The kids are back: Bruce McCulloch explains how The Kids in the Hall keep the laughs coming

The Kids in the Hall are pictured: (left to right) Kevin McDonald , Scott Thompson, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Dave Foley. (Handout / Amazon Prime Video)

Iconic Canadian comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall are back. The influential counterculture sketch comedy group consisting of Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson recently dropped a reboot season on Amazon Prime.

There’s a new documentary out too, The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks, detailing the group’s rise in the 80’s, challenges and triumphs.

The Kids in the Hall are also set to make a special appearance in Toronto to kick off Fan Expo Canada, the first time the event has run in its regular format in over two years.

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Group member Bruce McCulloch sat down with CP24.com ahead of the troupe’s appearance to talk about the their enduring following, how comedy in Toronto has changed, and finding joy in everyday weirdness.

(Some responses have been condensed for space and clarity.)

Bruce McCulloch

How are you sir?

CP24

Not too bad. Thanks for taking a little bit of time to talk.

Bruce McCulloch

Of course. After this, I'm gonna go on my bike ride. This’ll pep me up.

CP24

Alright, fantastic. We'll try to give you some motivating material.

I want to ask you off the bat: What was it like reuniting with the gang for this latest series, which is now on Amazon Prime?

Bruce McCulloch

Well, totally surreal and totally normal. Surreal that I looked over and there's Scott as Fran and I’m Gordon so many years later, but also it's just so normal because we're just doing the thing that we always have done and we're just doing it now.

CP24

Okay, so like riding a bike you could say?

Bruce McCulloch

Yeah, like riding an old rusty bike that had bird poo on it. We've, we've had people clean it off. So we're good to go.

CP24

Alright. That's now but take us back a little bit to the Toronto comedy scene in the late 80s. What was it like to be a comedic actor in the city at the time?

Bruce McCulloch

Well, that's interesting. I mean we came here from Calgary and I had never seen a standup or another sketch troop. But the scene here was kind of odd. It was mostly Second City, which was funny but corny to us, and then it was YukYuk’s, which… there were some brilliant people and then there were some not so brilliant people. So people weren't really doing what we were doing. And we just started doing it, you know?

The Kids in the Hall are pictured: (Credit: Broadway Video)

But we felt this sort of eclectic space between the people from Etobicoke, who would come see Second City and maybe even inner city or, you know, Queen Street people or whatever. They didn't have their own comedy. I mean, there were a few comedians, Sheila Gostick, and things like that. But you know, it didn't exist and it was fun to just forge it.

CP24

Is that to say that a lot of the comedy that was taking place was much more kind of mainstream, or catered to the mainstream?

Bruce McCulloch

Yeah, it was kind of like you always knew the joke and there was like songs and things, okay. And you know, YukYuk’s was sometimes amazing, sometimes homophobic and sexist and obvious. But out of that was amazing people that leapt out of there.

But in terms of counterculture people going for something different, I think we got lucky that we were one of the first doing that.

CP24

Do you still call Toronto home today?

Bruce McCulloch

Yes, and because I was in LA for 17 years even more so. You know, I mean, it’s always a different city whenever I come back. It was the city that held so much promise in the 80s. But now it's such a great city and even though it's been really kind to us — I did a one person show here and everybody bought tickets right away — Toronto isn't always like that. But in this time, they're sort of kind to us.

CP24

Do you think it's still a city that nurtures up and coming comedic talent?

Bruce McCulloch

Oh, without question. I mean, the hard part is you know, there's I would say 500 great sketch comedians, you know, and we don't know what to do with them. I am lucky enough to direct and EP (executive produce) a show called Tallboys, which is one of the only sketch shows. There’s more talent than there is space for them which is always perhaps, or often, the problem. You know, where do they go?

You can’t all be at the Comedy Bar forever. You have to eventually make shorts and make shows and be directors and that. So some of that is happening but there's never enough sort of real estate for all the amazing young people that there are.

CP24

And I suppose even less so these days. Second City lost their downtown space within the last couple of years.

