The Kids in the Hall is one of a kind; it ran on television for five long seasons from 1989 to 1995, and they’ve managed to set themselves apart from everyone else even after three decades with their latest revival on Amazon Prime Video. Sketch comedy shows are widely known for either being good or bad. There have been several great sketch comedies since The Kids in the Hall (namely I Think You Should Leave, The Whitest Kids U’Know, and A Black Lady Sketch Show), but none of them have had as many ‘hits’ as opposed to ‘misses’ as this Canadian group.
Partly because, even when The Kids in the Hall wasn’t funny, there were more often than not some intellectual aspects about it that made it delightful and sometimes just excellent, and most times intelligent – this was done by their bizarre comedy which tended towards paradoxicality. They would take brainless idea (a man who pretends to squish people’s heads by closing his fingers around them) and mix them with high art (an extended expensive tribute to Andrei Tarkovsky and art films experimentation) without breaking rhythm. They were able to subvert politics much better than political shows like Saturday Night Live ever could simply because they didn’t comment directly on current news events. In contrast, while speaking openly about race relations while promoting LGBTQ+ rights and women’s movement while having “Conversations Candid” about race was “completely on brand”, all done by five white men. They were rare then; they remain rare.
Prime Video has gone all out for The Kids in the Hall streaming not only all five seasons of the original series including special Death Comes to Town but also showing a two-part documentary series called The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks and an eight-episode reboot with new sketches. It is quite a delight watching all these back-to-back where you see how the initial show was and how it has transformed through this original series, a documentary, and their reunion; however, one could argue that these can really be watched in any order without missing too much.
The five Canadian comedians have been chronicled over the course of their careers in The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks which is truly an amusing and interesting experience for anyone who has never heard about them. The film consists of interviews with the title cast (Bruce McCulloch, Kevin MaDonald, Mark McKinney, Dave Foley, and Scott Thompson) along with home videos, recordings of their performances at Rizzoli Theater way before they became famous people, works examples as well as other participants’ opinions on those projects.
Some of the greatest moments in the movie are provided by these off-topic discussions that give an insight from someone detached to some extent from being one of those alternative comics otherwise Comedy Punks could seem self-indulgent. One such interviewee is Lorne Michaels whose obvious admirer was instrumental to HBO’s picking up The Kids in the Hall while Mike Myers commented he “fell into a depressive state” after watching their pilot because he realized they had done everything he had ever wished for.
Additionally, there are comedy excerpts from various celebrities (Pete Davidson Will Forte Samantha Bee Catherine O’Hara among others) throughout the new series; when combined together with the testimonials seen within this documentary – it would be hard not to see what an inspiration and hilarious bunch The Kids in the Hall were hence why they should bring them back.
Fred Armisen, Jay Baruchel, Lewis Black, Reggie Watts and many others come to express their admiration too. However, the most important contributions come from great gay pioneers of all times and contemporary LGBTIQ creatives. The unforgettable Eddie Izzard, Mae Martin (Feel Good), Jennifer Whalen (Baroness Von Sketch Show), Eric McCormack (Will and Grace) and Julie Klausner (Difficult People) explain the impact this Canadian comedy program has had on their careers as well as personal lives.
“Oh yeah! We used homosexuality to bash squares” Thompson exclaims in the documentary – it was a completely different era for The Kids in the Hall back then. Apart from the popular media that lacked representation of gays in the 1990s with its scarce development till now, if at all there were queer characters on TV they were typically portrayed as a mean joke or an offensive stereotype. These were proudly queer characters standing up for themselves; they included controversial monologues from Thompson’s gay Buddy Cole character; fearless provocation against homophobia; men in drag being unashamedly sexual.
However, today things have taken another direction within media landscape hence some dialogues and characterizations featured by ‘Kids in the Hall’ during late 80’s and early 90’s won’t be aired again. Although they would proudly ‘reclaim’ certain derogatory language employed towards LGBTQ+ persons, seeing such an uncompromising manner of speaking seems shocking in present society.
This was serious subversion but even more seriously funny. The Kids in the Hall had a real talent for taking minor ideas – an old Cabbage Patch Kid gone sour; a middle-aged “chicken lady”; a rock-bottom alcoholic who drank only sweet childlike drinks- and pushing them to slightly uncomfortable but often brilliant levels of absurdity, finding new shades of character or humor buried within them. This Comedy Punks documentary is an invaluable glimpse into the way of writing, with its focus on the troupe’s collaboratively creative process and a few notes which outline their huge place in comedy history.
Besides, the documentary explores some of these men’s personal stories as well. It also shows how they overcame their individual traumas through making fun out of it. For instance, they were brought up by alcoholic and abusive fathers; faced cancer; suicide; school shootings; divorce; drugs and alcoholism or depression for The Kids in the Hall that influenced their members who built comedy from this pain.
These five guys were misfits in many ways, “an odd group of [expletive],” as Lewis Black says and their punk rock, outsider humor was comforting not just to each other but to legions of fans too. At early stages when World Wide Web was being formed there were nonconformists like them who would go for performances then connect via online communities after them showing off being either bullied kids or alternative weirdos and nerds.
No wonder then, that the excitement over this reunion has exceeded the average anniversary get-togethers of so many other shows, movies or groups. And after break-ups, bitter feuds, lawsuits, failures and a long process of forgiveness (all expertly documented by Comedy Punks documentary), it is clear to the five men that they have the alchemical chops together to create gold with a one-in-a-million artistic and personal partnership. That was four decades ago since their first hangout before forming as one on stage but still there is chemistry.
The new series of Kids in the Hall sketches is surprisingly committed to a kind of continuity which connects it to the finale of the original sketch show alongside brain candy – their much-maligned film. This clever connection to the past (without succumbing to nostalgic television) opens up for an instantaneously uncompromising and bold new Kids in the Hall run. Before long actually just into a first real sketch soon after opening, two fully naked men (Foley and McDonald) are bouncing up and down with guns pointed at them; yeah these 60 year-olds are sill big kids through and through.
Arguably funniest among all five early episodes reviewed by critics, thus two are arguably funniest ones though hits-misses ratio remains grossly disproportionate for majority of other episodes in the series generally speaking about sketch comedy TV-shows like this. Comedy is subjective but there’s something here for everyone while reaffirming that paradoxical place where The Kids in the Hall live as i said above. The social political commentaries here are clever; weird meta-humor; extremely dumb fun; silly gags; melancholic artistic character work even intellectual self-aware toilet humor.
The final sketch of episode two gave me a headache in such wonderful ways; although this is only one critic’s opinion it may be described simply as six minutes of some of television’s funniest stuff ever aired.Thus most sketches are done delightfully and goofy, which includes the grin; chuckle; breathless, gasping laughter range; a few purposely aren’t funny being part of the Kids in the Hall’s never-ending flirtation with anti-humor and preference for more character work than cheap jokes. Some sketches were overproduced but overall everything looked so fresh and crisp to me, as if a modern update of that clearly aged original show.
This new series might be perfect for those younger people who have never watched The Kids in the Hall before. There will be some callbacks and meta-humor that go unnoticed by some though these are unrecognized, but just look at new show it looks good, feels new and is definitely more modern than visually grainy laugh-track-addled TV serial as classic & significant as original was. It is also really funny and many parts of it make this one of the funniest shows on TV now. This together with an excellent new documentary is a great testament to what this Canadian troupe always represented while still moving forward for another generation.
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