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- [00:00]
Theo Von
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [00:22]
Tom Green
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 terms@mintmobile.com I want to let.
- [00:31]
Theo Von
You know we've restocked all your favorites on the merch site. Everything is in stock. You can show up theovonstore.com and thank you so much for the support. I have some new tour dates to tell you about. I'll be in Chicago, Illinois on April 24th at the Wind Trust Arena, Fort Wayne, Indiana on April 26th at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum and Miami, Florida on May 10th at the Cassia Center. We also have tickets remaining in East Lansing, Victoria, B.C. in the Canada, College Station, Belton, Texas, Oxford, Mississippi, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, Winnipeg in the Canada and Calgary in the Canada. All tickets@theovon.com T O U R Today's guest is a comedian. He's an actor, he's a filmmaker, he's an innovator, He's a, he's a, he's a visual entrepreneur who really laid the blueprint for podcasting and prank shows in all types of genres. He's had one of the most unique and legendary careers in comedy, from the Tom Green show on MTV to as many movies like Freddie Got Fingered, Road Trip. He just dropped three new projects on Prime Video, a comedy special, a documentary and a scripted show. We'll get into all that. We're excited to welcome Canada's son, Mr. Tom Green. Tom Green, it's your first day back in LA in four years.
- [02:25]
Tom Green
Did you say yeah? Yeah. Feels good, actually. It's. Yeah, it was weird. I just moved four years ago. It was kind of somewhat spontaneous decision, you know, when Covid happened, remember that? And everything stopped. And all of a sudden, you know, I've been touring and everybody stopped touring right at the beginning.
- [02:47]
Theo Von
Everything kind of just stopped.
- [02:48]
Tom Green
I'm trying to remember if it was just me that stopped or did everyone stop?
- [02:51]
Theo Von
Everyone stopped.
- [02:52]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah. So about the first six months or so of that, I was kind of, I'm going to do. And then I just kind of realized I, well, I got this. I was telling you about my van. I got this van and I started going out into the desert and making videos and stuff here outside of la, Just outside la. And I loved being out in the desert so much and just waking up in the morning with a cup of coffee and just looking at the sun coming up over the mountains and just the peacefulness of that. Yeah, it's out in the Mojave Desert. That was like the first day of the trip, I think four years ago. And so then, you know, I just decided to sell my house. I'd been in my house for 18 years. I sold my house and went back to Canada and bought a farm near where my parents live. And just. I can't believe four years went by. But yesterday was first day back in Los Angeles in the van. We drove back down to the van. So I've been touring with my friends fiance who you just met. I have a fiance now. Went back to Canada. I've got a fiance from Canada now.
- [03:48]
Theo Von
Yeah, good choice.
- [03:49]
Tom Green
And. And we came back in the van and. And just drove into town yesterday. And it's pretty weird because it's like. It feels like I. Nothing's really it. It kind of makes you think about time. Time is weird, you know, because I went away for four years and then you come back and I drove past my house that I lived in for almost 20 years. And now I'm staying in a hotel right down across from where the house is. I can actually see the house from the hotel room. I sort of did that on purpose because I thought it would be weird. And I'm going to this. I went to Arts Deli, you know, I lived sort of in the Studio City area here and I went to Arts Deli and got my same pastrami sandwich and my chicken noodle soup and I've been going to some of the same restaurants. Just been here for a day and. And it doesn't feel like it's been four years. It feels like I actually, I'm driving here. You know, today I was. I sort of almost forgot that I didn't. Didn't live here anymore. I kept thinking, oh, I'll go back to my house after. Oh, right. I don't live here anymore. So that's a strange thing. But on the flip side, in the last four years I've got a farm which I've now really settled into. I've got these incredible animals which are now I'm really bonded with this mule and this donkey and two horses and chickens. And it's just like this. It's Sort of been an incredible, incredible journey the last four years. So, yeah, it's been cool.
- [05:16]
Theo Von
Was it something that you always wanted to have? You feel like a farm? I guess every human kind of maybe feels something like that. I'm going to get a little bit of land. I'm going to get some animals. Was it that or was it.
- [05:25]
Tom Green
No. It's weird because I never really imagined having a mule, you know, like, and riding a mule every day. I didn't grow up with that, you know, I grew up in the suburbs of Ottawa, Canada. I'm outside of Ottawa, but. But.
- [05:39]
Theo Von
And a mule is kind of like the El Camino of horses in a way. You know, it's very much the, you know what I'm saying? It's not, it's not me saying, hey, I'm gonna get a horse. It's like, I'm gonna get a mule.
- [05:48]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah. I sort of thought, initially, I thought it would be kind of funny. And then the mule I happened to find, Fanny is her name, and she's this beautiful mule. She's this huge animal. And that's Kia, the donkey in the background. And so. And so it's just become this sort of amazing change. But yeah, you know, initially I hadn't, I hadn't really thought of necessarily getting a farm with a mule and all this stuff, but I wanted to get a place that was kind of in nature, really was. And then the farm happened to have these old barns on it, and I thought, be kind of cool to get a mule in those barns. So I, I, I now am very much loving life up there. I get up in the morning and I saddle her up and ride off into the wilderness.
- [06:38]
Theo Von
It's pretty cool, really. So does it. And that's never something that you wanted. That was never like a thing of your whole life. Like, I want to have this thing. It just kind of.
- [06:45]
Tom Green
Yeah. I mean, I always loved animals, you know, my dog Charlie, and I've always enjoyed being outdoors. But I mean, it just, it just kind of. I know every once in a while, you know. You know, sometimes when an idea pops into your head and then you just go with it, and then all of a sudden you've done it. This is like that. Except it sort of occurred to me afterwards, you know, as, as I was doing, I was realizing, you know, I'm going to have this mule for the rest of my life, you know, like, they live to be donkeys, live to be up to 40, 50 years old.
- [07:16]
Theo Von
Oh, God. Really?
- [07:16]
Tom Green
He is only three. So. So it's a lifelong commitment.
- [07:20]
Theo Von
And the doggy could live after you.
- [07:22]
Tom Green
Absolutely. She probably, probably will. But. Yeah, so it's. So. But it's, you know, it's. It's. I think maybe I was looking for something that would kind of ground me and, you know, give me that home base that I needed. You know, this is the first. This is the first time I've ever lived somewhere where I know I'm going to be there for the rest of my life. You know, I'm planting trees. Like, I'm thinking, oh, in 20 years I'm going to. That tree is going to be in. These trees are going to be bigger. And I'm kind of sort of plotting out things that way. And.
- [07:48]
Theo Von
Yeah, that's interesting. I can totally relate with that. And what you're saying about LA just feels like this kind of. It's almost like LA doesn't have a memory in it. It feels like, I don't know, other places, I think, especially if it's a place that's a little more grounded, it feels maybe more meaningful for some reason. I don't know.
- [08:06]
Tom Green
Yeah, it's. I mean, it's weird. I move here. I moved here when I was 28. I think it was 28 or 29 when I moved to LA. I'm 53 now and I mean, I loved it. I had a great time here. I wasn't leaving LA because I didn't, you know, like LA or anything. It was just. It was more. I wanted to be closer to my parents and they're still doing good and I wanted to be close to family and stuff and. But. But yeah, it's. It is a. It is a unique place, for sure. People come here from all over the world, pursue their dreams, and there's sort of a energy there that's exciting. But, you know, when you. As I got a little older, you know, I left when I was 50 and, you know, not married, no kids. Covid happened.
- [09:00]
Theo Von
Wake up.
- [09:00]
Tom Green
I'd been in my house for 18 years. The real estate market went up. I was like, oh, maybe I should sell it now, as opposed to, you know, five years ago. I wouldn't want to. So there was a moment in time. Maybe I'll sell this place, you know, that I've been living in for 20 years, waiting for the right moment to. To feel like it was time to go. And because, I don't know, I kind of felt like I. I wanted to be back where I grew up, you know, I mean, you're not, you're not from Here either. So, you know, it's. There's something. There's something. There's something very sort of, I guess, deep that you feel when you're home, you know? I know. I'm sure. Where are you from? Tennessee.
- [09:39]
Theo Von
I'm from Louisiana. I live in Tennessee.
- [09:41]
Tom Green
Louisiana.
- [09:41]
Theo Von
But, yeah, it gives you. Yeah. There's a sense of, like.
- [09:45]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [09:45]
Theo Von
That you've been out of your soil for a long time, you know, that you've kind of, like, when you go.
- [09:49]
Tom Green
Back to Louisiana, you must feel like, now I'm at home. Right. This home.
- [09:53]
Theo Von
Oh, there's definitely a ton of nostalgia that I love. You know, I think it makes sense that a part of you wants to kind of go back where you came into the world at or be there, you know, to be. See people that care about me.
- [10:06]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [10:07]
Theo Von
See that. See people that I care about. Wonder if you've gotten enough of the, like, the adventure out of your system. In some ways, you can still have the adventure, but just have it from there, you know?
- [10:17]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [10:18]
Theo Von
And I think also the part like, you're saying about this is the first time you'd ever, like, planted plants. You're like, I'll see these. I've always felt like my life was very transient. Like, I was just passing by. I've never been the type of guy to get, like, a lot of furniture or artwork or anything. I'm always just like, I don't know how long I'm going to be here. And it's always. And here I am in my 40s, and it's still. I still kind of operate like that. But at a certain point, it's like, yeah, you want something that's a little bit more settling, and if you found a fiance, I'm sure that kind of helped a little bit.
- [10:48]
Tom Green
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Amanda's here. We're. It's her first time in Los Angeles.
- [10:52]
Theo Von
You get to be a host and a tour guide.
- [10:53]
Tom Green
That's kind of nice, showing around my. My old hometown. My. My new old hometown. Yeah.
- [10:58]
Theo Von
Yeah. And a camper, too. Dude. What was that about?
- [11:00]
Tom Green
Yeah, so that's. That's been pretty wild. It's so, like. Because when I got this van, I. I kind of got pretty good at it, like, going to really remote places in the American Southwest, particularly like in New Mexico, Utah.
- [11:16]
Theo Von
Zion. You go to Zion?
- [11:17]
Tom Green
Yeah, I went to Zion. I did camp in Zion. But, like, there's. There's. There's this other kind of land called BLM land. It's Bureau of Land Management land that is basically all of the desert and land that is owned by the US Government, it's managed by the Bureau of Land Management. And they. They'll cut roads into the desert and they'll put sort of campsite areas with fire pits and stuff. They kind of keep it somewhat organized so that people don't go driving all around the desert and trash in the desert. They have these roads and stuff. So you can get. I got this app, it's called Dirt D Y R T. It's like, it's basically an app that gives you all the different locations of these sort of really obscure places that are not even in national parks or anything.
- [12:02]
Theo Von
D U I R T yeah.
- [12:04]
Tom Green
Yeah. And so it kind of, like, you find stuff that is just unbelievable. Like, you know, I sort of can't stop talking about it to people that don't know about it. But, like, I mean, you may know about Chaco Canyon, but I'd never heard of it before. It was. It's this. It's. It's in New Mexico. And in fact, if you go to my last YouTube video on my YouTube channel, that's just a video I shot a couple of days ago, and you can scroll down to, like, the second video. The second video. This is Chaco Canyon. So this is like, Native American ruins that are essentially, like, built in the year875. It's like, you know, and it's like this. It's a city, you know, it's like a city in the desert. And it's just out there in the middle of northern New Mexico. This is Amanda, my fiance, Amanda. And. Yeah, I think so. I'm just going around making these videos and. But you'll see, like, look at this place. So it's like, you know, everyone always talks about Machu Picchu in Peru, and they talk about all these incredible things in, you know, ancient, you know, you know, places. But, like, the fact that you can just drive out of Albuquerque, you know, drive north of Albuquerque, you know.
- [13:17]
Theo Von
Wow. This is there.
- [13:18]
Tom Green
Yeah, this is there. And it's really remote. Like, it's on the Navajo Nation land. And so we just were out there camping for four nights and exploring and hiking off into this beautiful desert and.
- [13:33]
Theo Von
Getting some good rest out there. Do you get good rest when you're out on the road?
- [13:36]
Tom Green
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
- [13:37]
Theo Von
God, that's nice.
- [13:38]
Tom Green
It's nice. Just, it's quiet.
- [13:39]
Theo Von
That's the tough thing to get.
- [13:41]
Tom Green
Cooking on the campfire and. And it's just been fun. And I enjoy photography.
- [13:46]
Theo Von
You know, you're shooting this really well.
- [13:49]
Tom Green
Yeah, I got sort of lots of different cameras and stuff, and I. I like to kind of do that. So it's. There's something about shooting out in the desert that's just so beautiful because you have these long horizons and, you know, big open spaces. But. And there's an energy there that is just something that's hard to put your finger on. But it just, you know, I. I always kind of, sort of. I never really. Kind of really maybe didn't even believe in that when I was younger, when people would talk about the energy. And Sedona's got this energy, but, you know, I feel this energy out there that's just of the people that live there that built that place. It's. It's. It's. And. And other places like it. So it's kind of fun to go seek those places out, you know?
- [14:30]
Theo Von
Yeah, you'll meet a lot of women. You're like, I never have a period when I'm in Sedona or whatever. And you're like, well, that's. What are we talking. I'm saying, like. But there's some crazy.
- [14:38]
Tom Green
You met a lot of women that have said that?
- [14:40]
Theo Von
I mean, I just think you meet a lot of women.
- [14:42]
Tom Green
Yeah. Who are, you know, very specific thing for a lot of people to have said. But.
- [14:45]
Theo Von
Yeah, a lot of women are keeping crystals in the wrong places, probably, you know. But, yeah, you meet a lot of wild people who are into that sort of thing. But I think that's probably like. I mean, the natives. It always feels to me like the natives are probably so in touch, more in touch with the earth and locked in on, like, the feeling of, like, the best places to be. That's why they loved being in, like, the Dakotas and in the Black Hills and stuff like that. And so to be able to go to one of those ruins, I bet. I bet there's still a lot of, like. Just a lot of prehistoric or, like, native connection that's just looking for souls to pass through, you know?
