The Tom Green Farm (2026) s01e09 Episode Script
Down in a Hole
1
(Tom): Welcome to
The Tom Green Farm.
Have we got a show
for you today.
Dan Aykroyd is here.
Canadian comedy icon
unlike any other.
Somebody I grew up loving
on Saturday Night Live,
on movies like Ghostbusters,
Trading Places.
And what a thrill it is
to have him here.
Crystal Head Vodka,
which is his vodka.
And I believe
he's bringing some today,
so I think we'll be drinking
a little bit today.
We're drinking vodka
with Dan Aykroyd today.
I know that's gonna be a pretty
good day.
- This is the nation's one and
only music station,
MuchMusic.
And I'm Dan Aykroyd,
on it.
(Tom): When I was a kid,
Erica Ehm was the number one VJ
on MuchMusic. MuchMusic
was really the MTV of Canada.
Growing up in Canada,
everybody watched MuchMusic.
Especially back in the '80s,
before the internet.
She did some historic
interviews.
One of the most
intimate interviews
with Kurt Cobain. You can tell
he really connected with Erica,
and it was one of the most
authentic interviews ever
with the late,
great Kurt Cobain.
I'm Tom Green,
this is The Tom Green Farm.
(rooster crows)
(piano music)
This is The Tom Green Farm ♪
It's not the Green Tom Farm ♪
This is my favourite farm ♪
(horse neighs)
Because it is my farm ♪
If this was your farm ♪
You'd probably like it
more than I did ♪
That's just because
it was your farm ♪
But it's not your farm
it's The Tom Green Farm ♪
It's The Tom Green Farm.
(birdsong)
(bluesy piano music)
Very cool, Dan's here.
(gravel crunching)
Sit.
How are you, Dan?
(blues music on radio)
- Aw, brother good
to see you. Neighbour!
- Good to see you, Dan.
- Oh, Christ.
Neighbours! Oh my gosh.
- Good to see you.
- How are you, Erica Ehm?
- Hi.
- How are you? Nice to see you.
Wow, hello, hello, hello.
- Hello.
- I'm Tom. This is Charley.
That feels like a Erica Ehm
kind of colour car.
- Well, I drove a minivan
for fifteen years.
- Yeah.
- And when my kids left
the house
You're wintered up.
- Yeah.
- I'm Toronto weathered up.
- Absolutely, yeah. Do you want
to borrow a jacket or something?
'Cause we could lend you
a nice warm coat that's like
the warmest jacket in the world.
- Oh, then yes.
- See? That's nice and warm.
- It's pumpkin orange!
- Yeah. Kind of matches
your car.
- Yeah, but
- Kinda.
(Dan): What an expanse
you have here!
This is just lovely.
- Yeah.
I was thinking what
we could do--
- Whatever you want.
- We could hop in
the little side by side
and go for a quick
little tour around.
- Sure.
- I grew up watching you
on MuchMusic.
- You were on MuchMusic.
- Yeah, later. In later years,
like in the early '90s.
- Yes. I was gone.
- In the '80s,
I was watching you in
the '80s when I was a kid.
You were probably a kid too,
though, right?
Like you were probably in your
early 20s or something?
- Yes, 23 the first, first time
when I first went on the air.
- We'll just go for a little
ride on the,
on the side by side.
Show you where we are.
Thanks for coming out
to the farm.
- You actually don't know how
much I want to be here.
Because even though you
are thinking,
"Okay, I'm gonna get to
know Erica,"
I'm thinking I get to get
connected with Tom,
and find out, who are you?
- Yeah.
- 'Cause you've had
a freaky career.
- Freaky?
- Yeah.
Constantly reinventing
in new ways.
And fearless.
(Dan): How many acres you got?
(Tom): 150. 150, so,
so it's kind of fun.
- Nice, good rolling.
- Yeah.
- Granite country, eh?
- Oh yeah.
The Canadian shield, eh?
And I've got some animals.
- Yeah, you've got a, you've got
a full on mule there.
- Yeah. Hello. Hey, Erica Ehm,
hanging out with Erica Ehm
right now at the farm.
Tom Green here.
What's going on?
Driving around in the winter.
It's wintertime.
- Now don't be shy.
(chuckling)
(Dan): Ah, look at this
sculpture.
(Tom): So, we built this
this year.
This is a skateboard
half pipe.
(Dan): No, get away!
It's something out of
a science fiction set, or,
you know.
You expect a disk
or a pod to land here.
(chuckling)
- And so, it's for
skateboarding. And if you're
good enough, you can drop
in there, and you fly off.
- My daughter, Stella,
lives with Daniel Lutheran.
Who, Daniel and his brother
Andrew are, you know,
Olympic-level skateboarders.
I can't wait to show him this!
- They're gonna have to come
here this summer.
- No, of course!
(Erica): My daughter.
- Yeah.
- Who's 21
is a skateboard fanatic.
- Yeah. Tony Hawk came up and
christened it with Kevin Staab.
- Wow!
(Tom chuckles.)
My daughter is gonna freak out.
- That's cool.
- She's doing a line of clothes.
- Yeah?
- For skater girls.
- Oh, that's cool.
- This is so cool.
I'm so happy to be here.
- Aw, good. So great
to have you. This is cool.
(Dan): Aren't these beautiful,
raw, primordial woods! Look!
(Tom chuckling): Yes.
(Dan): Oh, my God!
Oh! A sand beach.
(Tom): Yeah, yeah.
(chuckling)
(Dan): Wow!
- I was gonna say
you're a lucky man,
but I don't believe in luck
because you made this happen.
Look where you are.
You're a smart guy.
(Dan): Tom, congratulations.
- Thank you.
- It's kind of rare
in this country.
This part of the country.
It's mostly rocks. You don't
often get a beautiful,
classic sand beach like this.
Look at the, the frost.
And there was a hoar frost this
morning on my fields. Yeah.
- Interesting name
for the frost.
- Yeah, men and women
both were dancing.
- Yeah.
(chuckling)
- I don't know.
Yeah, H O A R, yeah.
- Do you remember the first time
you went to New York City?
- I rode there on my motorcycle.
- Mm-hmm?
How old would you have been?
- I was 22 then.
- Okay. And that was the first
time you went to New York?
- First time I'd ever been
in New York City.
Yeah. The old OPP Harley that I
had. To see Gilda and, and John.
They were assembling
for the show,
and I hadn't been hired yet
or anything.
- That's amazing.
- So, and then I get downtown,
and I'm in the village,
and then I go to a phone booth
to call John, you know.
And he says, "Where are you?"
I said, "Well, I'm here.
I'm just gonna go in and have
a drink at this bar."
And he said, "What bar?"
I said, "It's the Iron Spike."
He said, "Okay, well wait
a minute!
I'll see you there."
I went in, I had a bike--
A beer. 'Cause I saw all these
Harleys lined up. You know?
I thought, oh this is like
a biker bar. It was.
A gay biker bar.
(chuckling)
So I had a drink with, you know,
some of the patrons there.
- Sure.
- And, you know, hey,
when you talk Harleys,
you know, you've got something
in common with
every human being.
- Absolutely.
- And so John said,
"Come on, come on,
this is the biggest gay bar
in the city.
You wanna get picked up?"
I said, "Maybe."
(chuckling)
And so we went to his house
and he put me up.
And we were just sort of
assembling for Lorne
to pull us together for SNL.
- Wow.
Yeah, and you know I just got
married a month ago.
- Oh, yeah? How did Charley
feel about that?
(chuckling)
- She's good, she's good.
- The horse whisperer.
(Tom): There you go,
there you go.
(fence rattling)
- The mule whisperer!
Look at that action. Calm.
Hey buddy.
(soft music)
(Tom): Time for some snacks.
There you go. All right.
There you go. Okay.
- They look happy. This
is really a little paradise.
- Yeah. And you know,
you're here, obviously,
it's the beginning of
the winter.
But I love the winter too,
I love the winter too.
- I do want an invitation when
it's not the winter.
- Yeah, for the skateboarding
day, for your daughter to come.
- Yes!
- Yeah, absolutely,
we'll definitely have a lot
of skateboarding days up here.
Did you worry about her
skateboarding?
- Yes.
- Yeah. 'Cause you can get
injured skateboarding.
- But, you know what?
That's her life.
- Yeah. I feel skateboarding
is the most creativity
inducing sport.
- Why is that?
I don't know 'cause I don't
understand it at all.
- Well, it's an
individual sport.
- Mm-hmm.
- There's not really rules
to it.
- Mm-hmm.
- It's always evolving.
You're making up new tricks.
It's got a sort of a rebellious,
outsider element to it.
And the art that's
on the skateboard
has always been part of it.
And then there's a lot of sort
of confrontational stuff
that happens
with security guards.
You know, like when
you go skateboard
on a public place and a security
guard kicks you out, so.
You know, you could be out like,
dealing drugs
or, or getting in fights.
But instead you just want
to jump down a flight of stairs
on your little wheelie board,
and you're getting
in trouble? Seems unjust.
- I love what you just said.
- There was a lot of controversy
in Ottawa when I was a kid
'cause kids would all skate
on the war memorial downtown.
'Cause there was beautiful
steps and everything.
And the veterans would come out
and say,
"We fought so kids could
skate on this."
- Beautiful! I thought you were
gonna say to me
that they were saying, "Hey you
little rats, get off there!"
- No, no, they, you know
"We fought for the right
for our Canadian kids
to have the freedom to
skateboard downtown
wherever they want."
I thought that was good.
I think they still did ban
the kids from skateboarding
there, but regardless.
(chuckling)
Rendering the entire
story pointless, but
(chuckling)
- Well, no it's not,
because that's
an important insight.
(fiddle music)
(Tom): Welcome, welcome.
(Dan): No, now, come on.
This is the, the country
Canadian winter ideal.
I feel so at home already.
- Excellent. This is my mom.
This is my mom, here, Dan.
- Hi! How are you?
Nice to meet you.
- Mary Jane.
(clears throat)
- Excuse me,
let me adjust the halo.
- Okay, oh, okay.
Okay, I can fix my hair
- What a saint, what a saint.
(indistinct chatter)
Anyway, I brought the most,
I guess the key thing is that,
you know, you can get a good
chicken from Foodland
around here, don't pass it up.
(chuckling)
It's a fantastic-- that's for
later, if you wanna have that.
- Thank you, Dan.
Thank you very much, Dan.
- And also, let me see here what
I brought along.
I got you the
new Blues Brothers--
(Mary Jane): Oh wow!
- graphic novel.
- Oh, wow. That is great.
- Which my daughter helped me
write, with Luke Pisano,
who's Judy Belushi's son.
And it's kind of a continuation
of the story,
the escape of Joliet Jake.
And it's really a fun
kind of telling of where
the Blues Brothers would be at.
The art is absolutely, really,
really impeccable in there.
We have of course our
lovely head.
You don't say in the business,
you don't say,
"sell it," you present.
This is a sunset wheat,
and that's kind of a more
spicy anise peppercorn.
And then, this is made
with agave.
This is what they
make tequila out of.
- I didn't know you could make
vodka with agave.
- Now, the skull is based on
the legend of the crystal heads.
There was a movie Spielberg
made about it.
- Right.
- They were coneheads
if you remember, in the back,
at the end of that movie.
Remember?
- Right.
(monotone voice):
You will be spared
when my species overtakes your
miserable planet.
(chuckles)
But I wanted to use it
because it sold the idea of
purity for my fluid in here.
Now, and of course, just if you
want to taste the notes,
you take it,
take it a little bit
- A straight shot, there, Mom.
- Yeah, take just a sip.
And you'll see the viscosity,
the natural viscosity,
and the sweetness, and then the
fire because we don't mask it.
- That's very nice.
- Then we-- yeah.
(Tom): Very nice.
- And then we go like that.
- Very nice.
- I'll have a little more.
(acoustic guitar)
You know, it looks like
the yolk of an egg.
I went to St. Pious the 10th
Minor Preparatory Seminary
For Boys. 5000 guys went
through there
for a priesthood,
including me.
I want to toast Bob Prevost.
Who's the Pope.
And he's from Chicago.
- Yes.
- So here's to His Holiness.
A movie fan and a Chicagoite.
