His wide-open, sweet face twists into the prune-like visage of the Kids' classic curmudgeon, and he parts his fingers to frame the heads of the oh-so-groovy theater district diners across the room. "I'm crushing your head!" he hisses, pinching his thumb and index finger together zestfully, as I fall on the floor in rapturous giggles. "Crush! Crush! You son-of-a-bitch!"

The splendor of this moment will be lost on you if you're not already a fan of the absurdist, cross-dressing Canadian comedy troupe — arguably the finest since Monty Python — which had its heyday between 1989 and 1994 with its brilliant HBO show (now in reruns on Comedy Central). But the thousands of Bay Areans who snapped up all the tickets to the three live Kids in the Hall shows at the Warfield this weekend, long deprived of McKinney's wondrous weirdness, can appreciate my New York moment. The KITH bug, when it bites, infects you for life.

When the tour — "Kids in the Hall 2000: Same Guys ......... New Dresses" — was announced, $2 million in tickets sold within hours, and shows were added to accommodate those turned away (in San Francisco, two shows). For McKinney, who in the five years since the Kids' last show has moved on to roles in movies ("Spice World"), TV ("Saturday Night Live") and stage (most recently, off-Broadway's "Fuddy Meers"), the amount of fervency still generated by KITH fans seems amazing.

"I can't even believe it," he shakes his head when told that in New York, a fifth show has been added. He grins: "I mean, with all this love we should all be rich men, right?" In fact, life has generally been good — if not tremendously lucrative — for the five men since the troupe disbanded. The highest-profile Kid has been Dave Foley, the impish cutie who played the beleaguered station manager on the acclaimed TV comedy, "NewsRadio," and who has had major movie roles in "Blast From the Past" and "Dick," among others. Bruce McCulloch (best known as Cabbage Head) is directing now — most recently the SNL spinoff "Superstar." Kevin McDonald (the tall one with the unruly hair and cracking voice) has had guest shots acting on various shows, and has just sold a film script to Jason Alexander. And Scott Thompson, the only gay member of KITH whose Buddy Cole character became a one-man stand-up show and the subject of a book ("Buddy Babylon"), had a role in HBO's hot "Larry Sanders Show."

McKinney's stage roles earned him mention in a New York Times story on the five brightest stars off-Broadway; he was called "one of the top-flight comic actors on the New York stage." But he admits that, being the only Kid in Manhattan, he feels "a little out of the loop."

"I'm not crazy about living here," he says. "It's really expensive. But after my seasons with 'SNL' I just kept getting work here. When it came time for us to meet about the tour, all the other guys came out here because they knew I couldn't leave my play! Which was really great of them."Old magic was back It was the first time in years for all five members to assemble, and he said the old magic was there.

"We had so much business to do in just a few days! But it was great to see everybody. And like the old days we hit some incredible emotional cycles ......... real highs and some real lows, like when Scott found out that Dave had three pilots that he was filming. ......... Yikes! He decided right then that he was straight! No, not really, but it has been harder for him to get roles."So is there competition or do they get along well? McKinney smiles. "We're not hellishly social. We have what we call a death row bond — 'I love him but I won't miss his whistling!' It's like when you get to be friends so good you don't have to call. It's weird how strong the bond is. I mean, Dave and Kevin were teenagers when we started. Like the Stones or something."

Trying their luck in Toronto In fact, the Kids came together from rival comedy troupes when they were barely in their 20s. McKinney and McCulloch were together in a troupe called the Loose Moose Theatre Company in Calgary who decided to try their luck in "the big city" of Toronto. There they met Foley and McDonald, who were in a company called Kids in the Hall, and Thompson, who was, as McKinney puts it, "having absolutely no luck being an actor. We saw him being really horrible — but really brave — at Theater Sports an acting school, so we asked him to join." They flipped a coin over whose name should prevail, and the Kids — named for the young comedy writers who would line the hallways outside old TV shows to pitch their jokes — won out.

They spent two years in a club in Toronto slowly collecting a loyal following, and after enough rave reviews, Lorne Michaels, producer of "SNL," paid a visit to Toronto and put the group under development.

Eventually, they wound up on HBO, that bastion of cutting-edge comedy, where they became something of a cult phenom.

Because they spent their formative years as a live act, the Kids toured from time to time, driving audiences (like the one I was part of at the Great American Music Hall) into a tizzy with their rapid-fire sketches and multimedia show. McKinney is looking forward to the stint on the road.

'Never played such big venues'

"Very much so! I'm a little concerned about the size of some of the rooms, because we've never played such big venues before and I want to make sure the material works." He pauses, says to no one in particular: "Python's not touring, are they? We don't need that pressure. ........."

Kids in the Hall play Saturday and Sunday (two shows) this weekend. There are only a handful of tickets left for any of the shows. For ticket information, call Ticketmaster at (415) 421-2700.