Happy Monday, gang! Today is indeed a GREAT Monday, because our boy, Tom Green , is back! Who would’ve thought that we could have survived the two long weeks without him? Thank god we’re back in the swing of things, now!
Although there isn’t an announcement as to who the guest will be at the time of this posting, it is sure to be a great one tonight! Some gret changes have been going on over in Tom land, and I wanted to share some of them with you all. First off, if you check out his blog, you’ll see that there was an article in the New York Times that gave rave reviews about Tom’s web shows. Here’s a copy of the article for those of you that may not have seen it :
August 19, 2007
Tom Green Works at Home (You Can Watch)
By JOE RHODES
LOS ANGELES
IT was 8 p.m., time for Tom Green’s live Internet talk show, the one he’s been doing from his living room five nights a week, more or less, for the last year, and as seems to happen more often than not, things were going horribly wrong.
The servers had been wonky all day, most likely the result of a late attempt to install high-definition video players onto his Web site, tomgreen.com. Rex Murphy, Mr. Green’s bright red and usually low-key parrot, was agitated and screeching in a corner. The audio feeds weren’t working, and the Video Toaster system, the heart of Mr. Green’s online operation, was down.
Worst of all, the guest hadn’t turned up. Norm MacDonald, the former “Saturday Night Live” Weekend Update anchor and an old buddy of Mr. Green’s from his hometown, Ottawa, was scheduled to appear, but no one had heard from him all day.
“I’m starting to think he’s not coming,” Mr. Green said at 8:15, clearly flustered. “I can guarantee you that this is probably my fault somehow.”
Most likely, yes. Mr. Green alone is responsible not just for being funny, interviewing guests and sparring with callers, but for nearly every aspect of the production of “Tom Green Live,” up to and including last-minute pet upheavals.
He does have a talent booker, two full-time technical assistants and a sponsorship agreement with an online distributor, but he is the one who does the lion’s share of the tinkering, tweaking and nonstop fretting that goes with running a talk show, even one that’s available only online.
There is a switch under his desk that turns on the lights, microphones, remote-control cameras and live stream on broadband Internet. He has managed to acquire that most sought-after of show business commodities — complete creative control. And the headaches that go with it.
“This is not like a television show where you’ve got 150 people, writers, prescripted interviews and everything put together so that everything’s guaranteed to go great,” he said, one eye on the clock. “It’s turned out to be quite a technically complex thing. I never thought I’d know this much about computers. So it’s an ongoing process. You figure out little things along the way, and slowly they start to work a little better.
“I know, if we go on tonight, I’m not going to do a perfect show,” he continued. “But it’ll be a little better than last night. And it’s not like there are 10 million people watching. But we’re trying to make this better for that day, maybe a year in the future, when there will be. And by that time maybe we’ll have figured things out.”
The viewership of the show, which returns with new episodes Aug. 27, might not be in the millions, but it is still a good size. Although only 5,000 to 10,000 people a night watch the live feeds on his online distributor, ManiaTV.com, 40,000 to 60,000 a day watch reruns. And 250,000 to 300,000 more view clips on sites like YouTube. (Viewership figures from Mr. Green’s Web site weren’t available.)
The site, which he calls “The Channel,” is not exactly a departure for Mr. Green, who started out broadcasting an Ottawa public-access show on Rogers Cable in 1994. He has been dabbling with computers since 1996, before his MTV talk show in 1999 gained him a national following.
MTV’s “Tom Green Show,” which featured his intentionally annoying man-on-the-street interviews and all manner of pre-“Jackass” pranks, led to lucrative commercial gigs, a guest-host appearance on “Saturday Night Live” and, in 2001, the film “Freddy Got Fingered,” which he wrote, directed and starred in. It received some scorchingly bad reviews, largely because of scenes involving unnatural acts with assorted animals living and dead.
In between he had a short-lived and tabloid-covered marriage to Drew Barrymore. He also endured a bout with testicular cancer, which he chronicled in an MTV special that Time magazine lauded as one of the best programs of 2001.