- Absolutely, yes.
- Thank you very much!
So here's a little
castle driver
to His Holiness,
and to, you know just,
oh, Catholics everywhere.
Why not?
- Why not?
- Absolutely. To the Pope.
- Cheers. Mmm.
Now.
- Mmm!
- Yeah, that's very nice.
- So, there we go, there are
my little offerings.
- Wow, that's great.
(Tom): That is amazing.
- It's the book, the three
heads. But again, the chicken.
- Yes.
- From Foodland.
So plump and juicy.
I almost tore it apart when
I got in the car
and drove up here. I almost did.
- We can crack into that
chicken later.
- Well
- I saw you with a chicken
the other day doing Julia Child.
It was so funny.
(Tom): Oh, yeah, yeah.
- It was the funniest thing.
You must have had a lot of fun
doing that one.
- Uh, yeah. But Franken
and Davis wrote that.
- Oh, my God.
- And that was a good
blood joke.
- And she used to be on TV
all the time,
so she was so recognizable.
- I looked like my mother.
(chuckling)
I really did, yeah.
"Oh, save the liver!"
(acoustic guitar music)
(Tom): Thanks Dan, for coming.
- To, uh, to our beautiful
country. Which is not for sale,
but we got things to sell!
- Absolutely. Do, do sometimes,
when you meet Americans,
do they ever not know
that you're Canadian?
Or you're obviously very
vocal about being Canadian.
But sometimes they might think
you're from Chicago,
or Blues Brothers.
- Blues Brothers, yeah.
My adopted home. It's where
I got my first working permit.
Second City is where I got
my first H1 down there,
and so people associate me
with Chicago.
But I always make it clear
that I'm a Canadian
and proud to go around the world
and talk about it.
- It's interesting, Second City
was in Chicago,
but also they
had one in Toronto.
- It was founded, really,
as a works progress
administration program,
inner city program in Chicago
to alleviate crime,
and to create equanimity
in the society.
So, one of the ways to
do it was this technique
of improvisation where,
for instance, you know,
the thief that was arrested
on the street would come out
and do a session where
the cop would play
the thief, the thief would play
the cop. And so from that,
that emerged into the
Compass Players in Chicago,
and then that had emerged
into Second City.
And then, uh, in the '70s,
Bernie Sahlins,
who was, who owned it at that
time, brought it to Toronto.
He saw there was talent there.
We traded companies.
The Toronto company
went down there,
and the American company came up
to Toronto.
So, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner,
myself, Gerry Salsberg.
Principally, I remember we went
down to Chicago for that summer
of 1974, and performed in the
Chicago Second City, that house.
And as you see, these talents
have endured, you know,
to this day.
Look at Eugene Levy,
Dave Thomas, and Rick Moranis,
and you know
(Tom): Martin Short.
- Marty was, I think Marty,
I always say Marty was perhaps
the all around most, like,
polymath talented of us all.
He can sing, he can dance,
he does comedy, he does schtick.
He's just like, he's maxi-baxi
talent. You know?
(soft music)
(Tom): All right.
Got some beers.
(Ryan): Welcome
to the shack, Tom.
(Tom): All right, this is cool.
Let's have a look.
Nice. We can
take our coats off now.
(Ryan): We can take our
coats off.
- That's how warm it is in here.
- Says it's 42 degrees Celsius
in here right now. I caught,
I got one perch this morning.
(Tom): A perch?
- Yeah, a little perch.
- We could catch a pike.
- Yeah, hopefully we'll catch
some pike today.
- Northern Pike.
- Northern Pike.
See how this other red line's
showing here now?
(Richard): Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, so that's, like,
that's a fish down there.
- It is, eh? Okay.
- That fish finder really helps,
eh? If you see a fish you move
the line, the bait right to it.
- Yes, yes, and it helps you,
it kind of just gives you
like a bit of warning.
Like, you can anticipate
the bite. But these
things here,
they're set up so if you fall,
if you're not holding it,
you can just sit here and
look out the window or whatever,
or if you fall asleep, or if you
go outside and a fish bites
(banging)
When the line slips off the end,
it goes up and hits the ceiling
and wakes you up.
(laughing)
Or if you go outside to check
an outside line, or
(Richard): You hear a bang.
- You hear a bang,
you come running in.
It was something my grandpa
came up with, and they're
old car antennas
is what they are.
We have beer, we have rum.
(Tom): Oh, yeah,
so both of those,
both things sound good.
- We could have
apple root whisky?
- Ooh.
- Let me know when
you're hungry, we'll start
making some lunch.
(Tom): Oh, really? You can
make lunch in here?
- Yeah, we got burgers.
- Burgers?
- We got sausages.
- Oh my gosh.
Daddy, would you
like some sausage, Daddy?
(chuckling)
- They're home-made.
(soft music)
- You basically started
out your, you know,
in the broadcasting in Toronto
at MuchMusic.
This was when I first
knew of you,
when I was, you know, kid.
Growing up.
You were a kid on MuchMusic.
The number one VJ on MuchMusic.
And this was a big deal
at the time, MuchMusic.
It was kind of
well, people know what
MuchMusic is today, but--
- No. People under 38 don't
know what MuchMusic was
back in the day.
- And they don't understand
the significance of
it. 'Cause in the '80s,
when I was a kid and
you wanted to watch
music videos, music videos
were a new thing.
And we didn't have the internet,
and we didn't have cell phones.
So if you wanted to find out
what was going
on with Michael Jackson
- Or discover new artists
like Blue Rodeo
or Tragically Hip.
- Right, Canadian artists, exactly.
- You would tune into
the national music channel.
That's what it was, we were
the voice of Canadian culture.
We were a bunch of young people
who were not
necessarily broadcasters,
but we were all fans of music.
We had no script.
All we had was our passion
and our knowledge of music
and our own unique
personalities,
and we told stories
every day for four hours live.
It was unscripted.
You, as a stand-up comic,
can really understand the art
of improv. I didn't.
I didn't understand actually
until recently
that what I was doing back
then was improv.
- Mm-hmm.
- I knew what videos
would be played
on my four-hour shift,
so I had information that I had
gathered. But what,
the way I started, ended, and
told the stories was all improv.
- And in some ways that's kind
of the beginning of,
you know, what we now see
as social media.
- 100 percent. What was very
different about MuchMusic
back in the day was Moses,
who was the founder and the boss
at MuchMusic.
He sort of set the tone.
And he told us very early on
that the audience was
as important as we were.
In the past, broadcasters make
the decisions,
and they push the content
to you.
MuchMusic, as you said,
the connection between
social media, was because it was
a conversation.
Where Moses invited
the audience into the show
as much as possible.
The famous windows
on 299 Queen Street West,
where fans could be
a part of the show,
or the intimate and interactive
shows where people were
brought in to be part
of the shows.
- The windows to the street
idea, that you're talking about
Moses Znaimer--
Moses Znaimer? Right?
- Yeah.
- When he did that, the fact
that you could walk by
and look into the studio.
Now that's been replicated
on the Today Show,
and MTV of course, did it.
That was all copied
from MuchMusic.
- That's right.
Moses was an innovator.
He was the one who changed
the way newscasts work.
Because, historically, newscast
was in a studio
and everything was fake.
And he started this thing
at City TV where newscasters
would sit on desks in
the middle of a large newsroom.
- Yeah.
- And that has been replicated
all around the world. It's him.
(folk music)
(pouring)
- Cheers.
- Warm Chicago to your heart.
- Cheers, gentlemen, thanks.
- Does it get pretty
thick sometimes,
you come in in the morning,
and there's a couple of inches
of ice there? Or
- Oh, yeah, if you're here every
day, I can keep it,
like with this spud,
keep it just, keep it chipped
open. But if you're not here
basically yeah. If you leave
it two nights,
you'd have to redrill it.
- Okay. Oh, redrill it. Okay.
- Yeah, I've had to redrill.
There's probably 16 or 17
inches of ice here, now.
- Yeah, okay, yeah.
- There's a lot of ice.
- And this is on skis.
- Yeah.
- This. What kind of skis
are they?
- I made them out of like,
TV antennas.
- The skis?
- Yeah, like a TV tower.
- Oh, okay.
- There's an old set of
snowmobile skis welded to,
or bolted to the one end of
the tower,
but that's what it
slides on.
- Oh. So they can't hear us down
there, huh?
- I don't think so, no. When the
kids are jumping
and carrying on in here.
- Yeah, oh I got one,
playing with me there.
- Kind of set it.
- Oh, maybe not. Something was
biting it, though.
- It's been a little bit slow,
but we've never been skunked.
Every time we come we've
caught something.
(soft music)
You take a bit of ketchup on it?
Your sausage?
- On this hook, on the minnow?
- No, on your sausage.
(laughing)
We could try putting some
ketchup on your hook, too,
that might work.
(chuckling)
- Sure. A little bit of
ketchup, very good.
- Thank you. Thank you.
- Here's a fork.
- Thank you very much.
Very good.
- Nice, eh?
- Oh yeah.
Oh, this is your pork,
too, right?
- Our pork, yeah.
- Wow, that's so cool.
(folk music)
(Tom): Let's make a drink
for Amanda, too.
- Yeah.
- Come have a drink
with us, Amanda.
- Come have a drink with us.
(Dan): And you like life
in the country, eh?
- I do.
- Yeah. It's beautiful.
- That was a pretty squeeze.
- Yeah, that's the,
that's the blood orange. Yeah.
- Oh yeah.
- So we've got three types
of citrus going today,
the tangerine, the blood orange,
and then just a simple old
Sunkist Florida.
You put this
in a blender, but
(Tom): No, this is delicious.
- Having my arthritic hands
squeeze it, it adds
a kind of a
- Thank you.
- Congratulations, you guys.
- Thank you.
- Cheers, Amanda.
- Ah, congratulations.
- Thanks, Dan.
- Tommy, yeah, good. Good.
- I'm a lucky guy.
Got lucky again.
- Oh, it's great.
Yeah, you're gonna build--
this is the love shack, you're
gonna build a
good life here. Very good.
(folk music)
(Tom): I watched 1941 again
a few nights ago.
- It was beautifully produced
of course, done by Spielberg.
And great performances in there.
And yeah, it got a bad rap
at the time,
I don't know what
was happening.
- To see John Candy, to see
- Treat Williams.
- Treat Williams.
- Mickey Rourke.
- Oh!
- Candy, yeah.
- I don't even think I noticed
Mickey Rourke was in it.
- Yeah, Bobby Di Cicco,
the young star.
- Tim Matheson.
- Matheson was in it.
- Animal House,
and then of course, Belushi.
- And then you have the master
Spielberg directing it
and have him chuckling
and chortling
and giggling the whole time!
- And was that your first
movie? 1941?
- First big Hollywood feature.
- Hollywood movie, yeah.
- And boy did that pollute me
as like, "Oh wow,
what a life this is!"
I think that's my overriding,
I guess, element of emotion
right now is gratitude.
For the collaborators I had,
for the opportunities I had.
And just being able
to kind of do it all.
- Was John Candy doing SCTV at
the time, and you were on SNL,
and Belushi was on SNL,
and you all came
and knew each other, but--
- Yeah, it was like that,
and of course, Belushi wanted
to recruit Candy for SNL.
Said come and join us, you know.
But John had a kind of a, he had
a movie career
up here in Canada apart
from anything he was doing
in the states.
And then Second City
turned out to be such a, oh,
I would say fertile place
for comedy. SCTV.
That, that all of us at SNL
were fans.
And we were kind of jealous
of them, because
"Oh man, we have to do this
live every week,
they get to edit their pieces,
they get to do TV parodies,
they get to"
You know, we thought they had
an easier gig. But they worked
just as hard as we did.
One of the most seminal points
in my life was when,
in terms of humour and in terms
of developing where I went,
was Valri Bromfield and I,
we met in college.
One night we were doing a cable
show in Toronto.
In Ottawa, we had our own cable
show at the time called
Change for a Quarter.
- Oh?
- It was a 15-minute show.
- Okay.
- And so we did it at a local
cable. We had three robot
cameras and one operator. And we
wrote sketches, and that tape,
eventually we gave to
Lorne Michaels in Toronto.
And it was a one-inch,
a two-inch tape
that came with a handle
in a case, you know.
