I watched the Tom Green show on The Comedy Network long before he got famous. It was riveting, and I searched my mind for the reason why. I couldn't come up with one until recently, and it is this: Tom Green is not funny.

Put him in an empty room and sit there watching him, and he wouldn't even get you to crack a smile. However, mix in some dazed, dimwitted residents of Ottawa, and he becomes something else. When Green is drinking grape juice from a 20-gallon jug while simultaneously peeing into another 20-gallon jug for hours, that's just stupid. It's the reactions from the people who come upon this scene that are really amusing. He's standing in the street with a sign that says "This scientist has been urinating for 3 hours", wearing a lab coat so we know he's a scientist, and gesturing to a tube exiting the lab coat from his groinal region while he explains to perplexed passersby what this all means.

It's not hard (for me anyway) to see why he's so popular with kids and young adults. As children we spend so many years walking through the world suffering endless embarrassments learning "the hard way" about the adult world. Tom Green turns this embarrassment directly back on the adults. Why wouldn't you laugh if you're a kid? The last cruel joke the world played on you is still fresh in your mind, and here's this young man mocking the adults in a very childish way, showing us that they're no better than we are when faced with something complex and unfamiliar.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that Tom Green is almost never rude or vulgar. He did once steal his parents' car and take it to a detailing shop, where he had two naked women engaged in oral sex painted on the hood, with the caption "The Slut Mobile", then took it back to them before they woke up. That's about as far as he goes. And to think people once found Andrew "Dice" Clay entertaining.

This tape is a pretty good compilation of segments taken from his Rogers Cable show in Ottawa (the equivalent of public access in America). The great thing about his Ottawa show is that he had Derek Harvie writing a lot of his pieces. Harvie has a better eye for what's entertaining on camera, where it seems that Green would rather just amuse himself and hope that that is what the audience wants as well. His MTV show lacks Harvie's taste and gets quite boring after the shock wears off.

Having seen most of the series, I have to say they could have taken a better selection of his segments, but if you want to see Tom Green at his absolute best and absolute worst, by all means pick up this tape.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older