10 New Very Good Kids in the Hall Sketches
Reboots are scary. Even though I trust The Kids in the Hall, I’m perfectly fine letting a show fall into disuse after it’s off the air for fear of it Pet Semetary-ing (Remember when they brought The Critic back as a web series?). The Kids in the Hall are different though. There’s something about them and this show in particular that felt like it could survive anything. Maybe it’s that they’re never satisfied with unchallenging material, or that the chemistry has always been kept alive, or even that they all seem to have stayed pretty cynical. I could list 60-year-old comics for the next 30 pages that have lost their edge, or found a weird new reactionary one, but not our Kids. They were right then, and they’re right today.
Pretty much everything in the new year is worth a watch and it was hard to narrow it down. Even the less essential ones are still doing something stylistically interesting that never lets the show drag. I could have definitely included more, but here are 10 new sketches that hang with the best of their work.
“The Return of the Eradicator”
The hyper competitive squash player known simply as The Eradicator has awoken from a 20 year squash related coma and he’s ready to remind the world of his powers. It dabbles in Austin Powers-esque “the world has changed” bits, but sometimes comedy is just being a weird little guy. But now that I mention the Austin Powers thing, someone should make an Eradicator fish-out-of-water movie.
“Shakespeare’s Bust“
On one hand this is about the perils of parasocial relationships. How entertainers, and artists are perceived by audiences vs. the reality of their lives. It’s about the curtain and what’s behind it, and even if you can get a peek, did you really see the truth? On the other hand it’s about spraying blood everywhere and swearing.
Hidden in the blood and swears is a lesson about making assumptions and being judgemental though. It made me think of that Lou Reed interview where he talks about how he likes Police Academy. Right on, Lou.
“Drop Average”
Add this one to the list of airtight Dave and Kevin sketch premises that’s executed with personality, weird jokes and great performances, plus some great physical stuff like a greased up baby. This is the kind of sketch that could play on SNL at it’s best. Insane and insensitive doctors will always hit the spot for me.
“Must Wash Hair”
The waiters are back, baby. When I saw the trailer for the new season, catching the return of the waiters was what gave me hope they knew what they were doing. The original sketch is one of my all time favorites, and almost has zero jokes. It’s just these three waiters and a chef talking quietly about dipping areas for a dessert. They’re back twice in the new season but their second appearance stands out. It’s just them discussing an odd and confusing sign in the restaurant. Exactly what I wanted.
“Speed Racer”
God damn it I missed whatever this is. To me? This is what it’s all about. Not really a sketch, not really any joke jokes, it’s more a peek into a day in the surreal life of a sad strange man. We don’t technically know if this character is drunk or a dad, but he’s culturally and spiritually a Kids in the Hall Drunk Dad Hall of Famer. This is what I’m talking about when I talk about Bruce. My guy.
“Doomsday DJ”
This was a huge standout of the season, and if you find yourself asking why, you have not been paying attention to anything happening in the world for the last decade-ish. We’re all thinking about the end of the world every day all the time right now. Climate crisis, mass shootings, rising fascism and corporate consolidation controlling our lives has left us all feeling helpless and for lots of people, nihilistic. This runner probably means a lot of different things to different people. To me, it’s a passive self defense mechanism for impending doom. What will you do when the world ends? For Dave Foley as the DJ, he balances the grim emptiness of a futureless world, with his love of the song “Brand New Key” by Melanie. The whole thing is a showcase of Dave looking beaten, and on a meta level for long-time fans, this sketch is about “the cute one” in the group quietly standing off against the dark hand of time that comes for us all.
What do we hold onto when everything is taken away? How do we adapt? What is nostalgia’s purpose and why do we hold onto it so tightly even though it’s just a blank mask that hides us not only from the world but ourselves? Lol I dunno, dude.
“The Last Glory Hole”
We had to have some Buddy Cole, the one legacy character whose world changed in the most drastic ways. We left him in the mid 90s and since then gay marriage has been legalized, co-opted by corporations, and has now come back around to being a Republican talking point again. Buddy Cole is all about the attitude and performance though, the little details like Buddy pulling up a gay pride flag in front of a store front and tossing it say everything about how he operates. In our lone Buddy sketch we see the last bathhouse glory hole in the world is being turned into condos. This one is somehow more dystopian than Dave’s DJ sketch.
“The Professor”
This is the sketch where we finally get to see Dave Foley’s tits and for that alone it would make the list, but it’s also just a weird short film. It’s harder to pinpoint these kinds of sketches in the new series because everything is taped without an audience, but the amount of costuming and archetypal characters make this feel like it could be a scene from Brain Candy. And we get this “Gay Sandwich” slide:
“Masturbation Policy”
I’m always nervous about bits that are about “new technology” or the changing world, but this one avoided the targets you typically see. It’s just a straight up commentary on that time Jeffrey Toobin showed his dick to his coworkers without getting bogged down in the very unfunny specifics of the reality. It’s just a good old fashioned jack off sketch with some jokes that actually work within the visuals of a Zoom meeting and mess with the 4th wall in a not annoying way too.
“Lukewarm”
A fun Kevin standout where he gets to shine as a classic “weird guy.” He’s a man hyper focused on taking a hot hot bath and he makes a damn meal out of it. It was a toss up between this and Kevin’s black and white marriage story showcase “Much Too Much,” but “Lukewarm” edges it out with the inclusion of Eddie Izzard and Kevin’s nudity.
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