i assume that's mark mckinney as mississippi gary (the blues singer). they do another version of that sketch later where he breaks character and talks about how it doesn't make any sense for him to be playing that character (and he longer appears to be in blackface). but i'm not saying it absolves them for including the character (or doing blackface obviously)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_2ao-QAb5E
― na (NA), Monday, 16 May 2022 20:52 (two years ago) link
just to complete my thought, i guess it's interesting bc the later sketch is basically mark mckinney indicating that he knows he probably shouldn't be doing the character, and he tries to brush it off with self-deprecation and suggesting it comes from a place of love, but then he just goes back to doing it anyways. that probably just makes it worse in a way.
― na (NA), Monday, 16 May 2022 21:15 (two years ago) link
It very quickly became obvious that the blackface was completely tangential to the core of the joke and the follow up does show that they were thinking very subversively about it, so I actually think it does absolve them!
― castanuts (DJP), Monday, 16 May 2022 21:16 (two years ago) link
isn't there another sketch later on in the series with Scott Thompson in blackface as a guy meeting his white girlfriend's disapproving parents for the first time, and the gag at the end is that the parents don't want their daughter dating a guy who wears blackface i.e. it's diegetic blackface
― soref, Monday, 16 May 2022 21:25 (two years ago) link
Thompson also plays a south asian character in the sketches with Raj and Christine where the blacking/browning up is seems almost entirely superfluous, you could filmed those sketches with him playing a white guy and it wouldn't really change it that much afiact, which makes you wonder why they bothered making him south asian in the first place? I guess maybe there's something implied about the backgrounds of the two characters and that being reflected in how Christine dominates and bullies Raj without really thinking about it - she's from a rich and privileged and family and is part of the counter-culture by choice whereas he is gay and from an immigrant, possibly conservative family, and is part of the counter-culture through necessity? I don't know if they ever reveal much about Raj's background, maybe he's from a fancy background as well for all I know.
― soref, Monday, 16 May 2022 21:38 (two years ago) link
xp there's one where scott in in brown(at least)face and brought home by his gf (dave), who warns him that her parents are awful racists
but the parents turn out to be super lovely, thwarting the gf's desire to transgress
but maybe there's another one later that goes a level deeper?
― mookieproof, Monday, 16 May 2022 22:54 (two years ago) link
been re-watching the first season
i was always a dave guy but upon reflection i might be turning into a bruce guy
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 01:07 (two years ago) link
Funny, I’ve always rated them Mark, Dave/Scott, Kevin/Bruce. But I’m thinking I might have Marge Simpson syndrome (whereby I loved Homer as a teenager and now love Marge above everyone else) and might come around to Bruce
I’m not watching the new season til I finish my rewatch of the originals
― a legible shriek (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 01:43 (two years ago) link
Idk Bruce is so one-note to me (and tbh it’s a great note). Mark is amazing. The sketch where she’s flunking the dance prodigy in favour of Kevin and then says “obviously I’m totally kidding!” I just died it was so good
― a legible shriek (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 01:47 (two years ago) link
They’re all good but I admit the cult of Bruce is sort of beyond me
― Eggs Benedick (Eric H.), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 01:48 (two years ago) link
The sketch where she’s flunking the dance prodigy in favour of Kevin and then says “obviously I’m totally kidding!
lol i actually just tried to look up the dance prodigy to see if she'd done more acting! she was solid
with mark, for me, it might mainly be that the headcrusher was worthy of one skit only but it just kept going
scott is beyond rankings tho. rank the others however you want but scott will always be at worst 1a
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 02:25 (two years ago) link
I just had the realization tonight that, despite watching the series on and off and even going to a taping of the show in 1989, they never got beyond "theoretically funny" for me at best; as if they were content to be absurd, daring, squirmy, trenchant etc. without actually connecting that to something that made me laugh then or now. I would assume even the fans would accept that a lot of their material was so dry or conceptual that its humour content was hypothetical?
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 02:55 (two years ago) link
Nonetheless I just read the summary of their 2007 Just for Laughs appearance on Wikipedia, and it made me laugh more than the show ever did!
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 02:58 (two years ago) link
I think what makes a lot of their characters funny for me is that the characters feel like they have an existence outside of the sketch, it's not just that they've had an idea for a sketch and invent a character that acts a certain way dictated by the structure of the sketch, but they make it seem like the character is out there being like this all the time and you're just happening to see a particular five minutes of it.
― soref, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 06:58 (two years ago) link
Enjoyed this long-ish appreciation of it
Must-read long-read on the Kids in the Hall by @evankindley. https://t.co/iWKFhTlfbh— Tyler Wilcox (@tywilc) May 12, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 07:14 (two years ago) link
Opening blurb of that medium post otm.
I would assume even the fans would accept that a lot of their material was so dry or conceptual that its humour content was hypothetical?
Yes and no - there's some material that crosses over into performance art/art film weirdness and as such isn't about belly laughs, but it's a small slice and really their skills in terms of timing, expressions, reactions - old school comedic chops I guess - are so off the charts, they make me laugh as much as any sketch comedy I've ever seen.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 09:49 (two years ago) link
they never got beyond "theoretically funny" for me at best
ffs, smoke some weed
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 12:18 (two years ago) link
some stuff can feel like that – where they have a great idea and it's not really an obvious/easy laugh. not so much a joke that doesn't land – but a joke that isn't intended to land. but then at the same time they have lots of stuff that is just goddamned funny as hell.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 15:15 (two years ago) link
i feel like a lot of those end up hilarious on revisit still
i admit when i was a kid i did not entirely *get* this show but i watched the comedy central reruns religiously lol
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 15:19 (two years ago) link
i was in college when it suddenly clicked
fine ham abounds
god even in that one sketch there's the kind of low-key joke about how many people hanging out at once distinguishes a "get-together" from a "party"
"someone has to leave"
"lyle"
everybody: "lyyyyyle"
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 15:22 (two years ago) link
every line of dialogue has some sort of hilarious content embedded in it
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 15:23 (two years ago) link
any indication if they are doing another new season? the cliffhanger jokes made me think another one might be coming, but then the way they ended it made it seem like they are done with new episodes.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 15:55 (two years ago) link
god i love these guys so much.
