Tom Stern

Tom Stern is a television writer, director and producer working in Los Angeles, California. While at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Stern began a partnership with filmmaker/actor Alex Winter which lasted eight years. After graduating in 1987, the pair moved to Venice Beach and directed IMPACT Video Magazine. Writing for the Jim Henson Hour on NBC was his first mainstream show business job. He first married filmmaker Tamara Hernandez with whom he had two kids: Tuesday and Murray Stern. In March 2015, he married architect Barbara Bestor.

Works

Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt

Follows the story of the groundbreaking Texas-based art-punk band founded by frontman Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary.

Release Date: 2025-03-08

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie

When Bikini Bottom is scooped from the ocean, scientific squirrel Sandy Cheeks and her pal SpongeBob SquarePants saddle up for Texas to save their town.

Release Date: 2024-10-18

Department: Writing

Job: Teleplay

Vote Count: 71

This Is GWAR

The powerful story of the most iconic heavy metal/art collective/monster band in the universe, as told by the humans who have fought to keep it alive for over thirty years. The feature documentary includes interviews with the band members, both past and present, as well as other artists including Weird Al Yankovic, Thomas Lennnon, Alex Winter, Bam Margera, and Ethan Embry, including never before seen footage of legendary GWAR frontman Dave Brockie.

Release Date: 2021-09-23

Character: Self

Vote Count: 12

Adams

One of the first film adaptations of Booker Prize-winning author George Saunders' work, this examination of white male rage against " the other' tells the story of Roger (Patton Oswalt) and Adams (Fred Armisen), two neighbors locked in an escalating conflict.

Release Date: 2019-08-10

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Vote Count: 1

Kevin Hart's Guide to Black History

Kevin Hart highlights the fascinating contributions of black history's unsung heroes in this entertaining -- and educational -- comedy special.

Release Date: 2019-02-08

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Character: Samuel Smith

Vote Count: 42

Owen Benjamin: Huge Pianist

The unusual comedy of a very tall piano player, as he discusses the challenging and triumphant moments in his personal and professional life.

Release Date: 2018-01-30

Department: Production

Job: Executive Producer

Vote Count: 2

The Toys That Made Us

The minds behind history's most iconic toy franchises discuss the rise -- and sometimes fall -- of their billion-dollar creations.

Release Date: 2017-12-22

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Episode Count: 12

Vote Count: 83

2 Broke Girls

Comedy about the unlikely friendship that develops between two very different young women who meet waitressing at a diner in trendy Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and form a bond over one day owning their own successful cupcake business. Only one thing stands in their way – they’re broke.

Release Date: 2011-09-19

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Episode Count: 1

Vote Count: 1565

Harland Williams: A Force of Nature

Harland's groundbreaking stand up special, shot entirely on location in the Mojave Desert. Screaming comedy from a mountain top under the scorching sun.

Release Date: 2011-04-01

Department: Production

Job: Executive Producer

Vote Count: 3

Alligator Boots

Unaired pilot. Leaked online in 2024.

Release Date: 2009-09-11

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Episode Count: 1

Saul of the Mole Men

Saul of the Mole Men is a live-action show created by Craig Lewis. The series first aired February 11, 2007 on Adult Swim. Described as "an ultra-patriotic Land of the Lost set in the center of the Earth", the series is directed by Tom Stern and stars Josh Gardner. Gardner is known for his previous collaboration with Stern on the television series, Gerhard Reinke's Wanderlust. The show's theme song is performed by South Park creator Trey Parker. Lewis' primary inspirations behind this homage to 1970s-era Saturday morning live-action television were Sid and Marty Krofft, Doctor Who, and the Planet of the Apes franchise. On October 31, 2008 Adult Swim ran a special Halloween marathon.

Release Date: 2007-02-11

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Episode Count: 8

Vote Count: 5

The Andy Milonakis Show

The Andy Milonakis Show is an American sketch comedy television show starring Andy Milonakis, which aired on MTV2, the first season having aired on MTV. The program premiered on June 26, 2005 and ended with its three-season run when it was cancelled on May 1, 2007.

Release Date: 2005-06-26

Department: Production

Job: Producer

Episode Count: 22

Vote Count: 4

Marilyn Manson: Lest We Forget

A collection of Marilyn Manson's music videos.

Release Date: 2004-09-27

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Vote Count: 9

Windy City Heat

A man caught up in the glamor of being a Hollywood celebrity has no idea that the production he's in is a fake.

Release Date: 2003-10-12

Character: Yurgi

Vote Count: 33

Gerhard Reinke's Wanderlust

Gerhard Reinke's Wanderlust was a mockumentary television comedy broadcast on the American cable channel Comedy Central in Spring 2003. It starred writer-comedian Josh Gardner as a German backpacker who has several misadventures as he travels around the world on small budget for the fictional documentary series.

Release Date: 2003-03-08

Department: Creator

Job: Creator

That's My Bush!

