The Old Kids on the Block


Those five Canadian wise guys might have an outdated moniker, but their humor remains topical.
Colin Covert
February 25, 2000
Minneapolis Star Tribune


Fifteen years into their commando assault on sanity, the Kids in the Hall are more popular than ever. Thanks to daily reruns of their show on Comedy Central, the cross-dressing quintet has a bigger fan base now than when they left the airwaves in 1994. Their fervent following has made the Kids' current 25-city reunion tour one of the top 10 North American concert attractions (eat dust, ZZ Top). It might be a little harder for the Kids to squeeze into their party dresses, but they're still game to goof.

"The name 'Kids in the Hall' is pathetic at this particular point," concedes Mark McKinney, a cult god for his portrayal of The Chicken Lady, The Head Crusher. "We're 37 to 41 years old. But in another 20 years when we're balding, short, fat old men, it'll be cute. People will go, Awwww!" The son of a Canadian diplomat, McKinney spent his formative years shuttling from Denmark to Trinidad and from France to the States. As a result, he developed into a self-described "maladjusted, nervous" youngster who devoured Mad magazine.

After two semesters of college, he quit and joined the Calgary branch of Theatre Sports, an improvisation troupe, where fate introduced him to future Kid Bruce McCulloch, who had a gift for musical satire. In the early '80s, they created a group called the Audience, which became notorious for aggressively loony sketches: They appeared on stage as nude evangelists and pulverized produce with a baseball bat, though not at the same time. They joined the Toronto duo of Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald, who were performing high-concept bits (corporate drone drops out to become a beaver) as the Kids in the Hall. Scott Thomas signed on in 1984, adding a sexually provocative sensibility and prodding the others to polish their acting skills. Through a collaborative process akin to hockey brawling, the Kids were born.

CROSS PURPOSES

A hallmark of the all-male troupe's performances was their routine appearances as female characters. The group's adopted androgyny was a pragmatic decision, not a grab for a cheap laugh, McKinney says. "We never expected people to be shocked when we did it. It's like, duh, we're five guys. What are we gonna do, slice out half our sketch ideas because we can't pretend to be our girlfriends or moms, or whatever we're parodying at a certain point? I think it's become more mainstream. And good, because I think it adds something. But we never did it for shock value... It wasn't going to work if you played it for a laugh in the old Uncle Miltie way - oh my God, I'm wearing a dress. It had to be, no, this is a character, this is how these characters collide, and it's going to be funny."

A standard bit about date negotiations (dinner, dancing and intercourse?) gained a comic boost when the woman was played by a man in a party dress. The Kids' outrageous brand of sketch comedy demolished sacred cows like a buzz-saw chewing through balsa wood. They riffed on AIDS (Liz Taylor might be the cause). They lampooned alcoholism in a "Lost Weekend"-style saga of a girl drunk hooked on little fruity cocktails. They turned the crucifixion into sing-song gibberish in "The Dr. Seuss Bible." Bowled over by their mix of subversive satire, sheer nonsense and outright raunchiness, "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels proclaimed them "the Monty Python of the '80s." Fellow Canadian Michaels brokered their breakthrough special on HBO and launched the ensemble into a career trajectory that has been, if not stratospheric, at least high-flying. Their series aired new episodes from 1989 to 1994 on CBC, HBO and CBS, and has been rerunning since then on various cable networks "We've never really been off the air," McKinney said.

The Kids in the Hall took their name from the aspiring writers who lined the corridor outside Jack Benny's office and peppered him with suggested jokes. Though the group has enjoyed success with films, TV, albums and off Broadway, the tag still fits, McKinney said.

"I still think the outsider status is merited. It's such a rare experience to get on TV as the authors of your own show. But we managed to exist kind of below the radar and were pretty much left alone by everybody. And then of course there's the slight outsider status you get from being Canadian. Our culture, especially in English Canada, is so heavily dominated by the States. Yet it's across the border. That gives you kind of an interesting outsider's perspective."

POSITIVE DYSFUNCTION

The Kids have been gratified, though somewhat surprised, by the success of their tour, which mixes favorite sketches with a generous dose of absurd new material. This is the first time they have appeared in public since the premiere of their ill-fated film "Brain Candy" in 1995.

It's been a virtual sellout everywhere. That's been weird, especially in places like Texas where we sold out months ahead of time and could have done three or four shows in each of the cities we played,'' McKinney said. The group has discussed a more extensive tour, even though the experience is draining, he said.

"This is only two months. I don't know how rock bands do it. Unbelievable," said McKinney, who said he thrives on performing live nonetheless. "Even as exhausted as I am now, it's always great. It's also a great way to develop some new material. There's some talk of us developing a movie the way the Marx Brothers used to do it, with 'A Night at the Opera,' which is to take a premise and keep playing it and test it until you get it right." It could be a bruising experience, as five conflicting points of view duke it out. "Dave and Kevin are more from the school of classic one-liner and premise comedy. Bruce brings his arty thing, and Scott brings his," McKinney said. "We're not all the same types of performers, and I think we're the stronger for it." That diversity comes at a price, however. A large part of their creative process is devoted to arguing.

"Everyone takes turns being the peacemaker," McKinney said. "If I go off or someone else goes off, someone else will be the mellow. There's a certain healthy yin and yang in our dysfunctional little group."

Reunions being what they are, there's also an inevitable bit of cattiness about who still looks best as a woman, he admitted.
"Dave still looks good. Scott boasts about his legs. Bruce wears too much makeup, but we don't tell him that. And I'm the prettiest of all."

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