Tuesday, January 19, 2010

The Hall Never Had So Many Kids

The Halls Never Had So Many Kids

My first exposure to The Kids in the Hall was when I was 12 and first pushing the limits on how late I could possibly stay up and watching crazy TV. The stuff that they would only show on over the air antenna at that late hour was infomercials and programs unfit for any other time. The namesake of this blog was taken after the late night strange show called Weird TV, but the other show I would watch late night was Kids In The Hall.

It would air on Friday nights at about 1:30 and I do believe that it warranted that time show. I mean, it had David Foley in a skirt most of the time. That in itself troubled the young 13 year old me and yet it was Scott Thompson I should have been worried about. That's one sassy guy.

Even though I was pretty young I found the material attainable. I mean, yeah. I hadn't seen The Seventh Seal just yet, but Bill and Ted and Anamiacs both did parodies of the look and Avant-garde feel to it. I mean, how could you not like a show with sketches like this shaping your young mind?



Indeed, God is dead... and he was a small small man. The theme song by Shadowy men on a shadowy planet. It's right up there in terms of instrumental goodness right next to the theme to Twin Peaks (Clearly you can see my mind is completely twisted from my interests)

And even though what I was watching was season 3 and on towards the end of the comedy troupe's TV run in 1995, I did later catch up on all the unaltered original seasons later as I grew up. It's amazing what the CBC will show. I mean, just think that it's sort of like the BBC and PBS in that it's sponsored not by commercial air time, but with your money.

And while I'm not a huge fan of Canada, I have to thank you for this show. Why's that? Well, the CBC is all thanks to you folks. Don't understand? Well here to explain it is this Kids In The Hall skit that I love very very much;


And that is one of the reasons this show was so great.

They had a reunion tour a couple of years back, but I sadly missed that. And if you're like me and you have a case of withdraw of Kids In The Hall, then you're in luck. the Kids In The Hall is coming. In the form of a six episode miniseries called Death Comes To Town. All five of the original Kids are playing all the characters in a murder mystery. The mayor of Shuckton, Ontario is killed after the town finds out that they've lost the bid for the 2028 Olympic games. Everyone in town is a suspect.



What can you expect? Comedy, Vuglarity, Men dressed as women, Mark McKinney's crotch, Fire pee. You know, the usual when it comes to KitH. The offical site for the show is Kids In The Hall: Death Comes to Town and you can catch episodes online from CBC on this site. Though, if you're like me and one of the many lucky ones on the planet Earth NOT located in Canada, you'll need to use a proxy ip to get the video to work. Or you can wait for it to show up in the States.

So how was it? I saw the first episode and I have to say I really liked it. It didn't feel like a reunion show at all. It just picked right up where we left off. Really enjoyable stuff. My favorite bits were the start with the mayor's ad for the Olympics, the conversation between the 1/16th native stealing manhole covers and the cops "I just found em on the street!". Everything Dave Foley did was the mayor's wife was great. Favorite line of the episode "Of course we didn't get the Olympics, look at your body!"

Here's another little clip on why this show was so great;

See that, it's brilliant. As I've never been to Canada and as an American I should mock it in every possible way every day, every hour, I'm still laughing at the levels that they emulated the sendup of their rural accents.

For the mini series, It is noteworthy to say that Scott Thompson was really sick when they made this. He was in between chemo and radiation therapy during filming. Though you sure can't tell. Not to mention that McKinney's death costume is probably the best costume on television... Okay, it's just really disturbing, but in a Kids In The Hall sort of acceptable way.



I suppose I was really looking forward to watching this even though I was afraid that hearing Kevin McDonald was going to make me nostalgic for Invader Zim (SOMEBODY'S MAKING DONUTS!!!) and have me curse Nick for canceling that awesome cartoon. Then Dave Foley was part of five seasons of entertaining News Radio. Which has it's own tragedy in the death of Phil Hartman.

Anyway, I ranted on too much already. Here's some more Kids in the Hall clips. Enjoy



Sorry to cause all that cancer...


Car fuckers!


You picked the wrong Jam winner..


So with that, I'm just going to say that you should track down this new The Kids In The Hall mini-series and looking for some of their older seasons.

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