The Kids In The Hall Are Coming Back To Save Us All

In these times of plague and economic crisis, the world cries out for some good news. It arrived last week when Amazon announced it would be paying eight new episodes of The Kids In The Hall, produced by Lorne Michaels, to air at some point in the indeterminate future. I’ve seen various Kids In The Hall perform standup at the Moontower Comedy Festival in Austin in recent years. They’re certainly not kids anymore, but neither am I. And I think that their unique brand of slightly subversive off-kilter Canadian comedy will still play in these less-funny-than-usual times. The new episodes may vanish down the content hole like the unsuccessful revivals of Arrested Development and Mr. Show. But they also might give Gen-X one last spasm of laughter before our millennial overlords cart us off to the humor re-education camps.

Here are some of my personal favorite Kids In The Hall sketches to help get you through the end times until reinforcements arrive.

A Date With The Chicken Lady

No Kids In The Hall roundup would be complete without a Chicken Lady sketch. In this legendary moment of North American comedy, Dave Foley encounters the worst personal-ad match of all time.

Head Crusher

Mark McKinney’s Head Crusher takes revenge on society’s evils when we cannot. The Head Crusher had his ups and downs through the years, but we’ll always remember him vanquishing Wall Street.

Bobby Vs. The Devil

You could always count on Bruce McCullough to deliver the best musical sketches. Here, he plays a teenage metalhead doing a Crossroads-style electric-guitar battle in his basement with a slightly overweight Satan.

Buddy Cole

Kids In The Hall was five white guys being funny, but they did break new comedy ground by prominently featuring a gay cast member who did avant-garde gay comedy. Scott Thompson’s Buddy Cole, an unapologetically bitchy lounge singer, blasted the way for comedy pride. In this great monologue, he compares being gay to being Canadian, with hilarious results.

Citizen Kane

Years before The Upright Citizens Brigade hilarious “Star Wars” sketch, KOH made fun of dumb movie fans with this great diner fight between Dave Foley and Kevin McCullough, where Dave has obviously seen Citizen Kane but cannot listen to reason. It does not end well.

 

Dr. Seuss Bible

 

“His name will be Christ/and he’ll never wear shoes/His pals will all call him/The King Of The Jews.”

The Daves I Know

 

The single greatest Kids In The Hall sketch of all time is this sweet, innocent McCullough song about all the people he knows named Dave. Bonus points for high-waisted jeans, and for David Foley’s appearance in the Dave ensemble chorus. They all have their own hands, and they come from different moms.

Welcome back, Kids In The Hall!