- [15:19]
Tom Green
Yeah. What you just said is, like, really interesting because I was talking to basically, an archaeologist the other day, and he said exactly what you just said. Like, there's this thing called intuitive archeology where they go. Because there's still stuff out in the desert that people haven't even found yet. Like, it's how big it is and how vast it is. And so they go out into these canyons in northern Arizona and Utah looking for signs of, you know, ancient settlements and stuff. And, you know, they're sort of Taught to intuitive archeology. If you're in a place that feels like it would be a nice place to have lived, you know, a beautiful place, yeah, there's a good chance that feeling is correct, and then you should sort of listen to that instinct and start looking for signs of ancient civilization. But it's pretty amazing because you do feel something out there. I don't know. I was. I was talking about this friend the other day, too. Like, you ever go in, like, an old comedy club that's been, you know, like Zany's in Nashville or downtown Chicago is an old club, you know, and you see all the old pictures from the comics from back in the 70s and 80s, and. And it's. You know, that club's been there forever, and you kind of feel the energy of. Of you see a lot of comics that have passed away on the wall, and you say, oh, my God, Sam Kinison performed here. You know, I can sort of feel that energy of the performance in the room, you know, so, you know, that's. That's from 40 years ago or whatever. But now you take it back to the year875. You're out in the desert and this. This place, Chaco Canyon, was a whole society is like, where they did trading and people came from all over North America there. And so it's. It's a very peaceful thing that I do enjoy it quite a bit.
- [17:15]
Theo Von
And is that something that you and your fiance have? Kind of something you've really. Is that something you guys have found you like doing together? I mean, so to go camping, a lot of people would end up getting separated usually. I feel like this is her first.
- [17:29]
Tom Green
Time actually really coming to. Throughout a lot of the United States, too. So she's. She's from Canada and hasn't been out to the desert before, so. But she's. I mean, she's. She's. We're having fun, you know, we're having fun out there, but it's. It's, you know, we just have. This is our first trip doing this, so it's been cool.
- [17:50]
Theo Von
Was it scary to get engaged because you've been married before you briefly.
- [17:57]
Tom Green
Yeah, I was briefly married, yeah. And then a long time ago, too. Yeah.
- [18:00]
Theo Von
And you hadn't been married since, though?
- [18:02]
Tom Green
No, no.
- [18:02]
Theo Von
Okay.
- [18:03]
Tom Green
It's first time engaged since, you know. No, it was not scary because.
- [18:07]
Theo Von
Because that was Drew Barrymore. Right. 27, in this 2000, early 2000s or something?
- [18:11]
Tom Green
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But no, it wasn't scary because Amanda's amazing, you know, so I knew it was. It was the. It was the right thing. The. The right. This was. This was the thing to do. This had to be done.
- [18:23]
Theo Von
So that feels like the hard decision. Yeah, I think that's the thing. Like, yeah, I would like to get married. You know, And I'm just thinking, like, man, that day when you're like, all right, I guess I'm gonna get married today. That sounds crazy when I say that out loud.
- [18:35]
Tom Green
You know, you're a young guy, too. To think that there was a lot of things that happened that, you know, I don't know if you want to talk about. You know, I'm talking a lot about energy, but coincidences and synchronicity and things like this. I moved back to Canada, and I have a pond on my property, and in the winter, it freezes over. And I shoveled the snow off the pond, and I was playing hockey on the pond. Like, skating. Playing hockey on the pond. Shot a video of that and put it up on the social medias. There we go.
- [19:11]
Theo Von
Wow, that's beautiful.
- [19:12]
Tom Green
Here we are out at the. Out at the pond. Wow. You got a fast guy on the draw out there on the. I just literally just said that. And he instantly found. Yeah, we're. So we're drilling a hole in the pond here, and that's. Then we can pump the water out of that back on top of the pond and give it a nice, smooth. I see. That's my friend Ryan.
- [19:32]
Theo Von
Oh, wait. So what are you using here to do this? This is a.
- [19:34]
Tom Green
It's just a little sort of a. Kind of some sort of an ice auger or some sort. Okay.
- [19:38]
Theo Von
So that. So you take the whole. And then you.
- [19:40]
Tom Green
Now we got a pump. We just stick a fire hose down in there. We pump water out of it. We pump it up on top of the. Of the. Of the ice and just basically flood the ice. And then it freezes, because at night. And then we get nice. Some nice, smooth ice out there.
- [19:53]
Theo Von
How long does that process take?
- [19:54]
Tom Green
Just a day. You know, this just took a day. The next morning was completely. Completely frozen. But then you get two feet of snow, and then you got to do it all over again, but. Which kind of puts a damper on it.
- [20:05]
Theo Von
Wow, this is so cool. So that right there that you're on is a lake.
- [20:08]
Tom Green
It's a pond. It's a pond. Yeah.
- [20:10]
Theo Von
Okay, so that's a pond. There's the dock. So usually it's water.
- [20:12]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah.
- [20:13]
Theo Von
It's right now. You cut the holes, you're pumping the water. Out of the.
- [20:16]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [20:17]
Theo Von
Pond.
- [20:17]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [20:18]
Theo Von
Onto the top of the ice, which is on the top of the pond.
- [20:20]
Tom Green
Yeah. And then it gets. It's cold, you know, it's below zero. So then the next morning, it was pretty much ready to. Now, normally, you would shovel it off first, but we just kind of. We're kind of a little lazy about that, I guess, and we just flooded it instead, which it ended up working out fine, but probably would have been better if we shoveled it off first, but that seems like that would have been a lot of work.
- [20:40]
Theo Von
Yeah, you don't need to do that.
- [20:41]
Tom Green
But there you go. See? And then. So, yeah, so we were doing this, and then I was. I was shooting these videos, playing hockey. There we go.
- [20:50]
Theo Von
This is the next day.
- [20:51]
Tom Green
Yeah, it's like, probably next day. Yeah.
- [20:53]
Theo Von
So this is a common practice in Canada.
- [20:55]
Tom Green
Well, you know, if you have a pond, I mean, those are the. Those are the barns in the background. That's the. My house up there behind there. And so, you know, we used to do it in my backyard when I was a kid. Like, we used to flood the backyard and.
- [21:09]
Theo Von
Yeah, Gretzky talked about that right. When he was on his backyard.
- [21:13]
Tom Green
That's cool. Yeah, pretty cool. Amazing. The great one.
- [21:15]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [21:16]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [21:16]
Theo Von
So I saw him at the inauguration. He lost a tooth.
- [21:19]
Tom Green
Okay.
- [21:20]
Theo Von
It fell.
- [21:20]
Tom Green
The inauguration. He lost a tooth.
- [21:22]
Theo Von
Yeah, I chipped my tooth. And I walked up to him, I was like, man, I chipped my tooth. And he's like, oh, yeah. And he showed me this and freaking lost when him and his wife were looking for it on the ground.
- [21:29]
Tom Green
Okay. But it had been knocked out previously in a hockey game of some sort.
- [21:33]
Theo Von
Something. I think.
- [21:34]
Tom Green
You didn't get punched out at the inauguration.
- [21:36]
Theo Von
No. I think he could have been shocked by some things he saw, and maybe. Maybe that took it out. But, yeah, he was just missing a grill piece at the inauguration. It's just pretty bizarre, man.
- [21:45]
Tom Green
That's cool, dude.
- [21:46]
Theo Von
That's amazing. So these are the types of things you're spending time doing up there. You really document it really beautifully. And a lot of that doesn't even have a lot of audio with it. It's really just seeing. I've noticed in some of your videos, it's just kind of seeing what's going on.
- [21:57]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah. I kind of like to just kind of do these sort of ambient sort of sort of things to kind of just kind of bring you into a certain place. I like. It's sort of like. It's like. I like photography. This is just doing it with video and. Yeah, being. Being there. But after I posted that video, Amanda, my fiance, she saw it and she sent me a message on Instagram. This is how we met. And it was a video of a Zamboni, a do it yourself Zamboni, which is what? A Zamboni is what you use to clean off the ice in a hockey rink. Right. And so it was this homemade one. And we started. I just started talking to her because I thought it was a funny thing to send. And we. Turns out we went to the same elementary school and. Yeah, it was just sort of. It was, it was, it was just went. Went from there. So.
- [22:43]
Theo Von
Cool. Congratulations.
- [22:44]
Tom Green
Yeah, thanks, man.
- [22:45]
Theo Von
So, and did you meet your parents yet or no.
- [22:47]
Tom Green
Oh, yeah, she did. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
- [22:49]
Theo Von
Were your parents happy to have you back home? What was that like?
- [22:52]
Tom Green
Yeah, no, they are, for sure. Yeah. No, no hesitation. They were excited for me to come home, believe it or not, you know, because sometimes people wonder, you know, because I used to do a lot of pranks on them. Do they still talk to you? You know, but my parents, we were always very close. Even when I was doing my show on MTV and, you know, doing pranks on them and, you know, annoying them with the video camera, they would sort of laugh afterwards and. And we've, you know, always had a very close relationship. They're actually in my new show on. On Prime. It, you know, it's sort of about me moving home.
- [23:26]
Theo Von
Okay.
- [23:26]
Tom Green
Shows about me moving home.
- [23:27]
Theo Von
That's I Got a Mule. That's not that, is it?
- [23:29]
Tom Green
That's my Stand up special.
- [23:30]
Theo Von
Okay. That's the Stand up special. That's on. That's on prime as well, right?
- [23:33]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. And there's a documentary on prime and then the show called Tom Green country and sort of sort of about me settling in at the farm. And. And they're hilarious. I mean, they really make the show. Like there's something about their sense of humor is. Is they're kind of razzing me in the new show more than me pulling pranks on them. I don't do that anymore.
- [23:53]
Theo Von
Kind of full circle.
- [23:54]
Tom Green
They've retired from being pranked, from being a victim. Yeah, absolutely.
- [23:59]
Theo Von
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- [27:18]
Tom Green
Yeah, I think there was kind of a, A few layers to that for sure. I mean, that's a cool question. It's a great question because like, one thing was we never really had, you know, you know, a video camera or you know, you know, when I was, I grew up in the 80s, so we didn't have a video camera or even in a film camera. We didn't even take a lot of photos. And you know, we. That was kind of expensive. You know, people that had a video camera state like, you know, a lot of money. Video camera. We never had a video camera, you know, and so when all of a sudden they became somewhat attainable, you know, I, I would, I would sort of sign one out at school and I would, I found that it was kind of a. First of all, I loved comedy, so I loved, you know, David Letterman. I love watching him go out in the street and, you know, do stuff. And I loved, you know, Monty Python and you know, just sctv and I just love comedy. I was, I was start. Was doing stand up comedy in Ottawa when I was 16 years old and like I was, would go down to watch, you know, Norm MacDonald, you know, his 20s, you know, and I'm just like, it was sort of a. This amazing thing and I somehow had this sort of feeling that if I could just get a video camera and go film stuff that, you know, maybe I could, you know, make a show or whatever. But it was also a skateboarder, you know, and that was, that was sort of skateboarding videos were. Holy. Look at this. This is amazing. How did you find that so fast? Yeah, there me at 16 years old. Yuck. Yucks.
- [29:00]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [29:01]
Tom Green
How did you find that so fast? I don't even know how. You must have had that in advance. That, that is unbelievable. Is there some sort of weird algorithm here or something like that?
- [29:07]
Theo Von
I don't know if they did or not, but. Yeah, it looks great.
- [29:09]
Tom Green
Wow.
- [29:10]
Theo Von
Yeah, you look so.
- [29:11]
Tom Green
Yeah, look at that microphone too. It's like. I don't know, they didn't even use the right microphone back then, but. But I. No, I just, I don't know. I often kind of like think there's something about like. I don't know, I think I've always been really afraid of the concept of like being dead, you know, like being gone and like there being no sort of, you know, recollection of anything that you've ever done. Right. And I always found it interesting to just kind of document things and just Record things. And that'll be there, you know, in some electronic way, floating around there forever and sort of feels, in a little way, like kind of like sort of a weird kind of immortality in a way. You know, I think that's kind of what fascinates me about these. These ruins in the desert, too. Like, these people came and built these things in the year875. And now I'm walk through it and looking at it and filming it and talking about it with you. And so they're kind of, in a way, kind of remembered, you know. Yeah. And then there was also just kind of the blatant. You know, when I was younger, I was a little. Quite a bit different than I am now. I think I've calmed down quite a bit. Like, when I was younger, I really always needed to be kind of like, you know, the center of attention, the class clown. Moving around a lot was weird as a kid. So to me, it seemed like a really good way of just kind of, you know, documenting all of this silliness, you know, and. And I loved it. You know, I love filming stuff and showing it to.
- [30:49]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [30:49]
Tom Green
At school. And it was.
- [30:50]
Theo Von
You captured so much. You were one of the first people really, to just capture and just show it to people kind of, you know. You know, like. Kind of like, not. But, I mean, just catch.
- [30:59]
Tom Green
Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Actually, actual. Was involved quite a bit.
- [31:02]
Theo Von
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We're gonna capture and show it to you.
- [31:06]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [31:06]
Theo Von
What do you mean? Like, this is what we mean. And I can totally relate to what you said about. Dude, I used to. When I was, I guess, probably turning around 20 to probably 28, I would make postcards and I would send them to my kids that weren't even born yet. Like, whenever I was traveling somewhere, I would send them. I would make them out to my kids. I just wanted my kids to know that I'd been. I needed there to be some.
- [31:31]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [31:32]
Theo Von
Record that I, like, cared about my children, even though they weren't here yet, which is kind of a crazy thing. But it made me think about what you're saying. Like.
- [31:39]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [31:39]
Theo Von
And I would scrapbook. I would save things. Like, I just wanted there to be, like, some proof that I felt something in the world and that I existed. Right. I think I just didn't. I don't know if I just didn't have a lot of that, like, or I needed an insane amount of proof, and so that's why I did it. But, yeah, I could just. I could definitely relate to that, to wanting to have some timeline.
- [32:06]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [32:06]
Theo Von
Of. So I, you know, just in case time ever showed up and said, hey, were you here I could buy. Well, yeah, yeah, yes, here I was, you know. Yeah, I could show you my homework kind of or something, you know.
- [32:17]
Tom Green
Absolutely, yeah, I can relate to that because I talk a little bit, my stand up special about, about not having kids and I, I sometimes think it's kind of a bit of a message to my future children that, you know, that I'm aware that I haven't had them yet, you know, and so I totally understand what you're saying about that. It's. Yeah, I mean it's, it's a weird thing, you know, because, right. 20 years ago nobody had. Definitely 30 years ago, nobody had video cameras really like they do now. But now everybody with their phones, everything documented, it's so normal now. But I just put this documentary out on prime, which is, it's called this is the Tom Green Documentary. It's sort of a play in my old theme song, my show. This is the Tom Green show. Was. This was the song, right?
