Ron : Hey Tom, how are you this morning?
Tom : Great. I’m glad to be coming to Montreal. I can’t wait.
Ron : Last time you were here you had a series of shows. This time you are only performing for one night. Is there a reason for that?
Tom : Well first of all it’s a bigger venue. So there’s that and I wanted to come to Montreal and hang out to be a part of the fun. Plus I’m on tour right now so I just wanted to come for one night and have a wild crazy party.
Ron : That’s cool to hear. Is there anything specific we can expect from this show?
Tom : It’s going to be a hilarious night of jokes and fun. I don’t want to tell you too much but we are going to be doing a little bit about some Canadian and U.S. history, but I don’t want to people to come thinking it’s a history lesson or a quiz.
Ron : Any chance we’ll see your alter ego MC Bones or a reunion with Organized Rhyme?
Tom : Probably no chance. I’m not saying I won’t ever do rapping in the future but this show I’m doing is going to be all stand up jokes.
This year I’ve been performing all over the world. I performed in Israel for the first time. I did all the UK. Scandinavia, all over the U.S. and Canada.
I’ve really been honing my stand up and trying out new material all the time. Now I want to come and unleash it on the festival.
Ron : So we’re going to get a lot of new material. That’s great.
Tom : You know when you’re doing stand up you’ve always got to keep it fresh and be constantly writing. If not it’ll make you go crazy. Especially with the new President we have in the U.S. who I know personally.
Ron : Yeah, well he fired you (from Celebrity Apprentice).
Tom : That’s right he fired me. I went out drinking the night before with Dennis Rodman and I was the project manager. I have some fun stories about that.
My mind has really been opened about Canadian and U.S. history. For an example how many Canadian Prime ministers can you name… in order?
Ron : (sighing) Oof maybe three or four at best. Not even.
Tom : Okay let’s do this I will name you all the Canadian Prime Ministers in order. You ready for this? You can open up Google and verify it.
Ron : (I opened up a Google window to verify this and I have to say Tom Green did name all Canadian Prime Ministers in order from earliest to latest. Can you? Try it.)
Tom : I can do all the American ones too. It’s always amazing when I can name more Presidents than most Americans.
Ron : What about the Presidents of Guyana?
Tom : The presidents of Guyana, yeah but I don’t want to take up all your time.
I’ve actually been meaning to learn all the leaders of each country but I’m just so busy now days. I’ve got a residency in Vegas going on.
Ron : How is your residency going there and where is it?
Tom : It’s going really great and I’m having a good time doing it. I’m at Harrod’s casino. I’m back there in August. What’s great about Vegas is we have audiences from all over the world so you’re dealing with Americans, Canadians, Australians, Brits, Chinese so you get to have a little bit of fun playing with the politics and people.
I’ve been working on some jokes about how Canadians know more about Americans than Americans know about Canadians.
Ron : A few years ago you said you like your comedy to challenge people’s lives. You want to change people when they walk out of your show.
Tom : Yeah. I think as human beings we have a tendency to just put one foot in front of the other and do what everybody else is doing by following trends and not question things.
For as long as I can remember I’ve always tried to look at life from an off beat place. I think I can apply some of the way I’ve always looked at the world into some kind of analysis of how we live as human beings.
I’d like to create some kind of solution or at least make people aware. I talk about how we are obsessed with our phones and facebook pages. I like to paint a picture of how life was before all that.
People don’t seem to question if we are on our phones too much. Nobody questions it because everybody’s doing it. Everyone’s at dinner looking at their phones. People are walking down the street looking at their phones. People are falling into manhole covers (giggling) because they are looking at their phones. I think at some point people need to think is this really good for me? How is this affecting my brain? I tend to question a lot of things going on in our world today for sure.
Ron : It’s time for the 2018 comedy festival question. What is your favourite comedy film of all time and why?
Tom : Ok. My favourite comedy film of all time might be Peter Seller’s The Party. I love the quiet moments in the movie and how he’s able to be so hilarious without saying anything. It almost feels like a silent movie at times. I love it.
Ron : That you so much for your time and the education. I look forward to your show here.
Tom : Thank you. I look forward to coming to Montreal.
Make sure to get a ticket for Tom Green’s One Night Only July 25th 9:30 at Maison Theatre.
https://www.hahaha.com/en/show/tom-green-one-night-only