(chuckling)
And so we were working on
material, and I was over at her
house there on Prince of Wales
drive in Ottawa,
and a blizzard set in.
And that night of that blizzard,
we developed some wonderful
pieces of humour
because we were stuck there.
We couldn't go anywhere.
We brought it to two executives
at CBC.
They looked at it, they said,
"Ah, it's not quite for us,
but there's a young producer,
downstairs, his name is Lorne.
Go down and see him."
And Lorne got it.
He got, "Oh, yeah,
I see talent."
- Oh, he was at CBC?
- He was at CBC.
- Oh okay, yeah.
- So we ended up doing
a summer special called
the Great Canadian Humour Test.
And it was a government
sponsored test
of Canadians' humour.
And this was Lorne's
brilliance at the time.
And so Valri and I got to do
sketch comedy on that show
for CBC in 19, summer of 1969.
- Oh, okay.
Did you imagine at the time when
that first, you know,
when you're on SNL, that this
show would end up going on
for 50 years now?
- He just wanted to get on for
7 of them.
And get through 7 and see.
And he demanded, he said,
"It has to be seven.
I'm not doing a pilot,
you've got to guarantee me
a certain amount."
So, it's an institution,
it'll never go away.
And you know, he's 81,
Lorne, right now,
and there's only one guy that
can really do that.
- Yeah.
- And he orders the show.
Have you ever seen him do that?
- I have, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, isn't that something?
- I got to host it once, so.
- Yes, right, so you see the
process. You gotta understand
that he puts the cards and puts
in the pin. And therein,
there's only one man
on the planet can do that.
- Yeah.
- And that's Lorne Michaels.
- It was cool when you, when you
hosted the show that you brought
The Tragically Hip on.
- That was a wonderful night.
A wonderful night.
And you know, the Hip,
people say, about them,
"Oh, well, you never really
made it in the states,
you never really exploded
in the states,"
That's not true.
They sold many US venues,
they sold a lot of US records,
and they have a very credible
following in the United States.
And that was just one of
the most memorable nights
of my life. And, um
I love Gord, of course,
and love the boys all as well.
(whistling folk music)
- And then of course,
you got to interview of course,
so many incredible artists.
Legacy, legendary artists
like Kurt Cobain, and uh,
Duran Duran, and uh
who did you interview?
- Oh, God.
- Who are your biggest
interviews? You did Kurt Cobain,
though, right?
- Kurt Cobain is, I think
it has become sort
of my legacy interview.
- I've seen that one
a lot lately.
- Yeah. That one has had
millions of views on YouTube.
And what's interesting,
you know you've made it when
your kids come home,
they go "Mom, did you
interview Kurt Cobain?"
- Yeah.
- So their friends had said
"Your mom interviewed
Kurt Cobain"
and they're like what?
This is when they were
in high school.
- At what point in Nirvana's
career was that?
Was that the beginning?
- No.
- Were they at the peak
of their fame?
- Yeah, it was 1993.
It was the In Utero album.
And I remember my boss said,
"Come back with something good
or you're fucking fired."
- Mm-hmm.
- I was like, no pressure.
So I had to strategize.
Like, how am I gonna stand out,
because it was a junket.
And as you know, junket
is the kiss of death
for an interviewer, because
the artist is led from,
in my case, hotel room
to hotel room.
And they're asked
the same insipid questions
over and over again,
and they kind of tune out.
So, I wanted him in particular
to see me as a person,
and not as mainstream media.
Because they were not fans
of mainstream.
So when he walked in
the hotel room, I said,
"Hey, I'm Erica. Do you want
to do the interview
in the bed or on the balcony?"
And he looked at me like
who is this freak?
And went "I, uh,
on the balcony."
I went "Great, let's go."
So we, we just grabbed
the camera, set up.
We didn't even set up,
we just put it on our shoulder,
and we started talking.
And the first question
I asked him was,
"So what are you reading
these days?"
And he looked at me like what's
going on here?
(chuckling)
And he wanted to answer
that question.
- Yeah.
- And he talked about the book.
I was like, "Oh, I've never
read it. What's it about?"
"Oh, she's actually listening
to my answer.
We're gonna
have a conversation."
The questions that I came up
with were actually
kind of personal,
but not, not prying.
But just, tell me how you feel
about certain things,
or why did you bring
a child into the world
when all your lyrics
are so dark?
- I really was a lot more
negative and angry
and everything else
a few years ago.
But that, that had a lot to
do with, um
not having a mate.
You know, not having
a steady girlfriend
and stuff like that.
So I, you know, that was one
of the main things
that was bothering me, that
I wouldn't admit at the time,
you know. So, now that
I've found that,
the world seems a lot better
for some reason.
It really does change
your attitude about things.
You know, I mean, four years
ago I would've said,
you know, classic thing like
um, you know,
"How dare someone bring a
child into this life, you know.
It's a completely terrible
way to go and the world's gonna
explode any day," and stuff like
that. But once you fall in love,
it's a bit different.
- It was actually quite
emotional.
And he killed himself, like,
I think less than
six months later.
- Yeah.
- And I was very sad,
and kinda angry,
because I didn't understand
mental health challenges
at the time. But also,
I felt, my God,
there are so many young people
who admired him,
and I was afraid they were
going to be copycat kids,
who, you know, would jump off
the same bridge,
so to speak, with him.
And I felt very responsible.
So the day that he killed
himself, I happened to be
on the air.
And we made the whole show
about talking about
mental health challenges.
And I, I understand now
how revolutionary that was.
Because we didn't talk about
that, no one talked about
suicide and mental health
back in those days.
But it was a scary time, and
I felt a huge responsibility.
(folk music)
- Yep, I got a fish.
- You got one, Dad?
- Yeah, he's still there.
- Yeah, yeah, let him go
a little bit.
Oh, now that's
a pike. That's a pike.
Yeah, pull him up a little
higher.
He's just a little fella.
- All right, Dad,
you got a pike!
- He might be a little fella,
but he's a pike!
- Not that little.
- He's one of the,
they call them silver pikes,
look how beautiful they are.
- Oh, wow.
I'm happy.
(indistinct chatter)
- You ready?
- Yeah, we'll see you
later, buddy.
- Nice.
- Say you caught one, Dad.
- My pike, my pike.
- Yes, very good. Very good.
(chuckling)
(splashing)
- There we go.
- Okay, okay.
- All right, nice.
- Nice.
- Nice, we got one.
- All right! Okay.
- Yes. Good job. All right,
that's nice, we're not skunked.
- We're not skunked.
- It was in some ways,
bittersweet watching a lot of
the films
because you see people that've
passed. Of course, John Candy,
and Belushi.
- Well, 44 years old, he died.
He didn't die of drugs,
he had a congenital
heart defect.
From his dad.
- Mm-hmm.
- Belushi died of a straight up
heroin cocaine overdose
that the woman misjudged.
I had eight good wonderful
years of friendship with John.
Wonderful years of friendship,
and we made those films.
And the first time
I saw John,
and you couldn't have imagined
a more dramatic appearance
of a great star to me
at that time.
We were at Second City.
It was a February night
in Toronto. The back
door fed onto an alley,
and the back door opened.
And in a swirl of snow,
for the first time, Belushi
appeared to me.
With a octagonal tweed hat
and a cable-knit sweater
and a silk scarf, a white silk
scarf. White sneakers, jeans,
totally underdressed
for Canadian winter.
With a cigarette and a pack
of camels.
And he came in, and I was just
"Oh, my God, what an archetype."
- Yeah.
- And then we did the set
together, and then we went back
to the 505 club.
John and I were listening
to the Downchild Blues Record,
and he said I love this.
Well, it's a local blues band,
you love blues,
you're from Chicago.
He said, "But this sounds good.
This vocalist is great."
I said, "Yeah, well,
you know, you know we should
put something together."
And we sort of conceived
the Blues Brothers that night.
- Wow. Yeah.
- And I'm happy and proud to say
that with his brother Jimmy,
we have a blues band
that we still play. Often.
- When you're there at the,
in the church scene,
and you've got James Brown
performing. You know,
it's sort of like who he is.
I know you guys were the biggest
stars in the world
at the time, too, but were you
still kind of pinching yourself
going "Wait, we got
James Brown here?
We got Aretha Franklin
in the movie?"
- Well we I'd seen James
Brown at the esquire show barn
in Montreal.
And I saw, you know, I was
always a fan of those
Black radio stations
that we used to hear from
Detroit and Boston as a kid.
And the impact that these
African American artists
have had on world culture,
and to invite them to come in
and have them
say, "Yeah, you know, yeah,
we want to do this."
Have them verify the fact that
we were venerating their work
and honouring their work.
Expose these artists to maybe
a white audience
that hadn't seen them so much.
A Midwest white audience.
And all the songs we
recorded on the records,
we, John and I collected only
mechanical royalties.
That is for the performance
of the song only.
All those publishing royalties
went to the original writers.
- Wow.
- Or their estates.
We never appropriated them.
So I'm quite,
quite proud of that.
- So many of your films, you're
in such great sort of,
sort of a comedic team
with another
- Thank God.
- You know, with Eddie Murphy.
- I don't think I could've
done it alone.
- John Candy, of course.
- Yeah.
- So fun watching you and
John Candy, and, you know,
and the Great Outdoors.
- Well that was John Hughes
who wrote that.
- Yeah.
- And then I got to rewrite
some of it. And Howie Deutch
directed it.
And we had a wonderful time
on that film.
That was, that was,
it was really good.
You know, being able to pair
with someone on stage
or on film, Second City taught
us to be generous.
To listen.
- Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- And that's why so much of it,
so much of it worked.
(banjo and fiddle music)
- Why'd you leave?
- I was done. I mean, I was old.
I was 34. I had been working
there since I was 21.
- Mm-hmm, yeah.
- So it was 13 years of my life.
- Yeah.
- And I was ready to have
a life.
- Yeah, yeah.
- I needed to grow up.
And I did. I had a show called
Real Life, and I had a show
on Discovery Channel. Then I had
a couple of kids,
and then I started
my own company.
It was called YMC,
or the Yummy Mummy Club.
And it became a very important
online destination
for women with kids
who were struggling
with the rollercoaster ride
of motherhood.
I built a marketing agency
called Ehm and Co.,
which connected brands to moms.
And I invented this thing called
influencer marketing
back in 2006, 2007.
- Sort of sad in a way, we don't
have that anymore. MuchMusic.
- Oh yeah, no, it is very sad.
- With this sort of,
all encompassing,
sort of universal reach.
- No, I agree.
Well, just in general,
culture is very splintered now.
So that's why we're having
so many problems culturally
and politically. Is there not,
there aren't the same
kind of unifying voices.
So people on one side don't
understand what people
on the other side are doing
or talking about.
Because there's no one person
that everybody trusts.
I think what you're doing
is great,
because you're bringing people
who I, I look at the people
that you're asking to talk,
and you really are
attracted to people
who are very kind.
- Mm-hmm.
- They're talented, but there's
an essence of kindness in there,
which, it's not surprising that
you moved into the country where
there is kindness.
So in a way, Tom,
you are adding to Canadian
culture and reminding people
that there's positivity
out there.
- Yeah. I hope to, yeah, I mean
I like the fact that
I like the fact that also,
people from other parts
of the world get to see
this part of Canada and think,
"Oh wow, I didn't know
Canada had mules!"
(chuckling)
- And not the drug type!
- Yeah, yeah, I didn't know they
had, you know, barns and
- Do, are you different
in real life? Like
I've never seen you do
your stand-up.
But my impression of you is that
you're a shit disturber.
- My old show was more of a shit
disturbing type of show format.
You know, pranks things
like this.
But I was, I was in
my '20s. But in my stand-up,
maybe it's a little bit more
outrageous for sure.
- But you seem, like,
completely down to Earth.
- Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- So who's the real Tom?
- Uh, probably more this is more
what I'm generally like.
Just sort of, this conversation.
I mean, now, if this was
25 years ago I might be like,
you know, pulling some,
you know
throwing cheese around
or something.
You know, spraying
milk bags all over the place
and trying to shock. As I get
older, the media's changed
and there's so much attempt
at shock on the internet now
that it's almost weirder
to not be shocking.