- [33:07]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [33:07]
Tom Green
So I went through like thousands of hours of video. I'm going back, looking at, you know, 17 year old me running around doing stuff and it was actually kind of a pretty somewhat terrifying experience actually because it was like this opportunity to kind of tell the story of everything that happened with my show and everything that happened with my experience here in la and I wanted to kind of, you know, tell the story right. And I've got so much video and combing through, all of it was at times, you know, somewhat kind of like I would be looking at myself like I'm looking at a completely different person and I can't even believe, you know, I'm finding things I don't even remember happening. And I'm looking at things that are just so completely bonkers and silly and ridiculous and going like, whoa. Sometimes I couldn't look at the tv. I'm like, oh my, what was I doing?
- [34:11]
Theo Von
You know, that's how you made us feel.
- [34:13]
Tom Green
Yeah, exactly. I was doing it to myself 20 years, 30 years later. And no, I wouldn't recommend it to anybody to go make a documentary about yourself, definitely hire somebody to do that and never watch it. But no, it was, it was fun because I wanted to tell the story the right way. But. But it was also kind of very surreal. But, you know, was it hard to.
- [34:35]
Theo Von
Be true to yourself making like, you know, making your own documentary and, and no one should probably make your documentary except for you because you're one of the rare cases it feels like that has so much, has documented themselves so much, you know, like. And I don't even know if it's it. I don't know if it seemed like an egotistical way. I don't think it ever came across like that of your footage. It just came across. You wanted to have control over how of yourself. You wanted to put yourself out there. But was it hard to make a documentary and not want to like make yourself the hero or something or. I don't. I've never made a documentary before.
- [35:10]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah.
- [35:11]
Theo Von
Or was there any of that in it? Or how do I make this?
- [35:13]
Tom Green
Like the first scene of the documentary, I'm sitting with my mother and she actually says, are you really supposed to do. Direct a documentary about yourself? I mean, can't you kind of whitewash that a little bit? Are you going to do that? Yeah, I'm going to do that. So. But honestly, the. I wanted to be, you know, I wanted to be. I didn't not want to completely like, you know, put a false story out there. So I think the hardest part was trying to figure out how to not be too self deprecating, you know, because, you know, you think, you know, you know, when you get to my age, you know, you look back and you think, oh my God, I wish I hadn't done that or I wish I hadn't done that or I shouldn't have said that or shouldn't have done that. And you know, I have a lot of those things, right. They're constantly rattling around in my head. And you start to think like, you know, man, maybe this is a good way for me to go and just like apologize for every thing that I perceived that I've done wrong in my life. Right? And then you have to kind of take a step back and go, well, wait a minute, you know, like that might just be in my head, you know, So I spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people about, you know, people that I know, people I'm close with about the story of. Really it's the story of the, of the show and, and takes us through the story of kind of creating the show and then building, you know, before the show with my music and then after the show with building a, you know, a sort of a web TV studio right here in Los Angeles. And it's sort of a telling of that story. But then I wanted to talk, you know, a bit about some of the, you know, personal sort of, you know, things that I went through. I Mean, I had cancer when I was on MTV and talked about that I had, you know, I made this movie, Freddy Got Fingered, which was, you know, not critically, completely embraced. So, you know, so it's like I wanted, I wanted to explain myself a bit, but then, you know, at the same time, there's a lot of people now that like the movie, believe it or not, so I didn't want to.
- [37:17]
Theo Von
Completely, you know, and hate the critics now.
- [37:19]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. So it's sort of like it was a very tricky balancing act. And, and then on top of that, there's just so much footage and so many weird little funny clips that only I know are the ones that people like or people have or haven't seen. And I kind of wanted to make sense of that all and piece it all together. I don't think anyone else would have been able to find it all, you know.
- [37:39]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [37:40]
Tom Green
So.
- [37:41]
Theo Von
But was there a project that you kind of wanted to do over the years that you didn't really nail or you didn't. That something that didn't happen? Was there something. Because you've just done so much stuff.
- [37:52]
Tom Green
I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting because like, in fact, that's part of what the documentary is about because, like, when I was a. Got into making the show when I was growing up, all I could even imagine myself doing was I wanted to be a talk show host. You know, I wanted to do basically a show like David Letterman, right. Have guests on, and then I go out in the street and, you know, be a nutcase, you know, do goofy stuff. Right? And I got to do that, you know, a few times over the years. And, you know, when those shows go away, you know, initially when that happened, you know, that was back in the day of mtv, you know, the first show I stopped when I, when I got sick. So, you know, it didn't actually get canceled, the Tom Green Show. But then when I started, I did a nightly show. It kind of, you know, when it kind of got canceled, I was thinking, oh, my gosh, you know, this is the worst thing that could ever happen to me that I could ever imagine that I'm not going to be able to do a nightly talk show. You know, like, this just was, like, this was devastating to me, you know, and as time marches on and I look at all the things that I've done instead, you know, into, you know, touring, doing Stand up or moving back to the farm and everything in between, I kind of realized, man, I'M kind of. Kind of glad that actually didn't work out, because if. If it. If that. If that show had been a big hit, then I would have been going down to the same studio every night for the last 30 years, and I wouldn't have gotten to do all these other things, you know, so. So, you know, Freddie Got Fingered, of course, was a idiotic movie, you know, purposefully. So.
- [39:36]
Theo Von
Yeah. Did you guys make that yourselves?
- [39:37]
Tom Green
Yeah, I wrote it with my friend Derek and we. I directed it.
- [39:41]
Theo Von
You did? Was it your first time you'd ever directed a movie?
- [39:43]
Tom Green
It was, yeah.
- [39:44]
Theo Von
Wow.
- [39:44]
Tom Green
It was. But it was. We had a budget, you know, was 20th Century Fox. We had, you know, because the show was doing good on mtv, so they. They let me direct it. You know, they let me do that. Which was, you know, probably a mistake, but. No, they know it was. You know, we really pushed it to make it. Like, you know, we were 20s, you know, so the. The idea was, let's make this the craziest movie ever made. You know, it's literally, we actually believe that we could do something like that, you know, and. And so it gets complicated because then, you know, how do you define failure? You know, like, it's. It came out Roger Ebert, and it wasn't Siskel, it was the other guy. He had another guy there, Roper.
- [40:27]
Theo Von
They sent that guy in.
- [40:28]
Tom Green
Yeah. Even. He didn't like it. He didn't even. Roper didn't like it. I mean, it wasn't even Siskel. It was Roper, whoever that guy was. But anyways, they. They, you know, trashed it. And you're kind of thinking at the time, man, this is devastating, you know, Ebert and Roper trashing my film, you know, but. And. And you think, oh, you start to question, you know, every sort of choice you've made. You know, I don't know.
- [40:49]
Theo Von
This guy looks like he also likes canned sardines at the same time, so. And it. These days, who would nobody even trust the critics anyway, so it's kind of funny now that it's like, yeah.
- [40:58]
Tom Green
At the time, like, it was the end of, you know, the line if these guys trashed your movie. Yeah, it's like my first movie. And all this stuff riding on. And then these. Come on. Just destroyed it. And I remember just sitting there, like, watching this, just thinking, oh, my gosh, this is it. You know, this is the end. But, you know, it wasn't. You know, I just kept going. Kept doing my thing, and. And you look back at it and go, it's kind of funny now that they. They didn't like it, you know?
- [41:24]
Theo Von
Yeah, it's kind of awesome that they didn't.
- [41:26]
Tom Green
It's weird because there's a weird sort of counterintuitiveness to it because we set out to make a movie that those guys would not like, and then when they don't like it, you're upset about it. Yeah, it's like, I kind of thought that they would sort of see the irony and go, I know we're not supposed to like this, but actually this kid's pretty clever, you know? No, no, they didn't say that. You know, what was the budget on.
- [41:46]
Theo Von
That movie, do you remember?
- [41:47]
Tom Green
$14 million. Wow. They spent on that, plus an additional 10 on, you know, promotion and stuff. Yeah. And you know what? I will say it made it all back on DVD. Remember, DVD used to put DVDs out, so I think I heard it made 35 million on DVD. So actually was a profitable, profitable movie.
- [42:06]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [42:07]
Tom Green
Made 14 million at the box. I'm here defending it now. It made for. It made its money back. I mean, it's money back. No, but it did. So it did make its money back. But, you know, Ebert and Roper aren't going to tell you that, though. No, they're not going to tell you that.
- [42:19]
Theo Von
Well, it wasn't the Titanic, you know.
- [42:21]
Tom Green
No, no, exactly. It was. I mean, it was in a way, in the sense that it, you know, it bombed, but, you know. No, it was. No, it was. It was. It's funny. It's funny, though, because you did it, though. There was a long period of time there where I was made to feel like it was a really bad decision. And then in the last, like 10 years, it's like, you know, all I hear are people saying they love it. You know, someone today showed me they had an X ray cat tattoo, you know, like it's a character in the movie, you know, so it's like, it's. It is a little confusing when you talk about sort of. I mean, your question was, how do you handle things like failure and things like that? It's like, you know, it's kind of. The more of those kind of things you go through, the more you kind of learn to kind of embrace it in a way. It's kind of. It's almost a good thing, you know?
- [43:10]
Theo Von
Yeah. David Spade and I just wrote a movie together. Not to name drop or anything, but nice. We did, and we just funded ourselves and stuff. And so it's just kind of a scary time, I think so that's why I'm asking that as well. Not scary. It's. It's exciting too, but it's also like. Yeah, I just. One day I'll be like, that's something I tried to do. I was trying to be creative and we tried our best and I got to try it with, you know, somebody who I love to watch anyway and.
- [43:35]
Tom Green
Oh, that's cool. So you've written it. Are you gonna go make the movie?
- [43:38]
Theo Von
We have five days left shooting.
- [43:39]
Tom Green
Oh, you're shooting the movie already?
- [43:40]
Theo Von
We shoot start back tomorrow.
- [43:42]
Tom Green
Kind of like a Joe Dirt 2, 3 kind of thing, or.
- [43:45]
Theo Von
Yeah, it's like. No, it's a good question. It's like two guys. One of them gets hit by a vehicle. I get. My character gets hit by a car when he's young. And Spade rescues me.
- [43:58]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [43:59]
Theo Von
And he and I become friends then and he gets me a job. Years later we're working together like at a sewage company and.
- [44:05]
Tom Green
Oh, nice. Repo man, man. Kind of.
- [44:07]
Theo Von
Yeah. Type of shit.
- [44:08]
Tom Green
Well, you know, the thing is that you're. You're in good hands here because you're with a guy that's done this a lot before. He's done it a lot and sort.
- [44:15]
Theo Von
Of a season, like if I had to direct it to like. I like to like chime in with the director and stuff like that and throw in ideas and stuff like that and. But it's just definitely a big learning curve. It's a lot.
- [44:26]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [44:27]
Theo Von
So I can't imagine, especially in our budget is just a couple million bucks, so.
- [44:30]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah.
- [44:30]
Theo Von
If it were really big, that'd be really. I feel like it'd be scary kind of.
- [44:34]
Tom Green
Yeah. I mean, back then we were shooting on film. Oh, things cost more. You know, it was, it was at the time was considered a low budget movie. Right. But. But, you know, I think, I think that. I know it just seems like the way things get released these days and the ways people embrace weirdness these days. Like, I'm assuming it's kind of a weird movie.
- [45:01]
Theo Von
Yeah, it's odd. Yeah, it's just funny. It's just like old school funny.
- [45:05]
Tom Green
Yeah. So like a funny movie, right? Like, you know, you have this incredible thing going with your show here, so you have your audience built in, so you don't really have to worry about the same things that maybe back in the day when you put out something crazy and sort of in a sea of somewhat normal movies coming out every weekend, all getting funneled through this sort of mainstream, you know, cinema. Right. Conglomerate yeah, it's very strange. You know, like, we had to take the movie and focus group it, and then people would sit there with pads and it was in Phoenix. We went to. We flew down to Phoenix to focus group. Freddie got.
- [45:43]
Theo Von
That's where they do a lot of them, huh?
- [45:44]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah. For some reason they do them there in Phoenix and. And, you know, and like, you know, then. Then someone stands up after the movie and asks them what. What they didn't like about the movie. Well, with, you know, Freddy got Fingered, I mean, we're sort of. Sort of supposed to not like any of these scenes. You're supposed to be kind of polarizing.
- [46:02]
Theo Von
Yes.
- [46:03]
Tom Green
So it didn't really kind of work with the focus group system, and then you had to make changes to it and all that kind of stuff. But you probably. You guys probably have a lot more creative control over things.
- [46:13]
Theo Von
I think we'll just make a trailer and put it out.
- [46:15]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah.
- [46:16]
Theo Von
You know, I'm guessing. I have no idea. I'm just. I haven't. Part of my brain hasn't even gotten to that thought. That thought yet. You know, that's exciting. But it's. It's definitely feels kind of. Yeah, it feels like just like. Well, I wanted to, you know, we tried to do it. Who knows what will happen, you know.
- [46:31]
Tom Green
It'S going to be awesome. Absolutely. You and Spade. I'm going to go see that.
- [46:34]
Theo Von
That's. Appreciate it.
- [46:36]
Tom Green
Everybody will. Everybody's going to love that.
- [46:37]
Theo Von
It's going to be interesting. Yeah, that's what I'll say. That's what I do. Yeah. I do believe it'll be interesting.
- [46:43]
Tom Green
Of course it will.
- [46:45]
Theo Von
How did you deal whenever there were tough times, like, because you had so much of, like, recording yourself, like, setting, you know, like, kind of like living under your own recording schedule and stuff like that? Were there days off, like, when you would just have your show from home? Right. Was there days where you would just, like, take off. What was that shoot schedule, like when you were.
