From Rogers TV Ottawa to Hollywood, the shock comic is back in Ontario, living on a farm, engaged to be married, and releasing three new shows.
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Tom Green leapt on the ice of the Rideau Canal and skated a few quick strides, wielding his stick like he was rushing for the net.
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On a busy Saturday morning on the Canal, it didn’t take long for the bearded, six-foot-three comedian in a red hockey sweater and fur trapper hat to draw attention. Heads turned as skaters noticed him: “Hey look it’s Tom Green,” one young man exclaimed, while others approached to ask for photos.
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Happy to oblige, Green made goofy faces for the cameras, gently chiding one fan for wearing the “wrong” jersey and supporting a team other than the Ottawa Senators.
Green’s mission on the ice that day wasn’t just a photo opp. Accompanied by Ottawa videographer Chris Mullington, the pair shot footage for a music video to go with Green’s new country tune, I’m A Canadian. Skaters had a blast sing-shouting the chorus along with him: I’m a Canadian, I’m a Canadian, I’m a Canadian.
In the wake of President Trump’s musings about taking over Canada, the song has a message for Americans, with one verse declaring: “We’re never gonna be no 51st state, don’t care what no one says. But we welcome y’all to come fishin.’ We love our American friends.”
Ready or not, Tom Green is back.
At the age of 53, the lanky comedian who grew up in Ottawa, where he developed a surreal, madcap style of comedy and then rode it to the peak of show biz, has returned to his home province to start a new chapter.
After almost 20 years in California, Green sold his house in L.A. in 2021 and moved to a log home on a rural acreage west of Ottawa. Fans and followers are fascinated by his back-to-nature exploits as he documents it all, from riding his mule to feeding the chickens, on his social media accounts.
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But let’s not forget: This is the guy who got famous on television by disrupting his parents’ sleep with everything from a fire extinguisher to the severed head of a cow. He did street interviews with a poop-smeared microphone shoved in people’s faces. Perhaps most outrageously, he once humped a dead moose by the side of the highway in Northern Ontario.
Decades later, wacky antics like those are regarded as groundbreaking. Green is considered a pioneer in television, comedy and online entertainment, with pop-culture figures like podcaster Joe Rogan and comedian Eric Andre citing him as a major influence on their work.
Now Green is starting 2025 with a triple bill of content designed for widespread consumption, thanks to a deal with Amazon Prime Video. The new shows depict an older, wiser Tom Green who’s close to his family and loves animals, not the anything-for-a-laugh character we saw on late-night television a couple of decades ago.
This time, he reflects on his career in This is the Tom Green Documentary; entertains a live audience at the National Arts Centre in a stand-up comedy special called I Got a Mule!; and takes viewers along on his adventures at the farm in a four-episode docu-series, Tom Green Country.
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Is Tom Green on a comeback?
“I dunno,” Green replied. “I’m just doing my thing. I’ve never stopped working. Ever. I’ve been on the road doing standup comedy for the last, almost 20 years now. I’ve never really had a year when I didn’t work more than my wildest dreams would have imagined when I was a kid.”
Green spoke while driving to the Bathouse, a recording studio owned by the members of the Tragically Hip, to work on his country songs. His rescue dog, Charley, never far from his side, was along for the ride.
One of the first things Green wanted to talk about was why he returned to Canada. The move happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, when he realized he wanted to be closer to his parents, Mary Jane and Richard Green, and brother, Joe. He wasn’t down on the United States, nor was it a shift into retirement mode.
“I wanted to be near my parents, and I really wanted to live closer to nature,” he said. “I didn’t want to live in a big city anymore. I found this really neat farm when I sold my house in L.A., and it all came together with a bit of luck.”
He started filling the farm with animals, including Fanny the mule, Kia the donkey, a pair of horses and a flock of chickens, although most of the hens were since taken by coyotes.
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“It’s really been a beautiful experience for me,” Green said, notwithstanding the fate of the chickens. “I’ve really taken to looking after these animals and I love riding my mule. Every day I ride her around the trails on the property. It’s really a whole new life experience.”
His curiosity is evident in the docu-series, which is not to be confused with the conflict-cultivating nature of reality TV. It’s also about as far as you can get from the manic energy of the old Tom Green Show.
“It’s a nice thing to sit back and watch,” Green said. “It’s a very family-friendly show. It’s not a shocking show but there’s lots of funny in it. It’s about moving home and connecting with your roots and family.
“It’s nice to be able to produce my own content and direct these shows, and frankly, show off Ontario. I’m really proud to be Canadian and show the beauty of this country. It’s all come together nicely.”
The documentary, on the other hand, includes plenty of the shock tactics that propelled Green to fame, plus rare footage of Ottawa in the 80s and 90s. The doc covers the highs and lows, behind the scenes and in the spotlight, from the success of Green’s rap group, Organized Rhyme, to the short-lived marriage to Drew Barrymore, to his struggle with testicular cancer and the pain of recovery.
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There are moments of real emotion, too, in the interviews with his parents and his reaction to the brutal reviews of Freddy Got Fingered, the 2001 movie Green wrote and directed. Although it’s now considered something of a cult classic, it was initially panned as one of the worst movies ever made.
What was it about Ottawa that made Tom Green?