One great low-key joke in the new series: Mark’s dumb cop instructing Kevin and Dave to “Put your hands on your own head”.
― DAMAGED by Black Flat (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 16:03 (two years ago) link
yeah that slayed me. exactly the kind of pointless tossed-in joke i come to KITH for.
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 16:20 (two years ago) link
That went right over my (own) head.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 16:28 (two years ago) link
KitH was my favorite show as far back as middle school (comedy central reruns also) because it was goofy and funnier than everything else I'd ever seen, don't really get the "theoretically funny" part because nearly every joke is still executed with maximum goof
― ✖, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 16:34 (two years ago) link
Like I didn't "get" the the God Is Dead sketch but the visual of mark holding god's dead body and saying "and he's really light!" was the funniest thing in the world to me
― ✖, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 16:35 (two years ago) link
For me it's about the small, unique turns of phrases and the line readings. So many are permanently etched in my head, and when they come out now no one knows what I'm talking about. :)
― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 16:42 (two years ago) link
"I'll eat pancakes on your grave" is something i will never stop saying whenever i get the chance, regardless of the odds no one will have any idea what i'm quoting.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 17:41 (two years ago) link
fuck the bank i work for, fuck the baaaaaaaaank
― na (NA), Tuesday, 17 May 2022 18:01 (two years ago) link
really enjoyed the new episodes, including a few that seemed slight but popped back in my head a day later
they have this ability to concoct an utterly absurd premise, roll with it through an entire sketch, only to end it with someone saying something that's obvious or common sense followed by "oh, of course!"
the main thing that differentiates KITH from something like SNL at a basic level is that 90% of SNL has winking at the audience -- hey, we're your featured players doing these characters to get some laughs -- where KITH starts from the premise "we really are two ladies working in an office reminiscing about fax machines" and you can forget that they're acting
― mh, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 18:18 (two years ago) link
Started rewatching from the first season and got to the blackface skit. It was pretty weird because the blackface half of the skit is awkward and cringe but whenever it switches to Kathy the same skit is solid gold. The notion that THIS is the devil woman that the old bluesman is forever cursing is hilarious.
― Cow_Art, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 19:55 (two years ago) link
That first ep is pretty amazing - Kathy, Headcrusher and Eradicator all make an appearence iirc.
mh I def think SNL is trash and KITH gold but I think the thing you highlight is more about format than comedic sensibility; the "live" aspect means the frisson that anything could go wrong at any second is built into SNL and so a higher amount of meta and mugging kinda comes with the territory
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 17 May 2022 20:42 (two years ago) link
I think my point-of-view on Kids in the Hall was shaped by the context of contemporary Canadian TV comedy. At the time there were a lot of (not very hip) Canadian sketch comedies like "Smith and Smith Comedy Mill" and "Royal Canadian Air Farce" from which, I'm sure, the Kids wanted to distance themselves. So it seemed to me that their ethos was "avoid being corny" more than "be funny".
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 18 May 2022 03:03 (two years ago) link
where they have a great idea and it's not really an obvious/easy laugh. not so much a joke that doesn't land – but a joke that isn't intended to land.
...ending up at the infinitely unpopular Point C
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uSSobogtHQ
― andrew m., Wednesday, 18 May 2022 13:55 (two years ago) link
Checked out the new Prime documentary, weirdly split into two episodes. Mostly the fluffy lovefest you'd expect, but they do get pretty real about the bad vibes circa Brain Candy. Mae Martin talks a lot about how much it meant to her as a queer person, incl being attracted to Dave Foley's woman characters (nice to know that's not just a straight guy thing). Kind of deflates the comeback a little to see how many times they'd reunited before lol, but I appreciate the doc doesn't pretend they didn't. Overall would recommend.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 20 May 2022 18:27 (two years ago) link
Only a whore weighs herself
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 23 May 2022 15:19 (two years ago) link
Ep 4 was one great sketch after another: Super Drunk, french people who don't want to leave the couch, a Kevin McDonald sketch. The new season has been really enjoyable so far
― Vinnie, Wednesday, 25 May 2022 00:37 (two years ago) link
finished it and the whole thing was pretty much a home run for me. feel like kevin was the all star for me in this season, particularly loved "hot-hot water" guy. if that had been in the original 90s run i can easily see myself having spent the last 20 years annoying my friends & family by complaining that things are not hot-hot.
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Wednesday, 25 May 2022 15:03 (two years ago) link
the hot-hot thing killed me
― mh, Wednesday, 25 May 2022 18:51 (two years ago) link
“friends of mark” had me dying
― donna rouge, Wednesday, 25 May 2022 18:53 (two years ago) link
Between that one and AssAssin and a couple more I've forgetting, Mark has led some truly weird (and great) sketches this season
― Vinnie, Thursday, 26 May 2022 23:26 (two years ago) link
he's come a long way since being voted the worst kid by ilxor.com users 14 years ago
― ✖, Friday, 27 May 2022 03:14 (two years ago) link
Not worst, least best.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 27 May 2022 03:17 (two years ago) link
Kevin and the cats omg
― maf you one two (maffew12), Saturday, 28 May 2022 00:37 (two years ago) link