- [47:04]
Tom Green
When I was doing the web show? Yeah. Well, I mean, it was. So there wasn't really sort of podcasting yet. Wasn't really a thing, really. Right. So we built the studio and it would basically just stream to my website. I mean, there was no Instagram yet. YouTube had just started and people would come and watch it on the front page of tomgreen.com and we actually had, like, a company in San Francisco that made like, the. The video playback system, you know, so it was cdn, Content Distribution Network. It was basically. So we would upload the video to that. We weren't uploading it to YouTube and linking it or there was. There was no YouTube, really. So. So it was kind of just a big sort of science experiment that I was doing with, you know, my group of friends. And, you know, I had. I had the sort of goal of trying to sort of make it a show that would become profitable, get advertisers and maybe sell it to television, which we did a little bit of that, you know, so, you know, I was kind of pretty driven, I guess. And it's kind of what I notice now with, like, podcasting, which is amazing, is like, you know, the people that have these incredible businesses that they've got going, these incredible, you know, artistic visions they have for themselves, they all kind of have that same kind of drive in them. You know, they get up in the morning, their mind is just like, how are we going to make this better today? You know, how are we going to make this awesome today? You know, so it was kind of. It was kind of like that, you know, we were getting up and turning on the studio every night, and I didn't be inviting up, you know, rappers and too short came up and, you know, Jurassic 5 and exhibit. And then, you know, you wrap up comedians in, invite comedians up and like, Joe Rogan would come over and, you know, Norm MacDonald, who I became good friends with, you know, would start coming over all the time and, you know, literally like hundreds and hundreds of people would come over and it became this kind of really fun thing to do. I wasn't doing stand up at the time. I hadn't done stand up in years. So I was really just doing that. And, you know, it was. It was ridiculous. I mean, we were just enjoying the absurdity of it and.
- [49:36]
Theo Von
Oh, yeah. Was it so stressful or were you just.
- [49:39]
Tom Green
It was because I put pressure on myself and I would actually get stressed out about it. And then we would have people that would prank call us. So I had this phone system on the desk and you could just call it and it would ring and I'd hit answer. And so we had like, you know, people trolling us, basically. I remember getting Rick rolled for the first time. You know, that's like. And it was like, oh, I've kind of felt like I don't know if I'd ever heard of Rickrolling before. I got Rick rolled, you know, and it's cool. And it became kind of like a little bit of a game, you know, like where we were. There was a switch that I built With Bill Snitzer was his name. He worked there. And Victor, a couple of the guys that worked there. And we built the switch under the desk. It was like metal, and it was like. We got a metal box with a switch and we had wires and we soldered them together. And then the wires ran out to the computer. And then Bill was able to program the computer so that when, like, I flipped that switch, it would, like, if everything was off. It's the middle of the night in my house. It's quiet night, nobody there. And if I were to get up at 1:00 in the morning by myself and put clown makeup on, which I often did, and a top hat, and walk out into my living room and flick the switch, the switch would turn on, the lights would turn on, the cameras would turn on, the computers. This computer would tell this computer to start recording. The phone system would turn on. It would send it to the front page of my website. Just one switch. I haven't done anything. All I've done is put on some clown makeup and flipped a switch. Right? You don't have to put on the clown makeup. But I did do that.
- [51:18]
Theo Von
Oh, yeah, you better.
- [51:18]
Tom Green
It was called the French Clown of Midnight. I'd speak it in French in a clown makeup, and you wonder why it didn't work out. But. And, but. And then the phone would start ringing and I'd just be doing the show. I'd have a switcher on the desk so I could switch the cameras, and I would just start taking calls. And it was really the only live video on the Internet. Like, really, like, that's. There was no Instagram live or anything. So it was like, you imagine when I was a kid, I wanted to do prank. I like prank calling the radio station. Okay, I'd like to call into the radio station. And I would call into the radio station and I'd record it, and then I'd call into the radio station. I'd pretend I was like my friend's father, and I'd call and I'd start complaining about my son, and I'd use his name, and then I'd play the tape back to him. It was hilarious to me, you know, and so I loved that, like pranking a radio station. And I kind of started to realize, like, but we're the only live show on the Internet right now with a phone, with no call screener. All these people like me around the world could now call in and prank me, you know? And so we kind of got into this little sort of war, basically. You know, which is. Which was fun because I would get angry about it, but then also, I kind of didn't have to turn the phone on. Right, right, right. You know, so it was. It was. It was really fun. And, you know, I got to meet a lot of great people. You know, I mean, that's where I really got to hang out with, you know, Joe Rogan for the first time, really, and. And Norm, who I became really close with and then. And so many other people. And, you know, it was. It was. It was amazing.
- [52:59]
Theo Von
So did Norm. Did you talk to him much in the later years?
- [53:04]
Tom Green
Yeah, well, at the very end, I did not know that he was sick. I was sick. So that was. That was.
- [53:11]
Theo Von
Seemed like he kept that from everybody.
- [53:12]
Tom Green
Yeah. And he's from my hometown. He's from Ottawa, Canada, and he started at the same comedy club that I started at, Yuk Yuks in Ottawa. Howard Wagman, who's the. Still owns the comedy club in Ottawa, Yuk Yuks, which is like, all across Canada. It's kind of like the improv of Canada.
- [53:28]
Theo Von
I've heard of it. I've been to one of them, I think.
- [53:30]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah. So he's, you know, he's awesome. And, you know, he, you know, he put Norm on the stage for the first time and, you know, tells his story about how Norm got off stage the very first time he did stand up. He was in his 20s. He didn't think he did well, and he was walking down the street. I'm never going to do that again. And Howard chased him down Spark street in Ottawa and stopped, said, you got to come back tomorrow. And, you know, he made him come back because he saw. He saw his. His genius. Right?
- [53:55]
Theo Von
Yeah. Nobody was like him. They just had a. They were just talking about him. I just watched the SNL monologue that he did one time. Yeah, that was pretty great, where he's like, they fired me from the show, but now they want me back, you know?
- [54:07]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [54:08]
Theo Von
Which is. And how. It just didn't even make any. Make any sense. And you just kind of shit on the show.
- [54:13]
Tom Green
Yeah, it was weird, like, because, like, it's weird. Like, I find myself sometimes now talking about 2005. Like, it was like 50 years ago or something like that. But it really is. Things have changed so much in the last 20 years with social media that it does really feel like kind of a different world. Like, I remember Norm would come up. Yeah. And, you know, the first time he came up, I just couldn't believe I was going to hang out with him, you know, and hang out with him for two hours on camera. Sort of in some ways kind of doing a make believe talk show. Even though there were people watching. It was kind of like, you know, experimental talk show. And he was getting into that and then the show would end and we'd go, you know, on YouTube and go look at videos and I was like. I remember it was like YouTube was so new that it was just the strangest thing. I'd be sitting with Norm MacDonald after doing this for two hours, and we sitting there watching, you know, crazy clips that he would find, you know, like baby versus cobra, you know, with the cobras mouth sewed together.
- [55:23]
Theo Von
Those are good. Yeah.
- [55:24]
Tom Green
Grape lady falls. I remember watching these videos with Norm and just dying of laughter, you know, in the middle of the night and just thinking, this is. This is cool. Now it's just so normal to look at viral videos and stuff. But back then we thought we were just. Have you ever seen this video?
- [55:39]
Theo Von
I've never seen.
- [55:39]
Tom Green
Oh, man, this is. I mean, it's a little bit. You kind of. Can you play the audio too? Is it possible? Because the audio's sort of important for this one. These are filled with chamberson grapes.
- [55:49]
Theo Von
And the winner this Saturday, who's stung Music. Eating international food, foods, having wine tours and tastings, vineyard tours, seminars, arts and crafts. It's a lot of fun. A whole day.
- [56:00]
Tom Green
Stop.
- [56:02]
Theo Von
Oh.
- [56:04]
Tom Green
Oh. Oh.
- [56:05]
Theo Von
Oh.
- [56:05]
Tom Green
Oh.
- [56:06]
Theo Von
Oh.
- [56:07]
Tom Green
Oh.
- [56:07]
Theo Von
I can't.
- [56:07]
Tom Green
Ow. Ow. Ow.
- [56:08]
Theo Von
Ow.
- [56:08]
Tom Green
Oh.
- [56:09]
Theo Von
Stop. Oh. Stop. I can't breathe. Stop.
- [56:17]
Tom Green
Oh, no.
- [56:18]
Theo Von
Oh.
- [56:19]
Tom Green
So. Yeah. Yeah. Ouch. Ouch. Struggling.
- [56:25]
Theo Von
That lady is the smallest head as well. If people's heads are real small, they should not talk a lot.
- [56:32]
Tom Green
I love that. That's the. That's your takeaway for this, is her head size as well. It is true though, by the way. I'd never noticed that, but that lady.
- [56:38]
Theo Von
Is a very small head. When people with small heads talk a lot, it feels like they're. They're cheating the system a little bit. I just feel like a regular head. You get a regular amount of words. Small head, less words. Don't over. Don't do too much.
- [56:53]
Tom Green
Right. Or just. At least just talk in sort of the amount of words that your head should justify your head size should.
- [57:00]
Theo Von
Yes. Don't be a crazy little head just doing a bunch.
- [57:04]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [57:05]
Theo Von
I dated a girl one time with it for a while with a small head. Beautiful girl, Great girl, but knew when to talk, when not to talk. You wouldn't see her just yammering on like some big Head.
- [57:16]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [57:16]
Theo Von
You know, so I walk in.
- [57:19]
Tom Green
Did you notice right away that she had a particularly small head or was that something that sort of dawned on you later?
- [57:24]
Theo Von
She had big hair, Big kind of Italian ish hair. And every now and then I would feel her head and I was like, oh, I feel like there should be a little more head here.
- [57:32]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So once he got under, the hair was puffed out, probably purposefully. We probably knew that her.
- [57:37]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [57:38]
Tom Green
It was small.
- [57:38]
Theo Von
It was an espionage mirage.
- [57:40]
Tom Green
Yeah. And hiding it a little bit.
- [57:42]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [57:42]
Tom Green
And you probably self conscious of it.
- [57:44]
Theo Von
Yeah. Could have been great. But yeah, cool girl, small hair, but knew how to use it, right?
- [57:51]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [57:52]
Theo Von
Not somebody that was ambivalent to their head sizing and just running around just squawking at the moon every chance they get. This is pretty wild that Morgan and Morgan is just filed a first of its kind lawsuit against food industry behemoths. That's the truth. The lawsuit alleges that these companies engineer their ultra processed food products to be addictive and market those products towards children allegedly causing chronic disease in children. The complaint details the strategic and calculated actions that these companies allegedly took to target children with addictive ultra processed foods, including internal memos, strategic meetings, and the extensive research they allegedly conducted to leverage our biology and neurology to create addictive substances. We've all been hearing for years and maybe speculating that a lot of ultra processed foods could be addictive. And I just think it's fascinating to finally see this possibility coming to light. Morgan and Morgan is committed to fighting for the people and for the families. If your child has been diagnosed with one of these diseases, you may have legal options. They've helped thousands of families seek justice against big corporations and they're ready to fight for you too. Learn more at for the people.com theo that's f o r the people.com t h e o Did you. Yeah. What did I do? Oh yeah, I just went to the SNL 50th. Dude, I just went to that.
- [59:31]
Tom Green
Oh yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, I know that must have been. Was that incredible?
- [59:34]
Theo Von
It was cool. You got to host it.
- [59:36]
Tom Green
I did. I know. That's amazing. I was on tour. I wasn't able to go. I would have loved to have gone to that. That must have been wild. I went to the 40th and I remember that was. That is just the most surreal thing. I I. If it's anything, I imagine it was like just everybody's there, right? Yeah.
- [59:52]
Theo Von
I'll get to go to the music night. And then I'm buddies with Louis ck He took me to Chris Rock's birthday party.
- [60:01]
Tom Green
Oh, nice.
- [60:02]
Theo Von
On Saturday night, which was crazy because Chris Rock is always like, my favorite comedian growing up. And so just to even be able to be there, I definitely felt, like, out of place, whatever. But it was also cool, you know, just to, like, you know, kind of fly on the wall there.
- [60:15]
Tom Green
So did you do really actually feel out of place there?
- [60:17]
Theo Von
Yeah. 100.
- [60:18]
Tom Green
And why. Why do you think that is?
- [60:19]
Theo Von
Just like. It feels like, kind of fancy, you know, I mean, I could tell right when I saw Chris Rock how I felt like some people, you don't get nervous on him or you've seen him a couple times, and so there becomes a little bit ambiance, you know, But I just didn't know him. And so, yeah, I think that created some of the nervous energy. Some other people I. I did know, so it wasn't that bad, but I got introduced to people that I didn't know. And so you're always like. I don't know, always. I don't usually say a lot. Then I'll kind of just be a listener.
- [60:51]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [60:51]
Theo Von
You know, See, I get like that, too.
- [60:53]
Tom Green
And I. I wish I didn't. This sort of social anxiety when you're in an environment like that where there's just all these, you know, people that you admire and respect and around you and every. Everybody. It's. I. It's kind of. I kind of don't even feel like myself, you know, It's a sort of a very stressful thing for me.
- [61:09]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [61:10]
Tom Green
So in some ways, I was kind of.
- [61:11]
Theo Von
That's a good word. It's stressful.
- [61:12]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know why that is. Why is that?
- [61:15]
Theo Von
Well, I think it's because you're a little bit. Probably. I don't know how I fit in this circle. There's a lot of circles in the world where I.
- [61:22]
Tom Green
But you're on top of the world right now. You just interviewed the President of the United States. I mean, everybody. You've got this incredible show. I mean, I'm sure everybody was super excited to see you there. So you probably don't really have any reason to feel nervous. But you still do, right?
- [61:35]
Theo Von
Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I just didn't know I hadn't been in that circle before. It's kind of like, I guess when you're in a. I don't know when you're in. Just feel like you're in a new water. You're figuring out the temperature. You don't know, you know, you don't want to make a lot of noise at somebody's birthday party. They are seeing friends that they know. It's not a huge group of people. So you just want to kind of, you know, you don't want to overstay your welcome, you know, kind of type of. Type of energy, you know.
- [62:01]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [62:02]
Theo Von
I don't need to tell a big story. Let the. They all. They know each other. I'm just happy to be here.
- [62:06]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [62:07]
Theo Von
Happy to be able to see somebody celebrate their birthday. To witness people that I admire from a little bit of a way, you know, from a little closer than I'm usually allowed to get to them, you know.
- [62:16]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [62:17]
Theo Von
Online or on tv, I guess. But the SNL thing was we went to the music. They had a music show.
- [62:24]
Tom Green
Radio City.
- [62:25]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [62:25]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [62:25]
Theo Von
And that's. That's the part that I got to go to. And that was pretty cool, just seeing different bands. Jelly Roll performed, and so I know him.
