher]

I know, but it's. But he's a good guy. But why can't we just go with that? It's a better story.

[Tom Green]

When I came to mtv, I rented a house and.

[Bill Maher]

Is that right?

[Tom Green]

He was. He owned the house and rented me and he was. Come over and say hi once in a while.

[Bill Maher]

Great.

[Tom Green]

Lot of fun. Yeah. Great guy. Must be fun to sit, to talk to. I've never gone to interview him. I've gotten to interview people, though. I've done quite a few interviews over the years. I enjoy it. I enjoy.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I couldn't help but notice you fall naturally into that role. You're doing more interviewing than I am. I'm sitting here stoned. You're the guy who's like. And I love it. I mean, I'm more than happy to go either way. But you have this natural inclination. It's great. It's like a curiosity.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Well, it's not a nice opportunity to get to interview. I've not got to get to interview. I have interviewed a lot of people, though, before, because I've done, you know, like, that's something that I've kind of enjoyed the. Really enjoyed kind of trying to. Not just doing it because I like meeting people and like getting to know people, but it's also. Yeah, it's been fun. It's been fun. Like, so what. I mean, I built a TV studio in my living room in 2000. In five. Right?

[Bill Maher]

That's so you. To put it in the living room.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, well, you know, it was. My house wasn't as big as this, so. So I had a couple of rooms. One of them was the living room. That was the room. The only room that was big enough to put a couple cameras.

[Bill Maher]

I get it.

[Tom Green]

But no, it was. It was fun. It was fun. And, you know, it's like there is sort of a. Something about being able to have a.

[Bill Maher]

So when you have guests now to do this in your. In your home where you live now.

[Tom Green]

Well, I'm not really. I'm not really doing a podcast right now where I'm interviewing people, so I'm just kind of not doing that. But. But I may. I may. I may build a podcast studio in my barn, though. I have a barn. Do you have a barn?

[Bill Maher]

I do not have a barn if you mean some place where I keep hay. And do you have any animals?

[Tom Green]

Do you have any pets right now?

[Bill Maher]

Yes, but they're not horses.

[Tom Green]

No. Dogs or.

[Bill Maher]

Yes, dogs.

[Tom Green]

How many dogs do you have?

[Bill Maher]

2 from as of 6 o'clock, but they're very old.

[Tom Green]

Oh, okay. Yeah. How old are they? What kind of dogs?

[Bill Maher]

I mean, what. I mean, one of them's got to be a thousand. I don't know. He's. I mean, I've had him since 2010. And he wasn't a puppy then.

[Tom Green]

A big dog. Like, what kind of dog?

[Bill Maher]

No, he's.

[Tom Green]

Do you know what kind of dog?

[Bill Maher]

That's him as Kid Rock.

[Tom Green]

Oh, like a Chihuahua kind of dog.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, he looks like a Chihuahua. He's not a little.

[Tom Green]

It's a little. He's a half Chico trash.

[Bill Maher]

Chico? Yeah.

[Tom Green]

Nice. Chico.

[Bill Maher]

Hello, Chico. Yeah.

[Tom Green]

Are they both Chihuahuas or.

[Bill Maher]

No, no.

[Tom Green]

Or small dogs?

[Bill Maher]

No. And then Chula is. Chula is half German shepherd shepherd, half pit bull. You'd never guess. It looks like. It looks like a German shepherd, but not as big.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, Good guard dogs that let you know when there's something going on.

[Bill Maher]

No, they're a thousand years old. One of his. Machula's blind, you know. Takes a million years just to get up.

[Tom Green]

Had them since they were puppies.

[Bill Maher]

Well, again, Chico, I'm guessing was about 2 when I had them.

[Tom Green]

You've had them for most of their lives? So they weren't always.

[Bill Maher]

No.

[Tom Green]

When they were younger. Were they good guard dogs? No. Were they good guard dogs? No.

[Bill Maher]

No.

[Tom Green]

But that's always been kind of just a chill dog.

[Bill Maher]

That's my fault because I don't train dogs well. You know, I always say it's kind.

