Warning: The following review contains adult themes and language. Reader discretion is advised.

If The Tom Green Cancer Special at midnight tonight on j is the sickest instalment of the guerrilla talk show yet, it's because Green really was sick.

In the name of education, and perhaps even to prove to a distrustful audience he wasn't crying wolf, Green takes cameras through the most unsettling moments of his battle against testicular cancer.

By 1 a.m., you, too, can count yourself among the chosen few (million) to have seen Tom Green's right testicle, lymph nodes, semen and intestines.

Oh yes, dear fans. His intestines.

The seldom-shy, roadkill-humping comedian presents viewers with TLC-style footage of his surgery, but it isn't even the most revealing scene of the special.

It comes later, when Green takes time out from his recuperation to admonish sidekick Glenn Humplik for not following directions.

Let's hope he doesn't require an amputation or hair transplant or something to match this special, because the hour is easily Green's most entertaining show.

The sobering experience of facing his own mortality summoned a useful economy of energy.

He spends much less time screaming incoherently and making stupid faces than usual.

Instead, one-liners are well-planned and his few physical stunts somehow poignant.

The more subtle humour starts in the show's opening with a priceless reaction he gives when Humplik suggests cancer may be a "delicate thing to talk about, huh?"

Nothing's delicate for Tom. It may be uncomfortable for those around him, mind you.

During the hour, Green manages to get Humplik to discuss his undescended testicle, prods Phil Giroux into an on-camera testicle exam, angers his mother by having a tailor fit him for a funeral suit and embarrasses fiancee Drew Barrymore by showing fans his scar.

"I always thought, if I was going to die, it would be fun to go out Man in the Moon-style," Green explains. "We should make a documentary about this whole experience ... because it was hilarious."

It certainly appears that way.