- [62:32]
Tom Green
Nice.
- [62:32]
Theo Von
And so there was. Yeah. And I got to bring a friend, and so I knew my buddy was. You know, we were just kind of milling around, running into some people that we knew and meeting some new people, but it was pretty chill.
- [62:42]
Tom Green
So when you went to the. You went to the inauguration, too, right?
- [62:44]
Theo Von
Yeah, I went to the inauguration. Yeah.
- [62:45]
Tom Green
So, like, when you go to the inauguration and you've already now, you know, the President of the United States because you'd had this interview with him.
- [62:53]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [62:54]
Tom Green
Like, you get to kind of hang out with him at the inauguration or.
- [62:58]
Theo Von
No, no, I didn't see any of them. I was in, like, the second tier of humans there or something. You know, like, there was a first tier, and then I was in, like, this. A second tier of humans that were there.
- [63:10]
Tom Green
But that's got to be kind of still interesting nonetheless, to be there.
- [63:14]
Theo Von
Oh, it was interesting. Very interesting. Because I never. You don't even know if, like, the. The. The process is real. You see it on tv, but it's like, who knows if that shit's real? Who knows what's real anymore? So to witness that was pretty cool. Just to be in Washington, D.C. is always pretty neat, just with all the architecture. But I don't know Trump like that. Like, I'll message with his daughter sometimes. Ivanka.
- [63:35]
Tom Green
Okay.
- [63:35]
Theo Von
So I'm able to communicate with her, and then what do you guys talk about? She'll just send me a book that she thinks I would like or.
- [63:41]
Tom Green
Really?
- [63:41]
Theo Von
We went to dinner one time. She's so smart.
- [63:44]
Tom Green
Yeah. Okay.
- [63:44]
Theo Von
It's mind blowing.
- [63:46]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so go to dinner with her a lot or.
- [63:50]
Theo Von
No, only went one time.
- [63:52]
Tom Green
That's pretty cool. Was. Was her husband Jared there, or was it just you two or.
- [63:55]
Theo Von
He wasn't. It was other friends of hers.
- [63:56]
Tom Green
Okay. Yeah. Not trying to make break any news here, but it sounds interesting.
- [64:01]
Theo Von
Not at all. I wish there were news to break. Dude, she's stunning. She's awesome. And then there's like, a middleman, like, who worked with the. I guess. I guess he worked with the Republican Party and he got to invite some people.
- [64:13]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [64:14]
Theo Von
So it was just a mly group of strange people that went to the inauguration.
- [64:19]
Tom Green
So how did that work? So when. Can I ask you a question, sir?
- [64:21]
Theo Von
Yeah, sure.
- [64:22]
Tom Green
Yeah. So when. Like, when he, like, came on your show, Right. It was right before the election, and he was doing a lot of podcasts and stuff. Did he. Did he. They approach you or they call you? Is it. His son was a fan of your show? Right? Is that what.
- [64:33]
Theo Von
Yeah, that's what he said. He said Baron was a fan of the show. And I tried to get to see Baron, but I didn't get to meet him.
- [64:37]
Tom Green
So you just got a call one day, and Trump wanted to come on the show and.
- [64:41]
Theo Von
Well, I'd seen. I'd met Trump a couple times at ufc.
- [64:44]
Tom Green
Okay. Yeah, yeah.
- [64:45]
Theo Von
Ufc, I think is. Had everything to do with winning the election, probably for. For the Republicans.
- [64:53]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah.
- [64:53]
Theo Von
Because Dana White is just such a facilitator. He just gets things done. He kept his sport going while all the other sports were shut down. A lot of them were shut down, or having to practice really intense methods during COVID you know, he was able to keep his sport going, like. And so he would. He brought Trump to a lot of his events because they've been friends for a long time. And so I'd met him there a couple times, and then I knew his brother died of alcoholism, so I was like, well, let me call him and let me ask Dana if. If Trump would ever talk about his brother. I didn't know about it, you know, and just to see what he's like. Like, is he just all a business guy? Does he think about other things? Because when you're. You don't get a lot of. You don't hear a lot about his feelings, Trump's feelings, and if you do, he doesn't communicate it in a way where it's very emotional to people. I don't feel like. Right. So I was just curious about that. So, yeah, I Called up Dana and he said, we'll make it happen, you know, and then two days later, he called back and he said, all good. Somebody from his group's going to reach out to you.
- [65:55]
Tom Green
So you went to him, right?
- [65:56]
Theo Von
And we went to him up in New Jersey. Yeah. And we offer. We would have. We would have loved to add Harris and Walls on. We're still trying to get Walls on. We tried to get Harris on even after the election, but they just didn't want to come.
- [66:06]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [66:07]
Theo Von
And so it's kind of a bummer, you know, because I think.
- [66:09]
Tom Green
Seems like that was a pretty big mistake. They didn't. Didn't go in a lot of the shows that.
- [66:14]
Theo Von
Yeah, I think it would just let them be more normal. I think people are. If something's too much behind the glass these days, people don't trust the glass. I don't even think it's. They don't. That they don't trust the person behind the glass. I think they don't trust the fucking glass, if that makes any sense.
- [66:28]
Tom Green
But, yeah, no, it does.
- [66:31]
Theo Von
Yeah. So I guess that was all kind of interesting. I'm kind of out of sorts with the way that they're handling, like, the Gaza, Palestine, stuff like that shit really, I think is insane to me, you know, but that's just, you know. You know, I don't know. That's just my thoughts.
- [66:46]
Tom Green
It's kind of a. Endless sort of, you know, quagmire you can find yourself in once you start talking.
- [66:55]
Theo Von
When you get into politics. I agree.
- [66:57]
Tom Green
In this world we're living in now because it's like, you know, you go on the road, you do stand up all around the country, and, you know, everybody's sort of divided in a way. Right. And then you start sort of firmly choosing a side, and all of a sudden, half the audience doesn't want to have any fun anymore.
- [67:15]
Theo Von
Right.
- [67:16]
Tom Green
So it's kind of like, you got to be fine. We got to make these choices now. Like, okay, well, do I. Do I want to give my opinion anymore about what's going on in the world? You know, and then, you know, you have to choose one of the, you know, set of opinions that are on this side or the set of opinions that are all evenly and neatly put on this side. And as soon as you state your opinion about one of these issues that just happens to be on this side, then anybody that doesn't agree with you no longer, you know, wants to. Wants to fuck with you and come to your show or have a good time or Have a laugh with you, you know, so it's just such a shitty thing to have to deal with that. Right?
- [67:52]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [67:52]
Tom Green
So how do you. How do you kind of like, you know, juggle that, you know, because, you know, as Canadian, you know, like, it's like right now in Canada, people are pretty upset, you know, with, you know, with Donald Trump because he's putting these tariffs on Canada. Right. And saying they're going to make us.
- [68:06]
Theo Von
A 51st state and they're going to annex Canada.
- [68:09]
Tom Green
People aren't too happy about the idea of, you know, being taken over by the United States of America. Doesn't. It's not something that people are super excited about hearing, you know, so, you know, you kind of. You kind of go. It's funny because I sometimes I think, like. Well, I think a lot of Americans who are. Don't think about it that much might think like, oh, Canada is going to be the 51st state. I bet you everyone in Canada must be really excited about being the 51st state of the United States. But, you know, I'm kind of saying, well, no, it'll probably be the first state in America that nobody in it wants to be American, you know, so. So because, you know, we've. We've got our own country. It's not that we don't. Don't love America. I love America. But we, you know, we sort of have our entire different culture. You know, you go to Canada all the time, right?
- [68:53]
Theo Von
Yeah. I love it and I'm glad. It's different.
- [68:55]
Tom Green
We're different. Right? It's a different thing.
- [68:57]
Theo Von
Yeah, it's different. You're nice to have, you know, people will be. Somebody will walk across the street in Canada and just come tell you they're sorry and then go back across the street. Then nothing even happened. They're not even.
- [69:08]
Tom Green
They just came off just to apologize.
- [69:10]
Theo Von
There's no even. You never seen them before, you know, but it's. Canada's the best. I think Canada gives me hope for humanity a lot of times. It's good people, you know, like, I love Canada. I wish. I wish that there was. There's times I've wanted to be. Be Canadian, even.
- [69:28]
Tom Green
What's. Do you remember the first time you went to Canada?
- [69:31]
Theo Von
Yeah. Vancouver.
- [69:32]
Tom Green
Yeah. And was that.
- [69:33]
Theo Von
And I slept it up recently. Brothel or a hostel? I slept at a hostel.
- [69:37]
Tom Green
Okay. Yeah.
- [69:38]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [69:38]
Tom Green
How many years ago would that have been?
- [69:40]
Theo Von
That was probably 15, 18 years ago. 17 years ago. And it was great, man. Had a great time.
- [69:44]
Tom Green
Stand up there. Or were you?
- [69:46]
Theo Von
I hadn't started. Just almost started. Stand up. I was doing. I was traveling. I was left out of there on a school, floating. I left out of Vancouver called Semester at Sea.
- [69:54]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah.
- [69:55]
Theo Von
And it went around the globe, and we left out of Vancouver, but I went up to Whistler. I went and caught a ride. Some guy took me hitchhiking up to Whistler. Right. Drove me up there. And the dude, the guy who drove me, he was a caretaker for Superman who had died. Remember Superman who got in the wheelchair?
- [70:12]
Tom Green
Yeah. Christopher Reeves.
- [70:13]
Theo Von
Christopher Reeves, he was his caretaker.
- [70:15]
Tom Green
Okay. Okay.
- [70:16]
Theo Von
This guy Michael, and I think I met him, I was at some shop right around there, and he was saying he was in the area or something. He's like, I'm taking the drive up to Whistler. I was like, I'll. Can I roll with you? He's like, yeah. So he took me up to Whistler, man brought me back. We stopped along the way, went on some hikes and stuff.
- [70:33]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [70:34]
Theo Von
It was amazing.
- [70:35]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [70:35]
Theo Von
And I've always enjoyed Canada. I. I used to have a dream that I would meet a wife in Toronto. Yeah. But I went and did two weeks of comedy up there. Didn't meet any wives.
- [70:44]
Tom Green
Yeah. Well, you could still happen, for sure. You find the audiences react differently.
- [70:50]
Theo Von
They're great. Halifax was one of my favorite shows I've ever had in my life.
- [70:53]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah, dude.
- [70:54]
Theo Von
I even made. My little nephew made up this joke. He said, oh, I told it. I told it on stage. I was like, yeah. I heard one time that there wasn't any more fish up here. And so they changed the name to no Fish Scotia. And nobody laughed. Right. Still, it was fun.
- [71:16]
Tom Green
That's why I'm laughing, because I can imagine the reaction.
- [71:20]
Theo Von
Sometimes there's something great when they don't laugh.
- [71:23]
Tom Green
No, sure.
- [71:23]
Theo Von
There's some little thing in there. It's like, oh, that's pretty good.
- [71:26]
Tom Green
Yeah, absolutely.
- [71:27]
Theo Von
You know.
- [71:28]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [71:28]
Theo Von
But. But yeah, Always had a great love for Canada. I think it's bizarre that Trump would say something like that. And it's also, like, it just. But what do you expect out of him, you know? And what do you expect about the media to spotlight things and make it whatever it is, even if it's a seed of something, to grow it into a million plants, you know?
- [71:47]
Tom Green
Yeah, no, it's. It's interesting, I think, you know, there's a thing that's going on, the hockey games in Canada now, where the USA and Canada playing and, you know.
- [71:55]
Theo Von
Yeah, the four nations. Right.
- [71:57]
Tom Green
Yeah. The Canadian fans were booing at Them. Right. You know, sometimes I go like, well, I don't. You know, based on the reaction on social media, I sort of feel like maybe not everybody in the US Necessarily understands why that's happening. You know, they don't know it's about the tariffs. You know, they're not booing the national anthem, they're booing this. The fact that these tariffs are being put on, you know, which is going to, of course, devastate, you know, the economy on both sides will suffer from that. Right. I'm sitting here, like, talking about it, like I know about it.
- [72:26]
Theo Von
You know, I should probably know more about it.
- [72:28]
Tom Green
But it's like. It's like, you know, I think. I think people are just kind of like, why are you guys doing this to us? You know, so that's. It's kind of. It's kind of an interesting thing, but, you know, you want to talk about issues sometimes, and then you go, okay, I've just waded into this sort of hornet's nest and I'm never going to hear the end of it. So it's, It's. It is interesting. What was it? When you're at the inauguration, after the inauguration where you're like, kind of just. Are you kind of. Who are you hanging out with there?
- [72:57]
Theo Von
Like, I went. Who did I meet? I met this kid, Alexander Wang. We just had a podcast episode with him. He created this company called Scale AI. He's like this AI. He's the youngest billionaire ever. This Chinese kid.
- [73:10]
Tom Green
Oh, my gosh.
- [73:10]
Theo Von
From New Mexico.
- [73:12]
Tom Green
Wow.
- [73:12]
Theo Von
Fascinating dude.
- [73:14]
Tom Green
Self made billionaire.
- [73:16]
Theo Von
Self made billionaire.
- [73:16]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [73:17]
Theo Von
So I ended up having lunch with him. That was probably the neatest thing that happened that weekend.
- [73:21]
Tom Green
You pick up the tab or.
- [73:22]
Theo Von
I think I paid, actually.
- [73:23]
Tom Green
You paid.
- [73:24]
Theo Von
I didn't know he was a billionaire.
- [73:25]
Tom Green
Oh, my gosh.
- [73:26]
Theo Von
Yeah, I was just.
- [73:27]
Tom Green
That's why he's a billionaire. He's letting everyone else pick up the tab.
- [73:30]
Theo Von
I was just happy to be dining with the Chinese, you know, and. Oh, it was great, man. And. And then who else? Something else happened at night. Oh, I saw Wayne Gretzky. Lost his tooth.
- [73:41]
Tom Green
Wow.
- [73:41]
Theo Von
And then. Anything. I saw Joe Rogan for a few minutes. I saw Tony Hinchcliff from Kill Tony.
- [73:48]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah.
- [73:48]
Theo Von
And then that was kind of it. And then I went home. It was too much, like, too hard to get around. I saw Lex Freedman. That was pretty neat. I'd never met him. He's a podcaster.
- [73:57]
Tom Green
Yeah. I've met him at. And at the Mothership before.
