And Now...Andy Milonakis

"Its my show I'm Shmandy Shmilashmokis."
Over ten years has passed since the first taping of "The Tom Green" show. The fact that the show was as small as it was makes it hard to gauge exactly how influential "The Tom Green Show" has been on today's comedic youth. There is no doubt however that Tom Green has greatly impacted the comedic styling of Andy Milonakis. Using the internet as a springboard, (Once Busting a 3 minute rap as "Crispy" which opened with, "meet me, meet me, meet me, don't beat me. Just meet me at the waffle house, cuz I'm ah mouse." I equate this to Green's "bum bum song") Andy has quickly become a household name amongst teenagers and blazed college kids. His internet bits were recently picked up by MTV and turned into the "The Andy Milonakis Show." Tom Green's show, "The Tom Green Show" and now "The Andy Milonakis Show" are both self-relfexive, self-mocking, and undeniably hilarious.

Tom Green used to act "special" in front of complete strangers, extracting unintentional humor from such victims. Arguably Andy takes it one step further as he pretends to be just a little kid; skipping through his "neighborhood," getting cereal all over his shirt, and busting rhymes to crack-heads (Didn't we all do that when we were young?). The greatest irony might be that he is actually 27 years old and lives alone in the East Village in Manhattan. With the ability to play up the facade of a 14 year old Andy has enabled himself much more flexibility with his comedy; he has virtually zero set up besides a cue card with the title of the sketch on it, strangers visibly have more patience providing Andy with plenty of time to pull off his pranks, while his friends are often elderly men and women only widening the age discrepancy. Tom Green had to go through a desk, a live audience, and two sidekicks to get to his street sketches. Essentially Andy has taken the main ingredients Green once formulated and made them more potent, not unlike the evolution of action films or weed.

This formula is clearly basic (most of the time relying on spontaneity rather than thoughtful concepts) but has no doubt become a part of our comedic culture. The avenue Tom Green opened up was one in which a demented chubby kid can mess up his hair and have the courage to bust rhymes with a pancake on his head. This can only be viewed as a positive, and returns to a point I find myself making a lot when dealing with anything MTV or Hollywood related: if you are going to insist on selling candy to kids make sure the candy is delicious. Thank you Tom Green, may your left nut rest in peace.