Kids in the Hall Kick Off North American Tour
Courtesy of Canada.com
Promise to revive faves like Chicken Lady, mail-order sex slave
By KERRY GOLD
January 14, 2000
VANCOUVER (CP) - Canada's favourite cult comedians are once again donning dresses and wreaking havoc with the country's reputation for decency.
The Kids in the Hall kicked off a six-week reunion tour Thursday with some of their familiar gender-bending antics. And the arguing is already well under way. The five members of the Canadian comedy troupe were rehearsing in a hall in Encino, Calif. when the boy-faced Kid, Dave Foley, took time out for an interview - even though he was feeling a little foggy from a night of wine-tasting with the group the night before.
Although the Kids hadn't been together in the same room in four years, the old creative differences emerged. And, as usual, Foley said no one was backing down.
"I think we still feel as arrogant and opinionated as we ever were," said Foley, fresh from a role in a successful Los Angeles play and his 37th birthday on Jan. 4.
"As Kevin always says, 'The group is one big dumb guy with five heads.' No one has changed at all, really. And I think we're getting old enough to be nostalgic about it and forget about the (previous) fighting.
"We were famous for fighting. As a club act at (the Toronto night spot) the Rivoli, we fought constantly. There were always rumours that we were splitting up."
The Kids - Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, Kevin McDonald and Scott Thompson - kicked off their 20-date tour in Vancouver Thursday night. Two more shows are slated for Friday.
The group's Canadian television show, which originally ran on CBC from 1989 to 1994, airs three times a day on HBO and CBS in the U.S., and Foley said it draws roughly the same percentage of viewers and type of audience as it does in Canada.
Here, Kids in the Hall thrives in syndication on the Comedy Network (weekdays at 7 p.m.). As a result, Foley says he is as well known as a Kid in the Hall in the United States as he is in Canada.
But Foley, who's found success south of the border as straight man Dave Nelson on NBC's NewsRadio for the past five seasons, said Kids was never a ratings hit in its original run.
It never appealed to mainstream viewers, no doubt due to the show's bizarre, irreverent brand of humour.
McKinney's oversexed Chicken Lady made laying an egg disturbingly climactic.
There was Thompson's flamboyant barfly Buddy Cold, McCulloch's loser office gal Kathy and McDonald's leather-clad mail-order sex slave.
In one sketch space-alien Foley, who conducts anal probes on humans, remarks that about 10 per cent seem to enjoy it.
The Kids have enjoyed, to varying degrees, the benefits of the subculture-friendly show.
Scott Thompson had a role on the hit Larry Sanders Show. Kevin McDonald has had guest appearances on Drew Carey and Seinfeld, and Mark McKinney on Saturday Night Live.
The show helped Foley land his role on NewsRadio opposite SNL comedian Phil Hartman.
NewsRadio was cancelled last year due to declining ratings after Hartman was killed by his wife in a murder-suicide in their L.A. home in 1998.
Foley said it was difficult to continue after Hartman's death.
"The first day back was difficult, to sit at the table and do it without him. They'd put a single rose at the spot where Phil always sat. It was a hard day . . . a hard week. We were all very tight."
Foley most recently appeared in the Watergate comedy Dick. He played opposite Brendan Fraser and Alicia Silverstone in Blast From the Past and was the voice of Flik in the animated Disney hit A Bug's Life.
He was also the voice of one of the Baldwin Brothers in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.
He is now developing a pilot for NBC for next fall about a bottom-rung rock manager, as well as a late-night variety show.
"But not sketch (comedy)," he added. "That would be too close to Kids."
Kids was not about pushing political or social boundaries, said Foley, although that's often just what they did.
The five comedians put in a lot of time in drag for the show. That and the openly homosexual characters usually performed by gay comic Thompson convinced some it was a gay show, Foley recalled.
"Homophobia was so extensive, it was like, 'They must all be gay to be in a show with that gay guy.' "
The three Vancouver appearances at the Orpheum Theatre sold out and Foley said they aren't going to fall into the "grand old men of comedy" routine.
"We get to go out and feel like we're rock 'n' roll stars."
Complete with groupies?
"Yeah. But we're much too Canadian to exploit that."
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Gems of wisdom from the Kids in the Hall:
- You shouldn't use your tongue to stop a fan.
- Refusing to pick a card, any card, is evil.
- You don't go dancing in the day.
- Telling someone the ending to a movie is evil.
- Hey, screw you taxpayer.
- They call it Crazy Glue because the guy who invented it didn't patent it and the grief drove him insane.
- There is not much call for a gunfighter nowadays.
- Look out Switzerland! It's time to hate the Swiss.
- Blame all your problems on your bad childhood and your cabbagehead.
- Mosquitoes only live for one day, so if they skip breakfast, I guess they had a bad childhood.
- Peer pressure doesn't always work when questioning a murder suspect.
- Lying about being asleep is evil.
- Lineups are never a problem when you've got the flying pig!
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