The Kids in the Hall


The Kids in the Hall is a Canadian sketch comedy troupe formed in 1984, consisting of comedians Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson. Their eponymous television show ran from 1989 to 1995 on CBC in Canada, and CBS, HBO, and Comedy Central in the United States.
The Kids made one film, Brain Candy, which was released in 1996. They reformed for various tours and comedy festivals in 2000. They later reunited for an eight-part miniseries, , in January 2010. An eight-episode revival season was greenlit for Amazon Prime in 2020.
Their name came from Sid Caesar, who, if a joke did not go over, or played worse than expected, would attribute it to "the kids in the hall", referring to a group of young writers hanging around the studio.
On June 3, 2008, it was announced that the entire group would receive a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. On March of 2020 it was announced that the TV series would make a comeback with new episodes for Prime Video. The series will feature the return of all of the original “Kids" in an 8-episode run, which will be a continuation of the original show, and is heralded as "the first Canadian Amazon Original series".

Early history

and Mark McKinney were working together doing Theatresports in Calgary, performing in a group named "The Audience". Norm Hiscock, Gary Campbell, and Frank Van Keeken were co-members and later became writers on the show. At the same time, Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald were performing around Toronto as The Kids in the Hall. In 1984, the two pairs met in Toronto, and began performing regularly as KITH, with a rotating band of members, including Paul Bellini for a short time. When Scott Thompson was invited to join in January 1985, the group had its final form. The same year, McCulloch and Foley appeared in the Anne of Green Gables series, as Diana Barry's husband and a former classmate of Anne's from the fictional Queen's College, respectively.
Not long afterwards, the Kids broke up for a short time when scouts for Saturday Night Live invited McKinney and McCulloch to New York to become writers for that show, Foley made a poorly received movie debut with High Stakes and Thompson and McDonald worked with the Second City touring group. They were reunited in 1986. After SNL's Lorne Michaels saw them perform as a troupe, plans began for a TV show. In 1987 Michaels sent them to New York to what was essentially a "Comedy Boot Camp", and in 1988 their pilot special aired on CBC Television and in the United States on HBO before debuting as a series in 1989.

Television show

The series The Kids in the Hall debuted as a one-hour pilot special which aired on HBO and CBC Television in 1988, and began airing as a regular weekly series on both services in 1989. The regular series premiered July 21, 1989 on HBO, and September 14 on CBC. In the United States, the first three seasons were on HBO before it moved to CBS in 1993, where it stayed for two more seasons airing late Friday nights. CBC aired the show for the whole duration of its run.

''Brain Candy''

After the show ended its run, the troupe came together to produce a movie, Brain Candy, featuring a few characters from the show and many new ones. Although not a commercial success, the movie developed a cult following with their devoted fans.

Tours

2000 North American Tour

In 2000, the troupe reformed for a successful North American tour, reprising many sketches from the show. The sketch line-up for the 2000 show was:
  1. AT & Love Reunion
  2. Mr. Heavyfoot Finds His Seat
  3. Buddy Cole – The Year 2000
  4. Cops!
  5. Daddy's Dyin'
  6. Head Crusher / Face Pincher
  7. Jesus 2000!
  8. Sir Simon Milligan & Hecubus in: The Pit of Ultimate Darkness
  9. Gavin: Painting a chair
  10. Comfortable
  11. Sandwich People
  12. Chicken Lady's Date
  13. Power of the Suburbs
  14. Bloody Salty Ham
  15. Monologue by Brian on having a party when Fran and Gordon go on Vacation
  16. Love Me
  17. Fran: Brian's Bombshell
  18. Jesus Christ Superstar
  19. Encore: To Reg
At some shows:
  1. Running Faggot
  2. The Poker Game
The tour was chronicled in a documentary, Kids in the Hall: Same Guys, New Dresses, which followed the next year. This was then followed by the "Tour of Duty" and a DVD based on those performances, released in 2002.