[Tom Green]

Of nice when they don't bark at everything that goes by, actually.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, no. He barks at things that don't go by. I mean, Chico just stands in the middle of the drive. The reason why he's alive, unlike the other one, who never moves because she's blind. I can't blame her, but is because Chicago Chico takes his job very seriously as a guard dog. So if he stands in the middle of the driveway at night and just barks at nothing, he just preemptively wants to tell everybody, don't fuck with me. I'm Chico. I'm here. I'm in the middle of this driveway. I've got one eye, and I can bite. And I will bite.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

He'll bite me.

[Tom Green]

You know, she's doing that because she's trying to protect you.

[Bill Maher]

Yes.

[Tom Green]

No, no, because she loves you.

[Bill Maher]

Chico takes.

[Tom Green]

Loves you and wants to make sure that you are safe.

[Bill Maher]

No, no. Chico takes his job very seriously, and that's what keeps him young.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Or he's not young. It keeps him alive. I don't know how he's still alive, but I'm gl. I'm glad he is.

[Tom Green]

I mean, the last time you saw.

[Bill Maher]

Chico was right before I came over here.

[Tom Green]

So still alive? I. I would say.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. No, I mean, I worry about them. Yeah, like that. Because.

[Tom Green]

Well, it's, it's.

[Bill Maher]

You know, I've buried rock, right. Like maybe 25ft that way from this building. Up that hill is my dog graveyard.

[Tom Green]

Oh.

[Bill Maher]

And there's five graves there.

[Tom Green]

Oh, wow. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You know, and I personally dug all of them because I found it to be a very cathartic experience to dig the grave yourself.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I did one in a howling rainstorm. It was so therapeutic.

[Tom Green]

Do you.

[Bill Maher]

With the tears rolling down my cheeks, mixing with the rain.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, well, it's, it's, it is.

[Bill Maher]

I'd like to thank the Academy.

[Tom Green]

No, no, but it's because. Because you, you know, you're. It is one of the. One of the worst things you have to do. Right. I mean, animals are family, right? These are family. You know, I had to put. I had two huskies for 15 years. I went through that. It's a horrible thing. Right. But. But you have to kind of move on. And they had the. They had great lives. I'm sure. You know, they, you know, they all live.

[Bill Maher]

You know, you appreciate this from apropos to our discussion there about people in the middle and all that shit, but I quoted this lady I read wrote a story in the Free Press last year, and she had lived in New York with her husband. Exactly what you would think of as like a left wing liberal couple in Brooklyn.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

Not bad people. Again, I would probably agree with them on most issues. They decide to move up to the country just like you did. But this is upstate New York.

[Tom Green]

Sure, the Poconos.

[Bill Maher]

That's Pennsylvania.

[Tom Green]

Oh, yeah, Right, right. The. No, sort of. I'm thinking of the. The.

[Bill Maher]

It's closer to where I went to college at Cornell.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

Ithaca, New York.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Ithaca, New York is like outside of Cornell. Yeah, you'd think you were in Alabama.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, No, I. I mean shacks. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And like meth. That kind of stuff.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

Like, as soon as you get out of New York.

[Tom Green]

There's a lot of shacks in methanelab. Alabama, you said you'd think it was like Alabama shacks and meth. I just think. Well, there probably is a lot of shacks in meth in Alabama, I think.

[Bill Maher]

Not in. I'm not saying this in a put down way.

[Tom Green]

No, I want to clarify.

[Bill Maher]

Appalachia. Yeah, sure, Appalachia. Which stretches over, I think, seven or eight states.

[Tom Green]

I'm sure there's meth. Incorrect.

[Bill Maher]

There's. I think there's definitely meth, if I can believe what I saw there.

[Tom Green]

If you're going to bet On a place to have it. That would be the place, probably.

[Bill Maher]

Did you ever see Winter's Bet Bone? Really great movie. Jennifer Lawrence's first movie before she was known.

[Tom Green]

Okay, cool.

[Bill Maher]

And it's about life in, you know, West Virginia.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

Appalachian meth and everybody, it's, it's, it does not have a false note. And as, and I say that as someone who would not know what a false note was in a movie about West Virginia because I don't know about that area, but it just seems very true. Anyway, so why were we talking about that?

