Arlene Is Alone with Tom Green

Tom Green joins Arlene for a candid conversation about his new show The Tom Green Farm, his decades-long career across stand-up, music, and movies, and his lasting impact on internet comedy and the podcast format we know today. Tom opens up about being ahead of his time, the creative paths he's explored, and how he continues to evolve as an artist. A funny, honest, and reflective conversation about creativity, reinvention, and the legacy of someone who helped shape modern comedy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

The show was on Rogers Cable. It got picked up by the Canadian Comedy Network, the Tom Green Show, right? And uh and then MTV picked it up. And that's you know the biggest sort of thing at the time in 1999. It was when MTV was at its peak and everybody uh in the world saw the show. So if if that had not happened, if if the if the MTV had just not seen the show at the right time and picked it up at that time, I would have I would have had to go out and get a real job, you know.

SPEAKER_05 0:33

So hi everyone, it's Arlene Dickinson. Welcome to this week's episode of Arlene Is Alone.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

This week on Arlene Is Alone, Arlene sits down with Tom Green. You know the Tom Green show, you know Road Trip, you probably remember a guy who turned chaos into a career and basically wrote the blueprint for the kind of comedy the internet runs on today. But the Tom Green showing up for this conversation is somewhere new. He left Hollywood behind, bought 150 acres in rural Ontario, and traded the noise for hay bells, livestock, and a whole lot of open space. It's all there in his new craze series, The Tom Green Farm, where he reinvents the talk show by bringing big names out to his farmhouse for honest conversation and the occasional bit of chaos. Arlene and Tom get into how he got here, leaving the city, coming home to Canada, and building a life that looks nothing like the one that made him famous, but feels a lot more like the one he was always meant to have. This is Tom Green.

SPEAKER_06 1:47

Welcome back, everybody, to Arlene is alone, and today I am alone with the one and the only Tom Green.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

All right, that's cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:56

It's very cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Thanks for having me. Beautiful place. Wow, what an incredible loft here in downtown Toronto. Can I say where we are? Yeah, of course. Okay, cool. Don't want to blow up your location here, but you're in Toronto.

SPEAKER_06 2:07

I'm in Toronto right now. Yes, I'm in Toronto right now. And I I feel like I'm sitting with one of my hero idols, Tom, because you have been like, you honestly, I watched you of like I'm older than you, but I have watched you for many, many years.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_06 2:24

And really?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

So well I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm just happy to know that you've watched some of my stuff and you still invited me onto your show.

SPEAKER_06 2:32

I took some talking until somebody talked me into it and said, oh, come on, have them on. I said, No, of course I'm gonna have them on. No, I and and I and I mean part of why you're here is because you're launching your new show, The Tom Green Farm.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yes, that's right.

SPEAKER_06 2:45

Tell me.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

I uh well I've I've my y my my old show used to be called the Tom Green Show. This show's called the Tom Green Farm, but we're basically bringing the show back as a talk show. But we're doing it from my farm where I live with my wife in uh Ontario. And uh it's a lot of fun. I'm kind of new to the farm. I've basically it'll be five years this July, though, so it's not that new.

SPEAKER_06 3:07

I mean, you went from LA and that whole the chaos of LA and the glam and the all of the LA scene to Yes, I was very glamorous.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

You were? I'm a very glamorous person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:19

If you are.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Well, you know, it became kind of a normal place to live for me. I was there for 21 years, so I mean it was it sort of started becoming normal, but then it was never really felt like home. You know, even after 20 years, I'd be thinking sometimes, oh this is weird. I'm in Los Angeles. You know, it never seemed normal, you know. But then when the pandemic happened, I just said, you know, I think I I think I want to m move home to Canada. I missed Canada. I would always be in Canada, I'm touring, doing stand-up, and I'd always be home a lot. But uh I just wanted to be here full time now.

SPEAKER_06 3:48

So and was that like what was that transition like though, to go from what Hollywood is all about and to come to a farm life? That's gotta be a big shift.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

You know, it's funny because I never really felt totally at home in in Los Angeles. So actually, the second I moved to the farm back in Canada, I felt at home again. Yeah. So it was kind of like I realized this was the best decision, and uh it I haven't looked back. And uh shortly after coming back to Canada, I met my wife, and uh we got married in October. Uh Amanda and I, she's from from the area, and uh and uh we've got uh a couple of horses and a mule and a donkey and some chickens, and uh and and uh it's very peaceful out in the wilderness.

SPEAKER_06 4:36

I love that. Like it's a like a complete reinvention, if you think about it, right? Like going from that life to this life. Like you've got like 150 acres? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 4:44

That's a lot of farm. That's not a little hobby farm.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

That's a lot of farmland.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

A lot of it's pure Canadian boreal forest, right? So there's there's seven fields, and those are basically hay fields growing Timothy grass, which we cut and bale up for the horses, and the rest of it is woods and lakes and ponds, and so uh, you know, it's not like I have to tend to every acre of it. A lot of it is just natural forest land, and we have trails that run through it that I can ride the mule through and go explore, and it's uh just uh very calming, lots of wildlife, bears and wolves and coyotes and everything you can imagine out there, lots of birds, bald eagles, and everything. So it's uh really kind of an adventure getting up every day and and uh but calming, you know. I I just love being outside in nature and just the fresh air and the quiet. And uh I do love it.