I think this is weird.
People tune in,
they see me talking to Erica Ehm
and it's a nice conversation
full of legitimate discussion
points about something
interesting.
And that might be
kind of more of a surprise.
- All of our nervous systems
are frazzled.
And we're looking
for sanity now.
In an insane world.
So this is refreshing.
- Yeah.
(folk music)
(Ryan): Not a vegetable
in sight.
(chuckling)
(Tom): Thank you, thank you.
Thank you very much. All right.
- Well, this has been
a pretty awesome day.
- It has been
an awesome day, really.
- I didn't, uh
- Yeah, this is what I call
ice fishing.
(Tom): You're the only one
to have gotten one.
(Richard): All right. I'm proud.
Haven't caught a bigger fish
in months.
- Yeah.
(chuckling)
It was amazing, Dad.
- I know,
I'm giving lessons, though.
- Okay.
(laughing)
- That's great.
(Tom): Humble, too.
- Thank you.
- Thanks very much.
- No problem.
It was a great time.
- I loved it.
- Thanks so much.
(Tom): Thank you, Ryan. Dad.
- Okay, Tom. Lovely.
- We did it.
- Thanks, Ryan.
- Awesome.
- Great.
- What a day.
- What a day,
I'm telling you. Woo-hoo!
(laughing)
- We're never gonna hear
the end of this.
- I know.
(soft music)
- So you're writing
Ghostbusters, and were you
prepared for the sort of, I mean
astronomical success
of that movie? It was one
of those movies that was
bigger than most
movies ever get, right.
- You know, we don't,
you know, we don't know.
We were shooting the movie
about halfway through.
And Bill Murray and I went up
to my house up on
Woodrow Wilson Drive above
Los Angeles.
He said, "You know, you,
you know, you have written
and we are in probably what's
going to be one of the biggest
comedies of all time."
And I said,
"Well, Bill, we're
only halfway through.
How do you know?" "I know."
And he knew.
And you know, his instincts
are amazing.
For 13 weeks it was at
number one!
Who does that now?
- Yeah.
- And when that's, you know,
that's the brilliance
of Ivan Reitman as
a producer and promoter.
And then of course,
the great leading man,
Bill Murray, one of our greatest
comedy romantic leading mans,
men of all time. And then you
have Harold Ramis
co-writing the script.
And you know, and a solid
concept of where we took
an old-type ghost comedy movie.
Like Hold that Ghost,
or the Abbott and Costello,
or the Bowery Boys. We took that
idea of doing a ghost movie,
but marrying it to the actual
research that was going on
in some of these places like
Duke University, Maimonides.
I had done all that research for
my family that would, you know,
that had, were spiritualists.
And then Harold was well
acquainted with it, although
he was not a believer, as I am.
- So when you say your family
were spiritualists,
they sort of knew about
ghosts, or?
- My great-grandfather,
Sam, was a dentist in Kingston.
- Yeah.
- And he was, he was
a spiritualist
paranormal researcher.
And so he, he wrote
journals and articles related
to everything that was going on.
Apparitions, levitations.
And so that's why I wrote
the movie.
It was, I was just
steeped in that as a kid.
- So have you seen a ghost?
- Um, I have not. I feel that
one night I may have been
had a, had a presence get into
bed with me. I went to sleep.
And then I woke up because
I felt something next to me.
And I looked over next to me,
and I saw the mattress depress.
In like a bum-sized,
you know, depression.
- Yeah.
- And I saw this, you know,
"Okay, well gee,
that's unusual." And I felt
a presence.
But I just kind of turned over
and kind of wiggled up against
it, and went to sleep.
There are many great ghost
stories that are so credible,
and, and you know, I know that
it's a reality the invisible
world is at work all around
us all the time.
(soft music)
(Tom): That must be sort of
a special place that you hold
and a nice feeling to be such
a part of Canadian culture too.
- It makes me feel so proud
because the reason why I got
into MuchMusic was for that.
It's to support artists.
When I first met Bono,
when he was
probably the same age as,
well no, I think he was probably
23 and I was 19
or something like that.
He played at Club Montreal.
Club Montréal. In Montreal.
- Yeah.
- And I was Djing at the club,
so I went there during
their sound check.
And I love the band so much.
He was walking up to me,
I'm freaking out.
And I stopped him.
I said, "Hi, I'm Erica."
And he goes "Oh, hello, love."
We talked a little bit.
I said, "I'm a DJ. I love
the music industry so much."
And he said to me,
"You should be in PR."
Because I was blabbing about
the band to him. I was telling
him all about U2.
- Right.
- And it was because of him
when he said you should be
in PR, I went home,
I found out what PR meant.
I didn't even know
what it meant.
And I found a course at
Ottawa University.
- Mm-hmm.
- Which was a
communications course.
So because of Bono, I ended up
going to university at Ottawa U.
- And that lead you
to MuchMusic.
- That's right.
So, Bono changed my life.
- So were you nervous when you'd
have to interview
these big stars?
- Yes.
Here's a interesting thing.
As you ask me quest--
I'm writing my memoir
right now, so
I'm thinking a lot about those
days. As I mentioned,
I really had locked the door
to MuchMusic.
What I realize now that I was
probably disassociating
at the time,
it was so stressful.
I can't begin to tell you
the stress I was under
because I had no background
in broadcasting.
I was a 23-year-old
that was thrown into live TV.
The entire country watching
and judging you.
And then, bands would show
up, and they were unpredictable.
You never knew who you
were gonna get.
And I don't mean the artist.
If Tom was coming in,
if Tom Green was coming in,
I didn't know if you'd be
a fucking asshole
or if you would actually answer
my questions.
- Right.
- So I had to be prepared.
I needed you to be able to
give me the juice that you
wouldn't tell anybody else.
It was way too stressful
for one person.
- Yes, it's wild. Now how did
you get people to open up
like that in that environment?
- Such a good question.
I mean, I think kind of what
you're doing right now
where you actually are,
I can see your eyes.
You are listening
so intensely to everything
that I'm saying.
So I want to talk to you
'cause I feel like
you actually care
what I'm saying.
- Mm-hmm.
- That's part of it.
Like just being present
in the moment.
So it becomes a conversation
rather than an interrogation.
- Right.
(boisterous music)
(sticks clattering)
(indistinct chatter)
- Oh!
- Goal!
- All right.
- Woo!
(Tom): When you're writing
a movie script or a scene--
(Dan): Was. When I was writing.
Yes. When I was.
- You incorporate all of this,
sort of, the way you speak
is very rhythmic. Right?
How, where does that
come from?
- A lot of it comes from the,
the growing up
with a French Canadian family.
Everybody talks fast because
they've gotta get the words
in fast, so.
Ils parlent vite, là.
"Non, non, non, non, non,
je, je, c'est pas ça,
non, non, non, non."
And then my uncle Andy
and my uncle Peter,
they were the inspiration for my
character in Great Outdoors,
Roman Craig.
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- Where the words are chopped,
and you make sure the timbre
is in the voice,
and that everyone hears you
in the room.
Go. Get.
The fucking car. Now.
And it's like that kind of,
you know, the command
is in the voice. And so,
Roman Craig is basically
my uncle Andy
and my uncle Peter.
- And you have a show now
that's been on for years, now.
- Yeah, Unbelievable on History
Channel. A&E.
It's about all of these events
that humankind
has gone through.
Amazing stories of survival,
of inventions,
of strange deaths,
strange demises, strange fates.
Great people. We're into our
third season,
and some of the shows coming up
are quite outstanding.
We have one show devoted
to the guy who was
cutting logs in his backyard
and the chainsaw bounced off
a log and severed his head
almost half off,
and his neighbour drove him to
the hospital, and he lived!
I love that job. I'm doing it in
association with William Shatner
and with Danny Trejo,
and I think Dennis Quaid
is also doing one of them.
So we're kind of like
a quadrant of announcer-hosts
that are telling these great
stories. The unexplained,
the unexpected,
and the unbelievable.
- You know, I really appreciate
you coming by and doing this.
- Oh, I loved this.
This was so much fun.
'Cause I love you, Tom.
You're a fellow Canadian,
fellow Ottawan. And you're,
you're an anarchist.
(chuckling)
And now you're happily married,
and you've got your mom here.
- Mm-hmm.
- It's just, this kind of
experience is right up my alley.
And so, maybe you come down and
bring Amanda and have dinner.
- Oh, absolutely.
I would love to.
- A dinner which I won't cook.
(chuckling)
I can barely pull together
a toast.
- Well, thank you, thank you,
as a Canadian and an Ottawan,
it is particularly an honour
to have you here, Dan,
so thanks so much.
- Cool I'm gonna have the crew
down to the farm in the summer.
We're gonna do it there.
That'd be great.
- Amazing. Thank you.
- Okay.
- Thank you.
(soft music)
It's amazing to get to,
you know, have the opportunity
to talk to Erica Ehm for crying
out loud. I mean, my whole life,
was growing up watching
MuchMusic.
Watching, and here we are,
sitting in my kitchen,
it's amazing.
- Okay,
let me ask you a question.
- Yeah, okay.
- You watched me on TV.
You're sitting across from me.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Am I the person you thought
I would be?
And if yes, why?
Or if no, why not?
- Yeah, I think so, I think yes,
absolutely, yeah.
You're not doing anything
completely unexpected here.
(laughing)
You know, so.
Yeah, no, absolutely,
I think it's great.
It's too bad we can't go back
to a world when MuchMusic
was our main source
of information
and Erica Ehm was our main VJ.
You know, I'm lucky to have
grown up in that time.
- Well, it's, you're doing it.
You're continuing the
conversation, and I'm so happy
that you're you're asking
questions that a lot of people
want to know, but you're
asking from a point of
making the world
a kinder place.
And to me, that's what
I want to do,
is I want to use my voice to
make the world a better place.
And I think that's what
you're doing too.
- Yeah, and, uh,
in a Canadian way.
Home in Canada. And maybe we can
do something.
Maybe Canada can do something
for the world now.
- So happy you moved back,
'cause we needed you.
- Yeah. It's good to be home,
good to be home.
Thanks, Erica.
- You're welcome.
- Amazing. Appreciate it.
- Thank you.
- Awesome.
(soft music)
(Tom): What a day, what a day.
- Delightful, delightful.
Thank you so much.
So nice to meet you.
- Oh, aw give me a hug.
- Yeah, yeah.
(chuckling)
- It was lovely to meet you.
- Good to see you, Tom.
We'll be back,
and you come
and see us down there.
(blues music on radio)
Bye, Tom. Bye, Amanda.
(Amanda): Bye, thanks
for coming!
(clapping)
(Tom): Awesome.
(honking)
How cool was that?
(soft music)
- All right,
guys, well that was fun.
- Thanks, Tom.
- This would be an ODR, right?
- Outdoor rink. Yes sir.
- An outdoor rink.
To use some of the buzzwords
and terminology. An ODR.
Everything needs to be
abbreviated these days,
it seems, eh? It takes no
longer to say ODR.
- ODR.
- ODR. Outdoor rink.
- Who came up with that?
- I don't know, it's like
internet stuff.
- Instagram hockey players.
- It's an Instagram thing.
I guess it takes longer to type
onto Instagram. Anyways--
- Cool.
- I don't want to get negative.
We had a good day, I don't want
to break it down to that.
Don't want to start finding
something to pick away at there,
you know?
(chuckling)
No, we're having fun.
Like, why bring the mood down?
All right, that was great.
Good stuff. Thanks, guys.
(chuckling)
(folk music)
I'm a Canadian
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian ♪
I'm a Canadian
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian ♪
I go outside in the driving
snow and the sleet and hail ♪
With a beer in my hand
I can drink all day ♪
And rarely end up in jail ♪
With my hockey stick and
skates on the ice ♪
Since I was just
four years old ♪
My American friends came up
to go fishing but left
'Cause it's too cold brrr ♪
I'm a Canadian
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian ♪
I'm a Canadian
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian ♪
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian
true north strong and free ♪
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian
sea to sea to sea ♪
Take my coffee double double
at Timmy's ♪
No cream and sugar
for me ♪
Had chili cheese fries
in the states ♪
But I sure miss my poutine ♪
Take a dump in a Detroit
restroom ♪
(Tom): Welcome to
The Tom Green Farm.