Born in Petawawa to a military family, Green grew up in Ottawa’s Beacon Hill neighbourhood, where his friends’ parents worked for the federal government or in technology. Amid what he called the “conservativeness” of the community, being creative was different.
“There are multiple things about Ottawa that made me feel it was conducive to making art,” Green said. “I think people in Ottawa have always been very supportive of one another in the arts.
“When you get to a bigger city, people can be very competitive because a lot of the time they’ve moved from somewhere else, and there’s a lot of stress involved. Whereas I think growing up in Ottawa, people were making music for the love of it, and they weren’t even trying to get a record deal. They were just doing it because they wanted to make music and be part of the music scene.
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“If you were in a band you found camaraderie with other bands. We used to open for (Ottawa punk act) FurnaceFace, and they were always so supportive of us. In other cities, you feel a more competitive nature because everybody is trying to get that record deal.”
Green wasn’t one to wait for things to happen. As a teenager, he wanted to do comedy so he would show up at Yuk Yuk’s for the open-mic nights, appearances he calls his first “curated” show-biz experience.
Music was a passion, too, so he and friends wrote and recorded rap songs as Organized Rhyme, earning a Juno award nomination and a MuchMusic video award.
“I realized in 1989 that you don’t have to wait for somebody to come along and give you a record deal or a TV show,” he said. “I worked every summer and every dollar I made was to save up for a drum machine or a microphone. It was achievable, to the point I got a drum machine, a computer and a sampler and made rap music. The idea was to release it and eventually get a record deal, which is what ended up happening.”
He took the same D.I.Y. approach to television when he created the Tom Green Show. Inspired by David Letterman, Green and some Algonquin College broadcasting classmates dreamed up their wacky variety show and convinced the folks at Rogers Television 22, a public-access cable community channel, to take a chance on it. It was an immediate hit with a younger generation of viewers, particularly high school students.
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“The show’s recklessness and mayhem are part of its attraction for its young audience,” wrote the Citizen’s television critic, Tony Atherton, in a 1995 article that ran under the headline: “He’s crazy, kooky, catchy: He’s Ottawa’s very own TV oddball.”
Green was also influenced by Ottawa’s connection to the tech industry. One key experience was being introduced to the NABU network, a precursor to the World Wide Web that operated in Ottawa in the early 1980s. Green’s father was a subscriber, and it allowed young Tom to imagine the possibilities.
“It was so far ahead of its time, that’s the reason you haven’t heard of it,” Green said. “Literally you could get a box to put in your house and plug your cable television into it, and the cable would then distribute Internet and video games to you. This was 10 years before the Internet.
“Because of that culture in our city, I ended up having a lot of friends who also worked in technology,” he said, noting that longtime friends and sidekicks Phil Giroux and Glenn Humplik worked as computer engineers. They’re still part of his inner circle.
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What about Tom Green’s parents?
Still with him at every turn are his parents. Green bristles when they’re described as “patient” or “long-suffering” for having put up with so many pranks in the early years. He said it’s a misinterpretation; in reality, their tolerance was a form of support.
“The truth is, when I pranked my parents a few times in the ’90s, I was a broadcasting student and didn’t have a job,” he said. “My parents were worried about my future. They saw I was really dedicated to this and spending all of my waking hours making this show. They were sort of impressed I was getting As in college, which I did not get in high school.
“So they were like, ‘He’s really doing this.’ Even though they were sometimes shocked and surprised and even a little bit thrown off on the show, which was the point, after the dust settled, they would laugh and watch the show every week. They’re my biggest fans.”
Green moved to New York City in 1999 to do his show on MTV, and had a five-year run before the show went off the air, long enough to make him self-sufficient (and buy a house on the beach in Costa Rica). “Pretty soon after the show premiered on TV, my parents were able to retire and know they didn’t have to worry about me. That was a big weight off,” he said.
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What does the future hold for Tom Green?
These days, Green sounds like he’s back in Canada to stay. He has revived his Canadian production company and has four new projects in development. “Some of them I’m not even in,” he quipped.
Stand-up comedy is keeping him busy, too. He’s been performing throughout Canada and the United States, including several small shows in the Ottawa area last spring to hone his material before shooting the stand-up special. A summer gig at The Cove in Westport also found him playing music with his country band.
One heart-warming bit in the stand-up special pokes fun at his mom, Mary Jane, for treating Charley, the rescue dog, like a grandchild. Green also reveals that he’d love to be a father.
That day may not be far off. Green announced his engagement to a Canadian woman, Amanda Nelson, just before Christmas. He popped the question in Major’s Hill Park, overlooking Parliament Hill.
Nelson has been in the picture since Green’s first winter back in Ontario. The couple met on social media.
“It’s funny how it happened,” Green said. “I had just moved to the farm and had turned my pond into a rink and was filming some videos of me out there playing hockey. She followed me on social media and sent me a video of a homemade Zamboni and said, ‘You need to get one of these.’ Talk about a Canadian way to meet.
“I thought that was pretty cool so I said hi to her and we started talking. It turns out she grew up in Petawawa and we’re both from military families and we went to the same elementary school. That led us to talking and hitting it off.”
While there’s no wedding date scheduled, Green said they’re both excited about the future. “I think the best thing about moving back to Canada was I got to meet Amanda,” he said.
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