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How do people like Tom Green get famous?
- Thread starter Baphomet
- Start date
My favorite part is how people sorta came back around on it. Like there's a brief moment where, if he had changed gears and launched into a set, the crowd would've loved it.
And then he blew right past it.
For the same reason that a movie like Napoleon Dynamite becomes iconic for a sliver of a generation. It's just a perfect moment in time for someone to capitalize on something. Tom Green was the right balance of surreal stupid comedy when America and Canada desperately wanted surreal stupid comedy; People wanted reality TV, and it had a mix of reality TV in it. Just after it shifted from him to Jackass and CKY, which had elements of TOm Green's physical stupid comedy and wratched it up to 100, and then (thankfully) killed it dead.
In 3, 5, 10, and 20 years we might look back at the most famous YOuTube stars and think, like "How the fuck did these people possibly get famous?" We can already do it with "Prank Videos." The meteoric rise and swift fall of prank videos were like this perfect moment in time for whatever YouTuber jumped on it earliest and best, milked the fuck out of it, and now they're making videos about how prank videos are over.
I actually think Tom Green has real comedic talent, he's always been a really good interview even decades after his show, which shows that he's not just a one-hit-wonder.
My favorite bit of weird 1990s pop trivia is that WWF toyed with this segment called "GDTV" in the late 1990s, where these short vignettes of "behind the scenes" stuff in WWF would be shown on a closed-circuit like monitor. Originally it was going to be Goldust's re-introduction to WWF after he had fallen off the wagon, left, and was coming back. But then he fell off the wagon again and they changed the segment to GTV, with the producers (probably Russo) intending to introduce ... Tom Green ... as the man behind GTV. Thankfully, Vince watched some segments of the Tom Green show, said (rightly), ... this isn't funny .. and completely axed the angle. We were ultimately moving to a disastrous synergy of Attitude Era and Tom Green, and it was narrowly avoided by Vince McMahon.
In 3, 5, 10, and 20 years we might look back at the most famous YOuTube stars and think, like "How the fuck did these people possibly get famous?" We can already do it with "Prank Videos." The meteoric rise and swift fall of prank videos were like this perfect moment in time for whatever YouTuber jumped on it earliest and best, milked the fuck out of it, and now they're making videos about how prank videos are over.
I actually think Tom Green has real comedic talent, he's always been a really good interview even decades after his show, which shows that he's not just a one-hit-wonder.
My favorite bit of weird 1990s pop trivia is that WWF toyed with this segment called "GDTV" in the late 1990s, where these short vignettes of "behind the scenes" stuff in WWF would be shown on a closed-circuit like monitor. Originally it was going to be Goldust's re-introduction to WWF after he had fallen off the wagon, left, and was coming back. But then he fell off the wagon again and they changed the segment to GTV, with the producers (probably Russo) intending to introduce ... Tom Green ... as the man behind GTV. Thankfully, Vince watched some segments of the Tom Green show, said (rightly), ... this isn't funny .. and completely axed the angle. We were ultimately moving to a disastrous synergy of Attitude Era and Tom Green, and it was narrowly avoided by Vince McMahon.
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This isn't actually accurate. Tom Green wasn't really a "successful" comedian. He was a comedian, and he did a public access TV show. It got picked up by MTV who wanted some "shock" value for their channel, and from there it took off. Tom Green really opened the doors for shows like Jackass, etc.
He actually didn't become a successful comic until very recently (like in the last few years) as he began touring clubs & actually writing more material.
There' s a great episode of You Made it Weird with Tom Green where he talks at length about all this stuff (and he's surprisingly a really normal dude when he's not showing out for the camera).
The Tom Green Show was objectively brilliant and influential.
Freddy Got Fingered was... very subjectively brilliant.
Check the O.R. is catchy as hell.
Freddy Got Fingered was... very subjectively brilliant.
Check the O.R. is catchy as hell.
What? No.
He was Eric Andre before Eric Andre. Not at all like Chappelle.
This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title.
I got you beautiful JYEWELS. Beautiful JYEWELS.
lmao that movie was insanity and I loved it
I came in here to post this exact cut, lol. This shit gets me every time -- especially since this dude isn't wearing gloves at Subway. The 90s were wild. We didn't even give a shit about things like that. If someone built your sandwich in Subway today without gloves, there would be outrage.
Man he did a TV special on his bout with testicular cancer. He did the Tig Notaro thing 12 years before she did. Dude's a legend.
I've seen stand ups live from Chris Rock, David Spade, Dave Chappelle, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Burr, Sarah Silverman, and like dozens more and Tom Green was by far the funniest act I've ever seen.
I hate humor where people just go out and be annoying, so I never liked Tom Green.
I liked Jackass for the ridiculous stunts though.
I liked Jackass for the ridiculous stunts though.
His freddy movie was probably the biggest turd I ever saw on a screen.
What a bad bad bad thing it was
What a bad bad bad thing it was
I recently saw Tom Green linking up with Andy Milonakis in Japan via live stream on Twitch. They walked around, tried some places to eat and I ended with them at a Karaoke spot. Everyone was requesting Tom to have his own Twitch channel.
I was one who didn't care for him back in high school but the more I was exposed to him the funnier.
Yes Freddie got fingered was he worst movie but it's time green so it wasn't surprising.
Tom Green monkey hour is a classic.
I was one who didn't care for him back in high school but the more I was exposed to him the funnier.
Yes Freddie got fingered was he worst movie but it's time green so it wasn't surprising.
Tom Green monkey hour is a classic.
Me too - on Ottawa it made sense, cuz it was just cable access.
Then it got picked up by Comedy Network.
Then it got picked up by MTV.
My only explanation is that the 90s was a weird time and people enjoyed edgy gross-out humor.
I think like 70% of the Ottawa show comedy was just because I knew where the locations were lol. "hey he's causing a commotion in the byward market, that's funny I guess"
You posted the exact video that I was looking for. This was my favorite bit of his - the editing and Tom's demeanor was perfect.
(IIRC this was from his cable access or Comedy Network days. I don't think MTV got the rights to his earlier bits.)
Honestly in the era of Joey Salads 4 Prez this is, like, almost charming in how clearly staged it is, a la the "David Blaine street magic" parody video series