SPEAKER_06 5:43

I relate to that. I had a place up in Thornbury, up in town of Blue Mountains, at like close to 30 acres, and it was when I went there, it was just like I felt even as I drove into the driveway, it like I just felt everything just change in my my body, right? My nervous system just regulated exactly, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yeah, you don't have uh you know really any neighbors very close, so you don't, you know, I've I have great neighbors that the other farms around in the area, really great people, but you know, it's nice to be able to walk out in the morning and not have to talk to anybody. Uh maybe I'm an antisocial, maybe I'm a uh, you know, I've maybe I have social anxiety or something. I like to just go outside and be alone. But uh I love it. I've always loved out the outdoors though in nature. We had a cottage when I was a kid in Ontario, and my dad and I would go fishing and and we'd go out in the woods, and it was always a big part of my life. So in even it's even just the sounds of the Ontario wilderness, you know, sounds that you just go, Oh, I remember that. I remember that from when I was it triggers memory, right?

SPEAKER_06 6:45

Triggers memory.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

I didn't hear that, I didn't hear that whipperwill in l in the Hollywood Hills.

SPEAKER_06 6:50

No, you probably heard wild things, but not that type of wild thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

More coyotes up there.

SPEAKER_06 6:54

More coyotes and other other wildlife not to be mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:58

Um I always think I was watching, do you do you ever watch the Graham Norton show?

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yes, I love the Graham Norton show. I love that show.

SPEAKER_06 7:04

I I love it because it's just such a it seems like a real conversation, and he always has great facts about people.

SPEAKER_04 7:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:10

He had Emma Thompson on one year. He's had her on a lot, and um she was talking about her farmland that she's got and how she gets up and you know, she was talking about how the police knocked on her door one day and said that somebody, a neighbor had seen, you know, um somebody on a property that was naked walking through going to it was it was actually her. That was just me, yeah. Yeah. So I'm always thinking, yeah, when you're on your land, you'll do whatever you want because nobody's around to see you, but apparently somebody was around to see her.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Aaron Powell Right. Well, you know, she must not be worried about ticks. No.

SPEAKER_06 7:42

Have you ever done that? Have you gone out naked on your own?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

It's not it's not something that I do commonly. Uh I don't actually do that. You know, we I just uh I uh I haven't been riding my mule naked. That's not uh I don't think that would hurt.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Yeah, that would be don't do with that. Don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

But uh but that is the new sort of adventure for me, is is I've got this mule, Fanny, who is uh Fanny. A mule is some people don't know what a mule is.

SPEAKER_06 8:08

It's a donkey and a horse.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yes, it is a lot of people just think it's a donkey, though.

SPEAKER_06 8:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

And it's amazing. I just thought it was a donkey until I got it, and somebody told me what I had there. No, but uh when I uh so it's a hybrid thing. So she looks like a horse, right? She is like a big giant horse with uh bigger ears than a horse. Big big head, right? They have big head, and she's a massive animal. She's half Persheron horse, so she's a draft horse uh donkey, mammoth donkey cross, and uh she's 163 hands, which is how you would measure a horse, so it's a very tall horse. And uh, you know, I I didn't have any experience with horses and this type of thing growing up, so it's all new in the last three years, and I've now I'm very comfortable going out and saddling her up and going off on these adventures with her, and we ride off into the wilderness, and uh I love it. I really love it. It's a it's uh it's the most exciting thing. And there's something about like gaining the trust of a giant 1,500-pound animal, uh, and you have to kind of communicate with a mule in a confident manner, and uh people say they're stubborn, but they're actually just extremely smart, so they may not listen to you if they don't think it's a good idea. Yeah, if they don't think you know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_06 9:23

So what's the funniest thing that's happened to you on the mule?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Well, I mean, for the f for the first six months, I mean, I was having a hard time with her. It was a very well-trained mule. But then after after about two weeks of riding her, uh, Fanny, the mule, realized that I I like don't know what I'm doing, basically. And then and then she came to you? Then she began to test me. You know, she I think she assumed I knew what I was doing in the beginning, and slowly it dawned on her that I did not know what I was doing. So then she stopped turning left. So then I just basically, for about six months, would just go around in circles. Circles. Six months of going around circles. And it was very frustrating. And the thing that's interesting about it is you realize that like I was thinking, oh, she doesn't want to turn left. The mule. I'm thinking the mule does not want to turn left. And uh it took me a while to realize that no, actually what was happening was the mule could tell that I knew she didn't that she wasn't gonna turn left. And so anytime I wanted to turn left, I'd get a little nervous.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

I'd get a little nervous because I had to turn left and I know she's not gonna want to turn left. And uh so she sensed that and figured, oh, I'd better not turn left because he's nervous about going left. There must be something off to the left. We'd better not go left. He doesn't feel confident about going to the left, right? So I started to learn to think confidently about uh what I was doing. And the more uh comfortable I got with what I was doing on the mule, the more I was able to actually think confidently about what I was doing. And then she believed in me. And then and then that's something that I think kind of think actually can translate into human-to-human interaction too. You know, if you walk into a room and you believe in yourself and you're actually confident in what you're there to talk about, that maybe people might believe in you. It's been actually very helpful for me in my life, actually, in in all aspects of my life, just getting to know this mule.

SPEAKER_06 11:13

I was just gonna ask you, have you ever felt um a lack of confidence walking into a room?

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Always, yeah, always. And and I think I think that I've sort of learned, I think, a little bit from that yeah, about that more, more so now, yeah. Because I I you know, I you know, I would always, you know, I I feel nervous before I go on stage, for example.

SPEAKER_06 11:34

Still, after all these years.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

I do, yeah, I do. And the thing is that it's kind of true with stand-up comedy, it's helped me as a stand-up comedian. And you can't actually just fake it. Right. You actually have to be confident.

SPEAKER_06 11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

But it helps to fake it at first, and then you slowly actually become confident.

SPEAKER_06 11:49

So when you go on stage, sometimes you like you have you have to you have to push yourself out there, but once you're out there you can be confident and do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

And as you're walking out on stage, you have to you have to feel feel that you're you're gonna own this and and and uh and uh I think that sometimes my nerves have gotten the best of me when I was younger, and I I think it probably has affected, you know, my ability to perform at times when on on stage or even in a meeting, in a business meeting, you go in and you know, if I was on Dragon's Den, right, you know, I would probably be a lot better after the mule than before the mule.