Have we got a show
for you today.
Dan Aykroyd is here.
Canadian comedy icon
unlike any other.
Somebody I grew up loving
on Saturday Night Live,
on movies like Ghostbusters,
Trading Places.
And what a thrill it is
to have him here.
Crystal Head Vodka,
which is his vodka.
And I believe
he's bringing some today,
so I think we'll be drinking
a little bit today.
We're drinking vodka
with Dan Aykroyd today.
I know that's gonna be a pretty
good day.
- This is the nation's one and
only music station,
MuchMusic.
And I'm Dan Aykroyd,
on it.
(Tom): When I was a kid,
Erica Ehm was the number one VJ
on MuchMusic. MuchMusic
was really the MTV of Canada.
Growing up in Canada,
everybody watched MuchMusic.
Especially back in the '80s,
before the internet.
She did some historic
interviews.
One of the most
intimate interviews
with Kurt Cobain. You can tell
he really connected with Erica,
and it was one of the most
authentic interviews ever
with the late,
great Kurt Cobain.
I'm Tom Green,
this is The Tom Green Farm.
(rooster crows)
(piano music)
This is The Tom Green Farm ♪
It's not the Green Tom Farm ♪
This is my favourite farm ♪
(horse neighs)
Because it is my farm ♪
If this was your farm ♪
You'd probably like it
more than I did ♪
That's just because
it was your farm ♪
But it's not your farm
it's The Tom Green Farm ♪
It's The Tom Green Farm.
(birdsong)
(bluesy piano music)
Very cool, Dan's here.
(gravel crunching)
Sit.
How are you, Dan?
(blues music on radio)
- Aw, brother good
to see you. Neighbour!
- Good to see you, Dan.
- Oh, Christ.
Neighbours! Oh my gosh.
- Good to see you.
- How are you, Erica Ehm?
- Hi.
- How are you? Nice to see you.
Wow, hello, hello, hello.
- Hello.
- I'm Tom. This is Charley.
That feels like a Erica Ehm
kind of colour car.
- Well, I drove a minivan
for fifteen years.
- Yeah.
- And when my kids left
the house
You're wintered up.
- Yeah.
- I'm Toronto weathered up.
- Absolutely, yeah. Do you want
to borrow a jacket or something?
'Cause we could lend you
a nice warm coat that's like
the warmest jacket in the world.
- Oh, then yes.
- See? That's nice and warm.
- It's pumpkin orange!
- Yeah. Kind of matches
your car.
- Yeah, but
- Kinda.
(Dan): What an expanse
you have here!
This is just lovely.
- Yeah.
I was thinking what
we could do--
- Whatever you want.
- We could hop in
the little side by side
and go for a quick
little tour around.
- Sure.
- I grew up watching you
on MuchMusic.
- You were on MuchMusic.
- Yeah, later. In later years,
like in the early '90s.
- Yes. I was gone.
- In the '80s,
I was watching you in
the '80s when I was a kid.
You were probably a kid too,
though, right?
Like you were probably in your
early 20s or something?
- Yes, 23 the first, first time
when I first went on the air.
- We'll just go for a little
ride on the,
on the side by side.
Show you where we are.
Thanks for coming out
to the farm.
- You actually don't know how
much I want to be here.
Because even though you
are thinking,
"Okay, I'm gonna get to
know Erica,"
I'm thinking I get to get
connected with Tom,
and find out, who are you?
- Yeah.
- 'Cause you've had
a freaky career.
- Freaky?
- Yeah.
Constantly reinventing
in new ways.
And fearless.
(Dan): How many acres you got?
(Tom): 150. 150, so,
so it's kind of fun.
- Nice, good rolling.
- Yeah.
- Granite country, eh?
- Oh yeah.
The Canadian shield, eh?
And I've got some animals.
- Yeah, you've got a, you've got
a full on mule there.
- Yeah. Hello. Hey, Erica Ehm,
hanging out with Erica Ehm
right now at the farm.
Tom Green here.
What's going on?
Driving around in the winter.
It's wintertime.
- Now don't be shy.
(chuckling)
(Dan): Ah, look at this
sculpture.
(Tom): So, we built this
this year.
This is a skateboard
half pipe.
(Dan): No, get away!
It's something out of
a science fiction set, or,
you know.
You expect a disk
or a pod to land here.
(chuckling)
- And so, it's for
skateboarding. And if you're
good enough, you can drop
in there, and you fly off.
- My daughter, Stella,
lives with Daniel Lutheran.
Who, Daniel and his brother
Andrew are, you know,
Olympic-level skateboarders.
I can't wait to show him this!
- They're gonna have to come
here this summer.
- No, of course!
(Erica): My daughter.
- Yeah.
- Who's 21
is a skateboard fanatic.
- Yeah. Tony Hawk came up and
christened it with Kevin Staab.
- Wow!
(Tom chuckles.)
My daughter is gonna freak out.
- That's cool.
- She's doing a line of clothes.
- Yeah?
- For skater girls.
- Oh, that's cool.
- This is so cool.
I'm so happy to be here.
- Aw, good. So great
to have you. This is cool.
(Dan): Aren't these beautiful,
raw, primordial woods! Look!
(Tom chuckling): Yes.
(Dan): Oh, my God!
Oh! A sand beach.
(Tom): Yeah, yeah.
(chuckling)
(Dan): Wow!
- I was gonna say
you're a lucky man,
but I don't believe in luck
because you made this happen.
Look where you are.
You're a smart guy.
(Dan): Tom, congratulations.
- Thank you.
- It's kind of rare
in this country.
This part of the country.
It's mostly rocks. You don't
often get a beautiful,
classic sand beach like this.
Look at the, the frost.
And there was a hoar frost this
morning on my fields. Yeah.
- Interesting name
for the frost.
- Yeah, men and women
both were dancing.
- Yeah.
(chuckling)
- I don't know.
Yeah, H O A R, yeah.
- Do you remember the first time
you went to New York City?
- I rode there on my motorcycle.
- Mm-hmm?
How old would you have been?
- I was 22 then.
- Okay. And that was the first
time you went to New York?
- First time I'd ever been
in New York City.
Yeah. The old OPP Harley that I
had. To see Gilda and, and John.
They were assembling
for the show,
and I hadn't been hired yet
or anything.
- That's amazing.
- So, and then I get downtown,
and I'm in the village,
and then I go to a phone booth
to call John, you know.
And he says, "Where are you?"
I said, "Well, I'm here.
I'm just gonna go in and have
a drink at this bar."
And he said, "What bar?"
I said, "It's the Iron Spike."
He said, "Okay, well wait
a minute!
I'll see you there."
I went in, I had a bike--
A beer. 'Cause I saw all these
Harleys lined up. You know?
I thought, oh this is like
a biker bar. It was.
A gay biker bar.
(chuckling)
So I had a drink with, you know,
some of the patrons there.
- Sure.
- And, you know, hey,
when you talk Harleys,
you know, you've got something
in common with
every human being.
- Absolutely.
- And so John said,
"Come on, come on,
this is the biggest gay bar
in the city.
You wanna get picked up?"
I said, "Maybe."
(chuckling)
And so we went to his house
and he put me up.
And we were just sort of
assembling for Lorne
to pull us together for SNL.
- Wow.
Yeah, and you know I just got
married a month ago.
- Oh, yeah? How did Charley
feel about that?
(chuckling)
- She's good, she's good.
- The horse whisperer.
(Tom): There you go,
there you go.
(fence rattling)
- The mule whisperer!
Look at that action. Calm.
Hey buddy.
(soft music)
(Tom): Time for some snacks.
There you go. All right.
There you go. Okay.
- They look happy. This
is really a little paradise.
- Yeah. And you know,
you're here, obviously,
it's the beginning of
the winter.
But I love the winter too,
I love the winter too.
- I do want an invitation when
it's not the winter.
- Yeah, for the skateboarding
day, for your daughter to come.
- Yes!
- Yeah, absolutely,
we'll definitely have a lot
of skateboarding days up here.
Did you worry about her
skateboarding?
- Yes.
- Yeah. 'Cause you can get
injured skateboarding.
- But, you know what?
That's her life.
- Yeah. I feel skateboarding
is the most creativity
inducing sport.
- Why is that?
I don't know 'cause I don't
understand it at all.
- Well, it's an
individual sport.
- Mm-hmm.
- There's not really rules
to it.
- Mm-hmm.
- It's always evolving.
You're making up new tricks.
It's got a sort of a rebellious,
outsider element to it.
And the art that's
on the skateboard
has always been part of it.
And then there's a lot of sort
of confrontational stuff
that happens
with security guards.
You know, like when
you go skateboard
on a public place and a security
guard kicks you out, so.
You know, you could be out like,
dealing drugs
or, or getting in fights.
But instead you just want
to jump down a flight of stairs
on your little wheelie board,
and you're getting
in trouble? Seems unjust.
- I love what you just said.
- There was a lot of controversy
in Ottawa when I was a kid
'cause kids would all skate
on the war memorial downtown.
'Cause there was beautiful
steps and everything.
And the veterans would come out
and say,
"We fought so kids could
skate on this."
- Beautiful! I thought you were
gonna say to me
that they were saying, "Hey you
little rats, get off there!"
- No, no, they, you know
"We fought for the right
for our Canadian kids
to have the freedom to
skateboard downtown
wherever they want."
I thought that was good.
I think they still did ban
the kids from skateboarding
there, but regardless.
(chuckling)
Rendering the entire
story pointless, but
(chuckling)
- Well, no it's not,
because that's
an important insight.
(fiddle music)
(Tom): Welcome, welcome.
(Dan): No, now, come on.
This is the, the country
Canadian winter ideal.
I feel so at home already.
- Excellent. This is my mom.
This is my mom, here, Dan.
- Hi! How are you?
Nice to meet you.
- Mary Jane.
(clears throat)
- Excuse me,
let me adjust the halo.
- Okay, oh, okay.
Okay, I can fix my hair
- What a saint, what a saint.
(indistinct chatter)
Anyway, I brought the most,
I guess the key thing is that,
you know, you can get a good
chicken from Foodland
around here, don't pass it up.
(chuckling)
It's a fantastic-- that's for
later, if you wanna have that.
- Thank you, Dan.
Thank you very much, Dan.
- And also, let me see here what
I brought along.
I got you the
new Blues Brothers--
(Mary Jane): Oh wow!
- graphic novel.
- Oh, wow. That is great.
- Which my daughter helped me
write, with Luke Pisano,
who's Judy Belushi's son.
And it's kind of a continuation
of the story,
the escape of Joliet Jake.
And it's really a fun
kind of telling of where
the Blues Brothers would be at.
The art is absolutely, really,
really impeccable in there.
We have of course our
lovely head.
You don't say in the business,
you don't say,
"sell it," you present.
This is a sunset wheat,
and that's kind of a more
spicy anise peppercorn.
And then, this is made
with agave.
This is what they
make tequila out of.
- I didn't know you could make
vodka with agave.
- Now, the skull is based on
the legend of the crystal heads.
There was a movie Spielberg
made about it.
- Right.
- They were coneheads
if you remember, in the back,
at the end of that movie.
Remember?
- Right.
(monotone voice):
You will be spared
when my species overtakes your
miserable planet.
(chuckles)
But I wanted to use it
because it sold the idea of
purity for my fluid in here.
Now, and of course, just if you
want to taste the notes,
you take it,
take it a little bit
- A straight shot, there, Mom.
- Yeah, take just a sip.
And you'll see the viscosity,
the natural viscosity,
and the sweetness, and then the
fire because we don't mask it.
- That's very nice.
- Then we-- yeah.
(Tom): Very nice.
- And then we go like that.
- Very nice.
- I'll have a little more.
(acoustic guitar)
You know, it looks like
the yolk of an egg.
I went to St. Pious the 10th
Minor Preparatory Seminary
For Boys. 5000 guys went
through there
for a priesthood,
including me.
I want to toast Bob Prevost.
Who's the Pope.
And he's from Chicago.
- Yes.
- So here's to His Holiness.
A movie fan and a Chicagoite.
- Absolutely, yes.
- Thank you very much!
