Tom Green: It's Easy Being Green

Can Freddy Got Fingered, the film Tom Green wrote, directed and stars in, possibly make him more famous than testicular cancer, a certain white mouse and Drew Barrymore already have?

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I know what you're thinking," says Tom Green, holding my elbow and steering me through the throngs of New Yorkers rushing around on this clear day. "You're saying to yourself, 'This guy only has one ball. How does it look? How does it work? Can he still have sex?' Am I right?"

I would like to say that those thoughts had never crossed my mind. That I have never (never!) imagined Tom Green's testicles. But I'd be lying.

"Looks fine. Works fine," says Green. "Any other questions?"

Tom Green had been mining his own weird experiences for years before he started making light of his testicles. On "The Tom Green Show," which originated in Canada before it was picked up by MTV, he sucked milk from a cow's udder, let farm animals loose in his parents' home, escorted Monica Lewinsky around his hometown of Ottawa, and even set his own feet aflame. The first US film in which he had a major role, Road Trip, was a big hit in part because of his wacky slurping of a live mouse. But the challenge to bring humor to territories never before laughed about hit an unexpected peak when Green was "touching [his] balls one night" and felt something unfamiliar. Two doctors told him it was a skin condition, but the third realized that it was testicular cancer. He went through surgery and grueling chemotherapy, making sure the doctors saved his cancerous testicle in a jar. A few months later, he did an MTV special about it in which he sang the song "Feel Your Balls." The special was a smashing success and Green says he's heard from hundreds of boys and their parents, thanking him for giving them the warning signs of a disease that most people are, to put it mildly, uncomfortable with. "They write to say that I helped save their lives," says Green modestly. "That makes me feel good."

Nothing can really top testicular cancer for comedy of discomfort, but last fall, Green made a good try when he was a guest on "Saturday Night Live." The running gag throughout the show was that Green and his girlfriend, Drew Barrymore, whom he met while making Charlie's Angels, were going to get married in a sort of millennium version of Tiny Tim's stunt. But at the end of the show, Barrymore bolted. Did she leave Green at the altar, as some of the papers suggested the next day, or was this all part of the joke? "Whatever I say," says Green, "people are going to believe their own version. But truly, the whole thing was scripted just that way. I thought people would get it, but apparently some of them thought I was the jilted lover. I think Lorne Michaels might have even given a quote saying that Drew didn't think it was the right thing to do on TV. Drew and I were looking at each other and I think she was a little embarrassed for me, because neither of us wanted to get married on TV, but we also didn't want people thinking that she stood me up at the altar. She would never do that. I hope."

"Are you an old-fashioned guy?"

"Yes, absolutely. I want to marry Drew and have it be just the way we picture it. Not on 'Saturday Night Live,' for sure."

Having walked up and down the street for a while trying to decide on a place for lunch, Green and I finally settle on a funky little diner and grab a booth looking out on the street. Within minutes of our getting settled, a 12-year-old girl comes to the table. "Can you sign this for me?" she asks Green, handing him a filthy napkin. Green doesn't flinch.

"Sure. Why aren't you in school?"

"Lunch break," she says.

"How do you know him?" I ask the girl, trying to figure out which part of Green's oeuvre she's a fan of.

"He wrote 'The Bum Bum song,'" she says proudly.

This is a part of Greens history I am not familiar with. When she leaves he explains simply, "It's exactly what it sounds like. A song about my bum."

Soon there is a line of kids waiting for his autograph. They are black, white, Asian, Hispanic, and range in age from 10 to 18. "I loved your show when you made your friend learn the trapeze and he puked after," one of them says. Another tells him that she loved Charlie's Angels. One says truthfully, "I wanted your autograph because your girlfriend is that famous woman from E. T. right?" Green chats with each of them.

"Doesn't this get you crazy?" I ask when the 20th one has left.

"Nah. It's funny, because Drew and I feel the same way about fans. These are the people that like our work, and it's fine to sign autographs or have pictures taken. It's the people who are with us that get crazy. Like, I can see that this is getting you more uncomfortable than it's getting me."

Now the kids have gone and gotten more of their friends, who all come in for autographs and then congregate outside, telling everyone who passes that the legendary Tom Green is eating corned-beef hash right inside. The kids are dancing and laughing, mugging for Green, and when one of them drops his pants and moons us, Green cracks up. "My fan base," he says joyously. A woman in her mid-20s, her face literally oozing with piercings, walks by, does a double-take, and comes in, too. She has a camera and wants her picture taken with Green. "Loved Road Trip," she tells him with a wink.

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