SPEAKER_06 12:23

That's fair. I I remember I was talking to somebody the other day about um when I grew up, I was raised in the Mormon church, and I talk about this fairly often on the show because I I I got kicked out of the church um for a whole bunch of reasons. Um well, for one reason, because I had an affair, so they kicked me out. Okay. Um but but but the church actually, you know, they were saying, well, you know, do you resent that? And I thought, you know, they that what the Mormon church gave me was they it taught me how to stand up in front of people and talk. Because the y they used to do, you know, like you'd give your testimony, you'd stand up and talk about why, you know, what the church meant to you and how you felt it and blah blah blah. And and that actually helped me become much more confident when I was very young in the church, standing up in front of complete strangers talking about my feelings.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:08

And so now I'm I'm really grateful for that lesson.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 13:12

But I get nervous too. I think we all get nervous when we go on stage. I couldn't do stand-up comic comedy.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

It's fun. It's a I think I think it's a good healthy thing to have nerves before you're performing, though. Uh you just have to learn how to manage and control it. Because I find any time I've not been nervous, I haven't done well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:30

You just sort of you take it for granted, they're just dialing it in.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

I think I think the I think getting ready for a show, those nerves are really just your mind thinking of all the possible things you want to say and trying to remember it all, and your mind's just sort of speeding up and thinking of all this stuff, and that's just kind of what the anxiety actually is, right?

SPEAKER_06 13:50

You've been doing this though, like you I think I read that you were 15 when you did your when you started stand-up comedy.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah, yeah, at Yuck Yucks in Ottawa.

SPEAKER_06 13:58

At Yucky's in Ottawa. Like, was it just like you just was it in you to go and try it? Like what made you go? I'm gonna go and do stand-up comedy at 15 years old.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Uh well, I was sort of a class clown, believe it or not. Um hard to believe.

SPEAKER_06 14:13

I like uh to all I can imagine you as was a class.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah, I was always goofing around at school and and and uh my friends and I would go heard about yuck yucks, first of all. And uh we thought, let's go down to yuck yucks. We would go down to watch shows. We we would watch Norm McDonald before he was famous.

SPEAKER_06 14:30

Brilliant, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

And then uh one night we heard there was an amateur night, and uh you could sign up and and and go perform, and uh I just started doing it. So it was uh it was a lot harder to do stand-up comedy as a 15-year-old than it is as a 55-year-old.

SPEAKER_06 14:46

Yeah, I can I can imagine. Were your friends in the audience?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Uh not really. Sometimes, sometimes, but I mean we were pretty young just to be there. You know, it was mostly college students, University of Ottawa and Carleton University students in the audience, and I'm 15. So it's hard to have any sort of sense of authority talking to a group of uh, you know, older people in their twenties and thirties, and you're 15, but there was a bit of a novelty to it at first. Other comics called me Little Tommy Green from down the street. And uh they helped me. It was very I think being in Ottawa was a good place to start. I think it's a less daunting place to try to get into show business. Because there's because there's nobody else really trying to do it.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

That's true. You're alone. The pool is small.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

It's not like this cutthroat competitive place. As I was in a rap group later, and yeah, and I was later I was in a r started a rap group and I know.

SPEAKER_06 15:42

Tell me sorry, not me to take away.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

I mean, we were the only rap group, you know, uh at our high school. There wasn't a bunch of rap groups and everyone was competing. There was a couple of others in the city, but I mean this was in the eighties, right? And the early nineties. So so and it was uh I just think in Ottawa was uh you know, a lot of the kids are parents work for the government and uh and uh sort of going off and starting a punk band or doing stand-up comedy was something that most people didn't do. And if you did do it, it was such a outlier type of thing to be doing that that uh that you didn't feel judged.

SPEAKER_06 16:19

Kind of like uh Burton Cummings in Winnipeg and and and the same idea, right? I would say so.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

And I'd I think that true translates in tra in fact to all of Canada and why Canadians I think are a little bit different as far as comedian when they do comedy and and music. It's uh our perspective's different.

SPEAKER_06 16:35

But that's like that's a very like stand-up comedy and a rapper, though they're like two very, very different things.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Kind of similar, similar but also different but also similar. Well, you're on stage, you're you're speaking into a microphone, uh, you're rhyming is and rapping is usually the idea of is is it's funny. I mean, we were trying to be funny. We were trying to be like the Beastie Boys, right? So the Beastie Boys are very funny. Right. And you would write your lyrics and you would write your jokes and you get up by yourself and rap. Um I had my friend doing it with me, but a lot of times when you're rapping, you're by yourself. So so it's actually pretty similar in in that sense. Uh and uh you have to have the confidence to get up on stage and do it. And uh I was doing them both at the same time, actually.

SPEAKER_06 17:19

So what would 15-year-old Tom Green like now? I mean, I this I know this question gets out of, but I'm actually really curious. You're 15, you're in Ottawa, you're rapping and you're stand-up comedy, and you're finding out who you are as a young boy, right? Fast forward to 55-year-old Tom on a 150-year-old farm with a mule called Fanny trying to tell it to turn left. I mean, that thing's gonna be more color opposite, but yet you've done and everything in between. Like what why do you keep reinventing yourself?

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Um Well, I do enjoy doing this. I do enjoy it. I I love making television. Like my new show is something that my production company is producing, I'm directing. Uh I like the cinematography aspect of it, like the cameras. We were talking with your camera operators here before the show. I mean, I like the technology.