So here's a little
castle driver
to His Holiness,
and to, you know just,
oh, Catholics everywhere.
Why not?
- Why not?
- Absolutely. To the Pope.
- Cheers. Mmm.
Now.
- Mmm!
- Yeah, that's very nice.
- So, there we go, there are
my little offerings.
- Wow, that's great.
(Tom): That is amazing.
- It's the book, the three
heads. But again, the chicken.
- Yes.
- From Foodland.
So plump and juicy.
I almost tore it apart when
I got in the car
and drove up here. I almost did.
- We can crack into that
chicken later.
- Well
- I saw you with a chicken
the other day doing Julia Child.
It was so funny.
(Tom): Oh, yeah, yeah.
- It was the funniest thing.
You must have had a lot of fun
doing that one.
- Uh, yeah. But Franken
and Davis wrote that.
- Oh, my God.
- And that was a good
blood joke.
- And she used to be on TV
all the time,
so she was so recognizable.
- I looked like my mother.
(chuckling)
I really did, yeah.
"Oh, save the liver!"
(acoustic guitar music)
(Tom): Thanks Dan, for coming.
- To, uh, to our beautiful
country. Which is not for sale,
but we got things to sell!
- Absolutely. Do, do sometimes,
when you meet Americans,
do they ever not know
that you're Canadian?
Or you're obviously very
vocal about being Canadian.
But sometimes they might think
you're from Chicago,
or Blues Brothers.
- Blues Brothers, yeah.
My adopted home. It's where
I got my first working permit.
Second City is where I got
my first H1 down there,
and so people associate me
with Chicago.
But I always make it clear
that I'm a Canadian
and proud to go around the world
and talk about it.
- It's interesting, Second City
was in Chicago,
but also they
had one in Toronto.
- It was founded, really,
as a works progress
administration program,
inner city program in Chicago
to alleviate crime,
and to create equanimity
in the society.
So, one of the ways to
do it was this technique
of improvisation where,
for instance, you know,
the thief that was arrested
on the street would come out
and do a session where
the cop would play
the thief, the thief would play
the cop. And so from that,
that emerged into the
Compass Players in Chicago,
and then that had emerged
into Second City.
And then, uh, in the '70s,
Bernie Sahlins,
who was, who owned it at that
time, brought it to Toronto.
He saw there was talent there.
We traded companies.
The Toronto company
went down there,
and the American company came up
to Toronto.
So, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner,
myself, Gerry Salsberg.
Principally, I remember we went
down to Chicago for that summer
of 1974, and performed in the
Chicago Second City, that house.
And as you see, these talents
have endured, you know,
to this day.
Look at Eugene Levy,
Dave Thomas, and Rick Moranis,
and you know
(Tom): Martin Short.
- Marty was, I think Marty,
I always say Marty was perhaps
the all around most, like,
polymath talented of us all.
He can sing, he can dance,
he does comedy, he does schtick.
He's just like, he's maxi-baxi
talent. You know?
(soft music)
(Tom): All right.
Got some beers.
(Ryan): Welcome
to the shack, Tom.
(Tom): All right, this is cool.
Let's have a look.
Nice. We can
take our coats off now.
(Ryan): We can take our
coats off.
- That's how warm it is in here.
- Says it's 42 degrees Celsius
in here right now. I caught,
I got one perch this morning.
(Tom): A perch?
- Yeah, a little perch.
- We could catch a pike.
- Yeah, hopefully we'll catch
some pike today.
- Northern Pike.
- Northern Pike.
See how this other red line's
showing here now?
(Richard): Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, so that's, like,
that's a fish down there.
- It is, eh? Okay.
- That fish finder really helps,
eh? If you see a fish you move
the line, the bait right to it.
- Yes, yes, and it helps you,
it kind of just gives you
like a bit of warning.
Like, you can anticipate
the bite. But these
things here,
they're set up so if you fall,
if you're not holding it,
you can just sit here and
look out the window or whatever,
or if you fall asleep, or if you
go outside and a fish bites
(banging)
When the line slips off the end,
it goes up and hits the ceiling
and wakes you up.
(laughing)
Or if you go outside to check
an outside line, or
(Richard): You hear a bang.
- You hear a bang,
you come running in.
It was something my grandpa
came up with, and they're
old car antennas
is what they are.
We have beer, we have rum.
(Tom): Oh, yeah,
so both of those,
both things sound good.
- We could have
apple root whisky?
- Ooh.
- Let me know when
you're hungry, we'll start
making some lunch.
(Tom): Oh, really? You can
make lunch in here?
- Yeah, we got burgers.
- Burgers?
- We got sausages.
- Oh my gosh.
Daddy, would you
like some sausage, Daddy?
(chuckling)
- They're home-made.
(soft music)
- You basically started
out your, you know,
in the broadcasting in Toronto
at MuchMusic.
This was when I first
knew of you,
when I was, you know, kid.
Growing up.
You were a kid on MuchMusic.
The number one VJ on MuchMusic.
And this was a big deal
at the time, MuchMusic.
It was kind of
well, people know what
MuchMusic is today, but--
- No. People under 38 don't
know what MuchMusic was
back in the day.
- And they don't understand
the significance of
it. 'Cause in the '80s,
when I was a kid and
you wanted to watch
music videos, music videos
were a new thing.
And we didn't have the internet,
and we didn't have cell phones.
So if you wanted to find out
what was going
on with Michael Jackson
- Or discover new artists
like Blue Rodeo
or Tragically Hip.
- Right, Canadian artists, exactly.
- You would tune into
the national music channel.
That's what it was, we were
the voice of Canadian culture.
We were a bunch of young people
who were not
necessarily broadcasters,
but we were all fans of music.
We had no script.
All we had was our passion
and our knowledge of music
and our own unique
personalities,
and we told stories
every day for four hours live.
It was unscripted.
You, as a stand-up comic,
can really understand the art
of improv. I didn't.
I didn't understand actually
until recently
that what I was doing back
then was improv.
- Mm-hmm.
- I knew what videos
would be played
on my four-hour shift,
so I had information that I had
gathered. But what,
the way I started, ended, and
told the stories was all improv.
- And in some ways that's kind
of the beginning of,
you know, what we now see
as social media.
- 100 percent. What was very
different about MuchMusic
back in the day was Moses,
who was the founder and the boss
at MuchMusic.
He sort of set the tone.
And he told us very early on
that the audience was
as important as we were.
In the past, broadcasters make
the decisions,
and they push the content
to you.
MuchMusic, as you said,
the connection between
social media, was because it was
a conversation.
Where Moses invited
the audience into the show
as much as possible.
The famous windows
on 299 Queen Street West,
where fans could be
a part of the show,
or the intimate and interactive
shows where people were
brought in to be part
of the shows.
- The windows to the street
idea, that you're talking about
Moses Znaimer--
Moses Znaimer? Right?
- Yeah.
- When he did that, the fact
that you could walk by
and look into the studio.
Now that's been replicated
on the Today Show,
and MTV of course, did it.
That was all copied
from MuchMusic.
- That's right.
Moses was an innovator.
He was the one who changed
the way newscasts work.
Because, historically, newscast
was in a studio
and everything was fake.
And he started this thing
at City TV where newscasters
would sit on desks in
the middle of a large newsroom.
- Yeah.
- And that has been replicated
all around the world. It's him.
(folk music)
(pouring)
- Cheers.
- Warm Chicago to your heart.
- Cheers, gentlemen, thanks.
- Does it get pretty
thick sometimes,
you come in in the morning,
and there's a couple of inches
of ice there? Or
- Oh, yeah, if you're here every
day, I can keep it,
like with this spud,
keep it just, keep it chipped
open. But if you're not here
basically yeah. If you leave
it two nights,
you'd have to redrill it.
- Okay. Oh, redrill it. Okay.
- Yeah, I've had to redrill.
There's probably 16 or 17
inches of ice here, now.
- Yeah, okay, yeah.
- There's a lot of ice.
- And this is on skis.
- Yeah.
- This. What kind of skis
are they?
- I made them out of like,
TV antennas.
- The skis?
- Yeah, like a TV tower.
- Oh, okay.
- There's an old set of
snowmobile skis welded to,
or bolted to the one end of
the tower,
but that's what it
slides on.
- Oh. So they can't hear us down
there, huh?
- I don't think so, no. When the
kids are jumping
and carrying on in here.
- Yeah, oh I got one,
playing with me there.
- Kind of set it.
- Oh, maybe not. Something was
biting it, though.
- It's been a little bit slow,
but we've never been skunked.
Every time we come we've
caught something.
(soft music)
You take a bit of ketchup on it?
Your sausage?
- On this hook, on the minnow?
- No, on your sausage.
(laughing)
We could try putting some
ketchup on your hook, too,
that might work.
(chuckling)
- Sure. A little bit of
ketchup, very good.
- Thank you. Thank you.
- Here's a fork.
- Thank you very much.
Very good.
- Nice, eh?
- Oh yeah.
Oh, this is your pork,
too, right?
- Our pork, yeah.
- Wow, that's so cool.
(folk music)
(Tom): Let's make a drink
for Amanda, too.
- Yeah.
- Come have a drink
with us, Amanda.
- Come have a drink with us.
(Dan): And you like life
in the country, eh?
- I do.
- Yeah. It's beautiful.
- That was a pretty squeeze.
- Yeah, that's the,
that's the blood orange. Yeah.
- Oh yeah.
- So we've got three types
of citrus going today,
the tangerine, the blood orange,
and then just a simple old
Sunkist Florida.
You put this
in a blender, but
(Tom): No, this is delicious.
- Having my arthritic hands
squeeze it, it adds
a kind of a
- Thank you.
- Congratulations, you guys.
- Thank you.
- Cheers, Amanda.
- Ah, congratulations.
- Thanks, Dan.
- Tommy, yeah, good. Good.
- I'm a lucky guy.
Got lucky again.
- Oh, it's great.
Yeah, you're gonna build--
this is the love shack, you're
gonna build a
good life here. Very good.
(folk music)
(Tom): I watched 1941 again
a few nights ago.
- It was beautifully produced
of course, done by Spielberg.
And great performances in there.
And yeah, it got a bad rap
at the time,
I don't know what
was happening.
- To see John Candy, to see
- Treat Williams.
- Treat Williams.
- Mickey Rourke.
- Oh!
- Candy, yeah.
- I don't even think I noticed
Mickey Rourke was in it.
- Yeah, Bobby Di Cicco,
the young star.
- Tim Matheson.
- Matheson was in it.
- Animal House,
and then of course, Belushi.
- And then you have the master
Spielberg directing it
and have him chuckling
and chortling
and giggling the whole time!
- And was that your first
movie? 1941?
- First big Hollywood feature.
- Hollywood movie, yeah.
- And boy did that pollute me
as like, "Oh wow,
what a life this is!"
I think that's my overriding,
I guess, element of emotion
right now is gratitude.
For the collaborators I had,
for the opportunities I had.
And just being able
to kind of do it all.
- Was John Candy doing SCTV at
the time, and you were on SNL,
and Belushi was on SNL,
and you all came
and knew each other, but--
- Yeah, it was like that,
and of course, Belushi wanted
to recruit Candy for SNL.
Said come and join us, you know.
But John had a kind of a, he had
a movie career
up here in Canada apart
from anything he was doing
in the states.
And then Second City
turned out to be such a, oh,
I would say fertile place
for comedy. SCTV.
That, that all of us at SNL
were fans.
And we were kind of jealous
of them, because
"Oh man, we have to do this
live every week,
they get to edit their pieces,
they get to do TV parodies,
they get to"
You know, we thought they had
an easier gig. But they worked
just as hard as we did.
One of the most seminal points
in my life was when,
in terms of humour and in terms
of developing where I went,
was Valri Bromfield and I,
we met in college.
One night we were doing a cable
show in Toronto.
In Ottawa, we had our own cable
show at the time called
Change for a Quarter.
- Oh?
- It was a 15-minute show.
- Okay.
- And so we did it at a local
cable. We had three robot
cameras and one operator. And we
wrote sketches, and that tape,
eventually we gave to
Lorne Michaels in Toronto.
And it was a one-inch,
a two-inch tape
that came with a handle
in a case, you know.
