"The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks" - Skip or Stream?

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May 11

Amazon Prime is reviving the famed Canadian comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. The revival features two components: a documentary and a new series. The Kids in the Hall consists of Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson. They began as two separate improv groups in the 1980s that found their way together. There was something magical about the way they came together and created a space for themselves on Queen St. in Toronto.

The Kids in the Hall were not overnight sensations in the slightest. They would play late-night shows at the Rivoli theatre in Toronto. Sometimes there would only be seven people in the audience, but they loved being there and making people laugh. Eventually, though, they become something of a hit. So much so that these five young guys from Toronto caught the attention of Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live.

The day the scouting crew for SNL came to Toronto, they called up The Kids in the Hall and asked for tickets to their show that night. Bruce had answered SNK’s call for tickets and basically told them that they could try to scalp tickets because it was sold out. Despite this misstep, SNL asked Bruce and Mark to come to New York to become writers. It should have been a dream come true, but Bruce and Mark never fit into the world of SNL. After one season, Bruce and Mark went back to Toronto and the Kids in the Hall were reunited.

The documentary takes the audience through the birth of Kids in the Hall to their HBO series. More than anything, it’s refreshing to see the ways their friendship has changed and stayed the same through the years. Their style of comedy wasn’t coming from a place of rudeness or ripped from the presses news. It was these guys processing their own lives in the hopes that their jokes make other people feel better about themselves. They were making jokes about queer people and women without those groups being the butt of the joke.