[Tom Green]

We just, we're just. Why were we talking about.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, why did we get on to like meth in West Virginia? Well, we were talking about something important.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. You know, we, let's talk about. We wouldn't have to talk about meth anymore. I don't think we really need to talk about meth.

[Bill Maher]

Well, that's one drug. I, I, well, have you done meth?

[Tom Green]

Have you taken meth? I've never taken meth, for the record. I've never, Never.

[Bill Maher]

Yes.

[Tom Green]

Partaken in the meth. Yeah. Cornell, Cornell was, it was a different time. You were, it was, there was, there was sort of. All these drugs were kind of new, experimental. The Beatles were. Right, right, the Beatles, right, Beatles. They started all that.

[Bill Maher]

Well, the Beatles had, had split.

[Tom Green]

They got the ball rolling all that though they mainstream.

[Bill Maher]

This is mid-70s. The Beatles had. John Lenon, hadn't even applied appeared in like three years.

[Tom Green]

No, no. But they, they got the ball rolling on that. And now it's the, now it's Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. What was music.

[Bill Maher]

Zeppelin was huge in the 70s. Yeah.

[Tom Green]

And what were you, were you listening to Zeppelin?

[Bill Maher]

I was listening to Zeppelin, Jackson, Brown.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

Those were my two big ones, big go to's.

[Tom Green]

You listen on a record on vinyl. You had a record player in your place.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, we were still into vinyl. Sure. Or take tapes.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, tapes.

[Bill Maher]

Right, tapes.

[Tom Green]

I was all tapes pretty much. Vinyl had just disappeared basically when I was a kid. So it was cassette tapes was pretty much my era, which was, seemed like it wasn't as cool as vinyl. But now at this time, you know, I would love to be in a cassette tape world right now listening to music on cassette tape or vinyl. You know, it's a, Well, I don't, I don't love having to listen to music on this digital metal stuff, but it's, it's great to have access to the music. But it was nice to just be able to put in that album, push play, listen to the whole Album.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. I don't miss that at all.

[Tom Green]

You really don't?

[Bill Maher]

No. I have my vinyl collection, though.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And kids see it and they just.

[Tom Green]

Flip and you listen to your vinyl a lot?

[Bill Maher]

No. Never.

[Tom Green]

You never listen to it?

[Bill Maher]

Why would I?

[Tom Green]

You never go, do you have a record player?

[Bill Maher]

No. You know what? I.

[Tom Green]

That's probably why. You know, you got to get a good record player.

[Bill Maher]

I use the iPad. IPod.

[Tom Green]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I. I don't want to bore people. I always talking about my love of the ipod. There are advantages to the ipod that I insist.

[Tom Green]

Oh, the actual original ipod.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Tom Green]

Like not your phone.

[Bill Maher]

You have the actual device still with the circle.

[Tom Green]

They still make that.

[Bill Maher]

Or you can get them on ebay.

[Tom Green]

You just have a vintage one.

[Bill Maher]

I have five of them.

[Tom Green]

Wow. And you love.

[Bill Maher]

Because there are advantages to it.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. I agree. I agree with that for sure. I don't have one, but I remember having them because it's nice, because all the music's there. It doesn't disappear. There's no ads popping up. It's your music. You feel like you own it.

[Bill Maher]

Thank you. And also.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. I don't think if you're on a streaming service. I think not every artist is licensed to every service. So I don't think you can have every song you actually want. I mean, can I get all 4000 songs on one service? I know what I can't do is edit the beginning or end of a song, which I can do on an ipod.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Because it's on your computer.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And all you gotta do is go to options and you can. And many songs need the beginning or end clipped.

[Tom Green]

Really? You're not a fan of some over long intros in the 70s rock stuff. You just wanna get right to the guitar solo, right to the first verse. Big intros. In some of those old Led Zeppelin songs, though, it was really.

[Bill Maher]

There's people's phone machine messages on some of those songs.

[Tom Green]

Right, right.

[Bill Maher]

There's people talking to a live audience for two minutes and telling the same story. I want to hear a million times.

[Tom Green]

Did you actually.

[Bill Maher]

There's applause at the end or. Yes. Sometimes musicians do make mistakes and they just put 30 or 40 seconds of some sort of ambient bullshit that's supposed to set up the song, but it doesn't.

