00:01He's a man with talent.
00:02Call the doctor!
00:03I have a real doctor, see?
00:04Look!
00:06All he needs is his family's support.
00:08You miserable, pathetic loser!
00:11Is this your dad?
00:12His girlfriend's love.
00:13Betty! Betty! Betty!
00:15Stop it!
00:16And a little shove.
00:18In the right direction.
00:20I've come on, Craig.
00:21It's fast as you can.
00:21At the back where you need the back where you need.
00:23Tom Green.
00:24What God's name are you doing?
00:26Freddie got fingered.
00:28Ah!
00:28Get up!
00:34In the late 90s to the early 2000s, MTV went on a shift in brand which would significantly
00:39shape the network's identity.
00:40From its core showing of music videos to slowly shifting into television.
00:44The most popular type included an embrace of edgy, rebellious dark comedy shown in their
00:49shows which, at the time, would be a cultural highlight of the late 90s to the Y2K era.
00:54Shows like Beefs and Butt-Head, Jackass, Dario, or Punk'd were quite a few of these examples.
01:07This is where Tom Green comes in.
01:08A Canadian from Canada who was known at the time for his self-titled show, The Tom Green Show.
01:13Which originally debuted in Canadian television in 1994.
01:17MTV quickly adapted this in their channel in 1999, deriving from its original Canadian version,
01:22and at the time, was notorious for its shock humor and surreal almost the diaspora extensions.
01:34He was kind of like a Y2K Eric Andre.
01:37Anyways, the show would quickly garner massive media attention, and would see Green rising
01:41up into fame, stardom, and massive, massive amounts of controversy.
01:45Going back to Times Square with your MTV s**t, man.
01:49But that didn't stop Green from being as stupid, and as the diest as he was.
01:54My bum is on the rail! Bum is on the rail! Look at me! My bum is on the rail!
01:59His success would instantly catch up into the mainstream media, causing him to appear in
02:03several mainstream Hollywood movies such as Charlie's Angels, Roadship, and even a cameo in
02:08the middle.
02:09Son of a b**ch! I'm gonna chew off your face! I'm gonna spit it out and I'm gonna dance on
02:14it!
02:14I'm gonna kill you! I'm gonna drag your carcass to-
02:17His widely publicized marriage with Drew Barrymore grew even more of this attention.
02:21We're going to Disneyland! And we got married!
02:24The house burned down! Are you okay?
02:25Oh no! The house burned down!
02:29Alongside his testicular cancer special which premiered in MTV in 2000.
02:33Known to be groundbreaking at the time for showing more of his vulnerable side.
02:38Yeah. Yeah. We like the bear.
02:46But the real kickstart to his rise in fame was the verse in the song, The Real Slim Shady,
02:50where he got called out by Eminem. You know, the verse,
02:52Sometimes I just wanna get on TV and just let loose, uh, dead moose, you know, that type of stuff.
02:57Sometimes I wanna get on TV and just let loose, but can't, but it's cool for Tom Green to hump
03:01a dead moose up!
03:02All of which culminated into him being a widely known figure in the industry overnight.
03:06Everything was going well for Green, until 20th Century Fox saw that success he was making,
03:10approached him one day and landed him a deal to write and direct his own comedy film.
03:14Lending him 14 million dollars to basically make whatever he wanted with little to no studio interference.
03:20Hopefully to make lots of money due to the success he was making.
03:23This, in retrospect, was a bad idea, but knowing Green, he would literally take this case.
03:28So he happily obliged and started to create what would soon to be called, Freddy Got Fingered.
03:33A movie that was released in 2001, pre-9-11, starring Green, Julie Haggerty, and Rip Torn to name a
03:39few.
03:40The film is about a 20 year old something animator trying to land a deal with Hollywood,
03:44while struggling to deal with his abusive father, played by Rip Torn.
03:46Who is just as insane and over the top as Green is in the film.
03:51Wait a minute.
03:53You're crippled.
03:54Dad.
03:56What?
03:57Dad.
03:57You got a problem with my legs?
03:59No, you got a problem with your legs.
04:00Either that or you're just lazy.
04:02Now, keep in mind, this movie came out from a time where shock humor and comedy movies were pretty much
04:07a common trope everywhere.
04:08I mean, you had movies like There's Something About Mary, Old School American Pie, The South Park Movie, and this
04:14movie was no exception to that.
04:16Too far from that as people came to realize.
04:19What is the most disgusting film of 2001?
04:23Well, let's see.
04:24In a field that includes C-Spot Run, Monkey Bone, Tom Katz, and Joe Dirt, so we got some great
04:30continues.
04:31The champion is Freddie Got Fingered with Tom Green making David Spade look like Jim Carrey and Jim Carrey look
04:36like Laurence Olivier.
04:38So it gets complicated because then, you know, how do you define failure?
04:42It came out Roger Ebert and it wasn't Siskel, it was the other guy.
04:47He had another guy there.
04:48Oh yeah, the second string.
04:49Ebert and Roper.
04:49Yeah, Ebert and Roper, they sent that guy in.
04:51Yeah, even he didn't like it.
04:53The MPAA gave this movie an R rating.
04:55That's definitive evidence that the MPAA ratings board is morally adrift and that we need a workable adult rating for
05:02movies like this.
05:03You're absolutely right.
05:04This is ground zero.