- [73:59]
Theo Von
Oh, nice.
- [73:59]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [74:00]
Theo Von
Yeah. So it was Just that was kind of. Those were some of the neat parts of it.
- [74:03]
Tom Green
Yeah. You know, Amazing.
- [74:04]
Theo Von
Just getting to see some different folks. Yeah. Yeah. I think they're having issues even in America. They're having. I just saw that there's a part of Oregon that wanted to secede from Oregon.
- [74:14]
Tom Green
Yeah. They're going to become Canada's 11th province. Good.
- [74:19]
Theo Von
I would love it if we started trading pieces of our trading now that. I'm totally fine before New York and.
- [74:24]
Tom Green
California come join Canada and take one of them. You guys can, you know, take. I'm not going to say who you guys can take, but, you know, because we.
- [74:32]
Theo Von
But no, I know you're talking about.
- [74:33]
Tom Green
Dude, you got to be political. Okay.
- [74:37]
Theo Von
That's all I'll say, brother.
- [74:38]
Tom Green
No, no, just being Quebecois, actually, I lived in Quebec a lot.
- [74:42]
Theo Von
You did?
- [74:42]
Tom Green
Yeah. So I grew up in Quebec, so I love Quebec. Yeah. Yeah. You must been up the Montreal Festival over the years or.
- [74:48]
Theo Von
Yeah, we went there a couple times.
- [74:50]
Tom Green
I love Quebec. It's fun.
- [74:52]
Theo Von
Yeah. Edmonton, we got some of the place we want to still. Calgary and Ottawa and Winnipeg we're going to go to this year.
- [74:57]
Tom Green
Oh, yeah. So when you're in Ottawa, maybe if you're rolling past the farm and the tour bus. Oh, come by the farm and we'll go ride some mules or something.
- [75:06]
Theo Von
How far outside of town are you guys?
- [75:08]
Tom Green
About like an hour or so.
- [75:09]
Theo Von
Oh, wow.
- [75:10]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. So sort of not too far, you know, I'll come pick you up in my pickup truck. We'll go hang out.
- [75:16]
Theo Von
Do you think you'll have. Now that you're kind of feeling settled out there, do you think. Do you start thinking about starting a family or. No.
- [75:23]
Tom Green
Yeah, definitely. You know, I'm getting married, so might it, you know, knock on wood, everything goes well and with. With that and, you know, maybe it'll be some. We'll see. We'll have to ask my fiance. Oh, yeah, I think she would want to do that.
- [75:37]
Theo Von
Yeah. You gotta include her.
- [75:38]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yes, yes. Yeah, for sure. No, I think. I think that's possibility. For sure.
- [75:44]
Theo Von
You know, was it for a while, do you think that that wasn't going to be a part of your life?
- [75:47]
Tom Green
I was starting to. I was starting to question whether or not it was going to be part of my life because, you know. Yeah. I mean, I think you kind of alluded to this earlier. You know, you want to, you know, if you're going to get married, you want to get married to somebody that you, you know, love and actually think that this could, you know, last forever. Right. I was starting to question whether or not that was maybe possible. You know, I wasn't sure if that was possible anymore to find somebody that I thought would last forever with. But, you know, when I met Amanda, she's outside, I hope I'm getting some brownie points here, but I realized this is, this is the one, you know, so. But it's, you know, until you meet that person, you know, does start to feel kind of like Jesus. Getting a little kind of, you know, uncertain here.
- [76:35]
Theo Von
Yeah, like I was loitering.
- [76:36]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah. So.
- [76:37]
Theo Von
But yeah, I think that's how I think about it because I think when you're younger, like you have this feeling of like, like this young love energy type of thing and that starts to, it feels, that feels less possible the older we get. Kind of, you know, it just starts to dissipate or it's like, oh, well, I just, I'm too wise now or I've had too much experience now that I'm never gonna have that sort of like whimsical feeling of like, you know, that a 17 year old or a 23 year old would have, you know. But it's nice to know that that can kind of sneak up and surprise you, you know?
- [77:10]
Tom Green
Yeah, I think kind of, I mean, I think being home where I'm from, help helps, you know, because it's like, I don't know, I mean, if you're not from Los Angeles, then it's kind of a weird place. If you're from Los Angeles, it's normal, but if you're not from Los Angeles, you know, it's kind of a weird place. So, you know, you're here probably focused on your career and your work and so many other people are. It's kind of hard to, I think, find a, you know, a good. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it seems like it is kind of harder in this environment to find somebody that you can, I mean, I don't know, do. Are people watching, going, are we going to be taking relationship advice from, from, from me? I don't know. I don't know if that's.
- [77:57]
Theo Von
Well, no, it does make me think that. I think, I think there's this feeling in LA that if you meet somebody, you're going to have to eventually get them to leave here.
- [78:04]
Tom Green
Right?
- [78:05]
Theo Von
There's. I've always felt that thing like, well, if I met somebody, would they ever leave here with me? Because I'm not going to stay here forever.
- [78:10]
Tom Green
Right. You know, that's exactly what I was trying to say.
- [78:13]
Theo Von
So that's. So that I think is a. Yeah, I think that's totally common.
- [78:17]
Tom Green
But you said you, you, you don't live here full time now.
- [78:21]
Theo Von
I live in Tennessee. I moved during the pandemic, too.
- [78:23]
Tom Green
Nashville or.
- [78:24]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [78:24]
Tom Green
Oh, cool.
- [78:24]
Theo Von
I moved during the pandemic. What was true whenever Trump was talking about Canada? What was. Can you bring it up, Nick? Just so I just want to know what he even was saying. Like, what were they threatening. They were threatening to tariff Canadian goods just so our listeners can know what exactly was even going on.
- [78:39]
Tom Green
Yeah. They're going to put a tariff on every, you know. You know, Canada is the largest trading partner of the United States.
- [78:47]
Theo Von
Nice.
- [78:48]
Tom Green
And so much of the goods that come into the United States from Canada are. You are being brought in by American businesses to, you know, like wood. You bring wood and lumber in to build houses. Right. So when you put a 25% tariff on lumber, that means everybody. That flannel. If you're a big flannel company making flannel pajamas, all of a sudden flannel pajamas are going to be 25% more expensive. So it's really, it's going to affect, you know, businesses on both sides of the border, obviously, not just Canada, but also everything will go up in price. So, you know, and along with me, I'm not exactly sure the reason for it, to be honest with you. I. He was really saying they weren't helping out with border security. Yeah. And that's what. Yeah, 30 days probation period. They did put a bunch of people at the border. Absolutely. And now it's. I don't think there's a real border security problem between Canada and the United States, though. It's, you know, it's.
- [79:46]
Theo Von
But that's the hardest country to get into in the world, I think, is Canada.
- [79:50]
Tom Green
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's going that way.
- [79:53]
Theo Von
There isn't. That's for sure.
- [79:54]
Tom Green
Yeah. It's, you know, the, the claim that there's fentanyl coming into the United States from Canada, I think is a little bit exaggerated because I don't really think that that's actually the case. Something like, you know, a very small amount is coming in from Canada.
- [80:10]
Theo Von
So tariffs are a central part of Trump's economic plans. He promised to introduce import duties against some of America's main trade partners during his election campaign. He said tariffs will boost US Manufacturing and protect jobs as well as raising tax revenue and growing the economy. Fentol is linked to tens of thousands overdose deaths. Taking bold action to hold Mexico, Canada and China accountable to their promise of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing in our country. It just seems kind of vague, you.
- [80:39]
Tom Green
Know, I think it's sort of like.
- [80:41]
Theo Von
But like, what would you do? Like, I'm trying to see, say if you bring a bunch of stuff in a. My country, right. Say if you and I live in different countries and you bring a bunch of stuff into my country, or I bring a bunch of stuff in your country and then you say, okay, I'm going to tax that more, I'm going to charge you more to bring that in. If you don't help stop the fentanyl that's coming in. I just, I don't know how would you then do that? What would you then on your side would you say, okay, we'll put more, what drug dogs and security along the border?
- [81:08]
Tom Green
I think that's what he's asking them to do, you know, and I think we already do have. Again, I'm not, I don't, I'm not a representative of the Canadian government, but I do, I do think that we already do have a lot of. There's only so much you can do to seal off a border. Right. And I don't think there is that much fentanyl coming in from Canada. Really?
- [81:29]
Theo Von
I never heard that that was a thing.
- [81:30]
Tom Green
Yeah, I think it mostly does come.
- [81:31]
Theo Von
In from the Southern.
- [81:33]
Tom Green
Southern border.
- [81:33]
Theo Von
That's what I would think. I wonder if maybe that you guys got grandfathered into some, you know, some late night truck trump rhetoric there. Who knows?
- [81:40]
Tom Green
It feels a little bit like that, but, you know, hopefully, hopefully it'll resolve itself. I do think that it's probably going to end up causing a lot of economic problems on both sides of the border and probably they may, may not go for it.
- [81:54]
Theo Von
But it's sports exciting for a while though.
- [81:56]
Tom Green
Yeah, exactly.
- [81:57]
Theo Von
That's a side effect.
- [81:58]
Tom Green
It was a good fight right off the top of the game the other day, you know, it was pretty cool. We like a good hockey fight, so that's cool.
- [82:04]
Theo Von
And it is nice when countries sometimes don't get along a little bit in sports. Sports, right. I've always, I've always admired that.
- [82:09]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [82:09]
Theo Von
That's why that's one thing I don't like about the NBA anymore, that all the players that. It seems like they all know each other. Nobody's really playing for their squad sometimes.
- [82:15]
Tom Green
Okay.
- [82:16]
Theo Von
So I like a little bit more.
- [82:17]
Tom Green
Of that animal fights in the NBA would. Good physical fights yeah, look at that.
- [82:22]
Theo Von
Oh, definitely.
- [82:23]
Tom Green
I believe both those players are American, too. I'm not sure how quickly your researcher can tell us that. But even though they. The Canadian team, Canada didn't get to.
- [82:33]
Theo Von
Win in this game. I know.
- [82:34]
Tom Green
Maybe that's not true at all, what I just said. But. But the.
- [82:37]
Theo Von
Canada got the win in this game. But that's okay.
- [82:40]
Tom Green
Yeah, we lost the game. Absolutely. Which is really kind of. I know, but it is nice to see everybody having a good time. Watching a hockey fight, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. You know, so what else did I.
- [82:51]
Theo Von
See in the news that I just saw was happening? Oh, yeah. It was that contraception begins at erection now. So there's a law that they're pushing Ohio Democratic lawmakers propose conception begins at erection.
- [83:05]
Tom Green
Okay. Yeah.
- [83:05]
Theo Von
They're trying to put it on the men a little bit more.
- [83:08]
Tom Green
So what exactly are they going to do about this now?
- [83:10]
Theo Von
Well, a new bill in Ohio would make it a crime for men to ejaculate without intending to have a baby.
- [83:15]
Tom Green
Oh, wow. That is. That's definitely something that I could see a lot of people probably would be guilty of for sure.
- [83:23]
Theo Von
Hey, shooters. Shoot. You know.
- [83:25]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah, I could see that being. I mean, I don't want to get into. In too much personal detail, but I think I'd probably be locked up for a long time.
- [83:34]
Theo Von
Yeah. Oh, we're going to visit Tom this weekend again. Yeah. He's behind bars.
- [83:39]
Tom Green
Yeah. My gosh.
- [83:39]
Theo Von
I thought he was gonna get paroled.
- [83:41]
Tom Green
Plenty of time to break the law in jail, though.
- [83:46]
Theo Von
And they put a monitor, like, wraps around your wiener, and it just, like, if it. It just goes off if it gets too hard.
- [83:53]
Tom Green
Now, I'm assuming this is a parody site, but the world's so crazy right now that I'm actually asking this for real. Is this a real article?
- [83:59]
Theo Von
This is a real article right there. Yep. Let's zoom in on. I'm going to read it a little bit.
- [84:03]
Tom Green
Okay. So this is not the Onion or something like that or MAD magazine or something.
- [84:08]
Theo Von
No, this is one of those good radishes that they have out there.
- [84:11]
Tom Green
Conception. And it rhymes nicely to conception begins at erection act. I mean that. It's a nice rhyme to it, which is also nice.
- [84:18]
Theo Von
If you're going to penalize someone for an unwanted pregnancy, why not penalize the person who is also responsible. Responsible for the pregnancy? Now, I. I can't say I don't agree with this. It's like, then you're gonna have a lot more people.
- [84:31]
Tom Green
$10,000 per discharge. That's who.
- [84:36]
Theo Von
But here's the thing. Some dudes are just running around skating or whatever they call it, and I don't know what they call it in different countries, but they're not going to have an extra 10k on them. You're gonna have. The court system would be filled with every, every kid in the world. Every 14 year old kid.
- [84:53]
Tom Green
Yeah. I mean I'm assuming. Yeah. Does this. I don't. I don't know how much I want to talk about this in detail with you.
- [84:59]
Theo Von
I'm going to say you don't get pregnant on your own. Representative Anita Somani, Democrat Dublin said a.
- [85:07]
Tom Green
Felony for men to discharge semen.
- [85:10]
Theo Von
Yep.
- [85:11]
Tom Green
Without the intent to fertilize. That is. Wow. Amazing. Amazing idea. I mean I actually would love to see that sort of applied that law just to see what would happen. I mean it would be interesting to see what would happen.
- [85:26]
Theo Von
It's genital communism in a way.
- [85:27]
Tom Green
I guess it's genital communism.
- [85:30]
Theo Von
Is it?
- [85:30]
Tom Green
Absolutely.
- [85:31]
Theo Von
Yeah, absolutely. She introduced legislation that would make it a felony to discharge semen without the intent to fertilize. So Monty and State Representative Tristan Rader joined forces to propose a bill nicknamed Conception begins at Erection. There are some exceptions such as when protection or contraceptions are used during sex. It also wouldn't apply when an individual is masturbating.
- [85:51]
Tom Green
Oh, okay.
- [85:51]
Theo Von
Donating sperm or.
- [85:52]
Tom Green
That's a relief.
- [85:53]
Theo Von
Yeah. Or if the intercourse has taken place between members of LGBT + community and thus doesn't produce ova. So gay people would be able to just jerk off on each other and they don't suffer any of the consequences.
- [86:06]
Tom Green
But if I straight again.
