THE PLOT THUS FAR
Thirty Helens agree: for five groundbreaking seasons, the legendary comic prodigies THE KIDS IN THE HALL stretched sketch comedy to its ultimate limits with hilariously off-the-wall results. THE KIDS IN THE HALL THE COMPLETE SERIES includes nearly 800 sketches from every single episode of all 5 seasons, plus the original pilot episode and 2 new discs featuring the complete DEATH COMES TO TOWN – the Kids’ new 8-episode comedy series. The beautifully redesigned set includes all 22 discs in 50% less packaging!
WHAT WE THOUGHT
“Kids in the Hall” can best be described as a twisted, bizarre sketch comedy that really stretched the limits of good taste and simple logic. Most of the sketches were weird commentaries on everyday moments in peoples’ lives, such as sex, work in the office, and marital problems. Others involved extremely weird characters, such as a half-human, half-chicken character hopelessly looking for love; a flying pig; and a guy with an Eastern European accent whose main hobby involved squeezing his thumb and forefinger in front of people’s faces in attempt to “crush their heads.”
Their show has matured with age. The show avoids a lot of current events jokes so you won’t need a history degree to laugh. You might want a few ideas about life in Canada. You will learn about the gay scene, the love of the Toronto Maple Leafs and how much they loved the Blue Jays winning the World Series. There’s moments with Kevin’s Drunk Dad and people learning about the cure for cancer. Lives were changed, people!These are the men who didn’t take the low and easy road of spoofing celebrities, shows, and tirelessly milking predictable political humor like another sketch comedy show. Sir Simon and Hecubus, Buddy Cole, The Headcrusher, Mr. Lourdepied, Cops, the AIDS fairy… the list goes on and on as I would willingly rattle off all the quirky and sometimes bizarrely appealing characters that dominate each show. But you can’t describe the humor of Kids in the Hall, you have to watch and be amazed by yourself. Don’t expect the shtick and formulated humor of modern SNL, or the use of overbearing “signature” characters.
You will laugh the whole way through starting from the way they look, the way they talk and the topics they raise. It’s hysterical. Represents not only transexuality, gays, women, couples, relationships and friendship but also deeper emotions and conflicts like being lonely, desperate, being the odd one, higher authorities, bosses and prison, dancers and shows, ego-related issues, socializing, ‘being normal’, belonging and mingling with others and ‘being shameless, inhibited and open about oneself’. Imagine all this shown in the mid 80′s and in the funniest way ever! Painful subjects acted by an absolutely talented crew.
The new reunion mini-series “Death Comes to Town” opens on Death (Mark McKinney) disembarking from a bus in small town Shuckton, we know we’re in for an unconventional miniseries. The show, while always amusing, builds its premise over the episodes and its humor succeeds more and more as the characters are developed. When the mayor of Shuckton is killed, an innocent man is railroaded and the real culprit remains a mystery. Amidst all the turmoil and local politics, we’ve got Death lurking around with a secret agenda of his own. Playing multiple characters, as is their trademark, the Kids acquit themselves nicely. Hell, it’s a murder mystery, so they end up trying to drive a cohesive story arc for eight half-hour episodes. They don’t completely succeed. Stocked to the brim with a baffling array of new and classic Kids characters, Death Comes to Town feels like a Canadian take on “The League of Gentlemen” or “Little Britain”