That's My Bush! is an American comedy television series that aired on Comedy Central from April 4 to May 23, 2001. Created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, best known for also creating South Park, the series centers on the fictitious personal life of President George W. Bush, as played by Timothy Bottoms. Carrie Quinn Dolin played Laura Bush, and Kurt Fuller played Karl Rove. Despite the political overtones, the show itself was actually a broad lampoon of American sitcoms, including lame jokes, a laugh track, and stock characters such as klutzy bimbo secretary Princess, know-it-all maid Maggie, and supposedly helpful "wacky" next-door neighbor Larry.

Release Date: 2001-04-04

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Episode Count: 1

Vote Count: 21

Marilyn Manson: God Is In the TV

God Is in the T.V. is the second video album by Marilyn Manson. It features all 13 music videos Marilyn Manson spawned between July 1994 and November 1999, as well as uncensored bonus footage from the production of "The Dope Show" music video and nearly an hour of live and backstage footage from the Rock Is Dead tour.

Release Date: 1999-11-02

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Vote Count: 6

The Wild Thornberrys

Travel the world with the Thornberrys and come face-to-face with blue sheep in Nepal, emus in Australia, marmots in Pakistan, flash floods in Siberia, Egyptian burial chambers, a runaway hot air balloon, a rock slide on the Karakoram Highway and more!

Release Date: 1998-09-01

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Episode Count: 2

Vote Count: 259

An American Werewolf in Paris

An American man unwittingly gets involved with werewolves who have developed a serum allowing them to transform at will.

Release Date: 1997-05-29

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 688

Freaked

A vain actor, his best friend, and an activist end up at a mutant freak farm run by a weirdo scientist.

Release Date: 1993-09-11

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Vote Count: 162

Meals on Wheels

Made for Playboy's "Inside Out" TV show, the short follows an eccentric dweeb who, after noticing an attractive woman sucking on a popsicle, tries following her. However tragedy keeps befalling him at every turn, leading to many wacky situations as he pursues the lady.

Release Date: 1992-12-19

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Character: Various Characters

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

Amiable slackers Bill and Ted are once again roped into a fantastical adventure when De Nomolos, a villain from the future, sends evil robot duplicates of the two lads to terminate and replace them. The robot doubles actually succeed in killing Bill and Ted, but the two are determined to escape the afterlife, challenging the Grim Reaper to a series of games in order to return to the land of the living.

Release Date: 1991-07-19

Character: Trenchcoat Man in Heaven (uncredited)

Vote Count: 1237

Howie Meets the Ghost of Environmental Disasters Yet to Come

Made for CBS' "Save The Planet" Earth Day Special. Howie, having been confronted about his polluting ways, is visited later that night in his dreams by the Ghost of Environmental Disasters Yet to Come. He is then taken through time to see what havoc man wrought upon the world.

Release Date: 1990-04-20

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 1

Aisles of Doom

In a town, there's a shop called the Plaza Discount Center, featuring toys of all kinds. It should be a place children love, and it would be save for its shopkeeper, Grendel T.W. Ulcerous. He's evil, but only the children know it, and no one listens to them. We watch what Grendel does to a couple of them. Then, one day, a stranger in a yellow rain slicker comes to town. A confrontation follows. Is it the end of Grendel?

Release Date: 1989-01-01

Character: Narrator

Vote Count: 1

Squeal of Death

Absurd slapstick cartoon-like comedy about Howie, a scrawny kid pushed around by his slob dad and everyone else. He loves cinema and becomes obsessed with a gangster film. This pushes him over the edge into the life of crime. Or does it?

Release Date: 1985-06-22

Department: Directing

Job: Director

Character: Gumbie Weedling

Vote Count: 3

The Idiot Box

The Idiot Box is an American sketch comedy television series created by Alex Winter, Tom Stern and Tim Burns, which ran on MTV from 1990-1991. After the success of Bill & Ted, MTV hired Winter, Stern, and Burns to develop a half-hour sketch comedy show for the network. As the channel was still strictly music-oriented at the time, The Idiot Box was mainly a showcase for popular music videos, but with a series of sketches, fake commercials, and parodies shown in between. Therefore, although an episode ran 30 minutes, there were only 7 to 11 minutes worth of sketches. Inspired heavily by the likes of MAD Magazine and Monty Python's Flying Circus, the humor in The Idiot Box was rooted in absurdity and violent slapstick, often in the form of television and movie parodies and commercials for fake television shows. Each episode would end with a recap by the Max Headroom-esque VOTAR, "the future of television announcing", as he would criticize each of the sketches in the episode and occasionally quote lines from New Wave songs. Although the show was a hit for the channel, Winter, Stern, and Burns chose to cease production after six episodes and instead accepted a high-paying deal with 20th Century Fox to write and direct their own feature film. The result was 1993's Freaked, which featured the same brand of humor as The Idiot Box.

Department: Creator

Job: Creator

Vote Count: 4