They say a brush with death can bring out the best in a person, giving him a newfound appreciation for the value and frailty of everyday life.

But only manic comic Tom Green could turn a battle with cancer into a one-hour comedy special, featuring some of the funniest and most real humour he's ever done.

The Tom Green Cancer Special airs at long last tonight on the Comedy Network (midnight on Cable 41, 34), two months after it was broadcast on MTV (the current home of The Tom Green Show) and six months after Green had his cancerous right testicle removed at a Los Angeles hospital.

Not everyone grasps Green's trademark whacked-out, non-sequitur sense of humour, especially when it involves stunts like making a toy boat of cow brains.

Dark humour

But the Ottawa-born comic mixes up the predictable slew of genital jokes with some truly dark humour, revealing a glimpse or two of a young man facing the spectre of his own mortality.

The special opens with a subdued version of The Tom Green Show theme, showing a montage of clips where Green has talked about, erm, testicular matters, winding up with a shot from The Bum Bum Song video, and the line: "My bum is on the cheese/Bum is on the cheese/If I get lucky, I'll get a disease."

"Well, I got lucky," Green deadpans to the camera.

"I got a disease. Testicular cancer."

In other words, this is not your regular celebrity public service announcement.

The entire enterprise speaks to some sort of combination of insane bravery and true self-deprecation on Green's part, as he uses jet-black gallows humour to confront the fact he's facing an ordeal that could rob him of his sexual functionality or possibly even kill him.

But since taboos and Tom Green are not very well acquainted, he also grabs hold of the massive comic (and gross-out) potential and milks it for everything it's worth.

Viewers are led through everything from a testicle self-examination (Green's buddy Phil Giroux gets roped into volunteering, with a doctor's hands in his boxers and Green's face hovering inches away) to the actual, horrifically graphic second surgery that saw the precautionary removal of Green's lymph nodes.

Green's almost childlike frankness about his disease makes the entire one-hour special not only funny, but intensely compelling.

"It was pretty embarrassing," he says of his initial desire to keep the disease completely private. "All of a sudden I've got one ball."

Looks grim

Green is joined by sidekick Glenn Humplik (who looks heart-breakingly grim when the day of Green's second operation arrives) and his long-suffering parents, whom he torments by maintaining he's likely going to die.

Girlfriend (whoops, fiancee) Drew Barrymore is in one scene as well, where Green, family and friends are dining at a posh L.A. restaurant.

Green candidly tells his tale to the waitress, who is clearly unsure whether to believe him.

"So I'm gonna have an operation where they're going to remove my lymph nodes, and hopefully I'm not going to die," he finishes.

After a perfectly timed silent pause, the waitress replies, "Do you want to see the wine list?"

Green's journey also takes him to a sperm donor clinic (he displays his sample in a clear vial for all to see), his tailor (to be fitted for his "burial suit," the one he later wore to the Oscars as Barrymore's date), and finally to the operating table, where highlights of the shockingly gruesome yet fascinating surgery are caught on tape.

Afterwards, Humplik gets to handle Green's removed lymph nodes and the remains of his cancerous right testicle, genuinely marvelling at the texture. "Geez, it looks like chicken," he says.

Kudos to Green for having the you-know-whats (well, one of them, anyway) to lay bare his experience.

Composes song

Sure, it's hysterically funny at times, but it's also an unprecedented boost in awareness of testicular cancer among its primary at-risk age group.

Green even composes a song, complete with a hairy, bouncing karaoke ball, with lines like, "Hey, kids, feel your balls/So you don't get cancer," which he performs before a stadium of college students at the University of Florida, in part to promote his Tom Green's Nuts charity fund.

Nuts, maybe.

But certainly not crazy.