What I Remember Most About The Kids In The Hall
NEVER put salt in your eyes, don’t put… don’t… put salt… put salt in your eyes. Always put salt in your eyes! Ahhhhhhh!
Time to sharpen your axe…
I grew up with these guys on my free CBC. With only 3 channels to choose from Kids was the best thing on. Do you remember Cabbage Head and Buddy and business men doing laundry? Drag queens, blackface and crushing heads. An axe murderer, the devil, and a lot of weed. There was a chicken lady, a court room, and some kind of brain candy.
Jean jackets, dread locks, little Gavin and the Daves we know. Are you a Doors fan? Terriers were everyone’s favourite breed of dog. It’s a fact… KITH were the funniest, most progressive comedy troupe Canada ever produced. Even funnier than SCTV, far edgier… and evil! The Canadian zeitgeist personified.
Fun Fact: Dave Foley introduced us to Joe Rogan by casting him on his show News Radio.
Would it work today? We’re about to find out because Amazon Prime and Lorne Michaels are producing eight new episodes with all of the original cast members. In preparation let’s take a little walk down memory lane informed by a fan who grew up in the culture that created it. This is Canadiana 101; what a pleasure to present it to you now all these years later. If anyone can live up to the exaggerated expectations 20 years have inspired… Every memory I visit in the process of writing this makes me laugh, smile, or shake my head fondly as I think about some of the best years of my youth trying to be funny like these guys with my friends.
Frankly, in hindsight, you have to call them brave. The original 1989 show, produced by Lorne Michaels, was designed for a world without internet or cancel culture. We were all still bootlegging with VCRs, north-enders had big hair and the prettiest girls. The most exciting thing we did was hang out in front of convenience stores smoking and looking moody while trying to score beer. Millennials think they’ve cornered the market on lost years. Ha! Metal ruled and street culture was all we had. Parks were our second home. If you haven’t been chased by police dogs can you really say you’ve had the 90s Canadian experience?
Cabbage Head
“Well, hello equals. Is this chair taken? I guess it can’t be. I brought it from home. So ladies I see you got the french fries. I’m sensitive to a modern woman’s needs.”
“I’m sorry I can’t eat them they go straight to my hips.”
“Ya so will I. So listen, ladies, I don’t mean this to sound like a come on line but does anyone here want to have sex?”
“No! I beg your pardon! Are you kidding me?”
“Can you believe that guys used to use lines like that… before woman’s lib.”
“Woman’s lib?”
“Ya… the movement.”
“Look we’re just trying to have a reunion with old friends… ok? So if you could just…”
“Oh… it’s my cabbage head isn’t it? This bothers me. You know a guy has an English accent and you’re all wet. You’re a lake. But as soon as a guy has a little green on his shoulders and you puke. That’s sexual discrimination!”
Buddy Cole
“They say that the notion of love at first site is an impossible idea.
Now I may have been born yesterday but I still went shopping.
It happens. Well, it happened to me. It was years ago when I was living in Baghdad.
On the day in question it was a sexy, sunny, rocky day.
I was lounging about the pool at the consulate wearing next to nothing. In fact at one point all I was wearing was a diplomats hands.”
Head Crusher
“Don’t panic. I mean I’m only crushing your heads! Crush you! The hell you guys talk about anyway… I like to put my money in Mexico… well I like to put it in the Gulf.. well I put my money in my mattress… well I put my money in my wallet.
You’re boring me. I’m crushing your head! I’m crushing your heads! Hey, I just renamed your firm Meryl Lynch and the Flatheads! I crush you!
Hail to you, courier, on streets of shame. Choking on car exhaust. Just trying to carve out that slice of the American dream with your two wheeled knife. I pity you... and I crush you! It’s nothing personal. I’m a-political!”
Chicken Lady
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Max Davis, I answered your ad in the personals. We have a date tonight.”
“Oh, ya. Are you my date?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well I bet your mother gave you a name. What is it?”
“Umm, I said it was Max.”
“Oh, ya. Come on in, Max.”
“No.”
“Do you want to eat dinner out here? I did last night.”
…
“Well… what are you?”
“You’re not too bright are ya? I’m a Chicken Lady!”
Simon, Hecubus and Evil!
“Good evening and welcome to the pit of ultimate darkness. I’m your host Simon Milligan. For those of you without a brave heart get up and go to the television set and turn the station. Go ahead. Exercise your right to be a coward.
Now for those of you with a brave heart and for those of you who have stayed. Look into my face and know that to look into my face is to look into the face… of evil! And now I‘d like to bring on one who could be the spawn of Satan himself! Man-servant Hecubus. Good evening, Hecubus, are you ready?”
“I am ready to serve you, master… aaaaaand Satan!”
We lived in the margins between American movies and stores. None of us were gonna be anybody. Then that all changed. Everybody saw the average Canadian for the first time watching Kids In The Hall. American’s were watching us for once. We were pushing the envelope in both talent and humour defining a new normal.
Expanding the range of what could be done on TV for the entire world as we rebelled against our repressive ministry enforced government standards. Suddenly, we were tackling serious issues with the comedic tools of ridicule and absurdity. Illustrating the potential of extraordinary individuals within a Laurentian world struggling to find a place for them. Kids always had a place for us.
Bonus: Foley Warns Us About Communism
“Let sleeping dogs lie. I say, NO!
And you know what sleeping dogs I’m referring to don’t you?
No? Well let me refresh your memory. Russians! That’s right. Russians. Russkies. Communists. Coooooom Uuuuuun Isssts.
Oh, now you remember. Well you’ll also remember how just a few years ago all we ever talked about was how the Russians were gonna take over the world. And how every household would be run by Communists and their filthy Communism.
Oh, ya we feared the Russians back in them days and for good reason, too. But now all I ever hear is poor little Russia, they’ve got no money. Poor little Russia, they’ve gone broke. Poor little Russia this and poor little Russia that.
Don’t you get it? Am I the only one that gets it? It’s a trick. Communism never dies. Communism’s a cancer. A cancer sleeping. Awaiting the moment to devour our freedom. To devour democracy.
Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this guy’s just some right wing, paranoid, reactionary, what a horrible upbringing and his father beat him every day with a bible… well maybe that’s true, but it never did me any harm!
All I’m saying is a few years ago people used to listen to me. I fit in. Well listen to me now. The Russians are gonna try to take over the world again. Don’t you forget that for one second, friend, or else you’ll find yourself lining up for toilet paper in some godless world.
There’s one more thing I’d like to say. Killer bees! Forgot about them didn’t ya? Well that’s just want they want us to do. That’s right. The Russian Communists, the killer bees, they’re like this. [Crosses fingers] Some people say to me let sleeping dogs lie. I say to them… friend… sleeping dogs… they eventually wake up and chew out the throat of democracy.
Don’t you think I don’t know what your up to Russia. Don’t think I’m unaware of the fact that Kevin McDonald, or should I say Ivan Chofsky, is one of you!”
Thanks for walking along memory lane with me. Remember… whatever happens… DON’T put salt in your eyes! It’ll really hurt. Almost as much as if you miss out on this new chance to be part of the Kids story during a live run. You’re gonna feel terrible about it. It’s gonna really eat you up inside. Like borrowing a video tape from your friend and then forgetting to return it. Tell ya what. Sit down and watch a bunch of old clips. Start with the ones I’ve highlighted here. Then if someone asks if you’re gonna watch the new series… just say as apathetically as you can… “will do”.