SPEAKER_06 18:13

And um and so um So you carried that with you throughout all of your life, that that element of being a performer.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah, it's always been a combined thing of taking new technology and combining with with with uh some sort of new kind of creative thing that I can do with the new technology. Like the rapping when it started was because you know, rap music was pretty new when I started rapping. I mean, it was l literally new, like the Run DMC and the Beastie Boys were the groups we were listening to. It was for sort of the early days of rap. And electronic music was new, and uh I I figured out I want to get a drum machine. You know, so I'd go work my summer job and I'd buy a used drum machine. I'd make beats on a drum machine in my parents' basement, start writing these funny raps over it. And it was an excuse to get up at the school talent show to try to be funny over these beats with my friend Greg. But the reason it worked partially is I think is because it was new technology. You know, like all the other kids of the talent show and all the other bands in town were playing guitars and trying to make music that sounded like it was from the 1970s and we were making beats.

SPEAKER_06 19:18

You could have been MM.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

You know, that's what I said. Sometimes I think to myself, man, I c I should have stuck with that, you know?

SPEAKER_06 19:26

Didn't you become a rapper twice? Like weren't you a rapper?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Well, I've always made music. I just put out an album this year, but it was a country album.

SPEAKER_06 19:32

So I like rap country, why not?

SPEAKER_01 19:34

I just like recording music. And we recorded this album at the Tragically Hip Studio in Bath, Ontario, just outside of Kingston. Yeah. But I like writing lyrics. It's very similar to to writing jokes. I mean, it's it's a creative outlet for me that I like. It's funny because you know, if you read like my Wikipedia page, it'll say a rapper. I'm a rapper. You know, I'm not really a rapper. It was kind of like my it was a way for me to express comedy through music. You know what I mean? I I mean I I I guess I was a rapper, but I was we were rapping. When we were kids, we were we were actually trying to be like the Beastie Boys. That would have been the dream, but it didn't it didn't really work out for us.

SPEAKER_06 20:09

So and then and then you went and then you went, well, I think it's worked out okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

We had a record deal. We did have a record deal in Canada. We got nominated for a Juno. I remember going to the Juno's when I was uh 18 or 19 years old. Sitting there like behind Corey Hart and That's so cool. Oh my god, Corey Hart's right there. Like I was like touching his spiky hair and stuff. It was great. I love Corey Hart. We love Corey Hart, so I couldn't believe it. We were like in the thick of it. Celine Dion was hosting.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Yeah, it was right there. There's Celine Dion. Come on. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:38

What was that like? Like she was before she was like a gigantic star.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

She was big in Canada, but it was before Titanic, you know. It was exciting, you know. And and we would go to Much Music and uh guest host Rap City and perform on Electric Circus and all of this stuff. So, you know, we're teenagers and we had a song on the radio, and it was just uh really exciting, right?

SPEAKER_06 21:07

It is amazing, actually. It really is.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

But when the rap group kind of didn't continue, uh I went back to school and studied broadcasting.

SPEAKER_06 21:15

You went to Algonquin.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Because I I really I also really basically wanted to be David Letterman is really what I wanted to. I wanted to do a talk show like David Letterman and run around on the streets and do pranks on people with a video camera. So that's kind of where we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_06 21:29

Well you kinda did do all of those things. I did end up doing that. You did do that. You had a lot of prank. Well, before we go there, I want to just stop at Al Algonquin because you had a late night talk show.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yeah, uh yeah, I've had uh couple of shows over the years, yeah, on MTV and and before that, so yeah.

SPEAKER_06 21:45

But at the college, that student the one that you did with the students, what was the weirdest call you ever got at on the late night uh like Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Well, at University of Ottawa I did a phone and radio show. Yeah. That was when I was in high school actually. I wasn't in university at the time. But I was just I would go down to the high st to the college station or the university station, CHUO 89.1 FM.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

Still remember that.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

And uh and we would take phone calls and uh probably the crazier stuff was more stuff that we did, not so much the callers. Like um, because we were in Ottawa, I remember the radio station. Here's another example of technology being something that was fun. The radio station got like the first cell phone I'd ever seen. It was like one of those it was like it was like it was like I'm calling in an airstrike kind of thing. It was like a shoebox type phone with an antenna on it. And so you were able to sign out the thing to use to like do remote radio broadcasts, right? So we signed it out and I hosted the show from the cell phone while I was driving around in my car. I called into my own show and they just ran me through the board. My friend ran me through the board. And we had a little kind of a cult following in Ottawa, midnight till 2 a.m. And I would say, okay, I'm driving around in my parents' uh, you know, uh Mercury Zephyr or whatever it was, you know, Ford L T D. And uh and uh, you know, I'm I'm on the corner of Rito and Deluzzi right now, and come find me and start following me around. And I'd be hosting the show, okay. You know, we got three cars behind me now, and then we'd have 20 cars behind me. Okay, okay, now we're gonna drive by the Prime Minister's house and we're gonna honk our horns. Okay, let's drive by the Prime Minister's house. 24 Sussex drive. Okay, everybody meet me at 24 Sussex. So I know we'd honk on the horns and we did not get arrested. We'd also do stuff like at the show at midnight till two. I'd say, okay, 2 a.m. It was kind of fun because Ottawa was a nice place to grow up. You know, you could do weird stuff in Ottawa and not get arrested back in the in the 80s. Like we'd I'd said, uh, okay, at 2 o'clock in the morning, meet me on the front lawn of Parliament Hill, somebody bring a soccer ball, and we're gonna play soccer on the front lawn of Parliament Hill. And like 60 kids would show up and we'd play soccer from two till till the sun came up. And the RC and P would pull up their cars and shine their lights out onto the field and let us play. Really? Mm-hmm. And it was amazing. It was it was some of the funniest things, 'cause it sort of felt a little bit like social media and does now is interactive media, you know, because the pe the people would uh be listening to the show and then they'd come down to the parliament. We'd play these play these soccer games and it just seemed like the most outrageous thing at the time, you know, that we could go just get a group of people together like that randomly and uh go do something funny together.

