`THE JERK: HTE NEXT GENERATION IN PERSON, COMEDIAN TOM GREEN ISN'T WHAT YOU'D EXPECT, AND THAT'S THE GOOD NEWS.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

You can understand why bizarro comic Tom Green might be a little serious these days. After all, the 29-year-old Canadian prankster could have been killed twice in the past year, first by a battle with testicular cancer and later, in February, by a fire that destroyed the home he shared with the woman who recently became his wife, actress Drew Barrymore.

Still, a grave Green isn't the Green you expect, given that in his new film, ``Freddy Got Fingered,'' he dances around with a deer carcass on his head, swings a newborn baby by its umbilical cord and gets uncomfortably friendly with the privates of a horse on a stud farm. That Green - the gross Green who drank milk from a cow's udder on his MTV series and gave a mouse a home in his mouth last summer in ``Road Trip'' - largely seems to be a freakish persona that he trots out when the cameras are running or when he's in the company of trusted friends.

``He's not who you think he is,'' says veteran character actor Rip Torn, who plays Green's father in ``Freddy.'' ``And for that I think you have to be thankful.''

That's a joke you'd expect from Green, but he still seems to be too overwhelmed by the crazy turns his life has taken lately to bite on even the most obvious straight lines. In a recent interview, Green says twice that he's still in a ``state of shock'' over the early morning fire that burned down Barrymore's Beverly Hills home. If it hadn't been for the frantic barking of one of Barrymore's dogs, a Labrador-chow mix named Flossie, Green believes he and Barrymore would have been killed.

``And Flossie died of smoke inhalation a week after the fire,'' Green says sadly. ``No one really knows that, and we're still trying to come to grips with it.''

Contrast Green's current grimness with the surreal scene that played on local television news stations the morning after the fire. Camera crews caught Green and Barrymore driving away from the smoldering rubble of their home, with Barrymore laughing, ``We're great, but everything we own is gone.'' Green got into the act, too, shouting, ``Other than the fact the house burned down. ... Oh no, the house burned down!''

When asked about that bit of performance art, Green explains: ``We were in a situation where Drew's house had just burned down. She had lost every possession she owned, and we were both almost killed. And here we were, two hours later, and the house is surrounded by camera crews and people with microphones. We could have driven through and given everybody the finger and kept the negative energy running and kept that real horrible feeling in the air.

``But I just felt that I should deal with it in the same way I dealt with my cancer last year, which is to flip things, and take the most undesirable thing and make it seem desirable. Instead of hiding the fact that I have only one testicle, I did a cancer show and told everybody. Instead of giving people the finger outside our home, we laughed at the situation.

``Mainly it was important to keep Drew's spirits up because she did that for me last year. She was so great that way. We've gone through a lot in the past year.''

That includes a wedding, which, at one point last November, was almost held on an episode of ``Saturday Night Live.'' Barrymore balked, and the two wed quietly a few weeks ago. But there have been so many pranks and false stories that some jaded onlookers might think that Green could be concocting the latest bombshell to promote ``Freddy.''

``No way,'' Green responds. ``I don't even like answering questions about it. I get uncomfortable. We wanted our wedding to be for us and not part of the public record. We wanted to keep it private.''

And that's a real change for Green, a man who has very publicly documented every aspect of his entire life. < ``He brings humor to parts of life that aren't often funny,'' Barrymore says, conveying one reason she fell in love with the man.

One of the those parts of life - adolescence, extended and otherwise - is at the heart of ``Freddy Got Fingered.'' Green co-wrote, directed and stars in the movie, and although it contains more than enough of the comic's infantile stylings, the movie is, at its heart, a father-and-son story, albeit a father-and-son story in which the father is drenched at one point in elephant semen.

The Ottawa-born Green was living in his parents' basement five years ago, just like Gord, the character he plays in ``Freddy.'' Gord wants to be an animator; Green aspired toward a career in television. Both Gord and Freddy ran into no-nonsense fathers who believed their sons should spend more time looking for a ``real'' job. Both sons balked at the advice and followed their twisted dreams.

Nevertheless, Green insists that ``Freddy'' isn't about his life or his dad. But then, he could be saying this because Torn's ``Freddy'' father is such an overbearing jerk. Green's parents are, understandably, a little nervous about ``Freddy,'' figuring that audiences are going to think it's about them.

Not that Green hasn't drawn them into his world before - on one episode of his MTV show, Green painted a pornographic lesbian scene on the hood of his father's car. Another episode had Green looking to fry and eat a benign cyst from his father's head. He showed up at the doctor's office with a frying pan and barbecue sauce, only to have his father tell him - with a straight face - that he was having hemorrhoid surgery.

``We're friends,'' Green says of his relationship with his parents. ``We kid each other and pull jokes on each other all the time. This isn't about them. The only thing I've taken from my real life is that feeling you have as a young person who's misunderstood and has a misunderstood dream. I think anyone could relate to that.''

As opposed to, say, fondling a horse or dancing around with a deer carcass on your head.

``I like animals; I really do enjoy them,'' Green says, offering an explanation. ``I think they're interesting things. A lot of people are uncomfortable around animals, thinking they're dirty, germ-ridden things. Not me.

``All I can say is that the horse was smiling and the cow that I drank from seemed to love it. The cows these days get milked by these mechanical milkers, so they really do enjoy having a nice warm tongue on their udder.''

And yes, folks, Tom Green has a completely straight face as he is saying this.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) UDDER-LY RIDICULOUS

OK, for reasons of good taste, we're not showing you the scene of Tom Green and the cow in `Freedy Got Fingered.' You'll have to see it - if you dare

(2) Tom Green takes the boredom out of his job in a cheese sandwich factory in ``Freddy Got Fingered,'' which opens Friday.

(3) 'The only thing I've taken from my real life is that feeling you have as a young person who's misunderstood and has a misunderstood dream. I think anyone could relate to that.'

Tom Green

on what inspired the plot of ``Freddy Got Fingered''

(4) Rip Torn, right, stars as Tom Green's ill-humored father, who gives his son a rude awakening in ``Freddy Got Fingered.''