The Biting Comedy of the Kids in the Hall
Courtesy of the New York Times
December 27, 1990
by John J. O'Connor
Back for a second season on Home Box Office is "The Kids
in the Hall," starring five Canadian men who have been
performing together in Toronto since 1984. These kids--Dave
Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott
Thompson--are now well into or even beyond their 20's but, with
Lorne Michaels ("Saturday Night Live") as executive producer,
their routines on these half-hour shows are as youthfully goofy
as ever. They are Canada's version of Monty Python, a bit less
wicked, perhaps, but no less wacky, right down to their ever-
so-popular drag sketches.
These comic specialize in throwing wrenches into the most
ordinary of situations. In tonight's episode, at midnight,
there are two couples having dinner together and celebrating
nine years of friendship. Suddenly, one husband turns into a
slobbering lecher, making passes at the other's wife and
observing, with leering unrestraint, "Thank God for old
friends, eh?" In no time at all, he is announcing, "I'm going
to undo your wife's dress and run my calloused carpenter
fingers down her back." Just as quickly as the scene escalates
into X-rated abandon, it returns to middle-class propriety and
some pointless talk about lamps as house gifts. Curtain.
Basically, all five comics are clean-cut, boy-next-door
types, which gives their off-the-wall humor an extra spin. Mr.
Foley, for instance, is perfectly plausible as an earnest
doctor except for the fact that his hospital smock is covered
in blood. "I've never really got the hang of the 'healing the
sick' thing," he explains amiably. But, it seems, this doctor
was always a popular fellow. How far can you coast on charm?
"Well, pretty far, actually," he confesses. As it happens, he
is also the king of referrals. "There are specialists," the
doctor confides, "who have their whole career built on my
referrals." And on he goes, neatly skewering scattered aspects
of the medical world.
Tomorrow's midnight episode, the second of 22 planned for
this season, brings back the dreadful Cabbage Head Man (Mr.
McCulloch). This time he can be found sending over an order of
french fries to three women having lunch in a very respectable
restaurant. When the women fail to be impressed, Cabbage Head
simply pulls up his own portable folding chair to their table
and begins asking if, what with women's liberation and all, one
or all are available for wex. Asked to leave, Cabbage Head,
whose head is actually covered in cabbage leaves, goes on the
offensive. "It's my cabbage head, right?," he says
triumphantly, "That's discrimination."
With some help form Brian Hartt and Norm Hiscock, the
Kids write their own material. This year the satirical barbs
seem to be getting a bit sharper and considerably more nasty.
That's all to the good, as is the occasional rock music
supplied by a group called Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet.
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