text by murray whyte. video by bruce charlap and david singh
photography by zoe chan and andrew eason
music by fibrecorp
INTRO TEXT:
ΓÇ£Find beauty in the banal, for it is everywhere,ΓÇ¥ sighs comedian Mark McKinney, deep in the bowels of Saturday Night LiveΓÇÖs soundstage in midtown New York. For the past six years, McKinney has camped out in the heartland of left-field television, and exposure to the weird underside of the Entertainment Biz has obviously taken itΓÇÖs toll. Close up, heΓÇÖs civil, well spoken and accommodating enough, but the aftershock of a fast-lane career track through two of North AmericaΓÇÖs most revered comedy institutionsΓÇöSNL and CanadaΓÇÖs Kids in the HallΓÇöhas obviously infected his psyche like some kind of weird radiation.
Fans were devastated when Kids in the Hall pulled the plug on their longstanding TV series, produced by Saturday Night Live kingpin Lorne Michaels. After five years on HBO and CanadaΓÇÖs CBC, McKinney and fellow Kids Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald and Scott Thompson decided to pack it in and pursue other projectsΓÇöMcKinney made the logical leap to Saturday Night Live, while Foley won a starring role in NBC's News Radio. Thompson became a regular on HBO's The Larry Sanders Show, leaving McCulloch and McDonald to obsessively hammer out film projects in their Toronto hometown.
But the sleepless nights, the flashbacks, the uncontrollable urges to break out an evening dress or shape-change back into a character from the cult series have dogged the Kids the moment they decided to call it a day. To this end, they found they had no choice but to reunite and shoot a feature film. In Hollywood, this is called catharsis. The film in question is Brain Candy, due out this April, and revolves around the testing of an ecstasylike drug designed to sugarcoat the world with New-Age goodwill. The Kids reprise a number of characters from their series, and manage to transform their individual, manic energy to the big screen with surprisingly few casualties.
Forget the Beatles, kids; this is the reunion of the decade.
Over the course of the two months it took us to put this story together, we had the occasion to stand in a hallway with each individual Kid, and talk to them about comedy.
The most striking thing about McKinney, McCulloch, Foley, Thompson and McDonald is how completely normal they seem in the cold, hard light of day. And yet you can tell that the chemistry is there, crackling away under the surface, like some five-part liquid explosive you have to mix together in a bucket in order to take your vengeance out on the world.
WeΓÇÖre talking potent humor here. Brain Candy is armed and awaiting detonation. You have been warned.
INTRO ENDS
HYPERLINKS:
SCOTT THOMPSON
For an outsider who begged his way onto the Kids stage in the mid eighties, Scott Thompson has done pretty well for himself. Resplendent in a silver-sequined minidress, he initially appeared as the troupe's silent spokesmodel and would have turned any Price Is Right girl green with envy. But you can't keep Thompson quiet for long. As the flamboyant personal assistant to Hank Kingsley, the balding, self-absorbed sidekick on HBOΓÇÖs Larry Sanders Show, Thompson has the right amount of flair and restraint to steal any scene heΓÇÖs featured in. ΓÇ£I'm a performing monkey,ΓÇ¥ he says with a laugh. Crank up the organ and watch him go.
When heΓÇÖs not jetting to Los Angeles and back for the Sanders tapings, Thompson can be found obsessing over his computer in Toronto, where he recently put the finishing touches on his website and virtual nation, Scottland.
Thompson cares very deeply about Scottland. So much so that he even supervised a General Election for his site, and persuaded Buddy Cole, his sharp-witted gay barfly character from Kids in the Hall to run for office. Landslide victory. Immigration applications are welcome.
One of the first openly gay comedians on the North American circuit, Thompson is gutsy enough to tackle serious issues head on. In the Kids Surf Cops sketch, he drew heavy flak from conservative executives at CBS by portraying Tony Baldwin, a gay Hollywood actor who dies of AIDS. CBS cut the sketch on the grounds that AIDS humor was in bad tasteΓÇöa shame, as America never saw ThompsonΓÇÖs macho, swaggering Baldwin attempt to keep the closet door locked tight, even after cancerΓÇöit was cancer!ΓÇöclaims him.
ΓÇ£I'm a comedian before I'm an activist,ΓÇ¥ says Thompson. ΓÇ£It just took me a long time to realize that.ΓÇ¥
KEVIN MCDONALD
ΓÇ£If we were the Beatles of comedy,ΓÇ¥ says Kevin McDonald, ΓÇ£I guess I'd be Stu Sutcliffe.ΓÇ¥
ΓÇ£Sutcliffe's the dead guy, Kevin,ΓÇ¥ the publicist mutters nervously.
ΓÇ£I know.ΓÇ¥ McDonald says wistfully, coke-bottle glasses slipping down his nose. ΓÇ£Isn't that sad?ΓÇ¥
Kevin McDonald is drunk. HeΓÇÖs breezed into Toronto's Rivoli Theater with a belly full of homemade wine and looks like he'd rather blend into the shadows than actually talk to anyone. If you didn't know who he was, you'd be forgiven for mistaking him for a stagehand. But don't let his ΓÇ£dead guyΓÇ¥ schtick fool you for a second. Sure, he may be the least productive Kid in terms of his solo career, but remember, this is the guy who took a shot at CBS executives in his Tarzan sketch, lampooning them for their ultraconservative editing of the Kids in the Hall series. Depressive introverts don't go head-to-head with big TV networks as a rule, but McDonald is no ordinary introvert. And heΓÇÖs quick to let you know.