By then Mr. Green was living in Los Angeles and was, he acknowledges, somewhat overwhelmed by all the attention. And he was not sure what to do with himself or his career. “I found myself trying to work within the Los Angeles system,” he said. “I had an agent and a manager, which I still do, and going to meetings with networks about game shows and reality shows and projects that weren’t mine. It was fun, but it wasn’t what I’d set out to do.
“I really missed what I’d done on Rogers Cable, which was shooting and editing all my own stuff. A nightly talk show is what I’d always wanted, and I’d kind of gotten sidetracked.”
So he went back to concentrating on his Web site. He decided two years ago that, if it were technically feasible and economically viable, he’d be happiest doing his own show from his living room.
ManiaTV.com, a Denver-based broadband company, helped him do exactly that. ManiaTV made a deal with Mr. Green to build a television studio inside his home, installing more than $100,000 worth of equipment and providing him a broadband distribution network and sponsors. Archived shows are available for viewing or download on iTunes or elsewhere on the Web.
“Like any television network we bring distribution, an audience, production resources and a marketing machine, all the things that Tom did not have,” said Peter Clemente, ManiaTV’s chief marketing officer.
Although ManiaTV provided the initial financing and technical expertise and found the show’s corporate sponsor, Bud Light, Mr. Green insists he has complete autonomy and will end up owning the equipment and the show. Rather than rely on ManiaTV’s technicians, he has hired his own studio assistants and bought additional equipment, including a teleprompter and extra cameras on his own. That’s part of the reason that there are so many technical glitches.
“If I had, like, 10 people working on the show full time, I’d be able to do what I really want to do,” he said. “I don’t ever want it to look too slick, but I’d like it to look better than it does now.”
As it is, Mr. Green spends much of his on-air time complaining about things that go wrong, mics that don’t work, camera shots that are off-center, Skype video uplinks with callers that sputter out.
It is impossible to forget, even when there are network-worthy celebrity guests like Val Kilmer, Pamela Anderson and Andy Dick (whose only appearance after his much-publicized scuffle with Jon Lovitz was on Mr. Green’s show), that the program is essentially homemade. “I try to think of it as organized confusion,” he said. “I have the freedom to do anything I want. We could sit here in silence for an hour if we wanted. And it’s nice to know that no one can cancel me. Unless I cancel myself.”
At 8:20 Mr. Green’s doorbell rang. It was Mr. MacDonald, unaware that he was late. At 8:47, after the Video Toaster was finally fixed, the show went live. To make up for the late start, Mr. Green stayed on for extra time, drinking Bud Lights on camera until the show ended at 10:20.
“It seems like nobody knows what this is going to be,” Mr. MacDonald said later. “But I want to do something like this way more than I want to do anything that’s been offered to me on television. Television just seems like vaudeville to me. Nobody I know ever watches a sitcom, ever. It’s a dead medium.
“So I don’t know where this is going,” he said, “but I love that Tommy’s just trying to figure it out. It’s cool to watch him try.”
I think that it was a wonderful review, and I give credit to Mr. Rhodes for helping Tom out with advertising his website for him!
As I mentioned, there have been some changes ( no worries, they have all been positive!) that have been taking place over in Tomville. Aside from the great article in the New York Times, Tom sends out e-mails to those people that sign up for his e-mails at his website. I received an e-mail yesterday stating that his web show is no longer with Mania TV , and that he is venturing out on his own, which is what he wanted to do all along anyhow. He does mention to stay tuned, because there are some fun announcements coming up on the show very soon, which undoubtedly is the truth! I am anxious to see what Tom has to say!
Lastly, don’t forget to send in video clips to Tom! Make sure that you have an adequate recording set up, and that you have a hand held microphone so that everyone can hear what you have to say! Send it in to Tom ( check his website for more information), and he just might use your tape on his show! Also, sign up for Skype , as you may have the opportunity to talk to Tom LIVE with his guests!
Check in tomorrow to for a recap of tonight’s show, as well as an update of tomorrow’s guest. It’s sure to be a hit!
Hope that you all had a great week, and that you are ready for the long weekend! 
