TV Roundup: Kids In The Hall, #21
This begins my countdown of my favorite TV shows of all time. I said this would be a list of the Top 20, and then, I decided I couldn't leave one show off the list.
That's a pretty good example of the futility of this exercise, but hey, what are you going to do?
Beginning our countdown is a sketch comedy show that many folks I know still haven't seen, even though they've seen many of the actors in other roles and seen other shows essentially rip off. (Or, pay homage to, one could say.)
Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you five crazy kids from our neighbors to the north: KIDS IN THE HALL.
The Kids In The Hall: Not usually in SaranWrap.A comedy troupe composed of guys like David Foley, Mark McKinney, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCullough and Scott Thompson was pretty groundbreaking for me back in college.My brother and some of our friends had the episodes on a few VHS tapes, and we would watch them over and over again.
(There is no documentation on whether we were entirely sober during these periods.)
I can't have an onion?At the time, if folks knew of these guys, it was that in many of their sketches, one of them was dressed up as a woman. In retrospect, that doesn't happen a whole lot, but I guess it was notable. Other sketches that got some notoriety were the "I'll Crush Your Head!," Scott Thompson's Buddy Cole character, The Chicken Lady and Gavin. (Gavin was the name of a little kid that Bruce Thompson played, shown on the left, who according to Wikipedia was "...a precocious boy whose chief personality trait is his tendency to ramble on incessantly about bizarre events that may or may not have actually occurred."
Being honest, this show was produced in the mid-to-late 1980s, and can show its age. It also ramped back up after several years off the air, and has since had a few reunion tours that I've heard mixed things about. (It also produced Brain Candy, which I've heard nothing but bad things about.)
30 Helens Agree: Kids In The Hall is #21.I'd guess that collectively, given the amount of times I re-watched episodes, that I've laughed more at this show than any other sketch comedy show, including Mr. Show and even Saturday Night Live. (Yes, I just said that. I've watched some of these episodes 20, 25 times and laughed at each viewing. There's not a single episode of SNL that I've seen more than three times. It's just simple math, people.
Dave Foley went on to NewsRadio, and other of the main actors have had some success in acting roles elsewhere (and more, I believe, in writing), but it remains sort of shocking that this never made the bigtime. In todays world, where DVD rentals, thousands of cable channels and the internet, there's no way more people wouldn't have discovered and loved Kids In The Hall. If you were fortunate enough to find it in its prime, or even shortly thereafter (as I did), I think you'll agree ... this one is one for the ages.
Here's a clip of Gavin and the Evangelists:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At-dM_2kEQI&hl=en_US&fs=1]