61–70 of 94 posts
I grew up in rural Canada. I dumpster dove for a broken black and white television and spent over a month back and forth to the Radio Shack until I finally managed to fix it. The antenna was now a coat hangar, but I could tune it just fine. My reward was... 1 channel of CBC (Canadian Broadcasting). With that 9 year old me could stay up late and watch The Munsters and Kids In The Hall. I know every episode by heart. I…
In case anyone is curious, the theme song is "Having an Average Weekend" by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuifllwrFe0 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowy_Men_on_a_Shadowy_Plane... Live performance at Sled Island 2012 reunion show (at a Legion hall of course): * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmU3FYlRZNM
I was a fan of Kids in the Hall even during their whole pilot, which many might have missed. Look up "Brian's Bombshell" as an example. My theory is that each member has some strengths they play to. Dave passes best as a young woman and is also fantastic as a glittery-eyed psychopath (Manservant Hecubus, Sarcastic Guy, etc). Mark is amazing at accents and really inhabiting a character (Dar- ryll ). Scott, once he bre…
The first episode was rough, there are some stellar sketches and acting after that though. I'm only to episode 4, but I love how their writing and acting has grown up a bit. The apocalypse DJ really got me.
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At it’s best it’s a very quintessentially Canadian sort of absurdism, but then you have to define Canadian. That said i think this is no less true of Monty Python which is really a very British kind of absurdism. Weirdly i feel like there’s no really good, singular American equivalent (certainly SNL isn’t it - Canada’s SNL is probably this hour has 22 minutes). Maybe like… In living color or something. It rarely make…
Maybe something on Adult Swim? ATHF, Space Ghost, Harvey Birdman? In the US, live action shows seem to be big productions, maybe not as well suited to making things that aren't universally appealing.
I grew up in rural Canada. I dumpster dove for a broken black and white television and spent over a month back and forth to the Radio Shack until I finally managed to fix it. The antenna was now a coat hangar, but I could tune it just fine. My reward was... 1 channel of CBC (Canadian Broadcasting). With that 9 year old me could stay up late and watch The Munsters and Kids In The Hall. I know every episode by heart. I…
But for KITH, Comedy Central on cable was always airing reruns after school, so no need for the secret TV. I think the first sketch I saw was the waiter with stumps for hands and I was hooked ever since.
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Maybe something on Adult Swim? ATHF, Space Ghost, Harvey Birdman? In the US, live action shows seem to be big productions, maybe not as well suited to making things that aren't universally appealing.
I saw a couple of episodes of Dr Steve Brule. Pretty good. And I guess "Too Many Cooks" really deserves some love. It was incredible. I guess this stuff is from Tim and Eric?
Now I'm watching old Brad Neely videos, he had some good weird stuff.
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Part of that I think is their humor is very niche, and I don't know how to describe the niche. I had friends who absolutely loved them, and I never found any of their stuff remotely funny. There is something either in the context that people were introduced to them, or in some subtelness of people's sense of humor that seems to completely make or break how they get perceived. Sort of like the comedy equivalent of Rus…
At it’s best it’s a very quintessentially Canadian sort of absurdism, but then you have to define Canadian. That said i think this is no less true of Monty Python which is really a very British kind of absurdism. Weirdly i feel like there’s no really good, singular American equivalent (certainly SNL isn’t it - Canada’s SNL is probably this hour has 22 minutes). Maybe like… In living color or something. It rarely make…
I grew up in rural Canada. I dumpster dove for a broken black and white television and spent over a month back and forth to the Radio Shack until I finally managed to fix it. The antenna was now a coat hangar, but I could tune it just fine. My reward was... 1 channel of CBC (Canadian Broadcasting). With that 9 year old me could stay up late and watch The Munsters and Kids In The Hall. I know every episode by heart. I…
There's not really anything that edgy about it by todays standards, but at the time it was kind of avant garde and shocking to many.
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Part of that I think is their humor is very niche, and I don't know how to describe the niche. I had friends who absolutely loved them, and I never found any of their stuff remotely funny. There is something either in the context that people were introduced to them, or in some subtelness of people's sense of humor that seems to completely make or break how they get perceived. Sort of like the comedy equivalent of Rus…
I also love Rush :). And no, I'm not Canadian.
And then there's Max Webster. Kim Mitchell got better known outside of Canada on his own. But MW was really something that defied musical stereotypes (and arguably, the music was better). Closest I can think of for comparison would be Frank Zappa. Needless to say, nobody thinks of Kim Mitchell in those terms once he went solo.
In many ways we're similar to Americans. But it's easy to find areas where we really aren't.
Back to topic, I was absolutely a huge KITH fan. If you haven't seen it, wait 'til you get to the final episode. Hitler F*ing a Donkey was seriously shocking for the time. It would not have been allowed, but they were far from worried about being cancelled. It's the one KITH skit that is banned on YouTube! I've yet to see it again. It's exactly as it sounds. They catch Hitler F*ing a donkey. Also it's connected to the origin story of Chicken Lady. Pretty edgy stuff.
My favorite thing about Kids in the Hall was how it was somehow impossible to describe one of their skits to a friend and have it seem funny. And, to be clear, I mean this as a compliment. By the way, a couple of my favorite sketches: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ApuaJrtck (The Monkeys) * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOQBXA5CPEM (Mouse Killer)
The viral coefficient must be higher for sketches that can be imitated in a few lines. SNL really specialized in this. KITH had a few such (like the Crusher) but as you say, most defied summarization.
The phrase is used a LOT in the skit because of course they're trying to explain why they're so frantic. What did they see in the barn? Hitler F*ing a Donkey! I saw Hitler F*ing a Donkey!!!
That was a catch phrase for some time after. But it might be lost to history thanks to censorship.
I think they left in the Chicken Lady origin story. It's not too different, and does explain why she keeps exploding when she gets excited.
They also had a lot of memorable song bits. Like "These are the Daves I know" and some really absurd spoken bits like "30 Helens Agree" that became part of the Canadian vernacular for a while.
It's not exactly like the American "bite-sized quote" but held a similar function.