(chuckling)
And so we were working on
material, and I was over at her
house there on Prince of Wales
drive in Ottawa,
and a blizzard set in.
And that night of that blizzard,
we developed some wonderful
pieces of humour
because we were stuck there.
We couldn't go anywhere.
We brought it to two executives
at CBC.
They looked at it, they said,
"Ah, it's not quite for us,
but there's a young producer,
downstairs, his name is Lorne.
Go down and see him."
And Lorne got it.
He got, "Oh, yeah,
I see talent."
- Oh, he was at CBC?
- He was at CBC.
- Oh okay, yeah.
- So we ended up doing
a summer special called
the Great Canadian Humour Test.
And it was a government
sponsored test
of Canadians' humour.
And this was Lorne's
brilliance at the time.
And so Valri and I got to do
sketch comedy on that show
for CBC in 19, summer of 1969.
- Oh, okay.
Did you imagine at the time when
that first, you know,
when you're on SNL, that this
show would end up going on
for 50 years now?
- He just wanted to get on for
7 of them.
And get through 7 and see.
And he demanded, he said,
"It has to be seven.
I'm not doing a pilot,
you've got to guarantee me
a certain amount."
So, it's an institution,
it'll never go away.
And you know, he's 81,
Lorne, right now,
and there's only one guy that
can really do that.
- Yeah.
- And he orders the show.
Have you ever seen him do that?
- I have, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, isn't that something?
- I got to host it once, so.
- Yes, right, so you see the
process. You gotta understand
that he puts the cards and puts
in the pin. And therein,
there's only one man
on the planet can do that.
- Yeah.
- And that's Lorne Michaels.
- It was cool when you, when you
hosted the show that you brought
The Tragically Hip on.
- That was a wonderful night.
A wonderful night.
And you know, the Hip,
people say, about them,
"Oh, well, you never really
made it in the states,
you never really exploded
in the states,"
That's not true.
They sold many US venues,
they sold a lot of US records,
and they have a very credible
following in the United States.
And that was just one of
the most memorable nights
of my life. And, um
I love Gord, of course,
and love the boys all as well.
(whistling folk music)
- And then of course,
you got to interview of course,
so many incredible artists.
Legacy, legendary artists
like Kurt Cobain, and uh,
Duran Duran, and uh
who did you interview?
- Oh, God.
- Who are your biggest
interviews? You did Kurt Cobain,
though, right?
- Kurt Cobain is, I think
it has become sort
of my legacy interview.
- I've seen that one
a lot lately.
- Yeah. That one has had
millions of views on YouTube.
And what's interesting,
you know you've made it when
your kids come home,
they go "Mom, did you
interview Kurt Cobain?"
- Yeah.
- So their friends had said
"Your mom interviewed
Kurt Cobain"
and they're like what?
This is when they were
in high school.
- At what point in Nirvana's
career was that?
Was that the beginning?
- No.
- Were they at the peak
of their fame?
- Yeah, it was 1993.
It was the In Utero album.
And I remember my boss said,
"Come back with something good
or you're fucking fired."
- Mm-hmm.
- I was like, no pressure.
So I had to strategize.
Like, how am I gonna stand out,
because it was a junket.
And as you know, junket
is the kiss of death
for an interviewer, because
the artist is led from,
in my case, hotel room
to hotel room.
And they're asked
the same insipid questions
over and over again,
and they kind of tune out.
So, I wanted him in particular
to see me as a person,
and not as mainstream media.
Because they were not fans
of mainstream.
So when he walked in
the hotel room, I said,
"Hey, I'm Erica. Do you want
to do the interview
in the bed or on the balcony?"
And he looked at me like
who is this freak?
And went "I, uh,
on the balcony."
I went "Great, let's go."
So we, we just grabbed
the camera, set up.
We didn't even set up,
we just put it on our shoulder,
and we started talking.
And the first question
I asked him was,
"So what are you reading
these days?"
And he looked at me like what's
going on here?
(chuckling)
And he wanted to answer
that question.
- Yeah.
- And he talked about the book.
I was like, "Oh, I've never
read it. What's it about?"
"Oh, she's actually listening
to my answer.
We're gonna
have a conversation."
The questions that I came up
with were actually
kind of personal,
but not, not prying.
But just, tell me how you feel
about certain things,
or why did you bring
a child into the world
when all your lyrics
are so dark?
- I really was a lot more
negative and angry
and everything else
a few years ago.
But that, that had a lot to
do with, um
not having a mate.
You know, not having
a steady girlfriend
and stuff like that.
So I, you know, that was one
of the main things
that was bothering me, that
I wouldn't admit at the time,
you know. So, now that
I've found that,
the world seems a lot better
for some reason.
It really does change
your attitude about things.
You know, I mean, four years
ago I would've said,
you know, classic thing like
um, you know,
"How dare someone bring a
child into this life, you know.
It's a completely terrible
way to go and the world's gonna
explode any day," and stuff like
that. But once you fall in love,
it's a bit different.
- It was actually quite
emotional.
And he killed himself, like,
I think less than
six months later.
- Yeah.
- And I was very sad,
and kinda angry,
because I didn't understand
mental health challenges
at the time. But also,
I felt, my God,
there are so many young people
who admired him,
and I was afraid they were
going to be copycat kids,
who, you know, would jump off
the same bridge,
so to speak, with him.
And I felt very responsible.
So the day that he killed
himself, I happened to be
on the air.
And we made the whole show
about talking about
mental health challenges.
And I, I understand now
how revolutionary that was.
Because we didn't talk about
that, no one talked about
suicide and mental health
back in those days.
But it was a scary time, and
I felt a huge responsibility.
(folk music)
- Yep, I got a fish.
- You got one, Dad?
- Yeah, he's still there.
- Yeah, yeah, let him go
a little bit.
Oh, now that's
a pike. That's a pike.
Yeah, pull him up a little
higher.
He's just a little fella.
- All right, Dad,
you got a pike!
- He might be a little fella,
but he's a pike!
- Not that little.
- He's one of the,
they call them silver pikes,
look how beautiful they are.
- Oh, wow.
I'm happy.
(indistinct chatter)
- You ready?
- Yeah, we'll see you
later, buddy.
- Nice.
- Say you caught one, Dad.
- My pike, my pike.
- Yes, very good. Very good.
(chuckling)
(splashing)
- There we go.
- Okay, okay.
- All right, nice.
- Nice.
- Nice, we got one.
- All right! Okay.
- Yes. Good job. All right,
that's nice, we're not skunked.
- We're not skunked.
- It was in some ways,
bittersweet watching a lot of
the films
because you see people that've
passed. Of course, John Candy,
and Belushi.
- Well, 44 years old, he died.
He didn't die of drugs,
he had a congenital
heart defect.
From his dad.
- Mm-hmm.
- Belushi died of a straight up
heroin cocaine overdose
that the woman misjudged.
I had eight good wonderful
years of friendship with John.
Wonderful years of friendship,
and we made those films.
And the first time
I saw John,
and you couldn't have imagined
a more dramatic appearance
of a great star to me
at that time.
We were at Second City.
It was a February night
in Toronto. The back
door fed onto an alley,
and the back door opened.
And in a swirl of snow,
for the first time, Belushi
appeared to me.
With a octagonal tweed hat
and a cable-knit sweater
and a silk scarf, a white silk
scarf. White sneakers, jeans,
totally underdressed
for Canadian winter.
With a cigarette and a pack
of camels.
And he came in, and I was just
"Oh, my God, what an archetype."
- Yeah.
- And then we did the set
together, and then we went back
to the 505 club.
John and I were listening
to the Downchild Blues Record,
and he said I love this.
Well, it's a local blues band,
you love blues,
you're from Chicago.
He said, "But this sounds good.
This vocalist is great."
I said, "Yeah, well,
you know, you know we should
put something together."
And we sort of conceived
the Blues Brothers that night.
- Wow. Yeah.
- And I'm happy and proud to say
that with his brother Jimmy,
we have a blues band
that we still play. Often.
- When you're there at the,
in the church scene,
and you've got James Brown
performing. You know,
it's sort of like who he is.
I know you guys were the biggest
stars in the world
at the time, too, but were you
still kind of pinching yourself
going "Wait, we got
James Brown here?
We got Aretha Franklin
in the movie?"
- Well we I'd seen James
Brown at the esquire show barn
in Montreal.
And I saw, you know, I was
always a fan of those
Black radio stations
that we used to hear from
Detroit and Boston as a kid.
And the impact that these
African American artists
have had on world culture,
and to invite them to come in
and have them
say, "Yeah, you know, yeah,
we want to do this."
Have them verify the fact that
we were venerating their work
and honouring their work.
Expose these artists to maybe
a white audience
that hadn't seen them so much.
A Midwest white audience.
And all the songs we
recorded on the records,
we, John and I collected only
mechanical royalties.
That is for the performance
of the song only.
All those publishing royalties
went to the original writers.
- Wow.
- Or their estates.
We never appropriated them.
So I'm quite,
quite proud of that.
- So many of your films, you're
in such great sort of,
sort of a comedic team
with another
- Thank God.
- You know, with Eddie Murphy.
- I don't think I could've
done it alone.
- John Candy, of course.
- Yeah.
- So fun watching you and
John Candy, and, you know,
and the Great Outdoors.
- Well that was John Hughes
who wrote that.
- Yeah.
- And then I got to rewrite
some of it. And Howie Deutch
directed it.
And we had a wonderful time
on that film.
That was, that was,
it was really good.
You know, being able to pair
with someone on stage
or on film, Second City taught
us to be generous.
To listen.
- Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- And that's why so much of it,
so much of it worked.
(banjo and fiddle music)
- Why'd you leave?
- I was done. I mean, I was old.
I was 34. I had been working
there since I was 21.
- Mm-hmm, yeah.
- So it was 13 years of my life.
- Yeah.
- And I was ready to have
a life.
- Yeah, yeah.
- I needed to grow up.
And I did. I had a show called
Real Life, and I had a show
on Discovery Channel. Then I had
a couple of kids,
and then I started
my own company.
It was called YMC,
or the Yummy Mummy Club.
And it became a very important
online destination
for women with kids
who were struggling
with the rollercoaster ride
of motherhood.
I built a marketing agency
called Ehm and Co.,
which connected brands to moms.
And I invented this thing called
influencer marketing
back in 2006, 2007.
- Sort of sad in a way, we don't
have that anymore. MuchMusic.
- Oh yeah, no, it is very sad.
- With this sort of,
all encompassing,
sort of universal reach.
- No, I agree.
Well, just in general,
culture is very splintered now.
So that's why we're having
so many problems culturally
and politically. Is there not,
there aren't the same
kind of unifying voices.
So people on one side don't
understand what people
on the other side are doing
or talking about.
Because there's no one person
that everybody trusts.
I think what you're doing
is great,
because you're bringing people
who I, I look at the people
that you're asking to talk,
and you really are
attracted to people
who are very kind.
- Mm-hmm.
- They're talented, but there's
an essence of kindness in there,
which, it's not surprising that
you moved into the country where
there is kindness.
So in a way, Tom,
you are adding to Canadian
culture and reminding people
that there's positivity
out there.
- Yeah. I hope to, yeah, I mean
I like the fact that
I like the fact that also,
people from other parts
of the world get to see
this part of Canada and think,
"Oh wow, I didn't know
Canada had mules!"
(chuckling)
- And not the drug type!
- Yeah, yeah, I didn't know they
had, you know, barns and
- Do, are you different
in real life? Like
I've never seen you do
your stand-up.
But my impression of you is that
you're a shit disturber.
- My old show was more of a shit
disturbing type of show format.
You know, pranks things
like this.
But I was, I was in
my '20s. But in my stand-up,
maybe it's a little bit more
outrageous for sure.
- But you seem, like,
completely down to Earth.
- Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- So who's the real Tom?
- Uh, probably more this is more
what I'm generally like.
Just sort of, this conversation.
I mean, now, if this was
25 years ago I might be like,
you know, pulling some,
you know
throwing cheese around
or something.
You know, spraying
milk bags all over the place
and trying to shock. As I get
older, the media's changed
and there's so much attempt
at shock on the internet now
that it's almost weirder
to not be shocking.
I think this is weird.
