The Kids in the Hall

The Kids in the Hall is a Canadian sketch comedy troupe formed in 1984, consisting of comedians Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson. Their eponymous television show ran from 1989 to 1995, on CBC, in Canada. It also appeared on CBS, HBO and Comedy Central, in the United States. The Kids made one film, Brain Candy, which was released in 1996. They reformed for various tours and comedy festivals in 2000. They later reunited for an eight-part miniseries, Death Comes to Town, in January 2010. An eight-episode revival season was released on May 13, 2022 on Amazon Prime Video. Their name came from 1950s TV comedian Sid Caesar, who would attribute a joke that did not go over well (or played worse than expected) to "the kids in the hall", referring to a group of young writers hanging around the studio. Early history Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney were working together doing Theatresports in Calgary, performing in a group named "The Audience". Norm Hiscock, Garry Campbell and Frank Van Keeken were co-members, and later became writers on the show. At the same time, Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald were performing around Toronto (along with Luciano Casimiri) as The Kids in the Hall (KitH). In 1984, the two pairs met in Toronto, and began performing regularly as KitH, with a rotating band of members, including Paul Bellini for a short time. When McKinney met Scott Thompson, he invited him to join in January 1985 and the group had found its final form. The same year, McCulloch and Foley appeared in the Anne of Green Gables series, as Diana Barry's husband (McCulloch) and a former classmate of Anne's from the fictional Queen's College (Foley). Not long afterwards, the Kids broke up for a short time when scouts for Saturday Night Live invited McKinney and McCulloch to New York to become writers for that show, and Foley made a poorly received movie debut with High Stakes, while Thompson and McDonald worked with the Second City touring group. They were reunited in 1986. After SNL's Lorne Michaels saw them perform as a troupe, plans began for a TV show. In 1987, Michaels sent them to New York to what was essentially a "Comedy Boot Camp". In 1988, their pilot special aired on CBC Television and in the United States on HBO, before debuting as a series in 1989.