Bruce McCulloch

Yeah, but you know, all this stuff is happening at Comedy Bar and a little bit at The Rivoli and Bad Dog Theatre. Although some of the people I see who are great also work at Second City, it's as much the alternative spaces. And listen, people go! Like the audiences are pretty (full). They're not huge theatres, but they pack them in so there is really a ferocity for this other weird kind of comedy and different voices. That's been happening for a while.

CP24

The Toronto comedy scene really does seem to be kind of a family where people all know each other. Do you think that's different from other cities having lived in other places?

Bruce McCulloch

Well, I think there's lack of competition, which is one of the worst things certainly when I grew up as a standup, the worst. I think now also – because it's not like people are being scouted and taken en masse to do NBC pilots or something – I think there's not enough places for them to go so they're banding together. And then the show is the thing; it isn't making it is the thing, you know?

The Kids in the Hall are pictured: (Credit: Broadway Video)

CP24

Talking about making it, what do you think looking back contributed to the success of Kids coming up when it did?

Bruce McCulloch

Well, I mean, we got lucky timewise or in cultural timing, you know.

As I always would say to young people: just do what only you can do. We were doing whatever it was we were doing, and I guess we were these weird sort of antihero people from the suburbs who felt like we had no agency but we thought we were cool for some reason. And we were like the people that hadn't been served, I think, the people who thought their parents were fu**ed and you know, that society's kind of effed and jobs are also shitty. And so I don't know if people had done that in the same way we had. And so I think we got lucky that we filled a space that no one knew needed filling if you know what I mean.

CP24

Lorne Michaels also took an early interest in the group and helped get Kids on TV. And that partnership seems to have continued. He's the executive producer on this latest season on Amazon Prime. Talk to me a little bit about that relationship and its importance for the group.

Bruce McCulloch

Well, I mean the amazing thing about Lorne is he does the opposite with us (to what) he does on Saturday Night Live. If you watch him on Saturday Night Live, he's a maestro of moving things around, cutting things, blocking the scenes if he feels like it.

I think for us, he always instinctively knew that we were kind of going to figure it out ourselves. So what he's always done is got us the space, got us the pick-up, brought us to New York, got us an audience or got us a theatre to try to get an audience. So I think he's instinctively embraced us. But kind of ‘these are the kids that need the hands-off approach,’ which we could find ourselves on our own which was amazing.

CP24

You guys have had your own unique brand and you haven't shied away in the past from some sketches that might be considered a little bit darker – the cancer boy sketch for example. So the question about where the line is drawn in comedy is age old. Do you guys have a working theory yet?

Bruce McCulloch

No, but we've only been at it 40 years, so we'll come up with one. I mean, cancer was definitely at the line. I mean, when you're doing something like that you have to know that you're doing it with kindness and love, because you feel bad for all these cancer boys who were wheeled around and, you know, for some of the wrong reasons.

But no. There's always a line, but we don't sit around talking about the line. We just see what makes us funny. And then sometimes we go ‘no, that's too dark’ or people might misconstrue what we're trying to say, but mostly, we just don't talk about stuff. We just create stuff and then look at it later. And then sometimes like 'no, that's too much' or generally if we're making it for the right reasons, which is about you know, illuminating the human condition – not to be too profound – then it's going to be good or it's going to be okay.

CP24

I saw an old quote from Scott Thompson, which said, ‘we thought we were going to be Nirvana, but really, we were Sonic Youth.’

You guys have always had a loyal following, but perhaps not that sort of mega following that some dream of. You talked a little bit about wanting to bring people something that wasn't sort of there when you guys were coming up. So talk to me a little bit about that tension between kind of mass appeal and staying true to your own comedic instincts.

Bruce McCulloch

I think we're still around because we didn't, you know, have a movie that made $200 million and all these weird side pressures on us and then we're impersonating ourselves.