[Tom Green]

So this is a pet peeve of yours. And therefore you've gone. It's gonna pet. You've edited a lot of your songs.

[Bill Maher]

It will become. Yeah, well, it's not a pet peeve. A pet peeve. A pet peeve would be.

[Tom Green]

It irritates you enough that you've actually done something about it.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Tom Green]

Like you sit down at a computer and edit the front out of a bunch of songs so you don't have to listen to them ever again.

[Bill Maher]

To listen to the beginning or end.

[Tom Green]

You just don't. You just want to get to the meat of it.

[Bill Maher]

You're making it sound worse than it is. I'm telling you, I'm getting rid of stuff that is. And you're. And you're.

[Tom Green]

I'm just around. But like, I know it's funny to.

[Bill Maher]

Picture you actually going to let you get away with it. The pretending that what I'm taking off is because I'm just sort of some sort of nut. It was a. It was only like a hook junkie. Just give me the middle 30 seconds of that song where they go, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. I'm cutting off actual.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

I'm cutting off the fat off this steak I don't want to eat.

[Tom Green]

I'm not saying it's. It's a nutty thing to do. I'm just saying it's like it's a little more. You're. Most people would just not do anything about it.

[Bill Maher]

That is true.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And that's why I'm not most people.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. It's not crazy. It's just a little bit more than the average person would do. They wouldn't go and cut the song, cut a little file and only carry a vintage iPod.

[Bill Maher]

Two seconds.

[Tom Green]

The only thing that allows them to do that, they just listen to a different song without the intro. They don't like.

[Bill Maher]

Or whatever it takes. It takes 30 seconds.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. That's why I like that the sound quality is better too, I. I think, than through the Internet. Sound quality is actually better also. I'm hearing more resolution or whatever.

[Bill Maher]

Maybe you can do this on a playlist in Spotify or Pandora. Whatever the fuck. Maybe you can do this. So just don't write me letters if you can. But with the ipod, you put it on shuffle. No, with the ipod, you can mark also songs as skip when shuffling. So in other words, of my 4200 songs.

[Tom Green]

Right, right. You won't get this.

[Bill Maher]

I don't want to hear Christmas music un. Shuffle. And there's other stuff I have in there, you know, yoga music. I don't. So I marked all those.

[Tom Green]

Or even particular songs in general. Specific songs.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, I don't want just like upbeat songs, ballads or. No, lots of. But like comedy Record. No, that's not going to come up on shuffle.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. You know, you're listening to music. It's music.

[Bill Maher]

Some of it might be slow, some of it might be song for. I love putting it on shuffle. Frank Sinatra comes up and then Tupac.

[Tom Green]

So this is on your ipod and then it's plugged into your speakers or.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, yeah. It's just.

[Tom Green]

You plug it in the car. When you get the car, do you plug it in the car?

[Bill Maher]

I have one. You can get in the car. Yeah.

[Tom Green]

So it's an ipod.

[Bill Maher]

Not the old ipod in the car, but you can get this music of your.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah. That's cool.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, it is.

[Tom Green]

Music is a very important thing. Like to actually listen to music and enjoy music.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, so important. And now this is. You're going to say is. Is not rational and probably isn't. But I also believe that my ipod on shuffle does speak to me. Like there are messages that come through with the songs that it's picking on shuffle. I mean, it's just. There's too many times and it's been.

[Tom Green]

This is a bit nutty. But. No.

[Bill Maher]

Even for you.

[Tom Green]

So you really do think there's sort of a. Like you. Some synchronistic sort of.

[Bill Maher]

I think the Lord works in mysterious ways.

[Tom Green]

Songs will come on. They're just. It just doesn't make any sense that that would play right now. Is it possible? Like a lot of songs have themes of emotion and it sort of reappear throughout us? Not as much. Because a lot of songs.

[Bill Maher]

That's exactly the right answer to what I'm saying.

[Tom Green]

Bad. A certain day and a sad song comes on and. Oh, you know. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

If it was just that simple.

[Tom Green]

But it's more. More specific than that.

[Bill Maher]

So specific.

[Tom Green]

It really is.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Tom Green]

Wow.