- [86:09]
Theo Von
If a couple of strikes straights get caught. You know, this is just charging. Yeah.
- [86:14]
Tom Green
This is unfair on so many levels.
- [86:16]
Theo Von
Well, it's just. It's beyond ridiculous what's going on here. Republican activist Austin Bagel laughed. It's a mockery of the most basic biological conceptions.
- [86:26]
Tom Green
And now I still. I'm sort of kind of can't believe this is a real article.
- [86:32]
Theo Von
Well, I think their purpose in this was saying if you think it's absurd to regulate men that you think. Think you should think it's equally absurd to regulate women. So. Moni responded. I'm guessing that there was a. An original idea that.
- [86:44]
Tom Green
I see, I see. Okay. Of course. Yeah. About. I understand.
- [86:46]
Theo Von
Taking on reproductive rights for women.
- [86:48]
Tom Green
Absolutely.
- [86:49]
Theo Von
So. Huh. I don't know, man.
- [86:52]
Tom Green
A good idea.
- [86:52]
Theo Von
I'd run up a tab.
- [86:53]
Tom Green
I know that they're making a valid point when you put it that Way, Absolutely.
- [86:56]
Theo Von
I'd run up a tab. Did you. When you hosted snl, what was that like for. Do you recall kind of some of the energy of that night or.
- [87:04]
Tom Green
It was. It was a wild, somewhat terrifying experience. You know, I had just gone through some pretty. I'd gone through. Just gone through surgery, like, a few.
- [87:19]
Theo Von
Months from testicular cancer.
- [87:20]
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah. And I'd had this lymph node dissection, and I was kind of like. It had affected my sort of energy levels and a lot. So it was kind of. There was a lot going on in my life when I actually got the call to do that show and to do Saturday Night Live. And, you know, it was really cool, though. The thing that was cool about it was, you know, Lorne Michaels, who's Canadian, and I was just so kind of sort of. Kind of sort of overwhelmed that I was. It was asked to do it. Right?
- [87:54]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [87:55]
Tom Green
And I had a couple of friends who I grew up with, who worked on my show with me, and I, you know, can they come in and, like, kind of work with me and do some help, write some skits and stuff? So they gave us a little office and stuff. We went in there, we were writing skits up and everything. And, you know, they actually kind of ended up giving me a lot of. Kind of creative freedom on the show to kind of write sketches and stuff. And, you know, in hindsight, I kind of wish they hadn't.
- [88:23]
Theo Von
No, like, they had just written them themselves.
- [88:26]
Tom Green
Yeah, well, because we really kind of made some really weird sketches. You know, I think maybe it would have been cool if I. Maybe I just gone in and done the stuff that they had written. But, like, I. I was sort of definitely, you know, Freddy Got Fingered hadn't come out yet. So, like, I. I was still kind of riding high on this hit show. And we come in and we say, okay, now let's write some crazy sketches. Right. And, I mean, the stuff we wrote was really, really weird, you know? And.
- [88:57]
Theo Von
And were you intent on making it weird, do you feel?
- [89:00]
Tom Green
I think we were, yeah.
- [89:01]
Theo Von
Like, how weird can we make this? It's snl. Let's make it ours.
- [89:04]
Tom Green
I think so. I think so. And, you know, sometimes I think there was a miscon. Misperception, maybe among some of the cast, that I brought my own writers in, which wasn't really the case. It was more like it was my buddies, and I was. They'd come up with me with the show. You know, it was kind of like we were. You know, when we made the show in Canada, Some of my friends came down with me to the States to.
- [89:26]
Theo Von
Like, this is part of the team. It's not just tomorrow.
- [89:28]
Tom Green
I want them to be included in. In the. In the. In the show. So we kind of went and did that. But, I mean, it's. It was an amazingly exciting experience. I mean, my parents were there on stage with me, you know? You know, there was. It was one of those things where you kind of can't believe that you actually. That it actually happened while it was happening, you know? And I did a lot of sketches with Will Ferrell. One. One of the. Like, here's an example of something that I. I wouldn't say I regret this, but, like. But I kind of regret this. So. So there was a. There was a sketch where I'm a wizard and I'm holding a pig, like an actual pig. And. And it was Molly, Shannon, and Will, and I'm a wizard. And I didn't really have any lines in the sketch or many lines in the sketch. It was mostly Will and Molly were doing this sketch. But I noticed during rehearsal that if I, like, if I just kind of lightly sort of tickled the pig's belly with my finger, that it would start to squeal extremely loud. Right? And so I did that once during rehearsal, and then somebody said, oh, you better not. You know, she'll squeal if you touch her belly. And so I said, okay.
- [90:40]
Theo Von
Oh, yeah.
- [90:40]
Tom Green
And there's a rehearsal show, and then there's the actual show. Right? And, you know, I kind of maybe regret this, but I did note that. Okay, let's get through the rehearsal show, but then live. I'm gonna make that pig squeal. Right? Yeah, yeah, it did kind of.
- [91:00]
Theo Von
Sorry, I'm a pig.
- [91:01]
Tom Green
Yeah. No, but it was. It was kind of. It kind of threw the sketch off a little bit.
- [91:05]
Theo Von
You just kept squealing that.
- [91:07]
Tom Green
I realized that it did kind of throw the rhythm of the. Of the comedy off a little bit.
- [91:11]
Theo Von
But how many times did you squeal? It.
- [91:14]
Tom Green
It was just sort of became sort of a bit of a. A bit of a mess. But.
- [91:18]
Theo Von
And were you getting a squeal every time he touched his belly, or did you have to really.
- [91:22]
Tom Green
No, I just had to kind of just lightly sort of pat her there, and she would just try, you know, so. But it was amusing to me, but I'm not sure if anybody else enjoyed it that much.
- [91:32]
Theo Von
Yeah, but sisters like that. If you touch her lunch, you know, she gets a little animated. If you grab any of her Takis out of her little dish.
- [91:39]
Tom Green
Right. It was like that. Yeah. So, so, but, you know, it was. No, it was an amazing experience. I was total honor to be able to do it. And, you know, I mean, I, I, I, you know, it was cool. I mean, the, the cast was Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Chris Katan, Molly Shannon, Anna Gastire.
- [91:58]
Theo Von
Damn.
- [91:59]
Tom Green
Tracy Morgan. And, you know, you know, there was. It's a weird environment like Saturday Night Live, especially when you're young and you don't really know. Like, you know, we were talking earlier about, like, going to. You're talking about going to Chris Rock's party and, like, you didn't know how to act or whatever because there's all these people here, and it's kind of complicated.
- [92:21]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [92:22]
Tom Green
So you're getting thrust into an environment like that, and then it's. Even as the host, it sort of felt like kind of a competitive environment because, you know, all the cast members are trying to write sketches and get them on the air, everyone, every week. And, and I didn't really know how it worked really at the time. In hindsight, I now realize how it works, and I might have done things differently. But, you know, when we were trying to put these sketches on the air that we were writing, maybe that was kind of pushing another sketch off, and we didn't really. I wasn't really thinking of it like that. So it kind of created. It kind of. It's kind of a weird environment. And, you know, the more I kind of, you know, sort of hear people on podcasts who've been on the show talk about the show, it seems like everybody's gone through that experience who's been on that show where it's very competitive and, and stressful for people. And that made. That makes me feel a little bit better about my experience there, because, you know, it was. It was kind of, you know, a stressful experience, you know, because, you know, everybody's going to be watching the show. It's live, and, you know, I'm, you know, you're doing all this weird stuff. That's not necessarily, you know, I'm a little bit out of my element. I didn't do sketch comedy.
- [93:32]
Theo Von
Yeah. You know, that's scary.
- [93:33]
Tom Green
So it was, it was, it was. But it was cool.
- [93:35]
Theo Von
It was like, it's par for the course a little because. Yeah. I mean, even Adam Sandler the other night was singing. He had a musical tribute that he did to the 50 years, and he referenced a couple times about people having sketches that they wrote that didn't get on the show. So I think that seems like it was just a weekly occurrence. And of course, you want to go in there with a little bit more comfort zone for yourself. You know, it's like, yeah, if we can write a couple of them or we can have some manipulation over them, it's probably going to make you feel more comfortable.
- [94:01]
Tom Green
You know, another thing that was weird that happened on the show, so, like. So there was a sketch that I did. Let's call it a sketch like I did with Will Ferrell, where we're both dressed as eagles. And this was one of the ones that my friends and I wrote. Okay. It's sort of hard to sort of say that we wrote it, but the sketch was, you know, Jimmy Fallon and. And Molly Shannon are looking at Will and I, who are eagles. Right. We wrote this out, by the way, on paper and handed it in, and then they said to do it, and then Will and I decide to fly up into the audience. Okay. And I thought it would be fun to go in the audience. So we fly into the audience, and then we chew up carrots. And then I believe Will chews up a carrot, and I believe he sort of spits the carrot into my mouth. And then kind of we end up sort of. Because you know how baby birds will chew up the food and feed it. Mother birds will chew up the food and to make it easier for the baby to eat. So this was the sketch we did.
- [95:10]
Theo Von
Oh, yeah.
- [95:11]
Tom Green
But so.
- [95:12]
Theo Von
Oh, God.
- [95:13]
Tom Green
So somehow I kind of maybe. Probably would have been better if we just kind of did the sketches that. That their writers.
- [95:19]
Theo Von
Oh, God.
- [95:20]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [95:21]
Theo Von
And these are both males, huh?
- [95:23]
Tom Green
Yeah. So. So we're doing this. Yeah, exactly. So we're doing this zoo.
- [95:29]
Theo Von
Is that at.
- [95:29]
Tom Green
Huh?
- [95:30]
Theo Von
That's what I'm talking about. That's the West Hollywood Aquarium right there, brother. I'll tell you that. Huh?
- [95:35]
Tom Green
Yeah. So we're doing this sketch, this. This skit. And so, you know, when you host the show, you got to run to get ready for the next sketch because you got. Shake off your eagle costume and put on another costume, Right? Another. And so. So I'm running down the stairs, and I'm running through the backstage area and just sitting in the darkness, you know, just backstage. Tom Hanks is just sitting there in front of a monitor watching the show. And I'm in the eagle costume. I just done that. I make eye contact with Tom Hanks. So now I'm like, I was already kind of nervous now, like, I got Tom Hanks in the. In the dark Watching, and I'm going, like, how did that eagle sketch go? You know, and sort of getting ready for the next sketch. Not sure how the eagle sketch went. And Tom Hanks is watching, so it kind of throws you a little bit. But then there's a big after party after the show, and Tom Hanks was real nice, and he, you know, was hanging out, talking to my parents and stuff, and so it was pretty cool. But no, it was an amazing thing. It's a. It's a kind of thing, though. Like, it's kind of like you go, geez, it would be nice to be able to do it again someday, because I think, like, doing it the first time is. Is sort of. So I don't know that that would ever happen, but, you know, probably in an alternate universe, I might be able to do it again someday. But. But, you know, like, you go, okay, I sort of understand how the system of it works now. And. And it would be, you know, probably. You know, I probably would not have done that.
- [97:03]
Theo Von
Yeah. But also it's great that you did, though. It's so epic.
- [97:06]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [97:07]
Theo Von
And, yeah, I think you're right about. That's like a lot of things in life. You're like, man, I wish I had gotten a trial run or had a little bit of an idea of how the feelings were or what the energy was like in that space or that room, or like, man, there's been things. You go out on a stage, part of a show or a banquet, some type of thing, and you. You just play. Play the room. Totally wrong. You know, that didn't seem like that. But there's definitely times like that in life and you wish. You're like, man, I wish I'd get one more swing at it.
- [97:34]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [97:34]
Theo Von
Yeah, but.
- [97:35]
Tom Green
And you know, think that, you know, that generally you can at least take those lessons and apply them to something else.
- [97:44]
Theo Von
Oh, yeah, for sure. So, yeah, did. Was Michael Jackson there whenever you guys played? Who was Yalls musical guest?
- [97:50]
Tom Green
No, it was not Michael Jackson, but that would have been amazing if it was Michael Jackson. No, it was David Gray and. But man, it would have been amazing. Not, no, nothing against David Gray, but.
- [98:03]
Theo Von
Michael Jackson, David Gray play.
- [98:05]
Tom Green
Have you ever interacted with Michael Jackson in any way, or. No, no, that would have. I mean, that would have been amazing. But yeah, he was great.
- [98:12]
Theo Von
And I would love to see another.
- [98:17]
Tom Green
Weird thing that happened on the show. One thing that was weird that happened on the show. So I was backstage getting ready for the. I don't even should tell the story. I don't even know if I should tell this story. Maybe it's not. Let's talk about something else. Okay. It's a weird story.
- [98:30]
Theo Von
No worries. Yeah. Tom Hanks was there the other night. I didn't get to see him. Oh, I got to see Madonna. She's little.
- [98:38]
Tom Green
Okay. Where was that?
- [98:40]
Theo Von
Such a little baby carrot. She was at that SNL thing.
- [98:45]
Tom Green
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.
- [98:46]
Theo Von
It was just interesting.
- [98:47]
Tom Green
So you're chatting with Madonna?
- [98:48]
Theo Von
No, no, no, no, no. She's quite.
- [98:50]
Tom Green
Quite interesting tik tok these days.
- [98:53]
Theo Von
Oh, is she?
- [98:53]
Tom Green
She does some pretty sort of out there stuff on her tik tok.
- [98:58]
Theo Von
I got a follower. I got to check her out. When you have these, you beat cancer, right? Has it flared back up? What's that been like?
- [99:06]
Tom Green
No, it's. No, no, it's completely gone.
- [99:09]
Theo Von
Do they have to take out one of your gonads or not one testicle?
- [99:12]
Tom Green
Yeah, my. My right testicle and some lymph nodes as well, but.
- [99:15]
Theo Von
And what are the lymph nodes like? Is that actually in the testicle or in the body?
- [99:20]
Tom Green
Are actually behind your intestines. And they have to, like, they cut me up here. And they had to remove those. And that was just a check to see if the cancer had spread into them.
- [99:29]
Theo Von
Wow.
- [99:29]
Tom Green
And, you know, the only way they could really check and know for 100% sure if it had spread was to take them out and look at them under a microscope and stuff. So. So they had not spread. So then that meant I did not have to have chemo and stuff. But they did take my right testicle, which was honestly, like, when I found out the show was on MTV at the time.
- [99:46]
Theo Von
And you have it still.
