But the quality and variety of his work outweighed our concerns. When Tom appeared in a movie you immediately forgot it was him. In a court scene, he was a lawyer to the power of 1000. If he was playing a down-on-his-luck Dad fighting giant tripods - you believed it.
Then he jumped that couch.
On that day 17 years ago Tom acted so idiotically, that Oprah felt compelled to plead: "What has happened to you?"
To be fair, the whole appearance in context isn't as bad as we remember. I blame the studio audience as much as Tom. They were egging him on like rabid dogs on heat. Unfortunately for Cruise, YouTube had launched earlier that year. Tom's couch jump was the first clip to be cut up, shared and mocked in truly massive numbers.
Whether it was fair or not, it seemed Tom's Cruiseness had finished him. He had revealed what we all suspected. Tom was too weird to worship. The annoyingness of his real personality was sure to taint his movies. We assumed we would see him on screen as that annoying guy from Oprah not Ethan Hunt on a mission. He would be a couch-jumping goof and not an arse-kicking Samurai. A giggling fist-pumping knob, not a talented pilot.
How wrong we were.
Tom Cruise has done the impossible with Top Gun: Maverick. He's released a 35-years-later sequel that's not only better than the original it's one of the best blockbusters ever made. Launching off the first, Maverick packs an old-school visual and emotional punch. It's a breathtaking, tear-jerking spectacle with a stellar cast. All that and solid laughs too.
I recommend you find the biggest screen you can and watch this movie. Would it have hit me as hard if I hadn't loved the first one as a kid? Maybe, maybe not. My 12-year-old son had never seen Top Gun. I looked over at him during the Maverick finale and he was punching the sky.
The success of Maverick is less surprising when you dig into Cruise's recent career.
Post Oprah couch, he's made 21 movies including four Mission Impossibles each better than the last, the beloved sci-fi Edge of Tomorrow and the crazy cocaine comedy American Made.
Most of all we have marvelled at his fearless dedication to stunts. The guy will jump off anything no matter how high as long as it gets the perfect heart-pounding shot. He does it with infectious boyish enthusiasm. The man has a habit of hanging off the outside of planes. He jumps motorbikes into canyons and dangles off mountains and sky scrappers.
A few years ago I interviewed an impressed pilot who had been filming with the man in Central Otago. Cruise had learnt to fly a chopper from scratch and insisted on doing his own crazily dangerous stunts down our tightest mountain valleys. He would have flown the jets in Maverick too but the US Navy wouldn't let him. His dedication to entertainment has earned him our respect.
Tom Cruise has had a number one movie at the US box office in five different decades. No other actor has produced so consistently for so long. No actor has an arm-pumping running style like him. Tom is a legend. I love him. As far as I'm concerned the couch never happened. You have been called back to the top gun.