I think we realized not early on, but in the middle, that we do what we do and there's enough people there to sell a theatre. Some years it's way better than others, but there's always going to be people there or has been to this point – the reboot included – that want to show up. So we don't have to be the biggest. The biggest goes away. We're just out there doing our stuff and then there's a lot of people like us that are “outsiders.” So in that way, we're good.

CP24

Okay, that said, how do you think you guys have changed over the years or your comedy has changed over the years, if at all?

Bruce McCulloch

Well, you know, it's always a reflection of who we are. I think we're all endeavoring to be more efficient, kind and generous human beings. Having said that, I think our comedy is still fairly savage. A lot of things in the world frustrate us so it comes out.

But I think one of the things about comedy is never try too hard, which I'm sure I've been guilty of many times. But I think now it's important, at least for me, not to try too hard. Do what you're doing with comedic truth or human truth, and then it'll be fine but it's not about us scoring, which it probably was when I was in my 20s and 30s.

It's like people have enjoyed this last season of the show. It's not about us, it's about them because they remember us and we've all made it through or there's new people who will find us. But it's because, you know, weirdness doesn't have an age and an 18-year-old can like weird things, too.

CP24

Sometimes it almost feels like there's a slightly different language (comedy actors) speak among themselves. Do you think there's such a thing as like a comedy gene for people whose brains just work a certain way, or in your experience are people in that world kind of different somehow from your average Joe on the street?

Bruce McCulloch

Yeah, I think so. I mean, it can calm down in one when you're not actually doing it. I mean, for probably 20 years, I was walking around obsessed with everything, thinking it was weird, or was it comic or what was it, what was the thing there or what would be the funny thing there?

So I think the ones who are driven to do it – I don't believe that cliché, ‘couldn’t do anything else’ – but are driven to do it, and kind of like it all the time, which is frustrating for our poor boyfriends, girlfriends and others who live with us.

Mark McKinney, Dave Foley, Scott Thompson, Kevin McDonald and Bruce McCulloch, from left, arrive for the world premiere of 'Kids In The Hall: Comedy Punks' during the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, on March 15, 2022. (Jack Plunkett / Invision / AP)

CP24

Your brain is constantly searching for the punchline?

Bruce McCulloch

Yeah, or not even just that, just enjoying the weirdness of things. Like when you see the pair of weird shoes I saw on my street. Like what little elf man left the shoes for someone to pick up and who would be picking those shoes up? So there's joy in that. It isn't just like, ‘Oh my God, I need a joke.’ There's a joy in looking at the weirdness of the world, which is everywhere.

CP24

Okay, that's really interesting. Well, a big reunion event in Toronto certainly feels appropriate for the group. What are you most looking forward to in terms of your appearance at Fan Expo?

Bruce McCulloch

Well, all of it. We're going to do like sort of a storytelling thing and we'll do some Q&A and maybe sing a couple songs, which is always fun. We've done a version of that before but not in Toronto, probably never in Toronto.

And it's actually nice in an organized way to meet your fans. Often we do shows and it's like, oh, they hope you sign and they're waiting for you and you've had a drink. But meeting people in an organized way is kind of amazing.

Also, now when I meet people who grew up on the show, it's generally pretty sweet because they go ‘Oh, I couldn't talk to my father but we bonded over your show,’ or ‘ it got me through my weird high school years’ or whatever. So I do feel like it's nice to kind of commune with these people who the show has meant something to them, you know?

CP24

I know the latest season just came out but any chance we might see another season?

Bruce McCulloch

We're talking about it. I don't know if we'll do another season. We may. We're excited to start doing this kind of stuff. And we're talking about what our next tour would look like. So I think we're back at it in whatever form that looks like, whether it's doing more of the show, doing a movie, whatever. I think we're just happy to be kind of back at it.

CP24

On a random note, who do you turn to when you reliably want to laugh?

Bruce McCulloch

Well, I sit with my son and we usually watch sports bloopers, or even better news bloopers.

Wedding bloopers are good too, though often are pretty cruel. So yes.

The Kids in the Hall will be appearing at Fan Expo Canada at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre Aug. 26 at 7p.m. (special ticket required)