- [99:47]
Tom Green
Yeah, I did not keep it, like, indefinitely, but that is it in a plastic bag right there.
- [99:53]
Theo Von
How many ounces is it?
- [99:54]
Tom Green
You know, I. I don't remember weighing it exactly, but I know it's quite heavy, for sure.
- [99:58]
Theo Von
Oh, hell yeah. Give you that. But, yeah, no, we don't have no light testicles around here.
- [100:07]
Tom Green
But we filmed the whole. The whole sort of, uh, surgery and for a show on MTV that's actually the. The whole show there, the cancer special, which is on YouTube. But when you see my documentary on prime, too, where it kind of walks through that whole. That's Glenn Humplick, who is the. My friend and co host on the show. And here he is, sort of after my surgery, coming down and. And playing with my testicles.
- [100:30]
Theo Von
A little bit of sashimi there.
- [100:31]
Tom Green
It's a little sashimi. Yeah. That's what he Says it sort of looks like chicken. And then, and then my mom says, I don't know what kind of chicken you're eating. Yeah. So that is my cancer infected testicle right there. But I, you know, I still have the left one. It's the middle one now. I can still ejaculate just a little. No, it's pretty good actually.
- [100:48]
Theo Von
Heck yeah, dude, it's going to cost you ten grand if you drive over to Ohio and do it. I'll tell you that, bro. Well, look, long as you stop in Mishawaki.
- [100:56]
Tom Green
Only five grand for me.
- [100:59]
Theo Von
True.
- [101:02]
Tom Green
Which is a benefit to having. In Ohio to have testicular cancer. You can kind of God, brother, the.
- [101:07]
Theo Von
Tariffs they would rack up. They'd make a million bucks a night in that state. That's not a bad idea.
- [101:12]
Tom Green
Not a bad idea for sure.
- [101:13]
Theo Von
Did you ever wear a prosthetic testicle?
- [101:15]
Tom Green
It was offered and I, I refused to do it. I not refused, but I just sort of opted out on the, on the prosthetic.
- [101:23]
Theo Von
Did you ever look at him?
- [101:24]
Tom Green
At least I think I did. Yeah, I think I did. This was, you know, 20 years ago, but I, I'd heard the doctor kind of said, you know, a lot of people get them don't like it. They say it kind of sort of feels weird or whatever. So I just figured I don't need one, so.
- [101:37]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [101:37]
Tom Green
You know, but I mean, I don't know how much you want to talk about my ball sack, but I mean it doesn't really seem that much different like down there. Like I mean.
- [101:45]
Theo Von
Oh, I could imagine that totally.
- [101:46]
Tom Green
As you're kind of all just kind of sort of sort of morphs into kind of like a. Because like the, like the, the like they don't like, like they don't actually like go through the scrotum to get the testicle, you know that like they don't actually cut the scrotum. Oh no, they go in the. Cut you like up sort of up up here like on your, like under your, your pubics hair. Kind of under your pubes. They go in there and then they kind of go in and they just sort of shuck it out like an oyster from above. Yeah. So it's sort of not really like the scrotum is completely intact, you know, like there's not some sort of, you know, sort of scarred scrotum or anything. Like. I don't have a scarred up scrotum. Yeah, yeah, it's totally normal scrotum.
- [102:27]
Theo Von
Yeah. Good.
- [102:28]
Tom Green
Yeah, like there's a, there's a Little scar up here. But I'd had a. I'd had a hernia operation before when I was like, you know, younger. So they just went through the same thing. So it's like you wouldn't. Just a little scar there. Yeah.
- [102:39]
Theo Von
So a lot of hernias in Canada too. What country has the most hernias, you think?
- [102:42]
Tom Green
Yeah, that is interesting. I didn't. Never thought of it about that. But is there a lot in Canada.
- [102:46]
Theo Von
Or is it ever. A lot of my friends Canada had hernia.
- [102:49]
Tom Green
A lot of your friends in Canada have had patterns. Really?
- [102:52]
Theo Von
Yeah. I'm just wondering that is.
- [102:53]
Tom Green
Is. I. I'd be curious to see if there's more in Canada. That would be certainly an interesting statistic for sure.
- [102:59]
Theo Von
According to available data, countries in South Asia and sub Saharan Africa tend to have the highest prevalence of hernias, particularly in regions with lower socioeconomic status, with countries like India and parts of Tanzania showing significantly higher rates compared to high income nations. This is largely due to factors like limited access to health care and higher rates of manual labor. Wow.
- [103:19]
Tom Green
I gave myself a hernia on my show Live on the Public. It was on the public access version of the show years before we were on mtv. And it was kind of a strange episode, probably one of the weirder ones where, yeah, we said, okay, I'm gonna break the Guinness Book of World Record records for the longest fingernails, you know? You ever seen those?
- [103:42]
Theo Von
Oh, yeah, we used to see them all the time.
- [103:43]
Tom Green
This is a strange.
- [103:44]
Theo Von
And the Chinese kid on the bikes, remember that, that world record book?
- [103:47]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [103:47]
Theo Von
They'd have a 15 or 16, a whole. Just a starter pack of Asians all hanging off a bike.
- [103:53]
Tom Green
Exactly. So for whatever reason this was. This. This doesn't even sound like it could even possibly make sense to describe it. But the idea was, okay, I'm gonna. It was Glenn and myself. It's a live show. It was on community cable. You know, it's not on a big network. So it was sort of late at night and we said, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to try to break the record for longest fingernails. And I had a bunch of milk, calcium, and I set it up all very seriously. And then I start drinking milk. And then for the entire hour I just basically drank milk and kind of stared at my fingernails for an hour and didn't do anything right. Just kind of progressively got a little bit more kind of sort of weird. And then at the. Towards the end of the show, I kind of stood up and started thrashing around sort of somewhat violently. I don't know. There's no real logical reason for it. It was like a milk overdose or something. And I threw my. Start doing this thrashing and I hit the desk and I flipped the desk over and I felt something pop in my abdomen. And then we went off the air and I went up to the bathroom and my intestine was like, like pushing out through my. Through my abdomen and went to the hospital and I had given myself a hernia.
- [105:09]
Theo Von
Ah.
- [105:10]
Tom Green
So. So that's. Well, that's how that happened.
- [105:12]
Theo Von
Was that probably the worst accident you ever endeared?
- [105:15]
Tom Green
No, the worst one ever was just two years ago I stepped on a fire in. On the beach in Costa Rica. The old firestep, buried under sand.
- [105:30]
Theo Von
Oh.
- [105:31]
Tom Green
And I walked up to this bonfire and the edge of the fire had been buried and I, My foot went into it and. Yeah, I got third degree burns.
- [105:41]
Theo Von
I thought there was a couple to go. Sandwiches.
- [105:43]
Tom Green
Yeah, no, they, they, they. Yeah, it was, it was. That was maybe the worst. And that was just three years ago. I almost lost my foot. So I was.
- [105:56]
Theo Von
You just had to lay on the. You just had to lay in bed for a while, huh?
- [105:58]
Tom Green
For 10 days in a Costa Rican hospital. And then I was medev on an air ambulance back to Canada actually and spent another week and a half in the hospital there. And yeah, my foot's pretty messed up right now, but it's better. It's better. Not 100%, but I've had a few good injuries. That was. Oh, there they go. There they are. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. You found the unedited version. Yeah, yeah, that, that. Wow, look at that. Yeah, it was. And look at this. The top of my foot too. The bottom of the foot ain't good either.
- [106:29]
Theo Von
Those are sexy. I'll spend 10 grand on those things, huh? Look out, Ohio.
- [106:35]
Tom Green
Jeez. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are my feet right there. That was just. That was maybe coming up from three years ago now. So, yeah, that was. That was maybe the worst injury ever. So. Yeah.
- [106:50]
Theo Von
So the show that you have now, you have the special that's out.
- [106:53]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. It all came out just in. Just a few weeks ago.
- [106:57]
Theo Von
The 28th or something. When was it? Yeah, yeah, it's all on Amazon Prime.
- [107:02]
Tom Green
On prime, this is the Tom Green documentary. And then the standup special. It's called I Got a Mule. It talks about my life on the farm and getting my mule. And then the show, which is. It's a four episode sort of series of me moving to the farm called Tom Green Country. And I recorded all the music for the show as well. There's a country album that I put out, which is the sound for the soundtrack for the show, which is called Home to the country, which is on Spotify.
- [107:30]
Theo Von
It's called what?
- [107:31]
Tom Green
It's called Home to the Country.
- [107:32]
Theo Von
Home to the Country.
- [107:32]
Tom Green
It's the name of the. On the. Of the album. And. And that's out on music. Wherever you get music now. And then I'm on tour. I'm actually on tour. I'm getting back in the camper van and we're going to start do a little bit more camping and touring around with my fiance up through the desert. And then. And then we'll be picking up the tour again. March, March 14th in Colorado. And it'll be Colorado Springs, Aspen, upwards to, you know, up through. Where are we going? Indianapolis, St. Louis. All the dates are on my website. But to Chicago and so touring and driving back to Canada and then I'll be riding my mule all summer. So.
- [108:07]
Theo Von
Yeah.
- [108:08]
Tom Green
When are you in Ottawa?
- [108:09]
Theo Von
I'm gonna be in Ottawa. I'm not sure, actually. I think sometime before the. I guess may maybe.
- [108:14]
Tom Green
Oh, cool. Cool.
- [108:15]
Theo Von
But I have to let you know before I will definitely be so cool to come see the farm.
- [108:18]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [108:19]
Theo Von
Do you think, like, with a lot of the new stuff you're shooting now or some of the stuff that I see on your YouTube channel, it's a little bit more artistic in some way. I don't know if that's a word.
- [108:29]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. It's definitely like, not something that I expect to really go viral in a lot of ways because it's like very long form stuff that I just really like shooting like that. I. I mean.
- [108:41]
Theo Von
Yeah. Do you notice you, like, almost. It almost seems like. It's almost like you'd want to shoot like a feature, like a move. I can't tell, you know, I don't know because, you know, sometimes we have things that start to happen and then it becomes something else, you know?
- [108:52]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [108:53]
Theo Von
But when I'm watching it, I feel like I'm getting into a. I'm getting into a world. That's what it feels like.
- [109:00]
Tom Green
Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. I mean, like, to know that you've watched it because it sort of is sort of. It's not like I'm a mainstream comedy sort of piece that I'm putting on my YouTube channel right now. It's. It's. You know, I want to kind of just capture what it feels like being out in the desert and in these amazing places or being on the farm and with, with the animals and, and so, you know, I like, I like shooting and capturing images that are sort of calming and beautiful and, and it is the kind of thing that, you know, it's, it's, you know, the show's not like that. The show is, there's a lot more going on, but the, the, there is something nice about just kind of putting it on and sitting back and just kind of like, it's like an ASMR type of thing.
- [109:44]
Theo Von
That's what it feels like. It's like ASMR for your eyes kind of.
- [109:47]
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's interesting. I mean, I think a lot of it started just as me kind of like really trying to experiment with the cameras and just trying to figure out how to make these cameras work and capture the sort of, the cinematography the way I want to capture it. And I think that maybe it may evolve into something a little bit more faster paced at some point. But right now it's just, it's just a lot of this sort of slice of life stuff that I put up on the YouTube channel and, and you know, I have a podcast, which I do, you know, one episode every six months or something like that. I might start doing the podcast again and putting that up to kind of give people something a little bit more familiar to watch. But right now, yeah, that's, that's what it is. And I, I just, I, I, I kind of just enjoy taking people to these places. I mean, I find it interesting that like, you know, everything's so fast paced now. Like, you know, everything is so, people's attention spans are so short now that it's kind of interesting to sort of do something that's kind of not that. And again, it's, it's not, you know, the algorithm doesn't really work in its favor. You know, you have to say something shocking within the first 10 seconds and then, you know, put some words on the screen and do all these things that you can do to really capture large audiences. But, but if you do watch it, you sort of do kind of get sucked into a little secret universe in a way. You know, there's even little messages. Sometimes I'll put like 45 minutes into a video that will, you know, if you made it that far, you know, then you might say something in the comments and then I'll know that you actually watched 45 minutes. And so there is a lot of people that do get it, you know, which is Fun and. And it's kind of neat to, you know, it's impossible to capture the energy of what it's like out there in nature by doing something fast paced because so much of what's amazing about it is just the calm stillness of it also. That's. That's. That's what it is. On the YouTube channel. It's a bit different, but I think.
- [111:43]
Theo Von
People are as desperate for that as they've ever been in some ways. I think things have gotten. We're. We're operating at a speed that we don't even feel comfortable in sometimes. You know, our brains are having to. But, yeah, that's what it feels like. It feels like some type of an ASMR or some. It feels calming, man. Feels like. And yeah, I'm just curious because you're always. You've just always been a creator, you know, you're just always creating. You're always finding some way. Way to. To. I don't know if it's in. To incite to get a reaction out of people. Yeah, right. In some type of way.
- [112:21]
Tom Green
Yeah.
- [112:22]
Theo Von
It's cool.
- [112:23]
Tom Green
It's weird today because there's so much energy online. Like, so much, you know, craziness and pranks and just, you know, like, you know, just the insanity that you can see every day on your phone. Like, before you get out of bed, you're just like. Like, you know, if you pick up your phone and you. You get that in your head too early in your day, your whole day, kind of.
- [112:42]
Theo Von
But you started it well, so it's just crazy. Well, that's okay. It's not a judgment.
- [112:50]
Tom Green
You know, technology was changing at the same time.
- [112:52]
Theo Von
But we're glad you did, man. We're glad you did, man. Tom, thanks so much for all the entertainment over the years and, yeah, man, I just appreciate you spending time with me. Congratulations on the new engagement.
- [113:03]
Tom Green
Thank you. Thank you for having me on the show, Theo. I mean, it's awesome, man. I love the show and just appreciate you having me on. And. And, yeah, I want to come pet.
- [113:11]
Theo Von
That donkey, man, when I get up there.
- [113:12]
Tom Green
Absolutely. Come pet the donkey, man.
- [113:14]
Theo Von
You will? Okay. All right. Thanks, Tom.
- [113:25]
Tom Green
Cornerstone.
- [113:29]
Theo Von
Oh.
- [113:29]
Tom Green
But when I reach that ground I'll share this peace of mind I found.
- [113:34]
Theo Von
I can feel it in my bones but it's gonna take.