Movie Review: The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
For a generation of comedy nerds, The Kids in the Hall are spoken of in the reverent tones usually reserved for the original cast of Saturday Night Live, Mr. Show’s Bob and David, or Key and Peele. The Canadian comedy troupe, who headlined one of the most influential and groundbreaking sketch shows of all time, are back for a revival of their eponymous series on Amazon Prime beginning May 13, 2022. On May 20th, Amazon will also drop the documentary, The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks.
Directed by Reg Harkema (Super Duper Alice Cooper), the doc screened at the SXSW festival last month in a 95-minute cut, but Amazon has since broken it up into two parts. While that’s unnecessary, it does provide a clean arc for each installment: part one chronicles the formation of the group in Toronto’s punk scene through the first season of their CBC/HBO show, and part two follows that show’s cancellation, resurrection, and the group’s legacy.
The documentary’s main draw is the gathering of all five cast members at Rivoli, the Toronto club where they originally honed their act. It’s not exactly a long-awaited reunion — the quintet has performed many live shows together over the last few years and put out of a miniseries on Canadian TV in 2010 — but it’s still fun to see them together in their original digs, reminiscing about their roots.
Those who followed The Kids in the Hall likely won’t be surprised by too much of the information here. Four of the members — Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Kevin McDonald — met in Toronto improv groups and decided they had more fun riffing together. Scott Thompson completed the ensemble and they began workshopping shows at Rivoli, eventually gaining a cult following before being discovered by SNL scouts, who offered McKinnon and McCullough jobs. Shortly after, they realized the group was better together, and Lorne Michaels flew them to New York and produced their television show, which ran for five seasons and was followed by a movie, a breakup, several reunion tours, a miniseries, and now a streaming revival.
While the stories might not be new, the boys’ banter is a lot of fun, as are the glimpses of them goofing off in their early days. There’s still a lot of affection among the five, as well as an openness to discussing the failure of The Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996), the rift that occurred when Foley left the group to headline Newsradio, and the various ego clashes and creative disputes that occurred over the last season of the show. Thompson also candidly discusses his cancer struggle, which occurred during the filming of Death Comes to Town (he’s cancer-free today).
The documentary goes to great lengths to show that The Kids in the Hall were informed by a punk rock sensibility, where formula and rules were often ignored and no sacred cows were allowed. The show, in particular, was famous for its surreal sketches and characters, and nothing was off limits so long as it was funny. The men notably performed as women in several sketches, and gained acclaim for how thoughtful and well-rounded those characters were, rather than shrill parodies and stereotypical caricatures. The Kids in the Hall also included detailed, creative video sketches informed by the cast’s love for cinema, and they grew more ambitious as the seasons went on.
With Thompson, The Kids in the Hall was one of the first TV comedies to have an openly gay performer and to regularly celebrate queer culture in its sketches. The show didn’t tiptoe around these themes; Thompson’s character Buddy Cole was flamboyant and in your face, and Thompson is delighted when he talks about using the show’s queer sensibilities to take the starch out of the squares. For many young people, Thompson was the first openly gay performer on their TV, and the show went a long way toward advancing openness toward the LGBT community in pop culture, and the doc takes its time to highlight the show’s importance in this area.
The documentary will work best with Kids in the Hall fans, who will enjoy the boys’ rapport and the look back at this staple of Gen X culture. Newcomers might wonder what all the fuss was about, as the documentary doesn’t stop to let clips of the show play out in length; most run too briefly to really get a taste of the show’s comedic sensibilities. While there are famous faces brought in to talk about the group’s impact, the movie gives the most time to Lorne Michaels and Mike Myers. It’s understandable why Michaels, who produced their show, and Myers, a fellow Canadian comedy celebrity, are featured, but those who aren’t familiar with the group may be baffled by all the old faces without too much context.
But for those who enjoyed all the head-crushing and chicken ladies back in the day, The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks is an enjoyable, if disposable, look back.
