He’s hip he’s 48 — Bruce McCulloch and the rest of The Kids in the Hall return to the fertile shores of Canadian TV.
The Kids in the Hall put their stamp on the murder mystery
Though The Kids in the Hall has continued to tour since its TV series ended in 1994 its new mini-series Death Comes to Town (debuting on CBC on Tuesday January 12) is the first time the Canadian comedy troupe (Dave Foley Bruce McCulloch Kevin McDonald Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson) has appeared in front of the camera since filming the cult favourite Brain Candy in 1996. “During the last tour we said ‘Let’s do something on TV — that’s where the fun is’” says McCulloch. “We liked the idea of a miniseries. It gives everyone enough screen time to indulge different characters or tastes.”
The new eight-part series isn’t a new sketch comedy show but what McCulloch describes as a “murder mystery.” It follows the misadventures of Death (Mark McKinney) as he descends on small-town Shuckton Ont. murdering the townsfolk and collecting souls. There’s a fat suit a lot of makeup and a lot of drag though McCulloch says fans won’t see any of the troupe’s classic characters. “There are a couple of weird cameos but it’s essentially all new stuff” he says. CBC he says didn’t press the Kids to reprise its old characters; “They asked but were just really happy that we wanted to do something again. It’s a murder mystery. I know we’re not fucking Agatha Christie but we have a surprise here and there.” Some of those surprises are pretty shocking particularly for primetime TV. “There’s abortion material but it’s all silly” says McCulloch. “We can’t say ‘fuck’ but CBC has been pretty open.”
McCulloch says he had been bouncing around the idea of doing a movie for a while and the Death story seemed like a perfect fit for The Kids in the Hall. “I didn’t co-write all of [the episodes]” he says “but I muscled it put it together. Ten years ago if I said that I wanted to lead us in a project I don’t think they’d do it. I wasn’t as nice a guy then not as collaborative. So it was looking out for everyone’s interests while guiding it. It was overwhelming.”
McCulloch adds that the process of returning to TV was much more demanding than life on the road. “I first realized how much older we are” he says. “Filmmaking is a fucking hard job. If you do a show at the Jubilee Auditorium you just roll in before the show and roll out when it’s done. [Making] Death felt good. It feels like where we would have gone had we continued the series. It’s not TV or a film but it’s messy and feels like us.”
The process of writing Death may not have been as collaborative as the group’s efforts in the past but they work together effortlessly onscreen. Though Death’s bigger budget doesn’t always translate into bigger laughs it shows that the group’s inimitable brand of comedy remains intact. “When I was a young asshole living in a shithole called Calgary — I say that affectionately of course — I was competing with other actors” says McCulloch who was born and raised in Edmonton and attended college in Calgary. “But I could relax with the Kids. All of us realized how lucky we were as young men just to be able to work. We just work well together now — it’s not the medium [TV] as much as the personality of the guys.”
Though McCulloch is happy with Death he isn’t ready to jump back into film — or more Kids in the Hall projects — any time soon. “I’m never directing a film again — never again. CBC asked if we’d do another cycle but I said ‘No.’ I think we need a break from one another.”