SPEAKER_06 24:30

So you I mean you really invented uh you you were a leader and uh like a trailblazer in terms of using technology to to create moments with people remotely, right? Like bringing them down to an event. So I was like when you look at social media today, do you just kind of go, yeah, that's just the the evolution of what I started? Do you ever give yourself credit for that?

SPEAKER_01 24:50

I mean, I mean, uh no, well you're doing a show here in your house, right? So in the early 2000s, uh I built a TV studio in my living room in Los Angeles. This was before podcasting was a thing. A word, you know, that that word had not been invented yet. So I we called it a streaming web TV show. Yeah. I called it WebO Vision. WebOVision. Webovision, yeah. And we did hundreds of shows for several years, and I'd invite all my friends up, but I also invite all the comedians in Los Angeles who I knew from the comedy clubs and people, you know, Jimmy Kimmel and Joe Rogan and all of the people that, you know, hundreds of people came. You know, this was before podcasting, and they would come up and they would see, oh, you've got your own cameras in your living room, and you're streaming live onto the internet, and we're taking phone calls. And Joe Rogan looked around and said, Man, somebody's just got to figure out how to make money doing this, he said. And then he went and figured that out. So made $200 million with Spotify. So crazy what he's done.

SPEAKER_06 25:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

So he became he's the biggest show in the world. Well, I mean, he'll he he he always, every time I go on a show, he always uh very graciously uh acknowledges that that was kind of one of the things that gave him the idea of starting his podcast. So but I mean it was all it just came from technology, right? I was just idle, I wanted to play with the cameras, I wanted to stream on the on the internet, and I knew that I I I knew that I could stream on the internet because I was paying attention to where the internet was going, so so we just did it before anybody else did.

SPEAKER_06 26:22

How did you make money at it though?

SPEAKER_01 26:23

I did not. I did not make money.

SPEAKER_06 26:25

So how did you survive through all that?

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Well, I already made a ton of money from my show, so I didn't know. Okay. Okay, so you had I'd done a bunch of movies and I was doing, you know, so I'd already I was just kind of chilling and uh trying to figure out what my next thing was.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

So you were to prepare to just to plow your money into it.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

I was working on my next thing. I was trying to figure out how to I was, you know, I wasn't retired, but I was, you know, 32 years old and I just made a bunch of movies and had a hit TV show, and I was okay, now let's try to invent this. And it didn't make any money. I mean, we made a little money, but didn't make any money. I was just sitting around LA and spent a lot of money doing it, uh building the studio, and then I decided, okay, this is costing too much money. I think I'm gonna start doing stand-up comedy again. And then I took off and got back into stand-up and and uh kind of quit the WebOVision show right around when podcasting really took off.

SPEAKER_03 27:15

Timing is everything, Tom. Timing is everything.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

But no, I mean I yeah, I'm sort of kidding, I already made a ton of money. But I had, I had made I had done very well. I mean, I uh there was a period of time between uh the year 1999 and you know 2005 where I done many movies and TV shows and and things went very well for me, and uh, you know, I I'd never expected to kind of uh you know get paid the kind of money I got paid to do uh this stuff. And uh you know, fortunately put me in a place where I was able to kind of just sort of decide what I wanted to do, and that's that's that's been uh a blessing.

SPEAKER_06 27:55

Do you is there anywhere along the path of your career that you wish you had turned left instead of right?

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Uh I mean there's sometimes like in the immediate aftermath of something that doesn't work, you think that. Uh but then uh uh with time going by, uh you realize that you know even failures and mistakes uh or let's say failures or or things that don't work actually end up you end up learning a lot from that and uh it makes you who you are. And so, you know, like I made a I wrote a movie called Freddie Got Fingered, okay? Crazy title. Um and it's a really wild and outrageous movie, you know, gross out, sort of shocking, silly movie, right? But it's actually just a cartoon, right? It's a silly cartoon movie. And you know, I got bad reviews, and Roger Ebert and Siskel gave it a thumbs down, and it was sort of like felt like at the time this is the worst thing ever, the biggest disaster ever. But but uh, you know, I think, well, okay, if it had, if it had done really, really well, right, I probably would have made more movies, and then uh maybe I would not have moved back to Canada and lived on this beautiful farm and and uh met my wife Amanda and had these incredible animals. Maybe I'd be sitting in some house in Malibu, you know, just kind of bored, you know, and uh smoking the joint. Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, at a certain point, like the failure of that movie shifted the entire direction of things. You know, it actually was the reason why I went and started the web television show. Because I wanted to do a talk show, but after after you make a movie like Freddie Got Fingered, if you want to do a talk show, you have to build a TV studio in your living room.

SPEAKER_06 29:40

I imagine you're not getting invited to the studios to to come there.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

And I learned so much from that that uh it ended up being a good thing.

SPEAKER_06 29:49

That's a great lesson though in life. I I I feel like my life's been a little bit like that too, which is you you have to you're always gonna hit a wall somewhere. So you have to be like the ever ready buddy. Hit the wall and just keep going another direction, right? Bounce, bounce off of it.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it was uh it was a good thing. I I you know there's a certain amount of luck involved. I mean, I I got very lucky with with a lot of things, but it's kind of like you put yourself in the position for good luck to happen. I mean, the the show was on Rogers Cable. It got picked up by the Canadian Comedy Network, the Tom Green Show, right? And uh and then MTV picked it up, and that's you know the biggest sort of thing at the time in 1999 was when MTV was at its peak and everybody uh in the world saw the show. So if if that had not happened, if if the if the MTV had just not seen the show at the right time and picked it up at that time, I would have I would have had to go out and get a real job, you know.

SPEAKER_06 30:45

So is Canadian famous Tom Green different than US famous Tom Green?