[Bill Maher]

Like, I'll be thinking about a song for a certain reason and then it'll play the first thing up on the shuffle. I mean, it's. It's.

[Tom Green]

I believe in that.

[Bill Maher]

I feel like the Chinese are involved.

[Tom Green]

Somehow with Tick Tock Mates. Tick Tock's algorithm saying that they're. No, there is. So you're consider yourself a spiritual person.

[Bill Maher]

Not up until that minute, but I don't. So in fact, I'm not even sure what it means.

[Tom Green]

Even some form of energy coming from the ipod, though. Some sort of. Maybe that could be God.

[Bill Maher]

That's what I'm saying. It does rhyme.

[Tom Green]

Right, right, right.

[Bill Maher]

I'm just saying. I'm just reporting. I'm not making any judgments or conclusions. I'm just saying. I Mean, the ipod shuffle does speak to me. It just suggests things through the music that it could not possibly have known. We didn't arrange anything. I've never met this magician before. It just does it. It just does it. And I'm not saying this is a reason why they shouldn't make it so that I can't use my ipod, but I do worry about Apple sometimes day just making it. So it just doesn't exist at all. Because, you know, you have to. What I like about it is you can edit all this stuff. Like on your computer, we have a vintage. But then you have to put the, the ipod in the dock to transfer from the computer.

[Tom Green]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, they could cut that off.

[Tom Green]

They could change the format that music's recorded on. I mean, they've MP3s.

[Bill Maher]

No, I don't know what it is, but I mean, I can't do it.

[Tom Green]

All the songs are in a certain file.

[Bill Maher]

But at some point, point I did have to, you know, get a super duper computer expert to undo something. Apple had changed that with the ipod.

[Tom Green]

So your ipod wasn't working for a second.

[Bill Maher]

It would not.

[Tom Green]

Wow. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

It would not re. In, you know.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah. It's, it's. I, I. Because I, it's. I miss owning the music in a tangible way. Right. Where it just doesn't.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tom Green]

You sort of have this organized set of music, whether this is, you know, you could just get a record player and get back to listening music, but they can't take that in the car and all that stuff.

[Bill Maher]

I like the fact that I have the music I have and they can't change it because, you see, they do change songs because, you know, woke Canadian, for example, are the type of people who don't believe in free speech. Like, they don't anymore in Germany or England. And so, like, they will change songs. I saw we have freedom of speech.

[Tom Green]

In the Canadian Charter of rights and freedoms.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, well, you got to fight for it.

[Tom Green]

You know, say whatever we want on up there.

[Bill Maher]

Okay. I hope so.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Because I. They're there.

[Tom Green]

I think it's a little overblown. There's, there was, there was a. Something about sharing news on.

[Bill Maher]

No, it's not Canada, but England has arrested people for opinions on the Internet. I'm not down with that. And so I think there's been some.

[Tom Green]

Misinformation about me getting all Canadian right now. But there's been some misinformation about Canadian freedom of speech, though, that's been floating around out there. Like we've We've got freedom of speech in Canada. It's in our. Our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have freedom of the press, freedom of assembly.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, well, just because something's in a charter, I mean, we have it, too, and Trump is threatening that, and sometimes the left is threatening that.

[Tom Green]

I've never experienced a situation where I can't say something up there. There are. There are hate speech laws in Canada, so there are things you can't say. But you know what? Who would want to say that shit anyways? Right? So.

[Bill Maher]

Well, that's not how. That's not what free speech means.

[Tom Green]

Right. It's a slight. It's a slight light, but it's. There's.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, there's a reason.

[Tom Green]

There's a clearly defined definition of what hate speech is. So it's not overreaching. You know, it's fairly specific. That's. So it's. The Supreme Court pretty much say anything you want, except for extreme things that you would not agree with, I would think, and that nobody would really want to agree with. No civilized society.

[Bill Maher]

You don't know what free speech is, then. You don't know. That's not what free speech is. It's a definition of not free speech.

