Sending Off the Kids

Courtesy of the Toronto Sun
Seven years after their show ended, CBC is sending off the Kids
By JIM SLOTEK
March 22, 1996

There was something kind of off about the way the Kids In The Hall departed the CBC. No fanfare, no farewells. The last episode aired a year after the Kids had gone their separate ways.

But with the feature film The Kids In The Hall: Brain Candy approaching its April 12 theatrical release, the Corp. is at least attempting some measure of closure with a half-hour retrospective special this Sunday.

Laughing Ourselves Sick, a combination "making of" special for the Kids' flick and "the story of their success" is skedded for 9:30 p.m. Sunday - although producers were still obtaining archival material and editing at the end of the week.

"It's a nice little package; you get to watch the Kids grow up, as it were," says CBC Variety head George Anthony. "Of course there's lots of cross-dressing and other things that made the Kids the cult favorites they were."

Presumably, the story will take you as far back as Calgary, where Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney were improv pals in the early '80s. When their troupe moved to Toronto and disintegrated, they hooked up with improvisers Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald. Later, local actor Scott Thompson made it a fivesome. Laughing Ourselves Sick does zero in on their big break - wherein Saturday Night Live's Lorne Michaels plucked them from the obscurity of Rivoli gigs.

The chemistry was always uneasy on a personal level. And with no real reason to be together, the Kids have truly gone in different directions. Engrossed in his hit sitcom NewsRadio, Foley reportedly had to be threatened with legal action by Paramount to get him to take part in filming last year. Most of his scenes are without the other Kids, and I'm told he's even done promotional interviews separately. (During filming I ran into Foley and asked how things were going onset. "There's not much for me to do, and every day I go in and find there's even less," he said with a resigned grin. A few months ago, Foley had a dinner party at his L.A. home and some comic friends kicked around alternative titles for the movie. The popular choice was Our Contractual Obligation To Paramount).

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