So don't worry about Kevin McDonald. He's really just fine, thanks for asking. And with a big budget Hollywood comedyΓÇöNational LampoonΓÇÖs Senior TripΓÇöunder his belt as well as a film adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim in the works, he has enough on his plate to keep his mind off his own insecurities. And if that doesn't work, well, that's what therapists are for, aren't they?
BRUCE MCCULLOCH
"I'm not much of a comedy fan," says Bruce McCulloch for the hundredth time in as many interviews, and you can tell by his flat intonation and intense stare that he means every word. Left to his own devices since the Kids demise, the shy, moody McCulloch veered away from the world of TV sitcoms, choosing to explore the dark underbelly of the recording industry instead. His debut album, Shame-based Man, is a collection of jangly tunes set against verse so bizarrely depraved itΓÇÖs like listening to a stalker trade small talk with his preyΓÇöyou're not sure whether to laugh or run screaming from the room.
Even if McCullochΓÇÖs work wasn't so brilliantly surreal (which it always is), his productivity alone would still be remarkable. Between writing and acting in stage plays, producing short films for Saturday Night Live and recording his album, it's amazing he found time to appear in Brain Candy at all. But McCulloch is a work pig. Always has been. Reams of paper are scattered throughout his Toronto office, a brightly lit, corporate affair with beige walls and teal carpet, and a tastefully framed ΓÇ£Dogs Playing PoolΓÇ£ picture dominates the wall of his office. ΓÇ£That's my next project,ΓÇ¥ he says casually, gesturing towards it. No further explanation is offered. Brrrrrrrrrr.
In the flesh, you can still see traces of the impetuous cartoon characters McCulloch has embodied over the years. Listen to him talk for a while and you suddenly sense that Gavin, the wildly obtuse kid who eats only onions, is in the room with you. Likewise, the ghost of the aggressively chauvinistic Cabbagehead, the living embodiment of masculine sleaze, can be conjured up at will.
ΓÇ£I don't think my work has changed that much over the years,ΓÇ¥ he says. Nonetheless, his perverse humor is evident in the Kids in the Hall movie, provoking battles with the Paramount Studio heads over provocative characters like Cancer Boy. ΓÇ£We werenΓÇÖt allowed to go with our original title,The Drug, either,ΓÇ¥ he says grimly, ΓÇ£because it might have been, you know, about a drug.ΓÇ¥
MARK MCKINNEY
Despite pitching his tent in the Mecca of American comedy, Mark McKinney isnΓÇÖt smiling. ΓÇ£I hope my sketch doesn't bomb,ΓÇ¥ he confides nervously from his Saturday Night Live office like heΓÇÖs some rookie stand-up wannabe from Upstate New York or something.
Fact is, McKinney and the rest of the Kids owe Lorne Michaels a great debt of loyalty. It was Michaels who rescued the Kids from improv-club obscurity back in the mid eighties, and it was Michaels who set the Kids up with their first series on the ever-liberal Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. And now that SNL is under fire, it seems appropriate enough to find McKinney in Manhattan, repaying the debt.
After all, this is the man who created the infamous head crusher Mr.Tizdic, as well as the heavily oversexed Chicken Lady—a character he reprises on the “new” SNL. But you can still sense the pressure as McKinney guides you through a subterranean maze of stages to his dressing room, deep in in the heart of Rockefeller Center. His hair is cut private-schoolboy­style, and he breezes through the interview with the eloquence of a politico on the campaign trail. He even works his head crusher routine for our camera, and for a moment, the weird spontaneity that made Kids in the Hall truly great is on display.
Brain Candy was just the tonic McKinney was looking for, and he jumped at the chance to work with his colleagues the moment the project was green-lighted. The film is the Kids' first shot at sustaining a prolonged narrative throughout their work, and presented new challenges for the troupe, who feared their freshness was waning. The height of enthusiasm from the reserved McKinney? ΓÇ£I think there's a little bit of life left in the Kids in the Hall,ΓÇ¥ he says in his typically well-measured tone. ΓÇ£Spiritually, it'll never die.ΓÇ¥
DAVE FOLEY
With the success of two seasons of NBC's News Radio behind him, Dave Foley has gone native in Hollywood. Contacting him by phone requires a regulation filtration process through a smooth team of agents and publicists, who enthusiastically promise to ΓÇ£call you right back,ΓÇ¥ but never do. Foley is kept closely guarded, walled in by the rigors of the publicity game, and for a low-key guy from Canada who dropped out of high school to do stand-up comedy, it must be one hell of a trip.
Foley has always come across like the boy next door. With his Ivy League good looks and straight-arrow style, he seems right at home on NBC prime time as the painfully standard sitcom straight-man, bright-eyed junior executive Dave Nelson. Foley describes Nelson as ΓÇ£a thinly disguised version of myselfΓÇöan inept but well-meaning, vaguely professional man.ΓÇ¥
Foley offset his clean-cut image with a healthy dose of the completely abnormal in the Kids in the Hall shows on the other hand, and whenever the troupe indulged in their photorealistic drag sessions, Foley was hands down the most beautiful woman in the lineup.
Reunited with the rest of the Kids on Brain Candy, Foley is clearly enjoying himself. ΓÇ£The aspect ratio is different,ΓÇ¥ he says, comparing television to film. ΓÇ£It's a wider screen, so you use longer sentences.ΓÇ¥
ΓÇ£And on a related subject, the key to playing multiple characters is wigs, because a good wig takes the place over good acting any day.ΓÇ¥