"Just for Laughs" ("Juste Pour Rire") Comedy Festival

In July 2007, the Kids reunited to perform at the 25th Annual "Just for Laughs" Comedy Festival in Montreal.
The Just For Laughs show premiered around 90 minutes of new material. While certain characters made reappearances the rest of the show revolved around entirely new material. Typically good-humored, the group poked numerous jokes at their own recent weight gain and the state of their post-Kids acting careers.
Among the sketches:
The group also performed on January 26–27, 2008 at the SF Sketchfest. On January 26 there was a retrospective and Q&A with the group.

2008 North American Tour

On April 4, 2008, The Kids in the Hall embarked on their first major national tour in six years. The tour ran through early June 2008 and included more than 30 cities in the US and Canada. The tour features some material from the 2007 "Just for Laughs" performance along with new material.
The 2008 tour closely mirrored the "Just for Laughs" performance, excluding the rat catchers, subway fan and Nicole Ritchie sketches. In their stead, Mark McKinney performed the monologue titled "The Modern Hero" from Season 1 of the show, and the entire cast performed the sketch "This Is How I Danced in Tenth Grade."

Other appearances

Kevin McDonald guest starred alongside Dave Foley in a 1997 episode of Foley's sitcom NewsRadio.
Kevin McDonald also guest starred on Seinfeld in the episode "The Strike", in which he played a man enamored of wearing denim who Elaine pursues for the sake of a stamped card from a sub shop.
Kevin McDonald has a cameo in the music video for "Roses" by OutKast.
Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald performed with The Barenaked Ladies on their "Ships and Dip V" cruise, along with other bands and comics, on February 1–6, 2009.
Each member of the Kids in the Hall provided voices in "Fibber", the 14th episode of , in which Kevin McDonald plays the regular role of Pleakley.
In 2006, three of the members appeared in the Christmas comedy Unaccompanied Minors as The Guards in the Hall.
The group appeared on the front cover of Naked Eyes summer 2008 edition.
The Kids performed at the 2008 Comedy Festival in Las Vegas on November 22.
On August 6, 2010, all five Kids made an appearance on The Soup on E!, to promote their miniseries Death Comes to Town. Four of the members appeared on-screen in drag as girls who had grown up as beauty pageant contestants ; Mark McKinney's voice was heard off-screen as their mother.
Dave Foley has appeared in three episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as Principal MacIntyre.
Kevin McDonald appeared on the animated show Dan Vs. in the episode Dan Vs. Technology. He played technology guru Barry Ditmer, a parody of Steve Jobs. He was planning to develop mind control so that the world's populace would buy the next useless gadget he would bring to market. However, thanks to Elise and Dan's intervention, and his former partner Hiram invading, his plan is foiled and his complex blows up. Ironically, Chris is played by fellow member Dave Foley, but their characters never interacted.
In October 2012 and January 2013, Foley guest-starred on The Middle as Dr. Fulton in episodes "Bunny Therapy" and "Life Skills".During "Life Skills", Foley's character refers to Brick's classmates as "the kids in the hall" and mentioned their behavior similar to those of comedy sketches from The Kids in the Hall.
In 2014, the cast reunited on Foley's sitcom Spun Out, appearing as Dave's high school goth friends who had made a suicide pact. That year Thompson also did a weeklong stint as Buddy Cole on The Colbert Report, acting as the program's correspondent to the 2014 Winter Olympics who covered LGBT rights protests surrounding the 2014 Winter Olympics.
In December 2014, McDonald, McKinney, and Thompson appeared in an episode of the TVO's children's television series Odd Squad. The episode was entitled "Crime at Shapely Manor." McDonald as Lord Rectangle, McKinney as General Pentagon, and Thompson as Professor Square.
Kevin McDonald, Dave Foley and Scott Thompson appeared on season 4 episode 139 of the Chris Hardwick game show @midnight which aired August 2, 2017.

''Death Comes to Town''

In July 2008 Telefilm Canada announced that there would be a new The Kids in the Hall television series titled . The Kids' Kevin McDonald stated that it would be an eight-part miniseries airing first on CBC in Canada and then on US television. Principal photography took place from August 2009, in Ontario. Several characters from the original The Kids in the Hall series made an appearance, including the OPP Officers and Chicken Lady. The first episode of the new series aired in Canada on CBC Television on January 13, 2010, while in the United States the first episode aired on IFC on August 20, 2010.