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Um In what sense? I don't I mean Is the fame different?

SPEAKER_06 30:56

Like d do people treat you differently here? Are you are you is it less is it more subtle here, the fame, or is it there's a lot of differences and there's also a lot of similarities.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

I mean, for one, like the show was on MTV in the United States, and at the time MTV wasn't in Canada in 1999. So the show was actually bigger in the United States than it ever was in Canada. It was always more of a kind of an underground cult type of thing on the Comedy Network and on Rogers Cable, and they'd be watching my weird version of the Tom Green show here. So in that sense, you know, in the United States, like the people that know me know me from, you know, when they were in high school, there was a period of time where everybody was watching the show. Whereas in Canada, people that know me it was sort of like the more of the some of the weird, weird kids were watching that the the creative kids, the the quirky. Uh it wasn't this big, you know, popular thing up here. There was a period of time in in the United States where it was a massive sort of life change in 1999. When you go on MTV where one second you're doing this quirky underground show and a public access station, and overnight, you know, we had to leave New York City. We had to move the show to Los Angeles because we could not go outside and film in New York City because everybody was just kind of rum run up and sort of start, you know, mobbing our camera crew and wanting pictures and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_06 32:20

What was that like for you?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

It was exciting, it was fun, yeah. It was pretty cool. But I mean it was hard to film stuff, so we moved out to Los Angeles and started driving around in a van with tinted windows and would jump out and point the camera and make fun of people that looked like they were over the age of sixty because they probably didn't watch my show.

SPEAKER_06 32:35

So How old were you when all that was happening?

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Uh twenty-eight, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:39

So that's a pretty impressionable age still to have that kind of heady fame. Like I I mean, I've always said I'm glad I didn't get on TV until I was like in my late forties because I don't know how I would have handled it in my twenties, you know. Like it's it's very different.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Yeah. It was I mean, it was for the most part it was really exciting and fun. But but then you sort of feel the pressure of having to try to keep it uh keep it going, and uh, you know, uh then once you have all the that sort of uh pressure on you to kind of maintain that uh success, it it it was a lot. But you know, you know, I I could I I could complain about much worse things than that. You know, um you know it was it was good and and uh I you know Essentially I just keep trying to do the same thing over and over again, but it's just in different sort of different uh spins on it. Like the new show, the Tom Green Farm at the at uh at the farm is in some ways kind of a more warm uh inclusive version of the old show. It's not as polarizing as the old show. I mean, I'm amazing guests, so yeah, you feel like I I saw your guests. Yeah, it's similar to what we're doing here, except we're at we go at the farm, we go ride a mule or go out in a canoe or go for a hike in the woods or or uh you know cook some food or do something and uh and then sit down in the loft of the barn and have a long format interview and and it also has a lot lots of uh lifestyle elements as well, where it shows me with the horses and trying to figure out farming and all of this stuff. It's something that I think um very proud of. I mean it's really I think it's a very uh accessible show to a really much wider audience than my old show was, which was definitely more attempting to shock people and confuse people, and you know, you know, purposely trying to, you know, maybe make some people angry so then other people would think it was funny because you know this is so you know off the wall. Whereas this is kind of unbelievable to me that that we got some of these great people to come out, like lots of people. Michael Serra came out, and you know, getting to sit down with Dan Aykroyd and Tony Hawk, uh, who I got to know when I was in Los Angeles, and Jesse Reyes, uh pop star from Canada, and uh uh Kurt Weil, uh alternative rock star from you know from Philadelphia flew up, really great Priyanka Priyanka and who's hilarious, and uh I was on uh Canada's drag race and Priyanka I I knew Priyanka from there, but uh and Pri Priyanka kind of messes with me on the show, so it's fun. That's like the kind of sh uh you know, it was it was a fun it's a funny episode. It's a second episode of the show. So yeah, it's uh it's it's it's pretty exciting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:25

It maybe just you're like it's probably it's again like a the age and stage and it's timing for you, right? You're doing things that are probably more aligned now with how you where you are in your life potentially.

unknown 35:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

A little bit. Yeah, and it's um you're not doing pranks? Well, it's it's like, yeah, it's it's there's sort of an auth uh first of all, I'm excited about showing the beauty of Canada. Just the nature, just the outdoors.

SPEAKER_06 35:52

Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

And uh yeah, because I uh you know, uh on my social media I'll be riding my mule in a cowboy hat, and I get all these comments from Americans saying, what state are you in? And you know, we're in Canada, you know. Oh, I didn't know Canada looked like that. I thought Canada had snow all the time.

SPEAKER_04 36:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

And um, and so uh, you know, it's not so much about just you know impressing Americans with how beautiful Canada is, but it's also about showing everybody in the world how beautiful Canada is. And um and uh I don't know, I I take a lot of pride in in being able to show the world that. Because it's frustrating when you live in the United States for 20 years and people don't don't know anything about Canada. It's just sort of like, come on, man, you know, you did you can't believe they don't know, you know, the capital of Canada or, you know, you know. So that's that's a big part of it. And and and then when people come to your home like we're doing now, you kind of feel like you're being welcomed into somebody's private, you know, world, right? So then you you you do have more of a uh um tendency to open up and uh you know and you have to kind of go out of your way to come to the farm. It's we're not we're not just on the outskirts of town here, it's a pretty remote place and and so people have to drive, you know, hours and hours or you know, to travel to get there. And so it's nice because the only people that do the show are people that actually want to be there.

SPEAKER_04 37:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

You know, like sometimes if you're if you're uh hosting a talk show, I've hosted many talk shows over the years, and you'll have guests coming because they're on their press tour, and okay, which one are we doing now? You know, and then they you know, I mean I I want to be here right now. I do. I really love I'm having a great time. Thank you for inviting me. That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. But once in a while, when you're doing a talk show all the time, especially when you're doing a nightly show and you're getting three guests a night, every once in a while once somebody's like, Oh, this person doesn't want to be here, you know?