05:05It has to be ground zero of bad comedies.
05:08And Tom Green with this horse and with this elephant.
05:10If a woman was doing that, this movie would be banned in Tijuana, let alone getting an R rating.
05:19The movie was released on April 20, 2001 to massive negative reception for both critics and audiences alike, noting its
05:27abnormal sense of humor, unfunny gags and setups, and treatment of subject matter.
05:31Notably, family abuse, animal abuse, child abuse, and fetus abuse.
05:36Yeah.
05:38As Roger Ebert once quoted, this movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel.
05:42This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel.
05:44This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel.
05:46This movie doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.
05:50I mean Jesus Christ.
05:51Oh wake up your baby!
05:55Guys!
05:56Wake it!
05:56Wake it!
05:57Wake it!
05:59Can you do it like this?
06:01Huh?
06:11The film would soon become despised as one of the worst films ever made,
06:15grossing over the same amount of money as its budget, which was $14 million, and mostly killed off Green's career
06:20from the mainstream media.
06:22Even sweeping off several Razzie nominations including worst picture, worst director, and worst screenplay.
06:27Green himself even attended the award show, bringing his own red carpet, and allegedly played the harmonica on stage for
06:33more than an hour before being dragged out by security.
06:37When I made this movie, I didn't think that I was going to get this much, you know, praise and
06:43adulation.
06:44So, I'm very happy.
06:46From day one, when we started writing it, he said we wanted to win a raspberry award.
06:52So, I'm glad my dream has come true.
06:55I'm very proud.
06:57I'm happy.
06:57I'm excited.
06:58And it's a very proud day for me.
07:01Thanks very much.
07:06As years passed on though, the film soon became a point for a revaluation, as people soon began to notice
07:11that maybe Green did all of this for a reason.
07:14As no comedy movie known at the time was willing to push the boundaries for what was shock-humored as
07:19much as Green wanted to.
07:20As people pointed out that it was, quote,
07:22less of a conventional comedy than a borderline da-da-da-di's perfection, a $50 million prank at the studio's
07:28expense.
07:29Meaning to say, people began noticing the sheer ambition, self-awareness, and willpower that Tom Green had with the movie,
07:35which he used in order to prank 20th century Fox for even giving him that money in the first place.
07:39What you need here is elevation.
07:42Okay?
07:42There actually has to be something that happens that's actually funny.
07:45What the f*** is happening here?
07:51What the f*** are we doing?
07:52As a result of this, the film gained traction in the media once again as one of the most misunderstood
07:57comedies of the 20th century.
07:58I mean, just look at the rating curve for this thing on Letterboxd, Jesus Christ.
08:02Some may have been compared to the works of Jean-Luc Godard, Bostaswa du Cinema, Radio Greenway, and John Watterson
08:07since.
08:08In another review by Roger Ebert of another movie also starring Green, released in 2002 the following year, called Stealing
08:14Harvard,
08:15he said this about the movie.
08:17The thing is, I remember Freddy got fingered more than a year later.
08:20I refer to it sometimes.
08:21It is a milestone.
08:22And for all its sins, it was at least an ambitious movie.
08:25A go-for-broke attempt to accomplish something.
08:27It failed.
08:28But it does not let me convince that Tom Green doesn't have any good work in him.
08:32Anyone with his nerve and total lack of taste is sooner or later going to make a movie worth seeing.
08:37I mean, I don't think this movie is for certain types of people.
08:42And I think it's the kind of movie that if you like to kind of let loose and have fun,
08:46and see something a little bit different and off a beaten track, maybe you would like this movie.
08:50But it's certainly not what I would consider to be, you know, a typical comedy movie, and that might maybe
08:55confuse some people.
08:56Now, it was said by Green himself that the first finished product of this movie was initially seven hours long,
09:01and would happily do a director's cut of the studio without any of the scenes to do so.
09:05So when we finished our first pass on the edit of Freddy Got Fingered,
09:08I was surprised to see that it was seven and a half hours long.
09:13Obviously far too long for a commercial feature film.
09:19So we had to cut some scenes out of the movie.
09:22Now, I honestly don't know if Tom Green said this is a joke or not.
09:25Obviously, I wasn't there in the production.
09:27But, you know, knowing him, this may as well just be the case.
09:36I also want to add that since the rights to 20th Century Fox was bought by Disney,
09:40this thing is technically considered to be a Disney film.
09:42So, you know, can't wait for this to be released on Disney+.
10:12I honestly think it's a pretty funny film.
10:13Not because of how bad it is, no, not like that at all,
10:16but just because of how over-the-top and nearly self-aware it is of its own existence.
10:21In a post-ironic, sort of chronically online sense,
10:24it does feel like a pioneer of those modern anti-comedies you see on shows from channels like Adult Swim.
10:40If you meet me online by Grubb's Tavern, I will show you where the treasure is hidden.
10:47Or in a more modern sense, real YouTube channels, rage baiters, or accounts on Instagram that just post.
10:53Whatever.
11:08Everything's okay!
11:11Everything's under control!
11:18So I do have to give Tom Green credits for Credits Jew.
11:21He may have just pulled out the greatest rage bait of the century.
11:24He, he, he!
11:28Mmm!
11:32Mmmmm!
11:36Mmm!
11:37Mmm!
11:38Mmm!
11:39Uh, oh...
11:41Cut!
11:41Come on.
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