Scott Thompson (left) and Kevin McDonald (right) (Handout)

Since August, Kids in the Hall's Scott Thompson and Kevin McDonald have been touring U.S. clubs together as Two Kids, One Hall.

And McDonald has anticipated a question that was never asked -- until now.

Why isn't Kevin touring with Dave Foley? After all, they started out as a comedy team pre-Kids, straight out of the Second City training centre. Sketchwise, they're best remembered as the demonic Simon and Hecubus. And they performed together when Foley hosted the Canadian Comedy Awards.

McDonald and Thompson, on the other hand, rarely worked together in the entire seven-year run of KITH.

"It's funny, you're the first person to remember that Dave and I were a team. I thought I'd get asked about that all the time," McDonald says over the phone from his Winnipeg home. "And I've done a million interviews now about the Kevin and Scott show."

The unlikely combo of Thompson and McDonald occurred when a planned fall KitH tour got cancelled. "Dave was doing stand-up, and Scott and I have the same manager, and they said 'Why don't you two go and tour?' Which is weird, because we didn't think we had any chemistry. We wrote so many bad sketches over the years. Then we realized we do have chemistry, it's just that the writing never matched it.

"Dave and I complement each other and Mark (McKinney) and I complement each other. But Scott and I just worked the worst. But now it's like, 'We should have a TV show!' But I'll always, of course, think of Dave as my number one."

In fact, Two Kids, One Stage is not a series of Kevin & Scott Sketches. It's mainly separate standup sets, with a couple of bits the pair worked out together.

"He does two sets and I do two sets. His set is more like standup, whereas I'm uncomfortable with standup, so I sort of make fun of it while trying to get laughs. He does longer sets than me, simply because he's Scott and he has more material.

"We do two things at the end together. I hesitate to call them sketches; they're more like bits. Like Abbott and Costello."

Of course, fans saw a lot more of the Kids in the Hall last year, when their reunion series Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town aired on CBC.

Unfortunately, after a strong start, the ratings dwindled and the series wasn't renewed.

"Ironically, the first night Death Comes to Town aired, they were the first hit ratings we ever had, like a million people. We've never ever had that in Canada. I was, like, 'Enjoy this, it may drop off.' And of course it did. But for a week we had a hit show."

Everybody took the cancellation in stride, he says. "We weren't dispirited, we were used to it. We get it. We're just always going to be a cult thing.

"I always wonder, like, Monty Python, how did they do it? They became a sensation and they were weird. They may be 100 times better than us, but they were also like waaay stranger than us.

"Maybe they were more open to the mainstream in some weird way. Maybe we're too closed. I'll probably die thinking of this. But I like to say, if Monty Python was the Beatles of comedy, we're Duran Duran."

And once Two Kids, One Hall runs its course, McDonald says a full Kids tour is probably around the corner.

"Bruce (McCulloch) is starting up the email engine. 'Is anyone up for a tour?' Even though he's working on a pilot in the States, he'll be done soon. And Dave's show (How to Be a Gentleman) is cancelled. Mark's busy for now producing (HBO's) Less Than Kind, but I think that'll be over in the new year.

"So yeah, I think the chances are good."

jim.slotek@sunmedia.ca

 

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