SPEAKER_06 37:43

Yeah, they're not yeah, they don't even know why they're there yet.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Yeah, yeah. But when but when you're host when someone comes all the way out to the farm, I mean they're excited to be there, excited to be outside, they're and you go and do something outdoors and it's sort of you're relaxed. You're relaxed out in nature and just people lighten up and it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_06 37:59

I'm kind of kicking myself as you're talking because when I was uh when I had my my farm, um I have a friend who's a producer, director, uh works um freelances, and he came out for dinner one night to my house because he him and his wife had a place out there and she's a television uh journalist, and they and he's saying, you know, you should do a show here where we take this big ass farm table and we put it out in the on the grounds, and you just invite people over and we'll have a a show of having dinner. And I looked at him, I said, Well, who's gonna want to watch a show of us having dinner? But it's kind of exactly what you're saying, which is people want to see that authenticity and they want to see the nature and they want to see that people that they see as quote celebrity actually have real normal lives and want to have conversations with people.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

And it's it's I didn't do it. Well, you're sort of doing it now. You're doing it now. You are doing it now. It's just not at the farm, but it's it's at the at your home here and uh it's what's your what's your advice to me doing it here?

SPEAKER_06 38:59

Give me give me the Tom Green advice of how to make this show.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

I mean, it's pretty it's going pretty good here, I think. I think it's going good, but uh I mean I th I's sort of uh, you know, um, you know, I wouldn't uh I I don't really think you're doing anything that uh seems uh cameras are great, great cameras.

SPEAKER_06 39:20

We got great cameras.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

We use some of these cameras in our show. Beautiful lighting, yeah, really nice lighting.

SPEAKER_06 39:26

We have good lighting.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Yeah, I mean uh I think you're I think this is great. I think you're doing it exactly what you should be doing. Yeah, yeah. I could I couldn't make any real um maybe get better guests, I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 39:37

I don't think I could get a better guest than you. I don't think so. I it's it's it but it is a struggle to, you know, to you're right that you have that connection to all those Hollywood celebrities that are willing to come up and you know sit down with you. That's that's that's actually a huge credit to you. You used to do a lot of pranks and I I don't I I try actually not to um read up too much on my guests because I actually wanna hear things for the first time and I don't want to feel like I'm prepared with a bunch of questions. But I did I did I do know that you're working with your mom. Um what's tell me about that. Tell me about the prank Tom, because I know there was lots of ch pranks you used to do with your they used to turn the tables on you, correct? Yes. And now you're working with your mom in this new show.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah, absolutely. What's that like with your It's it's awesome. I love it. When I started the show, one of the biggest sort of things that really resonated with people when I started the show back when I was in my twenties was we would, you know, barge into their bedroom in the middle of the night and on the work night at two o'clock in the morning and stick a camera in their face and really or paint their house I painted their house plaid and when they came home their house was painted and uh actually painted, you know, and I had to repaint it. But they were angry and we'd film them getting very angry at me, but they were sort of also somewhat bemused and kind of incredulous that I'd done this. Which was sort of the first time people saw this kind of camera in the face of somebody getting angry. There wasn't really a lot of stuff where you could see people getting angry on TV, you know, like actually getting angry. Everything was much more scripted, right? Yeah, so that was uh they were involuntarily on the show, you know, back then. But now now over the years, um my parents have always been super supportive of what I do, and I've always kind of My mother's a really good writer. I've always bounced ideas off of her, and we worked on ideas together, and they come see my show. What do you think about this? We throw ideas around, and I thought, well, this this time I'm moved back to Canada and I've started my production company up in Canada and thought, well, let's actually why don't you actually work on the show as a producer? So she's actually actually working with us. And it's really great because she's honest with me, you know, and uh and and and then on camera it's very funny because she's there at all the interviews. And there's times where it'll cut away in the middle of an interview. Oh, my mom's a producer on the show. And you'll see when you see if you watch all ten episodes, there's moments where she just appears on the show. And uh it's uh it's it's really funny because we have a really there's always been a very funny uh, you know, way that my parents and I have engaged. My father's on the show too. Uh he's just we just go fishing and he's not actually working as a writer on the show, but he's just on the show, sometimes doing stuff with me. And they have a really great sense of humor, so and they kind of raz me. You know, they kind of they they're they're very comfortable with kind of putting me on the spot.

SPEAKER_06 42:31

So it's uh it's uh which very few people would have permission to do, right? Yeah, yeah. It's how um how old are they? Are they in their seventies?

SPEAKER_01 42:39

Uh no, my uh father is in his eighties and my mother is she's turning just turned eighty. Oh my gosh, mom, I how how old is my very yeah, so I love that.

SPEAKER_06 42:50

I love that I I mean I I don't understand this whole retire thing. It d doesn't resonate with me at all. Like I think if you want to work, you work as long as you possibly can and want to. And you know, and it's and I my daughter actually produces this show. Yeah. So she same thing. She's uh you know, she's in her forties, I'm in my sixties. And it's and it's great. I I really cherish it. It's a wonderful it's a way to see your family in a way that you wouldn't otherwise. Um I think sometimes it's hard for her because uh she's still my daughter and you know, like it's it's hard to be critical of any of the things if I say I want to do something differently and she wants to tell me she wants to. But we're sorting through it. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's it's sort of a reverse of of uh dynamic. You know, with my mother being the producer, you know, I you know, she's uh very comfortable telling me what I'm doing wrong. So very too comfortable? No, in a in a good way. She's we she's she's she's uh you know uh you know, she she knows she she's got a very good taste about uh you know, just about You know, everything when I've done the shows my shows over the years, she's always been, you know, a good audience and uh a good a good uh uh support of of of what I do. But uh you know, I trust her judgment, so it's helpful. You know, and she cares about she cares she cares about uh me being successful and the show being successful in a different way than uh than uh uh somebody else who just is working on the show would feel. Yeah. She's really invested in it.

