Kids in the Hall returning to CBC
TORONTO – The Kids in the Hall are returning to the CBC.
Comedian Dave Foley says the five-member troupe is writing an eight-episode miniseries for the public broadcaster.
The show would have the quirky comics playing a multitude of roles and feature an ongoing narrative.
“We’re going to start writing that very soon,” Foley said recently from the Gemini Awards, where he presented an award at a glitzy bash honouring the best in Canadian drama, variety and comedy TV.
“It’ll be an eight-episode arc with a narrative running through it and we will play all the characters but it won’t be sketch, it’ll be a single narrative miniseries. Probably the closest thing to it will probably be something like (the defunct cult British series) ‘League of Gentlemen,’ which I think was brilliant. So I hope it will be close to that.”
The project is tentatively titled, “Death Comes to Town,” and would serve as a long-awaited return by the Toronto-based group to the CBC.
That was where the improv troupe shot to fame in the late ’80s and early ’90s with their sketch comedy show, “The Kids In the Hall,” winning a dedicated fanbase that spilled into the U.S. when the series, produced by “Saturday Night Live”‘s Lorne Michaels, aired on CBS.
Their ludicrous characters and surreal worlds included Mark McKinney’s sex-crazed chicken lady, Bruce McCulloch’s sexist Cabbage Head, Scott Thompson’s gay socialite Buddy Cole, and Kevin McDonald and Foley’s insane Sizzler Sisters.
After the show went off the air in 1994, each member went on to pursue independent projects in Canada and the United States, with McKinney and McCulloch landing on “Saturday Night Live” and carving niches as sought-after TV writers. McDonald and Thompson went on to score memorable cameos in a slew of sitcoms while Foley’s endeavours included a starring role in the long-running series “NewsRadio.”
The gang reunited earlier this year for a cross-Canada comedy tour that had them revive their beloved sketch characters.
Most recently, Foley popped up on the Sally Field nighttime soap opera, “Brothers and Sisters,” playing a gay man.
“Yes, it was my return to homosexuality,” joked Foley, who also played a gay man on the defunct sitcom “Will and Grace.”
These days, Foley said he spends much of his time “hanging out as a stage dad” since his five-year-old daughter has launched a blossoming acting career.
He notes that she’s currently working on a movie with action superstar Jackie Chan, and in recent months did a web series, a soap opera and a pilot for Fox.
“I’m basically just living in her very tiny shadow,” he said.
He said the Kids are also thinking about hitting the big screen with a feature film.
“As a group, we’re still talking about doing a feature as well but first we have to wait ’til everyone who ever saw ‘Brain Candy’ is dead,” sighed Foley, referring to their critically panned 1996 feature.
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