Kids in the Hall members, from left to right, Scott Thompson, Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney, are in the midst of a Canada-U.S. tour. Kids in the Hall members, from left to right, Scott Thompson, Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney, are in the midst of a Canada-U.S. tour. (The Canadian Press)For the final sketch of the Kids in the Hall TV show, troupe members Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, Kevin McDonald and Scott Thompson were buried alive together. Their tombstone bore the dates (1989-1995) that the groundbreaking comedy series had aired on the CBC. Dancing on their grave, staff writer Paul Bellini proclaimed, “Thank God that’s finally over!” before the last fade-to-black. But for the troupe’s legions of fans, there was always a lingering hope that the Kids – and beloved characters like the Headcrusher, Buddy Cole and Cabbage Head – would be resurrected at some point.

So last year’s news that the Kids in the Hall would be performing again, with a live show of almost entirely new material, was received with enthusiasm around North America. While the group's brief reunions in 2000 and 2002 seemed almost obligatory, this time the common attitude among the members has been one of excitement – about writing and performing together like they used to, as well creating something new.

In between California tour dates, Kids co-founder Bruce McCulloch talked from his home in Los Angeles about what it has been like reuniting with his old pals and breathing new life into a troupe that, at its best, rivals the sketch-comedy genius of SCTV and Monty Python.

Q: How has the tour been going?

A: It’s good! We haven’t done this in a long time, obviously – we’ve all had lots of other stuff going on – but it’s going really well. When we went on tour in 2000, the TV show was over and there was pressure on us [to keep performing]. This time it came from us: we thought we’d just write some new material and see what happened. I think that’s the thing about us now. This time it’s like, we get to do it.

Q: How did the reunion come about?

A: I just started getting interested in sketch comedy again, and I asked the guys if they wanted to get together and try to perform like we used to, in a way that pre-dated even the TV show: we’d get together on a Sunday, write a bunch of new material, and have it ready to perform by Thursday. So we did that, and the show was in a tiny little theatre here in Los Angeles. We didn’t even really announce it – although people knew about it, somehow – and it went really great. So then we had a bunch of a new material, and it was like, “OK, what do we do now?”

Q: Had you guys lost touch?

A: No, we were still in touch. We’re all good friends – but we’re better friends when we’re working together. Making one another laugh is the basis of our friendship.

Q: What’s it been like getting back into writing, performing and touring together?

A: Well, we used to be five guys who’d bought their own costumes [and got dressed] in the smallest closet backstage at [Toronto's] Rivoli. Now we have nice tour buses with satellite TV and internet, but the real joy is just getting to hang together. We’ll do a gig in Minneapolis, get some food, drive to Winnipeg, and do a show the next day. We’re together all the time. I don’t even know that we had this much time together during the [TV] show.

Q: Is there a character you’re especially happy to be performing again?

A: Scott and I wrote a scene for Cathy and Kathie, the secretaries that we do. I kind of like that little Kathie with a K. She’s sort of sweet and bubbly and hopeful, and things don’t go too well for her too often. We had an idea that was fresh, so it was fun to play her – there was nothing perfunctory about it.

Q: How did you choose which old sketches to resurrect?

A: We were on the bus the other day and Scott asked, “How did it happen that we’re using any old material?” It’s been a long process. We performed at Just for Laughs last summer with some new material and some old “gems,” and then one more time in San Francisco just prior to this tour. We worked those classics in thinking, if you see the Tragically Hip, you want to hear New Orleans Is Sinking. But it was a process of what felt right with running order and things. Basically, the old material had to earn its way into the show and feel fresh.

Q: Has the show changed at all since you started the tour?

A: Yeah, we’ve changed the running order a little and tweaked some things. I’m all about cutting stuff that doesn’t work – that’s the way I’ve always been. So mostly we’ve just been tightening things. But at a certain point – once you’ve done the show five, six, 10 times – you start to own the show, and you can start to f--k around with it. So now we’re f--king around with it, because we own it.

Bruce McCulloch, left, Dave Foley, centre, Kevin McDonald and the other Kids have remained good friends offstage. Bruce McCulloch, left, Dave Foley, centre, Kevin McDonald and the other Kids have remained good friends offstage. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)Q: After one Canadian date, in Winnipeg, have you found any difference in how the show has been received in Canada versus the States?

A: No, not really. I think our fans are our fans, essentially. They’re all like-minded people – in a good way – and they come to see us and like what we do. We do some stuff that’s “about America,” which is received differently depending where we are in the States. And that stuff can be more fun if you’re in Canada than if you’re in, say, the Midwest.

Q: You guys used to push a lot of boundaries. Does the new material continue along the same lines, or are there new sacred cows worth skewering?

A: Well, we’re obsessed with the same stuff we’ve always been obsessed with: weird, often very dark things. But we do process our own lives through our material. So 15 years ago that might have meant [a sketch about] a guy trying to leave an answering machine message for his girlfriend, while now, our opening piece is about two people who come over to meet their friends’ baby – and they hate the baby. I have two young children, so that’s clearly from an obsession about them. But we don’t go, “We’ve got to get on crunking, because that’s the new trend.” So, I think the material’s kind of the same as it’s always been that way. And, of course, it’s super dirty.

Q: Has the live show provided an outlet for that “dirty” material, especially since you’ve all been involved in considerably more mainstream TV and movie work since the troupe broke up?

A: We’re impish, and if you work in television with 10 people in a room writing together, you do get a lot of ideas that that are so dirty and so weird – not just edgy, but really weird. I have a solo dance piece [in the show], that turns into a group piece, about how I used to dance in Grade 8. It’s a very small idea that you could never do on TV. I guess what I’m reacting against, probably, is how for studios you have to explain to people what you’re going to do and tell them why it’s going to be funny. And how f--king lame is that? I started doing this to make shit – not to explain things. [For live comedy] you can just think of stuff and do it.

Q: Do you think it’s possible that we’ll see something like Kids in the Hall on Canadian TV again, or has the time come and gone?

A: It wasn’t easy for us to get a show. It took two years of showcases, negotiations, going to New York, getting unhappy, being told we couldn’t do it. But we got on TV, and I don’t think the time’s ever gone. Anything can still happen – look at Trailer Park Boys. It might be harder now in some way – they’ve never been handing out TV shows – but the most beautiful thing about what’s happening in the creative universe right now is that people can make it themselves. In a way it’s the CBC’s job [to find people], but in a way it isn’t. Comedy’s gone punk. Groups like Human Giant got shows by doing it themselves first.

Q: So does this tour mean that the Kids in the Hall are officially back together?

A: I don’t know if we’ll ever do this again. We’re not a band that goes on tour every year. We’ve just formed again and we’re really excited, but we also know that this may be it. And I think we’re enjoying ourselves so much for that very reason.

The Kids in the Hall play Coquitlam, B.C., on May 16; Calgary on May 17; Edmonton on May 18; London, Ont., on June 3; and Toronto on June 4-5.

Pasha Malla is a Toronto writer.