SPEAKER_06 44:27

So and do they live close to you? They do at all? So is that why you picked the farm where you picked?

SPEAKER_01 44:33

Uh yeah, it's sort of close to Ottawa, the farm, and they they were in Ottawa. Although they actually moved closer to the farm since uh since I uh I moved back. So so we're all kind of within uh not too far from each other, and it's nice.

SPEAKER_06 44:45

That's nice. It's nice to be.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

And my brother as well. So your brother too.

SPEAKER_06 44:49

Older brother, younger brother brother, yes. And is he on the show as well?

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Uh not as much, not as much, but yeah.

SPEAKER_06 44:54

Are you gonna do anything like I'm I'm big, I invest in the food space. I love Canadian agriculture. I spend a lot of my time talking about how we do not value our land enough. We think of it as a commodity only, and we don't think about all the things that we can do to help feed the world and create great products and stuff. Are you gonna create any a product line? Maybe I can help you with that.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Well, yeah, that would be great. I would love to talk to you. I I I'll call I maybe I could pitch you something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Come into the dragon's den. No, because then no, I don't want you in front of the other other dragon. Yeah, no, I've got lots of uh lots of ideas of things I'm trying to put together. I'd absolutely love to sit down and throw some ideas around with you. Yeah, that'd be amazing. I had a beer out uh a few years ago and uh with a great craft brewery in from Ottawa called Bose Brewery, and uh we may may bring the beer back, but uh but uh you could do so many things on you could do so many things with your whether whatever you you have your brand is so ubiquitous with Canada and I I love that you're back here.

SPEAKER_06 45:52

I'm I'm a proud, proud Canadian. I am thrilled that you I mean not that you didn't have a wonderful career in the US, you did, it was a fantastic career, but I'm thrilled that you're this next stage of your your life that you're living it here.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

Yeah, no lucky. Great to be home. You know, we're we're we don't have to be in Los Angeles anymore. Yeah. I felt that it was sort of like you almost have to kind of be somebody that you're not when you're in Los Angeles. And nobody wants to see somebody being inauthentic, right? You know, here I'm in Los Angeles, I'm in Hollywood, you know what, I'm not from here, you know. I'm I'm from Canada. I I I grew up playing hockey and I like being out in nature and I like being out in a canoe, so I should do what I like to do and and film that.

SPEAKER_06 46:35

So a rapper, comedian, actor, producer, director.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Probably we don't have to go with a rapper. Coun country let's talk about country music star. Country music. Let's do that, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 46:47

Country music.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

No, we don't have to say rapper. Rapper sounds not a rapper anymore.

SPEAKER_06 46:52

Okay, rapper's gone. Throw the rapper, throw the rapper out. To hell with a rapper. Country music star.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

Um Although Drake, I mean, I'm amazing what Drake's doing, you know. Look at that. Biggest artist in history from Toronto. Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_06 47:04

And uh well, except say what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Do I say Toronto wrong?

SPEAKER_06 47:07

Toronto.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

Yeah, I'm trying to say that though.

SPEAKER_06 47:09

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

I say for years I've said Toronto, and then I get corrected because I say the T too hard. So now I'm trying to say Toronto and I feel like I'm overdoing the Toronto part. So I don't know, anyways.

SPEAKER_06 47:19

I don't know. Like I'm from Calgary, Calgary. Oh, yeah, you're from Calgary, and people say Calgary. Yeah. And I go, no, it's Calgary. Yeah. And then you if you go to Newfoundland, people say no, it's Newfoundland. And then you go to so I think I think Canadians, we we suck at our home in poly nine of our cities what they are.

SPEAKER_04 47:33

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 47:33

I don't know. I'm not from here. I I've lived in Toronto for a long time, but I've also lived in Alberta for a long time and Vancouver. I I love Canada. I I've traveled to every little town, probably as you have, every little town, every little community, every city. It's a beautiful land. We're we're on such we're we're lucky. I want to come see your farm. I hope I get an invite to come to the city.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

Absolutely, yeah. You'll have to come on the show when we do a new season of the show. Or we may just be uh launching a podcast as well to to go to compliment the show. So just if you're driving by the area, pop in and my wife and I'll uh make lunch for you and we'll go out and ride a mule, or we can just look at the mule if you want.

SPEAKER_06 48:10

I think uh I might just want to look at the give the mule an apple and we can take a picture with the mule.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

I'll pretend that I pretend that I wrote the mule.

SPEAKER_06 48:17

I always ask my guests to if there's anything they want to say to the audience directly that you wouldn't, you know, anything that you want to this one here?

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Uh sure, absolutely. I mean, I uh you know I've I've tried I've been trying to say uh you know, well, first of all, watch my new show. I'm Tom Green. Hello everybody, I'm Tom Green. Watch my new show. It's called the Tom Green Farm, it's on Crave, and uh it's uh it's a lot of fun if you like uh the idea of uh moving out to the country, or if you like the idea of uh getting off grid uh or being self-sufficient, tune in and see me trying to do that, uh trying to ride my mule. It's uh it's uh a labor of love. We're having a lot of fun filming the show out there, and we've got a lot of great guests, and uh I think you'll enjoy it. The Tom Green Farm on Crave.

SPEAKER_06 49:12

And on that note, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 49:15

And wherever you are in your journey, I hope you learned something from Tom's journey, which has been pretty damn fascinating. And I could sit and talk to him for a few more hours. And uh thank you, Tom, for coming on. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Thanks, Arlene. Appreciate it.