A musical talent show with an X-factor judge
a singing artist would make him terrific as a professional talentspotter.
Why he hasn’t been snapped up to do the overseas judging I don’t know. Knock, knock (to Simon Cowell): Who’s there? Only Stan Walker raging talent extraordinaire loitering Down Under.
But that would be a tragedy, watching a super talent die, one TV show at a time, as he does the circuit till the first grey hair appears.
This week’s auditions yielded a boy group called Moorhouse, who were absurdly good looking and in such harmony that they blew so many socks off the studio audience it was in danger of passing out from foot pong.
There was a country-singing Usuallywhat happens is history doesn’t really come in and embrace something until it’s a hit. When you are doing something for the first time you can be greeted by odd stares in the industry and it can confuse people,’’ he says.
At 17, Green was also in a rap group and for a time considered it as career option over comedy. ‘‘I bought a drum machine and a computer and hooked it up to a keyboard and made electronic music in 1989 before anyone knew what a drum machine was. That was the only reason we got a record deal – we were the only rap group in Canada doing that, especially for a bunch of white boys. The Beastie Boys were around but that was before Eminem.’’
His willingness to take risks has also meant Green embraced the internet early on. Today, his online talk show, Tom Green’s House Tonight, can attract audiences of 8 million an episode – higher than when he was on MTV.
‘‘It’s easier to produce. With television you didn’t really own the show or have control over what you do and deal with a whole bunch of other people. This is very exciting.’’
Green rarely talks about his divorce from Barrymore. Even his 2005 autobiography, Hollywood Causes Cancer: The Tom Green Story, doesn’t dwell on it. He’s more likely to talk about testicular cancer where he had graphic footage of his surgery for the show The Tom Green Cancer Special.
‘‘I could talk about it for hours, all the things that have come out of it. I’ve had thousands of people who come up to me personally, or [via] online, email or letters, and said that that special I did literally saved their life. They had tears in their eyes thanking me with their mother at their side. This happens every week. It’s amazing to me the power of MTV. Young people went to the doctor who normally wouldn’t have gone to the doctor because they would be embarrassed.’’
Freddy Got Fingered. Ben and Steve – World Famous In . . . starts tonight on TV3, 9.30pm with Kiwi comedians telling us why New Plymouth is so loved. boy balladeer with a deep, old man river voice, a brother and sister non-act competing against each other as solo artists, who the judges wanted to co-join (they refused), and a dark-haired teenage girl who brought the house down with the purity of her voice.
And they were only a smidgeon of the brilliance we got to enjoy. I liked the inclusion of aside conversations between the judges, giving the TV audience the feeling they were in on the inside.
Initially I thought that judge Daniel Bedingfield gave me the cramps but now I see that a gunfor-hire attention-seeker can add value to the circus act.
British singer Mel Blatt is big on lippy lingo, telling acts they’ve got ‘‘swag’’ as she squirms her body round the allotted personal space of the panel, while Ruby Frost, with her pink hair and beaded head dress, is as sweet as a fairy who fell off the Christmas tree, toothily telling the Moorhouse boys she had a bad crush on all of them.
Not since Dancing With the Stars has a show been such a come-gather-round-the-set-all-yefolks for some home-grown (franchised) entertainment. I strongly advise you to get in now, just as boot camp starts, for some great winter viewing. Tom Green performs at Wellington’s Opera House on Sunday at 9pm.
GREEN was also the first actor to accept in person the Golden Raspberry Awards when Freddy Got Fingered won worst picture, actor, director, screenplay and on-screen couple. The fact critics hated it still hurts. ‘‘For me, it’s been massive. Everybody loves it. I never have anybody come up to me and say, ‘That movie sucks’. I have about a hundred people come up to me a day and say it’s their favourite movie.
‘‘It’s a perfect example of how the media can get things wrong. Obviously I made a movie where I did something very specific. I was attempting to shock and freak out the mainstream moviemaking establishment by doing something that was just completely over the top and smashing the conventional mould of the Hollywood comedy.
‘‘I did all that and it made people uncomfortable. The movie’s supposed to make people uncomfortable – and a lot of people who write reviews of movies are, at the end of the day, pretty
normal people.’’