People tune in,
they see me talking to Erica Ehm
and it's a nice conversation
full of legitimate discussion
points about something
interesting.
And that might be
kind of more of a surprise.
- All of our nervous systems
are frazzled.
And we're looking
for sanity now.
In an insane world.
So this is refreshing.
- Yeah.
(folk music)
(Ryan): Not a vegetable
in sight.
(chuckling)
(Tom): Thank you, thank you.
Thank you very much. All right.
- Well, this has been
a pretty awesome day.
- It has been
an awesome day, really.
- I didn't, uh
- Yeah, this is what I call
ice fishing.
(Tom): You're the only one
to have gotten one.
(Richard): All right. I'm proud.
Haven't caught a bigger fish
in months.
- Yeah.
(chuckling)
It was amazing, Dad.
- I know,
I'm giving lessons, though.
- Okay.
(laughing)
- That's great.
(Tom): Humble, too.
- Thank you.
- Thanks very much.
- No problem.
It was a great time.
- I loved it.
- Thanks so much.
(Tom): Thank you, Ryan. Dad.
- Okay, Tom. Lovely.
- We did it.
- Thanks, Ryan.
- Awesome.
- Great.
- What a day.
- What a day,
I'm telling you. Woo-hoo!
(laughing)
- We're never gonna hear
the end of this.
- I know.
(soft music)
- So you're writing
Ghostbusters, and were you
prepared for the sort of, I mean
astronomical success
of that movie? It was one
of those movies that was
bigger than most
movies ever get, right.
- You know, we don't,
you know, we don't know.
We were shooting the movie
about halfway through.
And Bill Murray and I went up
to my house up on
Woodrow Wilson Drive above
Los Angeles.
He said, "You know, you,
you know, you have written
and we are in probably what's
going to be one of the biggest
comedies of all time."
And I said,
"Well, Bill, we're
only halfway through.
How do you know?" "I know."
And he knew.
And you know, his instincts
are amazing.
For 13 weeks it was at
number one!
Who does that now?
- Yeah.
- And when that's, you know,
that's the brilliance
of Ivan Reitman as
a producer and promoter.
And then of course,
the great leading man,
Bill Murray, one of our greatest
comedy romantic leading mans,
men of all time. And then you
have Harold Ramis
co-writing the script.
And you know, and a solid
concept of where we took
an old-type ghost comedy movie.
Like Hold that Ghost,
or the Abbott and Costello,
or the Bowery Boys. We took that
idea of doing a ghost movie,
but marrying it to the actual
research that was going on
in some of these places like
Duke University, Maimonides.
I had done all that research for
my family that would, you know,
that had, were spiritualists.
And then Harold was well
acquainted with it, although
he was not a believer, as I am.
- So when you say your family
were spiritualists,
they sort of knew about
ghosts, or?
- My great-grandfather,
Sam, was a dentist in Kingston.
- Yeah.
- And he was, he was
a spiritualist
paranormal researcher.
And so he, he wrote
journals and articles related
to everything that was going on.
Apparitions, levitations.
And so that's why I wrote
the movie.
It was, I was just
steeped in that as a kid.
- So have you seen a ghost?
- Um, I have not. I feel that
one night I may have been
had a, had a presence get into
bed with me. I went to sleep.
And then I woke up because
I felt something next to me.
And I looked over next to me,
and I saw the mattress depress.
In like a bum-sized,
you know, depression.
- Yeah.
- And I saw this, you know,
"Okay, well gee,
that's unusual." And I felt
a presence.
But I just kind of turned over
and kind of wiggled up against
it, and went to sleep.
There are many great ghost
stories that are so credible,
and, and you know, I know that
it's a reality the invisible
world is at work all around
us all the time.
(soft music)
(Tom): That must be sort of
a special place that you hold
and a nice feeling to be such
a part of Canadian culture too.
- It makes me feel so proud
because the reason why I got
into MuchMusic was for that.
It's to support artists.
When I first met Bono,
when he was
probably the same age as,
well no, I think he was probably
23 and I was 19
or something like that.
He played at Club Montreal.
Club Montréal. In Montreal.
- Yeah.
- And I was Djing at the club,
so I went there during
their sound check.
And I love the band so much.
He was walking up to me,
I'm freaking out.
And I stopped him.
I said, "Hi, I'm Erica."
And he goes "Oh, hello, love."
We talked a little bit.
I said, "I'm a DJ. I love
the music industry so much."
And he said to me,
"You should be in PR."
Because I was blabbing about
the band to him. I was telling
him all about U2.
- Right.
- And it was because of him
when he said you should be
in PR, I went home,
I found out what PR meant.
I didn't even know
what it meant.
And I found a course at
Ottawa University.
- Mm-hmm.
- Which was a
communications course.
So because of Bono, I ended up
going to university at Ottawa U.
- And that lead you
to MuchMusic.
- That's right.
So, Bono changed my life.
- So were you nervous when you'd
have to interview
these big stars?
- Yes.
Here's a interesting thing.
As you ask me quest--
I'm writing my memoir
right now, so
I'm thinking a lot about those
days. As I mentioned,
I really had locked the door
to MuchMusic.
What I realize now that I was
probably disassociating
at the time,
it was so stressful.
I can't begin to tell you
the stress I was under
because I had no background
in broadcasting.
I was a 23-year-old
that was thrown into live TV.
The entire country watching
and judging you.
And then, bands would show
up, and they were unpredictable.
You never knew who you
were gonna get.
And I don't mean the artist.
If Tom was coming in,
if Tom Green was coming in,
I didn't know if you'd be
a fucking asshole
or if you would actually answer
my questions.
- Right.
- So I had to be prepared.
I needed you to be able to
give me the juice that you
wouldn't tell anybody else.
It was way too stressful
for one person.
- Yes, it's wild. Now how did
you get people to open up
like that in that environment?
- Such a good question.
I mean, I think kind of what
you're doing right now
where you actually are,
I can see your eyes.
You are listening
so intensely to everything
that I'm saying.
So I want to talk to you
'cause I feel like
you actually care
what I'm saying.
- Mm-hmm.
- That's part of it.
Like just being present
in the moment.
So it becomes a conversation
rather than an interrogation.
- Right.
(boisterous music)
(sticks clattering)
(indistinct chatter)
- Oh!
- Goal!
- All right.
- Woo!
(Tom): When you're writing
a movie script or a scene--
(Dan): Was. When I was writing.
Yes. When I was.
- You incorporate all of this,
sort of, the way you speak
is very rhythmic. Right?
How, where does that
come from?
- A lot of it comes from the,
the growing up
with a French Canadian family.
Everybody talks fast because
they've gotta get the words
in fast, so.
Ils parlent vite, là.
"Non, non, non, non, non,
je, je, c'est pas ça,
non, non, non, non."
And then my uncle Andy
and my uncle Peter,
they were the inspiration for my
character in Great Outdoors,
Roman Craig.
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- Where the words are chopped,
and you make sure the timbre
is in the voice,
and that everyone hears you
in the room.
Go. Get.
The fucking car. Now.
And it's like that kind of,
you know, the command
is in the voice. And so,
Roman Craig is basically
my uncle Andy
and my uncle Peter.
- And you have a show now
that's been on for years, now.
- Yeah, Unbelievable on History
Channel. A&E.
It's about all of these events
that humankind
has gone through.
Amazing stories of survival,
of inventions,
of strange deaths,
strange demises, strange fates.
Great people. We're into our
third season,
and some of the shows coming up
are quite outstanding.
We have one show devoted
to the guy who was
cutting logs in his backyard
and the chainsaw bounced off
a log and severed his head
almost half off,
and his neighbour drove him to
the hospital, and he lived!
I love that job. I'm doing it in
association with William Shatner
and with Danny Trejo,
and I think Dennis Quaid
is also doing one of them.
So we're kind of like
a quadrant of announcer-hosts
that are telling these great
stories. The unexplained,
the unexpected,
and the unbelievable.
- You know, I really appreciate
you coming by and doing this.
- Oh, I loved this.
This was so much fun.
'Cause I love you, Tom.
You're a fellow Canadian,
fellow Ottawan. And you're,
you're an anarchist.
(chuckling)
And now you're happily married,
and you've got your mom here.
- Mm-hmm.
- It's just, this kind of
experience is right up my alley.
And so, maybe you come down and
bring Amanda and have dinner.
- Oh, absolutely.
I would love to.
- A dinner which I won't cook.
(chuckling)
I can barely pull together
a toast.
- Well, thank you, thank you,
as a Canadian and an Ottawan,
it is particularly an honour
to have you here, Dan,
so thanks so much.
- Cool I'm gonna have the crew
down to the farm in the summer.
We're gonna do it there.
That'd be great.
- Amazing. Thank you.
- Okay.
- Thank you.
(soft music)
It's amazing to get to,
you know, have the opportunity
to talk to Erica Ehm for crying
out loud. I mean, my whole life,
was growing up watching
MuchMusic.
Watching, and here we are,
sitting in my kitchen,
it's amazing.
- Okay,
let me ask you a question.
- Yeah, okay.
- You watched me on TV.
You're sitting across from me.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Am I the person you thought
I would be?
And if yes, why?
Or if no, why not?
- Yeah, I think so, I think yes,
absolutely, yeah.
You're not doing anything
completely unexpected here.
(laughing)
You know, so.
Yeah, no, absolutely,
I think it's great.
It's too bad we can't go back
to a world when MuchMusic
was our main source
of information
and Erica Ehm was our main VJ.
You know, I'm lucky to have
grown up in that time.
- Well, it's, you're doing it.
You're continuing the
conversation, and I'm so happy
that you're you're asking
questions that a lot of people
want to know, but you're
asking from a point of
making the world
a kinder place.
And to me, that's what
I want to do,
is I want to use my voice to
make the world a better place.
And I think that's what
you're doing too.
- Yeah, and, uh,
in a Canadian way.
Home in Canada. And maybe we can
do something.
Maybe Canada can do something
for the world now.
- So happy you moved back,
'cause we needed you.
- Yeah. It's good to be home,
good to be home.
Thanks, Erica.
- You're welcome.
- Amazing. Appreciate it.
- Thank you.
- Awesome.
(soft music)
(Tom): What a day, what a day.
- Delightful, delightful.
Thank you so much.
So nice to meet you.
- Oh, aw give me a hug.
- Yeah, yeah.
(chuckling)
- It was lovely to meet you.
- Good to see you, Tom.
We'll be back,
and you come
and see us down there.
(blues music on radio)
Bye, Tom. Bye, Amanda.
(Amanda): Bye, thanks
for coming!
(clapping)
(Tom): Awesome.
(honking)
How cool was that?
(soft music)
- All right,
guys, well that was fun.
- Thanks, Tom.
- This would be an ODR, right?
- Outdoor rink. Yes sir.
- An outdoor rink.
To use some of the buzzwords
and terminology. An ODR.
Everything needs to be
abbreviated these days,
it seems, eh? It takes no
longer to say ODR.
- ODR.
- ODR. Outdoor rink.
- Who came up with that?
- I don't know, it's like
internet stuff.
- Instagram hockey players.
- It's an Instagram thing.
I guess it takes longer to type
onto Instagram. Anyways--
- Cool.
- I don't want to get negative.
We had a good day, I don't want
to break it down to that.
Don't want to start finding
something to pick away at there,
you know?
(chuckling)
No, we're having fun.
Like, why bring the mood down?
All right, that was great.
Good stuff. Thanks, guys.
(chuckling)
(folk music)
I'm a Canadian
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian ♪
I'm a Canadian
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian ♪
I go outside in the driving
snow and the sleet and hail ♪
With a beer in my hand
I can drink all day ♪
And rarely end up in jail ♪
With my hockey stick and
skates on the ice ♪
Since I was just
four years old ♪
My American friends came up
to go fishing but left
'Cause it's too cold brrr ♪
I'm a Canadian
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian ♪
I'm a Canadian
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian ♪
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian
true north strong and free ♪
I'm a Canadian I'm a Canadian
sea to sea to sea ♪
Take my coffee double double
at Timmy's ♪
No cream and sugar
for me ♪
Had chili cheese fries
in the states ♪
But I sure miss my poutine ♪
Take a dump in a Detroit
restroom ♪