| It started with Coyle and Sharp. Then it was Candid Camera. The prank became popular entertainment. Ottawa native Tom Green took it to new extremes with his slutmobile high jinx. It made him very famous, with a show on MTV and several Hollywood movies to his credit.
Dude has just released Prepare for Impact, a hip hop collaboration with DJ EZ Mike, the turntablist behind the Beastie Boys. EZ lays down the beats and Green raps concise, gag-filled summaries about his career thus far. For the record, Green was a member of seminal Canadian rap group Organized Rhyme back in the early 1990s.
Now that he has come this far and, to an extent, full circle, it becomes important to reflect on and analyze his impact on the entertainment media.
(We join the interview after Green describes a segment he taped earlier in the day for CBC's Zed TV to promote Prepare for Impact.)
FFWD: So the prankstah rap is kind of like getting back to your roots then.
Green: It's just kind of another thing I'm doing. I don't really look to it as getting back to my roots. I don't really know that my roots are in rap.
FFWD: But you're not doing the TV show anymore.
Green: I'm directing a movie, right now, that I've just finished. That's still along the lines of the comedy stuff. This is just something else I'm doing at the same time. I just finished this movie I wrote and directed. We shot it in Saskatchewan. It was really cool.
FFWD: With the TV, though, do you think you may have put yourself out of the market? With the style of comedy you do – prankster comedy – you took that Candid Camera style.
Green: That's not really true. Never really did hidden camera on our show. We only did hidden camera two times out of a thousand bits that we shot.
FFWD: It's still the essence of the prank on tape, though the style is different. You took it to new extremes.
Green: I think some of the stuff was pranks, but a lot of it wasn't. There was a lot of funny interview stuff that we were doing. I'm not focusing on doing pranks anymore. There's funnier stuff you can do on TV.
FFWD: Do you think that because of shows like Jackass and Bum Wars [actually the video series is called Bumfights, but Bob didn’t know better], where it has taken the style to further extremes.
Green: They are different kinds of extremes, apart from the fact they do direct replicas of a lot of my stuff, like falling down on crutches, swimming with sharks or drinking until you vomit. That's where they directly borrowed a lot of stuff from my show, but when they go to the extreme of sticking matchbox cars up their ass or beating up old people in the street, I certainly never would have done that. We never really had a mean-spirited edge. It was more of an absurdist edge.
Frankly, I'm not interested in doing another TV show unless it's in an awesome place where I can have a lot of creative freedom. Right now I'm focusing on writing a movie and DJ EZ Mike and I are working on songs for the new record.
FFWD: But with the TV show, those extremes, what you started, like humping a dead moose, vomit, and shit and stuff, has progressed beyond the Bum Wars, for the sheer violence and mean-spirited stuff, to people blowing themselves up to get on Al-Jazeera and people beheading other people on the Internet.
Green: I've always been misinterpreted. I'm not really an extreme person. I do extreme stuff, but three-quarters of the stuff I did was very much in the vein of David Letterman. It's not really a prank driven thing. Right now, I'm just sort of getting my TV fix on the Jay Leno show. I'm working with him now. I'm going to Italy in February and doing goofy shit from the Olympics. That's where I'm kind of happier to be right now in television.
FFWD: Are you afraid that you got the ball rolling on this terrorist trend?
Green: [Chuckles] I see. No.
FFWD: Why not?
Green: [Chuckles again] That's silly. What do you mean?
FFWD: You pushed the extremes for television in terms of taste, and things progressed from The Tom Green Show to Jackass to Bum Wars and then beheadings on the Internet.
Green: Hmmmm. We are in a 500 channel universe now, so you never know. You've got to stand out. I – I don't know.
FFWD: Do you think that's kind of influenced you on the new record?
Green: What do you mean?
FFWD: OK, "My Bum is on Ya Lips"...that's like assault.
Green: No. It's just kind of a fun rap.
FFWD: Well, yeah, but bum on your lips.
Green: (Pause) What's the question?
FFWD: Do you think you're pushing yourself to those new extremes, like rapping about assault?
Green: Where's the assault reference? I don't understand.
FFWD: Like, putting the bum on someone's lips.
Green: No, no, no. That's not about assault.
FFWD: Think about it. Pinning someone down and putting your bum on his lips.
Green: I guess so. I guess you could take it that way.
FFWD: It's kind of like the subtleties of rhyme.
Green: Kind of. Yeah. [Pauses, chuckles] I guess so. I don't understand the question.
FFWD: It's that progress, though. Going from humping moose to beheadings on the Internet and maybe it's coming back on you right now, like the bum on the lips. Does that kind of disturb you?
Green: Not really, no, because what you're saying doesn't really make sense. So it doesn't disturb me that much. Have you heard the record?
FFWD: Oh, yeah!
Green: It has nothing to do with beheadings. No beheadings. The Keepin’ It Real Crew is firmly against beheadings. We stand firmly against that as a way of solving problems.
FFWD: Do you think that might be one of the things on the next record, though?
Green: I don't think so, no.
FFWD: Within the record, you have that social conscience as well. "Teachers Suck."
Green: Hold on a second. Just a second. I've got to videotape this. It's too fuckin' funny. I don't know what you're talking about. I've got to put it up on my website because it's hilarious. You know what I'm sayin'? Beheadings.
Green begins taping the interview. To see what happens go to www.tomgreen.com. |
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