[Tom Green]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

Like what everybody thinks. Thinks. Not everybody thinks the same. The Supreme Court ruled in our country that the Nazis could march in Skokie, Illinois, which they were marching in, because it is a community of a lot of Holocaust survivors, many of whom were still alive at the time. And the Supreme Court said, as abhorrent as that is, that is what free speech is about. Anybody can defend the speech that we all like, but sometimes it changes what people like, and you just don't want to be limited that way. Now, if you are literally inciting violence or kiddie porn or something like that, yes, there are things, and they're already illegal, but it gets very dangerous, in my view.

[Tom Green]

There was a lot of talk about banning TikTok in America, though. That's almost like a clamping down of.

[Bill Maher]

Well, that was different. That was.

[Tom Green]

They didn't ban it, but I mean, they were.

[Bill Maher]

Well, they were actually. They passed a law to ban it, and Trump, who's king now, just said, I'm undoing that.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, I mean, this probably helps.

[Bill Maher]

Blatantly illegal thing he did.

[Tom Green]

I think it probably was favorable to him. TikTok was favorable to Donald Trump in the election, so why would he want to cancel that?

[Bill Maher]

Well, you know what your old boss is so good at? He's so good at picking. Picking off little Constituencies, like, he got it. Oh, TikTok. Kids love TikTok. What do I care? I'll say. TikTok's legal now. He picks up RFK. He's like, you know, I don't know. This guy's a nut. But you know what? He's got a constituency, which he does. Like people who want to make America healthy again. RFK combines, like, people from the left and people from the right, people libertarian types from the right and super healthy moms from the left who don't want, who want to have raw goat milk. Milk. And don't want their kids to have unnecessary vaccines. So Trump's like, oh, I'll pick off him. I mean, he's gonna pardon this guy who was running a Internet website. He's in jail. That was like, you know, all the nastiest shit.

[Tom Green]

Okay?

[Bill Maher]

And Trump's like, well, no, doesn't hurt me if I. And he'll get like a million, because this guy's got, like a million faithful followers.

[Tom Green]

Sure. Millions.

[Bill Maher]

He's genius at doing that. Like, picking off these little constituency where it doesn't hurt him and it travels.

[Tom Green]

Through the Internet, you know, at the speed of light. More than other things, he pardons rappers. It's like the Kodak Black. He pardoned.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. So, like, pretty.

[Tom Green]

Lots of rap black guys who you like Kodak Black. He's pretty. I'm not sure I could name one of his sons, but I like his music.

[Bill Maher]

I do not know his music. And that's all on me.

[Tom Green]

Why?

[Bill Maher]

Is he really right?

[Tom Green]

No, I mean, I, I've listened to it a bit. I like it, but I don't know. I'm not super aware of everything.

[Bill Maher]

What do you, what do you listen to when you're out on the tractor?

[Tom Green]

I listen to a lot of music that I, I, I was going to ask you that too, but. I did ask you that, but I, if I would go to Psych, I listen to, like, Joy Division, New Order. I listen to Johnny Cash.

[Bill Maher]

Johnny Cash. I know him.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, yeah. I listen to, uh, Johnny Cash. Neil Young. I listen to Neil Young.

[Bill Maher]

Canadian. There is a town in North Ontario.

[Tom Green]

I live in North Ontario.

[Bill Maher]

Absolutely.

[Tom Green]

That's, It's a, it hits close to home when you hear some Neil Young talking about Ontario. It's like Tom Petty singing about Ventura Boulevard, you know, it pulls through.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, I get it.

[Tom Green]

It tugs on the.

[Bill Maher]

That's why I sang it.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, absolutely. No, yeah, yeah. No, I listen to. No, let me think of what else I listen to. I want to, I want to because when I was, when I was younger, I listened to a lot of rap music, but I don't really listen to it as even the music I listened to growing up, it doesn't, you know, I don't feel like listening to. I won't say name the particular bands, but it just. I don't feel like listening to rap music that much as an adult. I want to listen to something more like calming, something that's going to calm me down, you know.

[Bill Maher]

But when you get done with this RV trip that you're on.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it's. It's sort of. Yeah, it's not an ongoing thing. We're just. I'm heading back up to Canada tour.

[Bill Maher]

You guys stay put for a while.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, I'm touring, doing stand up, so I'll be going out doing shows and, and working.

[Bill Maher]

What do you, what do you. When you're on the road, like, so how many do you do? Like a bunch in a row?

