Originally published in Verbicide issue #21

Andrew Dice Clay: (to someone off camera) I do the fuckin’, don’t fuck with me…with your little shit reality show.
Tom Green: (leans over, puts a comforting hand on Andrew’s shoulder) Are you okay? You sure?
Andrew Dice Clay: Don’t raise your hands to me. I don’t like that, I’m not kidding.

At 36, Tom Green may have mellowed slightly, but he is still aptly capable of capturing the absurdity of any interaction. And yes, he’s back at it again. Now, however, his medium of choice is no longer TV — it’s that revolutionary information superhighway. Tom has managed to build an eight-camera television set in his living room, where he hosts a nightly freeform talk show. Each night features a guest and live callers using Skype Video, and the whole broadcast goes out live on Tom’s website. It’s rough, sometimes rambling, but often hilarious.

“What’s unique about it is it’s the first time you will ever see a show where the host is his own boss. He’s not working for a network, and that’s always an element when you watch TV. You’re watching somebody who’s concerned about keeping his job — it affects the way people talk.”

Of course, that’s something Tom would know better than most — he’s been battling television executives since the early ‘90s. He’s had the most popular show on TV, as well as several shows that have been cancelled without much fanfare. It’s safe to say there have been a lot of ups and downs. As he puts it, “I had a lot of crazy stuff happen to me all at once. I had cancer, I got married to a celebrity. People were talking about me for the wrong reasons. I could do without all of that.” Maybe because that fame has subsided, he seems more comfortable and grounded on his new show.

“Its exciting to think that you can make your own little ‘Late Night’ show in your living room, and if it’s funny people will tune in and watch. You can sell advertising and now you’ve started your own little television network.”

There’s more to Tom Green’s success than his absurdist sense of humor. He has an eye for merging comedy with new technological trends. As he explains, “When I started my show in 1992, I was just jumping on an interesting time in the media where all of a sudden video cameras were accessible to regular people. You didn’t need a TV crew to film on the street. I really leapt into that full force and started shooting all this guerilla street comedy stuff. Now you can build an entire TV studio and distribution system out of your living room — it’s all very exciting.”

A pioneer of “reality television,” Tom Green’s street comedy antics on The Tom Green Show marked the first time TV viewers had access to something so raw — now, of course, that is the norm.

“The fact that the Borats and the Jackasses have been hugely successful is a good thing for me,” he emphasizes. “It’s important to be able to do reality cinema and put it on the big screen. It just allows people like me to go out and do something goofy also.”

Make no mistake, goofy is still what he’s doing: “There’s nowhere on TV today you could see Andrew Dice Clay sitting there, taking calls and just flipping out. I don’t even watch TV anymore. I just want to see something different. It doesn’t even have to be good, just make it different.” Cheers to that.

Tomgreen.com airs weeknights at 11 p.m. EST.