[Tom Green]

On this particular trip, it's been driving, so it was one nighter. So it's in Chattanooga, Nashville. And then.

[Bill Maher]

And you drive to like a band.

[Tom Green]

I. I was on this trip. I did, you know, over the last 20 years. I usually flew out, but when Covid happened, I kind of got this van and I started enjoying driving around because, you know, rather than going to a comedy club for a weekend and doing four shows, it's more like I'll just do one nighters across as I go and then not have to go to the airport, not have to go through all that.

[Bill Maher]

What do you do after this show?

[Tom Green]

Well, right now I'm traveling with my fiance, so we're having a great time. We go, you know, get dinner and do what a man and his fiance does after a show.

[Bill Maher]

You. Well, I don't know what you thought this program was, Mr. Green, but it's a family of. It's a family show and we don't like intimation other than that.

[Tom Green]

Other than, you know, we, we go get dinner and go visit the city. We're. And we have a few days off here and there. So we. Well, like right now, like we're not actually doing any shows until I'm in Colorado in a couple of weeks. So I'm here in Los Angeles for, you know, here's something. I left Los Angeles and had not come back for three and a half, almost four years until three days ago. So I lived here for 18 years. I lived here for 20 years.

[Bill Maher]

Really.

[Tom Green]

When Covid happened, I sold my house. When Covid happened that I'd owned for 18 years.

[Bill Maher]

There's nothing that brought you here.

[Tom Green]

Well, I came here to see you.

[Bill Maher]

No, I mean, in all that time.

[Tom Green]

No, there's nothing. Well, I wasn't trying to purposely avoid it, but I just kind of. Of. Yeah, it was sort of. There was no real reason to come other than I have friends here that I missed, but I talk to them all the time on the phone and stuff and FaceTime and stuff, so. So you're kind of excited about setting up this farm, but this. So this is actually the first time I've been back, so it's kind of interesting.

[Bill Maher]

And this is. This is on Netflix Prime.

[Tom Green]

Amazon Prime. Amazon prime, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's on prime.

[Bill Maher]

And, you know, they didn't tell me to watch it, but I'm anxious to see it.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, it's fun.

[Bill Maher]

I should have seen it already. Already. I'm sorry.

[Tom Green]

It's okay.

[Bill Maher]

I just wasn't told. But it's on Amazon called.

[Tom Green]

I don't think we would have talked about a lot of the things we talked about tonight if. If you had watched it. So I think it worked out for the best.

[Bill Maher]

That was Larry King's thing. Always, like, he would do very little prep, and he'd be like, hey, I want to be the guy who wants to know if I know. Why am I asking?

[Tom Green]

You know, I was Larry's guest host.

[Bill Maher]

You say love her again, and I would. Disappointed.

[Tom Green]

Not love her again. I'm sorry. It was. But I was as I. I guest hosted his final show show that he was doing there over. Did you ever do a show in Burbank in that church?

[Bill Maher]

A million times. Oh, in Burbank.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, when he was doing it on Aura tv.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, Russian tv.

[Tom Green]

No. Well, he had a show on Russian tv, which was politicking, and then he had a talk show on Aura tv.

[Bill Maher]

I feel like you got to know when to get off the stage. I mean, Larry had a great run, and I loved him.

[Tom Green]

Yeah, but I thought you were talking about us right now.

[Bill Maher]

But. But no, because we got real gigs. But. But, like, you know, Russian tv, they're gonna get. Not gonna. I'm not gonna hang on on Russian tv.

[Tom Green]

No.

[Bill Maher]

And I'm not going on that. One of those celebrities, you know, go in the jungle.

[Tom Green]

Yeah. No. Yeah. Or. Or a business competition with.

[Bill Maher]

All right, let's wrap it up.

[Tom Green]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I could build a. So much fun.

[Tom Green]

So, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Welcome back to the homestead.

[Tom Green]

Thank you, man.

[Bill Maher]

Thank you for the weed whacker. And I. I'll get you into what if okay.

[Tom Green]

Thank you, Club Random.

[Bill Maher]

That was so much fun. Thank you.

[Tom Green]

Thank you. An honor. An honor and a pleasure. Thank you, Bill Random.